David Harrison from Living Streets fills us in on the Council's work in Mildmay.
Work is advancing on Islington’s first Liveable Neighbourhood, creating lovely, lively streets. This is to be achieved not just by reduced traffic (the main element of the People Friendly Streets schemes such as Canonbury, Highbury, St Mary’s and St Peter’s), but other measures, including seating, more plants and trees.
At the heart of the changes is Newington Green Primary School. Pupils have been educated on this site since 1784, when Mary Wollstonecraft, the famous feminist, set up a school for girls. Inspired by her experiences with her school, Wollstonecraft wrote the feminist tract ‘Thoughts on the Education of Daughters’. Surely she would have applauded these woman-friendly and child-based developments. The main entrance has switched away from busy and polluted Matthias Road to Mildmay Road where rain gardens and planters are being constructed and there will be boulders for play. Mildmay Road and Auriga Mews will become School Streets, meaning there will be no motor traffic at the beginning and the end of the day. In addition, the Neighbourhood improvements will make it safe and pleasant to walk from other parts of the ward to the school.
Another, and separate, child-friendly project is the stunning landscaping in St Jude Street. Following consultation in 2022, the scrubland has been replaced by community planters and there is now a shady path, separated from the road by a grassed area, a positive bonus for the walk to and from Dalston. The safely gated playground has been transformed with new trees, a virtual forest of climbing frames and slides, little slopes and swings. For proof of its success see its constant use by picnicking families and mums and dads chatting on benches while watching their children play.
Putting children first, the Council visited schools to discuss plans for the Liveable Neighbourhood and drew on the pupils’ diagrams for the new playground’s design. What a contrast to my own 1960s childhood when youngsters were driven off the streets to enable commuters to drive more quickly to work without a thought for the young.
All of us living in Mildmay will benefit from the Liveable Neighbourhood. Crossing the roads, currently a hazard at the junction of Mildmay Grove North and King Henry’ Walk, will be much safer. There will be benches. We may just be in time to save the shops on King Henry’s Walk. We’ll all benefit from the improvements, but rightly children will be the biggest winners.
