Last week our Deputy Director, Will McMahon, took Sian Berry, London Assembly Member for the Green Party on a tour around the now closed Holloway prison site in north London.

Journalists from the Islington Gazette came along and wrote up what they saw.

Will and Sian discussed the Centre’s Justice Matters for Holloway initiative, which is putting the local Holloway community at the heart of the discussion about the redevelopment of the former women’s prison in Islington.

‘We’re obviously very concerned that private developers will end up building unaffordable luxury flats’, Will told the Gazette. ‘It’s exactly what people in Islington don’t need’.

Sian Berry, who will chair the London Assembly’s housing committee from next year, said: ‘We can’t just hand this site over to the developers who bid the highest price’. And she added:

We have key workers – such as nurses, police, teachers, ambulance staff – who can’t afford to live in London. We could provide more affordable housing for them. Also, Islington has almost no green space. This site would be ideal to create a bit more.

This is too good an opportunity to miss.

There will be a public meeting on 25 November, Holloway prison closure: What next for the land?