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Sobell safe... for now
• THE news that Islington Council is to invest £1.7million on essential maintenance to the Sobell and Finsbury leisure centres in lieu of demolishing them, at least in the immediate future, is greatly to be welcomed. It’s mostly what they’ve needed for some while.
Hopefully, this decision presages an end to the attitude, hitherto widely prevalent, that any facility is right for the chop once it gets to be 30 years old. In the case of the Sobell, in particular, a magnificent building and open space have been threatened with obliteration when alternatives exist that would allow facilities to be added incrementally.
Figures have been produced claiming to show that open space would increase with redevelopment when the reality was that usable open space would decrease very substantially.
Let us hope that encroachments on open space in the borough will also now cease and, though it is now too late to save some good school buildings from the same period, that there will in general be a more thoughtful attitude and that the long-term future of the Sobell will be assured.
JAMES DUNNETT
N1
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