Month: April 2019

Meeting about building on Holloway women’s prison site

Following the closure of the women’s prison in Holloway, there are plans for building homes and some sort of women’s centre on the site. Peabody have the contract for the new development, but there is concern about whether the housing will be affordable for local people.
Reclaim Holloway is a coalition fighting for the Holloway site to be used for collective good – particularly the establishment of a women’s building, with a focus on supporting and run by groups and individuals working to help women in prison and out of the prison system.

There are 20,000 households on Islington’s housing list. Local people know luxury flats at Holloway will raise rents, forcing more people out of the area. Now that prisoners have been displaced, locals will be too.

As homelessness and displacement rises, public land is sold off, prisoner populations grow, support services are cut or closed and former Holloway residents are displaced to non-specialist, overcrowded facilities outside of London, it’s clear that local people, Londoners and former Holloway prisoners need these acres for themselves.

It is black and brown, working class, migrant and queer people and their families that suffer most from state violence, from incarceration, from the closure of support services and from homelessness.

For a report of the recent meeting organised by Reclaim Holloway, go to: https://plan4holloway.org/2019/04/18/report-of-emergency-meeting-on-30th-march/.