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We’re kept in the dark
• THE Lib Dem council has embarked on a programme of the repair of street properties in South Islington prior to selling them off for a pittance as they have done in Amwell Street.
United House, with 2008 pre-tax profits of £25million, has landed the contract of repairing all Islington’s street properties. The contract between it and the council must be scrutinised and, above all, checked to see if a penalty clause was written in and to determine who supervises the work.
For instance, United House has employed men who appear to have no understanding of what a conservation area means or what protection a listed building has.
United House says it does not need planning permission and has carte blanche to do whatever it wishes. I have checked, and neither Islington planning department nor the conservation officer has any knowledge of this work. All the street properties have had scaffolding erected and houses have been wrapped in blue netting to await the arrival of the work gangs, depriving tenants of sunlight for months on end.
Hoardings advertising Islington Council and United House have further diminished light penetration. As work on the exterior of the buildings will not commence for weeks after the scaffolding has been erected the unfortunate tenants, such as me in Offord Road, will have to live on a building site in semi-darkness all summer.
Tenants have rights, to privacy, daylight, consultation and indeed compensation for the loss of those rights. United House should shell out some of its millions, made from social housing, in compensation.
SV GREEN
Offord Road, N1
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