You report so many crimes committed round Tesco’s on Islington Green – two in last week’s issue (“Shopper is mugged at Tesco’s cashpoint” and “Mario foils masked raiders” and also one in St Peter’s Street, just round the corner – “Muggers foiled by champion kickboxer”).
The whole Islington Green area is so important in Islington South, and local people, as the Anderson’s Yard Campaign, were closely involved for 20 years in the planning process to ensure that everything north of the Green was what people wanted there and conformed historically and compatibly in this important site.
Then, with inordinate haste and no local involvement, Tesco’s got permission from the last council to replace their little garage, which had obviously been a “stalking horse”, with something much nastier on this other prominent and important side of the Green.
It has always been hideous and cheap looking and, because they made money by putting up flats above and beside the store they did not, in their greed, leave enough room for delivery lorries behind the store or for storage of rubbish in the large number of cages in front of it.
As well as being a hideous blot on an important borough landscape the cages are now apparently a hiding place for thieves to rob people using the cashpoint.
The store does not engage enough protection from theft in what could have been an especially important area for Islington.
– Avis Saltsman Baldry, former chairwoman, Anderson’s Yard Campaign Group, Gerrard Road, N1.
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