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Our parks must be kept for everyone... not a select few
• I READ that Labour group leader Councillor Catherine West proposed the use of Highbury Fields as a site for travellers (Labour feel the heat as ‘ludicrous’ plan for Highbury Fields draws fire, July 24).
This is exactly the sort of ill-thought-out idea that can lead to distrust and bigotry from the public towards travellers.
Highbury Fields is for all the public. It should not be designated to be used by just one section of society, any more than it should be built on for new houses.
The rights of travellers are often neglected, but to use Highbury Fields as a space for this one group (effectively designating the park for housing, albeit temporary) is a sure-fire way of creating huge tensions and distrust that fuel the bigotry that is too often directed at them.
Parks are not for a select few. Parks are for everyone.
JONATHAN BRAMALL
Corporation Street, N7
• LABOUR councillor Catherine West told the Tribune that when it comes to housing travellers “no green space should be ruled out”. I don’t think I’m alone in thinking that all Islington’s green space should be ruled out.
I live near Barnard Park, and the whole community came together to draw up a master plan for how we want the council to improve our park.
Unsurprisingly, this master plan didn’t involve turning parts of Barnard Park into a travellers’ site.
I’m not against having travellers’ camps in Islington if the law says we should – but not on our parks. Would Cllr West be willing to volunteer the cricket pitch at Wray Crescent in her own Tollington ward to be turned over to travellers? I don’t think so. So we shouldn’t be expected to give up our parks either.
DOMINIC MATHON
Caledonian Road, N1
• I AM disappointed to read the comments made about Highbury fields by Councillor Catherine West regarding Mayor of London Boris Johnson’s plan to expand traveller and gypsy sites across London. As Catherine well knows, the expanding of site pitches is a central government initiative. Boris has suggested in the draft London plan that travellers’ needs are to be distributed across London.
Within Islington, this means increasing the number of caravan pitches from none to three by 2017. The result, outside the City, Islington will still have one of the smallest allocations: just three out of the 1,500 pitches London-wide.
What is needed here is level-headed political leadership to aid the council officers implement the draft proposals as part of the London Plan. That means playing their part in helping to identify sites within Islington, and promoting a full consultation with residents.
Other inner London boroughs, such as Camden, Tower Hamlets and Hackney, which also suffer from the same constraints of land and housing, already provide large sites and some will be expanding, so why cannot Islington play its part?
It is important for the local Labour leadership to realise that a broader view of the issue is needed, rather than petty political point-scoring and scaremongering over Highbury Fields.
RICHARD BUNTING
Deputy chairman, Islington Conservatives
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