Kings Cross Local Environment

How the Priory Green estate has changed

There's a wonderful post over on the Peabody site talking about the transformation of the Priory Green estate over the last ten years - the estate between the Cally Road and Pentonville Road. Tony Molloy once area manager writes:

'At the time Priory Green estate was infamous for issues of vice. Between 80 and 100 used needles were found most weeks, many left spike up in the grass to ward off residents. I remember my shock at seeing hundreds of needles removed from the lift pits, and communal areas openly used by drug dealers and prostitutes.'

'Today my biggest surprise is not the physical changes but how well Priory Green estate is cared for after so many years of neglect. It is unrecognisable from the rundown estate it once was, and it is safe. The play equipment is used by children, needles are no longer an issue and the community is not plagued with crime.'

Have a read of the whole article with some great before and after pictures.  We'd love to hear in the comments any memories of Priory Green.  Also have a look at Barnsbury Living - a lovely site about the modern Priory Green that I was delighted to help out with.  Thanks to Martin O'Donnell for the tip off.

The modernist architecture by Berthold Lubetkin isn't to everyone's taste, but in another 50 years could well be as fondly regarded as Gothic revival.  It's interesting to note that the estate is not listed.

 

 

Safer Islington Debate, 4 November 2010 at Islington Town Hall, 7 - 9 PM

 

Download original invitation here:Download Safer_Islington_Debate_Invite_414

Send your questions in advance of the meeting to: [email protected]

For more info, go to www.islington.gov.uk/saferdebate

 

 

Thornhill Bridge Community Gardens drunks, dogs etc

Lisa and the Thornhill Bridge Community Gardens [corrected 5/10/10] volunteers have worked so hard over the years to make these lovely gardens alongside the canal next to Caledonian Road. 

But increasingly the childrens garden is colonised by drunks, six of them today and related dogs .  I am sure they are nice doggies - a rotweiler, a husky and a staff - but their owners don't inspire confidence when taking the kids to play.  Park Patrol was summoned i understand.

It's really tough to design somewhere like this and keep it amenable to parents with children - Bingfield Park has a lot of crime designed out, but is a bit sterile with few places to sit and little cover.

Kings Cross sex shop closed down by council and faces £34,000 bill

Good to see the council taking some enforcement action and tackling the long standing unlicensed Pirate Books at 4 York Way.  The shop was an eyesore for people arriving in Kings Cross and redolent of the Kings Cross of the 1980-90s. 

On the Cally Road resident led action led to the licensed Soho Books sex shop having an attractive shop front - for some time the best on that stretch of road.  So its good to see this one being sorted out by the council.  Also on that bit of the Cally the Paradise Island brothel is now an estate agent, though it's debatable how much progress that represents...

Paul Convery reports over on the Cally Councillors blog:

'Islington Council has successfully prosecuted the owners and operators of an unlicensed sex shop at Kings Cross. Today, September 29th, Highbury Magistrates ordered fines and costs totalling £35,360.

Cally Councillors have welcomed the prosecution of “Pirate Bookshop” at 4 York Way.

The defendants were Maria O’Sullivan and her company Ballaction London Ltd. The company was fined £17,500 plus £2,830 costs and £15 victim support surcharge.

Mrs O’Sullivan is the sole director of the company and was personally fined £15,000 plus £15 victim support surcharge. The case was brought under the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1982.

Maria O’Sullivan is the mother of snooker star Ronnie O’Sullivan. She has attempted to run several sex-related businesses in north London over recent years and was jailed for a year in 1996 for tax evasion.

Caledonian Ward Councillor Paul Convery said “I am very pleased that the Council’s case has been successful. For nearly 5 years, we have repeatedly called for legal action against unlicensed sex shops in Kings Cross. The first step in ridding the area of its vice reputation is to get rid of every vice-related business, particularly the ones that refuse to be licensed by the local authority. Our policy is simple – zero tolerance against all types of sleazy and illegal sex related activities.”

Copenhagen Street road closure over-running - will contractors be fined?

Copenhagen Street is closed at the junction with York Way - on the one hand this makes a hectic road calmer but causes inconvenience.  The works by BAM Nuttall for Argent and the Kings Cross railway lands development were due to be complete by 23rd September, but the barricade now says vaguely 'Early October'.  This is pretty poor. 

Why not ring Jonathan Barnes of Nuttall on 0207 014 9409 and ask him when it's due to finish, or the Argent construction help line 0800 328 8840.  While you have the on the phone make sure they promise to reinstate the Zebra until the traffic lights are operational.  Can contractors be fined for over-running major highway works like this?

 

What happens to local Kings Cross criminals at Highbury Corner Magistrates Court?

Local people [corrected] the police charge end up at Highbury Corner Magistrates Court.  The Magistrates there decide guilt or not and pass sentence.  So it's an incredibly important institutuion for the local community.  Although you can turn up and watch justice being done in person the courts are remarkably opaque on the internet. 

You can't even find out who the magistrates are for instance.  Nor who has been found guilty and what sentences have been awarded.  It's a major gap in understanding what has happened to crime locally.  I'm off to the Islington Community Safety Board this evening (no i am not sure what that is either) to see if that sheds any light.  But here are some fasinating slides from Highbury Corner about their approach to sentencing, including a 'you the magistrate' game:

 

Highbury magistrates presentation

View more presentations from william perrin.

BAM construction noise on Kings Cross railway lands

BAM are engaged in some noisy demolition work on the Eastern edge of the railway lands alongside York Way.  This noise can affect people living on York Way and further afield - at least one person has contacted me through the website for advice on complaining after problems last Saturday.

It's important to know your rights: you don't have to sit there with fingers in your ears - the Noise Abatement Society has a lovely guide to noise pollution in plain English.

Argent are the property devleopers - their construction helpline is 0800 328 8840 so call that.  Also try calling BAM's regional office (gets you a layer above the site management) Try Ray Ellis BAM Regional Director (020) 7374 3646 he is responsible for work going on in London.  The noise is made in Camden (the borough boundary runs up the middle of York Way) so also try their environmental services team it's their job to clamp down on people who break the law with excessive noise at anti-social times.

Caledonian Ward Safer Neighbourhood Team in Action

Cannabis with a street value of around £15,000 was seized during a drugs raid by Caledonian Safer Neighbourhoods Team on Friday, 20 August 2010.

The address in Caledonian Road, N1, was searched under the Misuse of Drugs Act by Caledonian Safer Neighbourhoods team with assistance from the MPS Dog Support Unit in response to community concerns about drug dealing at the address.

Police drugs dog Diesel assisted officers in the search. A large amount of cannabis and £4,500 in cash was discovered.

A 20 year old man was arrested on suspicion of possession with intent to supply and has been bailed to return to police on 15 October.

Police Sergeant Michael Atkinson, from Caledonian SNT, said: "Drugs taking and dealing is one of our ward priorities. We take complaints from residents very seriously and will continue to work towards reducing this menace. I am pleased that we have been able to take these drugs off the streets of Islington."

Police Constable Adele Gibson from the Dogs Support Unit said: ”Our drugs detection dogs are specially trained to proactively assist search teams during raids and this is a good example of two teams working in partnership to tackle crime.”

Islington crime clean up rates

It's always hard to work out what is going on with crime locally.  This data from the Mayors London Data Store shows the crime clean up rates for Islington.  I haven't had a chance to do much analyis nor to compare with other London boroughs but it does show a steadily increasing clean up rate for most crime types.  Apologies that the chart isn't the most clear - was in a hurry - click to make it bigger.  The raw data is here as percentages

Offence	2000/01	2001/02	2002/03	2003/04	2004/05	2005/06	2006/07	2007/08	2008/09
All Notifiable Offences	16	14	12	15	21	18	20	25	28
Violence Against the Person	42	36	19	27	47	30	34	37	39
sexual offences	30	31	32	52	52	35	29	29	32
robbery	11	10	13	22	28	23	20	20	16
burglary	14	12	20	19	18	21	26	25	16
theft and handling	8	6	6	6	7	8	8	9	11
fraud and forgery	8	7	5	15	14	10	10	27	16
criminal damage	11	9	6	8	13	9	11	12	14
drugs	83	80	80	89	93	96	95	91	91
other notifiable offences	57	47	35	56	68	57	69	83	74

This is extracted from original data found at this link.  The link also has definitions of what used to be known as the clean up rate.  Will do some more work on this so that we have a decent london wide comaprison for the next safer neighbourhood panel meeting.

UPDATE

The table below compares the Islington Borough Police clean up rate to the Met Police overall average by subtracting the the Met clean up rate from the Islington rate.  The number in the table is the number of percentage points Islington is higher than the Met.  A negative number shows Islington is lower than the Met average rate.  The table is colour coded - Green shows Islington doing better than the Met, Red Islignton is doing worse than the Met average (if you can't see the full width of the table make your browser window wider).

It's hard to draw overall conclusions from this sort of data but Islington was slightly underperfoming the Met average in 2000-2001 and has steadily improved relative to the met over eight years to slightly outperforming the Met average.  Data on criminal damage, where Islington is shown as doing much better than the Met average is balanced against the fact that the clean up rate for this is very low.

Have asked the police for a comment.  Again when i get this sort of data I really  miss the late Phil Jeffries, who would have done a proper job on it.

UPDATE 12 August

We now have a quote from the police in response to this piece:

DI Trevor Borely said: "Tackling burglary and robbery is currently a high priority for Islington Police and the whole of the Metropolitan Police Service, and we are committed to reducing the number of offences. We have established dedicated burglary and crime squads, targeted suspected offenders, and had some recent success in this as some prolific burglars have been sentenced which does make a real difference."

"Our Safer Neighbourhoods teams also do a lot of work with local communities to establish their priorities and give them crime prevention advice. Further information on this, can be found by visiting the MPS website and looking at the Bumblebee pages, or by contacting the local police."

http://www.met.police.uk/crimeprevention/burglary.htm

Islington Police vs Met average	2000/01	2001/02	2002/03	2003/04	2004/05	2005/06	2006/07	2007/08	2008/09
All Notifiable Offences	1	0	-2	0	0	0	-1	0	2
Violence Against the Person	14	10	-6	0	4	5	4	2	2
sexual offences	-1	-1	-1	18	18	7	2	1	1
robbery	-1	-1	0	9	12	10	6	4	-1
burglary	3	2	7	8	5	6	10	12	4
theft and handling	-2	-3	-3	-2	-3	-2	-3	-2	-2
fraud and forgery	-2	-2	-5	2	2	-3	-5	7	1
criminal damage	9	8	8	9	13	10	12	13	13
drugs	-6	-4	-2	2	-4	3	2	-5	-3
other notifiable offences	11	4	-9	7	7	6	9	18	11

Another young tree on York Way bites the dust - outside Lincoln Lounge

Stuart sent in this picture.  Note that this is a well protected tree in a cage - someone had to go to real effort to snap this off.  So sad when this happens.  The stronger cages were installed through resident-led action. 

Any chance the CCTV was pointing in this direction?