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This sleepy old town
• THE three dials of the stopped clock above the Peasant pub cast dead eyes over the £370,000 revamp of the Agdon Street triangle park opposite Finsbury Library, in St John Street (Derelict waste ground reborn as green and safe public space, August 22).
This very prominent clock is one of at least 14 public clocks in Islington that are not working. They make the borough look as though it is asleep (critics of the two main political parties might say that that is how it is and has been for many years, anyway).
These privately-owned public clocks are as prominent as the one on Finsbury Town Hall; one overlooking Islington Green, above the Slug and Lettuce pub; and the one commanding the Finsbury Park transport interchange, on the corner of Seven Sisters and Blackstock roads.
The pity of it is that Islington Council has the legal power and the money to get the clocks working. It can spend public money on privately-owned public clocks. The Public Health Act Amendment Act 1890, Section 46 states: “Section 165 of the Public Health Act 1875 shall be extended so as to enable any urban authority to pay the reasonable cost of the repairing, maintaining, winding up and lighting any public clock within their district although the same is not vested in them.” These acts are still in force.
The council is sitting on millions of pounds of what is known as Section 106 money. This is funding provided by property developers for community benefits.
Getting the 14 public clocks working again would be a considerable community benefit.
The council needs to allocate officer-time to liaise with the owners of the clocks. Councillors spending Section 106 money need to allocate some crumbs from the millions of pounds they oversee to get the clocks working again. The borough would then look a bit more alive.
LEO CHAPMAN
Dufferin Street, EC1
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