Islington is the most densely populated London Borough with the smallest amount of open space. So when private developments come along, and there is proposed an element of recreational space as part of the development, we do our best to ensure that public access to the space is enshrined in a legal agreement with the developer. Sometimes it happens that the open space did originally belong to the public, but that it was given or sold to a developer to 'manage' as part of a wider development. The trouble is, the private owners of these developments sometimes 'forget' to make sure the gates are opened, or sometimes even try and keep the space locked, in the hopes that people will forget that public access is supposed to be allowed.
Two examples of this have come to my attention recently: Firstly, Graham Street Park: I have written before about the disastrous scheme the Liberals were promoting for this area when they were running the Council, which involved building on most of Graham street park, and "re-providing" the park as a narrow strip of green behind the new flats. Whilst we managed to stop this scheme, it was not until the first block had been built, with the strip of green, that is meant to be publicly accessible space gated off, and frequently inaccessible. The owners are very slap-dash about opening it up, a number of residents who have bought privately in the development are under the misapprehension that this is their private space - it certainly feels like it - and you can see from the signage how much of a 'park' it is expected to be.
The other example is New River Head Gardens on Rosebery Avenue, which dates back further, but which only came to light recently when developers tried to sneakily turn the old Pumping Station into private housing, which would have prevented the building becoming a Heritage Center. The New River Head Site, originally constructed by Sir Hugh Myddleton in 1604, used to belong to Thames Water, and was their Head Office - and arguably, as a public utility, belonged to the general public. The site was sold off for housing in the 1990s, but with the understanding that public access to the gardens would be allowed, and that the Pump House would become a Heritage Centre once the housing conversions were complete.
The gardens have remained locked until recently, when the issue of public access came to light as a result of the attempt to convert the Pump House. Since then, the Council has managed to get the owners to open the gate to the rear of the development, in Myddelton Passage, although you would never know, unless you go down there, gingerly push the gate open, and let yourself in to what looks and feels like a private garden. There is also nowhere in the garden to sit down. And more to the point, the Rose Garden on Rosebery Avenue remains resolutely padlocked shut:
And if you try and access it from the back, you come across this sign:
Which even excludes residents from the rest of New River Head.
The denial of public access to these spaces is a disgrace. The Council needs to work as hard as it can to enforce legal agreements for access where they exist. It would also be a damn good idea to put some signs up saying 'Open to the Public'.
