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The great stink bomb
• HAVE the bureaucrats of Islington Council finally lost the plot, and their tentative hold on reality (Streets of Angel set to smell heavenly, September 7)? Spending our money spraying rose-scented detergent on the pavements to cover up smells!
The smell that exists in Islington these days takes us back to The Big Stink in pre-Victorian London, when open sewers flowed. These open sewers had to be covered to get rid of the smell.
At least the Victorians realised that filling the rivers with perfume would not cover up The Big Stink, a smell that was growing so bad that Parliament had to be suspended, and cholera outbreaks were becoming a public health hazard.
Are people using Liverpool Road and Upper Street, encouraged no doubt by the appearance of commode-like chairs outside the King’s Head pub, as one big toilet?
The smell that emanates from around Barnsbury Street area, where I live, and towards the Town Hall is to do with sewage and bad drains.
The sewage system dates back to the Victorian age and probably has not been upgraded since. It must be becoming overloaded. The overspill is caused by the influx of new residents and/or workers due to continual redevelopment as a result of the selling-off of council properties.
New developers then come in, and increase the population density with flats, offices and new restaurants, but do nothing to contribute to refurbishing the infrastructure of the area.
If nothing is done, apart from spraying rose scent on pavements, the result will soon be, together with traffic fumes, a sulphuric haze to match anything Peking experiences. We will need gas masks in Islington, not roses.
What will they think of next – massive aromatherapy oil burners around the place to help dispel the fumes and make us all feel better, while methane and petrol fumes build up and we have a new 21st century London phenomenon – The Big Stink Bomb?
Shella Trepovska
N1
• WE are all moving towards a more environmentally-friendly consumer society and I don’t think spraying the streets with totally unnecessary (and probably harmful to individuals and the environment) chemicals is in keeping with this.
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