Councillors will use cash from a developer to create a “liveable neighbourhood” in Cally.

Some £900,000 will go towards reducing traffic that travels north-eastwards from York Way to Copenhagen Street, where vehicles then rat-running onto residential roads like Carnoustie Drive and Storey Street.

The money comes from a section 106 agreement between King's Cross developer Argent and Islington Council.

S106 agreements see a company, in this instance Argent, pledge cash as part of a pitch for planning permission to mitigating any negative impact a scheme may have on the surrounding area.

Some £12.6million of S106 and community infrastructure levy funds have been allocated to projects by ward councillors via Islington's investment panel since its inception on September 6, 2018.

Cllr Paul Convery (Lab, Cally) told the Gazette: "It's taken a while to arrive but I'm glad because I think if Islington Council had been given the money 10 years ago it wouldn't have been spent well. [...]

"We are putting an end to the traffic incursion we are seeing, we want to redesign the streets so they're principally for pedestrians, safe for kids.

"We are not going to dream it up and impose it on the neighbourhoods, we are going to go through a proper consultation, an intelligent conversation with people about how do you want to make your streets safe?"

He added: "We are going to create a predominantly pedestrianised environment east of York Way."

He said the council bid unsuccessfully for funding from Sadiq Khan's Livable Neighbourhoods fund last year, which would have been used to transform the Cally.

The council budget for 2020/2021 was passed on Thursday last week, committing £1million of capital investment to create the borough's first liveable neighbourhood in the Mildmay and Highury East area.

On the Cally plans, London-wide Assembly Member and Green Party transport spokesperson Cllr Caroline Russell (Highury East) said: "It's absolutely brilliant, and really good they are using s106 money for it. And what's important is that they make sure that they deal with the whole traffic spill so that they don't end up leaving one rat-run open, because if you leave one rat-run open you end up with winners and losers."

A consultation on the plans will be launched in the coming weeks.