Thanks to all who came to the Saturday’s campaign planning meeting at the Hilldrop Community Centre.

It was great to see so many people discussing, debating and contributing their ideas about how to carry the Community Plan forward.

We captured your thoughts and ideas for the future of the site and you can read them below. We’ve summarised the points you made and tried to organise them into themes. Keep these in mind ahead of the next Community Planning Day with the architects (date to be confirmed). We hope they are an accurate reflection of the day but if you have any more thoughts or ideas, please do get in touch. If you were unable to attend the day but have campaigning ideas, please email them to Neala.Hickey@crimeandjustice.org.uk or Matt.Ford@crimeandjustice.org.uk.

Your campaign ideas:

Create a local organisation through which to negotiate with developers:

• Community Land Trust
• Funding bids and raising community funds
• Community Plan Forum
  • Would need to decide on structure of forum and financing
  • Potential for a nominated panel to communicate community demands to developer and council
  • Potential to create working groups to divide work
• Invite existing community groups
• As part of the pre-application planning process, consult about what we want, do the drawings and seek to influence the developer’s designs before they even put pen to paper

Ensuring the community has the information and knowledge as a basis from which to formulate demands:

• Need to challenge perceptions, encourage wider community conversations and consider what is possible around issues such as what high-rise and density mean. This is so we can produce hypothetical visions of what the site could be and not just be reactive to, for example, proposals from developers and only being able to say what we don’t want, instead of what we do want.
• Need to disseminate hypothetical visions for the site via inclusive and engaging communications and visuals
• Do coordinated presentations to local Residents’ Associations and community groups
• Contact the Royal Town Planning Institute for expert information
• Community access to the site – it would be an act of good faith on part of the developer to let the community go in and have a look at the site
• Community political education walk
• Connect with other campaign groups to share their learning (StART, PEACH)
• Show examples of where planning has gone wrong in Islington

Political actions

• Targeted letter writing campaign to various public bodies
• Event at prison when preferred bidder is announced, invite the developers
• Encourage religious groups, charities and other groups to campaign for temporary use of existing buildings like the Visitors’ Centre
• Go to marches with the Plan for Holloway campaign banners

Communications

• Dissemination of ideas using engaging visuals
• Social media campaigns
• Press release with clear, pre-prepared demands for when the bidder is announced
• Think about how to communicate with developers using a mixture of persuasion and resistance
• Use local press to raise awareness of campaign (articles and letters)
• Use residents’ testimonies to show the potential human impact of using the site for community use. For example, testimonies from homeless people who were housed by Islington Council
• Appoint a press officer
• Proactively engage with the council

Widening participation

• Door knocking campaign
• Reach out to schools and youth groups, including Islington Youth Council
• Reach out to local BME and religious groups
• Try to get more people who were imprisoned in or employed by Holloway involved

Cultural projects and events

• Public arts project:
  • Illustrate the story of the site along the perimeter wall of the prison
  • Different groups could create their own panel
• Community festival before demolition
• Community events around the site – let the site live!