Holloway Prison is closed and what comes next should be up to the local and wider Islington community as well as the women and their families that had their lives affected in one way or another by Holloway Prison.
Several campaign groups have already organized themselves to try and make sure their voice and the voice of others is heard and taken into account when decisions with regard to the redevelopment of the site are made. Islington Green Party fully supports these initiatives and hopes that the Islington Council do their utmost to assure their input is both listened to and taken into account in the planning brief it is currently preparing.
Last Friday there was a public meeting, well attended and very well organized by the Centre for Crime and Justice. It was a meeting to invited input on the Holloway Prison redevelopment from a number of interest groups, local residents, our local MP and local councillors. Everyone that wanted a say was heard and a number of key observations were made. Islington Green Party listened and supports the following aims:
- Democracy. The principal planning considerations should be the needs of the local community as expressed by the local community.
- Ownership. The land is public and the freehold of the land should stay in public ownership after the sale. The visitor centre in the prison was only recently completed and was funded by charitable money, not government funds. It is a high-quality facility and should be retained and repurposed.
- Legacy. For 164 years this site has housed a prison; any future development must include dedicated women’s services. Women, and especially women in and leaving prison, especially Black Asian and Minority Ethnic women are among the most disadvantaged social groups in Britain; the closure of Holloway Prison must be compensated by a substantial investment in women’s services such as those for domestic violence, mental health, substance abuse, general health and well-being and social reintegration.
- Housing. Islington Council’s executive member for housing and development Cllr Diarmaid Ward confirmed at the meeting that there will be no excuses to allow a development of anything less than 50% affordable housing on the site, of which at least 70% must be social housing. Islington Green Party fully supports this position, but would welcome an even more ambitious goal for this exceptional site to meet the housing needs of Islington. A goal of not just an even higher percentage of social housing, but also a goal of housing local key workers such as nurses, police, teachers and ambulance staff and their families who can’t afford to live in London now.
- Sustainability. The pressure on the local environment and the health of the population of Islington is enormous and we urge the council to require any development of the site to be car-free and supportive of walking and cycling; to emphasize the need for zero carbon and the highest possible environmentally-friendly construction and provide modern facilities for waste recycling.
- Relevance. Islington Green Party supports comments made by various members in the audience that call for a mixed development of not only housing, but also one that offers permanent employment opportunities and green open space.
Islington is a stressed borough; this development should be the realization of a once in a lifetime opportunity to lead by example in delivering in an environmentally friendly way much needed high quality social housing, women’s services, green open space and the permanent employment opportunities that Islington needs.