Published: 20 July, 2012

• WE thank Councillor Paul Convery for organising a public meeting (Cally meeting date, July 13). It gives us hope that some of the major concerns for tenants can be aired, not to focus on individuals but to show the issues that can accompany private renting.

Tackling these is essential to create an environment where tenants can fully participate in the life of the community.

Living with the urge to escape from unlivable housing conditions as soon as the fixed term is over, or with worry about damp and poor repairs that cannot be brought to the attention of the authorities for fear of eviction, robs tenants of the serenity needed to engage with neighbours and local activities, and breeds resentment for the area, leading to its bad reputation.

That some tenants have developed strong attachment to the area despite these difficulties is a great credit to the Cally.

Let’s build on this sentiment, while acknowledging that the situation in this ward needs the council’s attention from planning, licensing and housing perspectives.

There may be several landlords following similar practices in the borough.

THE CALLY COWS
Names and addresses supplied

• campaigners stopped demolition and rebuilding at the south end of Caledonian Road in the 1980s.

I note that the protesters do not live in the area now, or then, and look at it through rose-tinted spectacles.

It has been a slum down to the present day, a no-go area of porn shops, striptease joints, beggars and prostitutes.

A pity Hitler’s bombs never cleared it away in 1940.

F HOLLINGSWORTH
Roman Way, N7