The Sun always shines on The Angel Canal Festival

Vivien, Lloyd, myself, Graham and Muhammad on the Labour
Party stall.

Myself, deputy Mayor Kat Fletcher, Youth Council member Zen,
and Brian Voakes, chair of the Angel Canal Boat Trust on our
way to the Festival.

Once again the canal festival had the luck of the gods.  The sun was peaking through at 9 o'clock, and by 4 in the afternoon was baking hot, and the Festival was heaving with people.

I had a particularly good start to the day having been invited to join the Deputy Mayor for a VIP trip from the Canal Museum, through the Islington Tunnel to City Road Lock for the opening ceremony of the festival, and then on to Islington Boat Club for some races.  It was great to meet Brian Voakes, the Chair of the Canal Boat Trust, and hear about the work they do with taking deprived children on 5-day canal adventures on the Angel 2 boat, and the team-building and environmental awareness this gives to the children.  And also, to hear about their expanding work with early dementia patients, who they help to stimulate with drawing, singing, and opera singers in the tunnel!

We arrived at City Road lock and Kat Fletcher gave an excellent welcoming speech, making particular reference to Crystal Hale, who started the Trust, and who successfully campaigned to prevent City Road Basin being filled in and built on.  -  It seems unthinkable now.

Moving on to our stall on Danbury Street Bridge, we collected over 300 signatures to our petition against government plans to force the sell-off of 'high value' council properties when they become vacant (most of the council homes in Islington will meet the governments proposed threshold market value of £400,000 and would have to be sold).  This hideous policy would drastically reduce the amount of social housing available in Islington, and eventually, remove it completely, resulting in draconian social cleansing in the area.  Generally it took less than two minutes talking to people to convince them that this is a completely unacceptable policy.

We also had some useful conversations with residents on other topics, such as the current consultation on changes to the CPZ rules.  Most local residents are either against or sceptical, and even John Ackers from ICAG broadly agreed with my position.  We also talked about other housing issues, air pollution on the canal, antisocial behaviour, phone thefts, more general discussions about the London housing crisis, and the vulgarity and inappropriateness of the tower blocks going up at the City Road end of the City Road Basin.

It was a great day, we met people from many of the strands of our community, and it made me feel really good to be a ward councillor in St Peters.