The Community Plan is now an independent organisation

As many of you who attended our last two public meetings will know, we have been setting up the Community Plan as a new locally-based, locally-governed organisation.

To keep in touch with developments, it is really important that you sign up to a new mailing list.

Up until now, the Community Plan was a project of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, an educational charity based in Vauxhall. It was always intended that once the project was established, we would transfer it to members of the Islington Community to run as you see fit. Its future success in maximising the influence local people have over the Holloway site will depend on democratic community control of the Community Plan.

The Community Plan is temporarily a company

The Community Plan has first been set up as a company. This is because it was the quickest and easiest type of organisation to set up and it was important to get a bank account in place to accept funds to support the Community Plan.

We have submitted a funding bid to a charitable trust already. We will find out if it has been successful over the next few months. Other bids are also being put in to support the Community Plan as an independent body.

Who are the temporary custodians of the Community Plan?

The company has eight Directors who all live or work in Islington. They are there to sort out the administration of the company and carry it through the second stage; converting it into a membership-based charitable organisation.

All the Directors, who are listed at the bottom of this page, represent organisations that have been involved in helping the Community Plan to grow over the last three years. They represent a wide spectrum of the local community and all are committed to the Community Plan being a democratic organisation.

Converting the Community Plan to a charitable organisation

The specific type of organisation it becomes, and the form its democratic structures will take, will need to be discussed and worked through at public meetings with the community. The Directors will keep everyone updated with when these are to take place. This process normally takes up to nine months.

What you need to do now

To make sure everyone is kept informed about future developments, you now have to do something very important. Rules around data protection mean that the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies cannot simply hand over the mailing list that Community Plan updates go out to. Instead, if you want to keep up-to-date with the campaign, you need to sign up to a mailing list owned by the new Community Plan organisation. Please do that here. From the end of May 2019, no more emails will come from plan4holloway@crimeandjustice.org.uk so it is very important that you have signed up to the new mailing list by then.

List of Directors of the Community Plan:

Will McMahon – Empty Homes Campaign

Richard Hope – Islington Homes for All

Niki Gibbs – Reclaim Holloway

Rev. Alexandra Lilley – St George’s Church

Tricia Clarke – Islington Trades Council

Nick Wakeling – Islington Liberal Democrats

Roderik Gonggrijp – Islington Green Party

Marj Mayo – Islington Labour Party