Joan Flannery 1928 - 2022

It is with great sadness we inform you that Joan Flannery died in UCLH hospital at 11am on Wednesday, 15th June 2022 in UCLH hospital. She slipped peacefully away leaving her son Marc and three grandsons, Nathan, Kieran and Joseph.

Joan was born a Liverpudlian in 1928 moving to London…

First time at the Court of Common Council

Anne Corbett

Thank you for electing me as a resident councillor and a Labour candidate. Natasha, Frances, and I are now part of the “Cripplegate Eight” and we are committed to working together for residents. I am delighted that we will be holding resident surgeries in the Golden Lane Community Centre on the first Thursday of every month (except the Bank Holiday on 2nd June – the date for June is Thursday 9th).

Our first Common Council on…

Here are the election results for Cripplegate Ward. These are pretty remarkable. Susan Pearson, Natasha Lloyd-Owen and Anne Corbett have each won more votes than any other candidate anywhere in the City of London. They have also, almost certainly, won the most votes won in the last 100 years. This is a huge credit to…

On the 13th January there was a full City Council meeting where Sue Pearson, your local Common Councillor, proposed a motion that the repairs programme for all the City Estates be accelerated by using some of the City’s financial reserves. 

The repairs programme is moving incredibly slowly even by the City’s standards with the last 5 year plan being inadequately funded while the Estates decay and tenants live in unacceptable conditions. 

The City has a fund called City Cash…

Public call for the City of London Corporation to respect the law

We, the City councillors named below, call on the City Corporation to pay its social housing tenants a full refund of a profit that it (and a number of other local authorities) made on “water reselling” from 2001 to 2019 following a ruling by the courts that this profit was unlawful.

The City Corporation should have taken the lead in paying a full refund, because it:

- prides…

CITY OF LONDON CORPORATION FAILS ITS RESIDENTS

I've called on the City of London Corporation to use some of its £2.6 billion quasi-public “City's Cash" to fund an acceleration of the renovation of its social housing estates, which - due to decades of neglect - are in poor condition.

My call has been rejected by the leadership. The Corporation is happy to spend what is needed to put up new non-residential buildings within a short time frame, but refuses…

The Golden Lane Estate Residents' Association is one of the sponsors of a major petition that has just been launched to seek reform of the planning process in the City.

All Golden Lane residents know the harm that is being done to our Estate by the Denizen and COLPAI…

Here is an update from Sustrans on a proposal for a parklet on Golden Lane.



City of London and Sustrans are planning to co-design a temporary parklet in Golden Lane. Sustrans want to work with the community, businesses and schools to co-design and install the parklet, which will provide a pleasant space for people from all walks of life to visit, rest and meet-up in once it is allowed.…

Below is the text of an email I sent today to all members of the Court of Common Council (the City Corporation’s elected governing body) about the proposed postponement of the elections of the City’s 100 councillors from March 2021 to March 2022. 

What little democracy there is in the City shouldn’t be postponed by a year for no good reason. But I expect that the postponement of these elections will receive overwhelming support from members of the Court at its meeting on…

In April of this year the government changed road traffic regulations in order to encourage local authorities to modify highway layouts to benefit pedestrians and cyclists and to encourage active travel
. The City of London Corporation took up the challenge and passed a radical transport strategy.…

As mentioned in my last blog https://www.goldenlaneestate.org/profiles/blogs/the-beginning-of-the-end-of-the-city-s-discredited-standards, a significant proportion of City residents signed a petition last year declaring that they had no confidence in the City Corporation’s “standards" regime. One of their demands was for reform of “standards" proceedings. A motion was…

Last year, more than 1,100 City residents - many of them in our ward of Cripplegate - signed a petition declaring 'no confidence' in the City's standards regime. 

That petition called for two specific reforms.

The first was to let your elected representatives speak and vote on matters which affected both you and them as residents. After nine months of intense…

Update: Mental Health UK have now contacted us - see below for the charity's response.

During Mental Health Week, 30 Golden Lane Estate residents shared the impact the COLPAI construction site was having on their mental health in a moving open letter.

And just as people shared…

Here is correspondence I’ve had with the City Corporation’s Policy Chair and the Community Services Chair after the government recently published guidance promoting longer working hours on construction sites:



My email to the Policy Chair and Community and Children’s Services Chair on 14 May



Will you undertake that the City Corporation, as the developer of the COLPAI project, will not seek permission to extend the working hours on the site in the…

Hello Neighbours

Yesterday I sent the attached Open Letter to COLPAI Project (the first three pages copied below) about the effect that the construction is having on our well being during this week of Mental Health Awareness. This morning I am sending to all members of the City Council along with this link.

Thank you to everyone who contributed with their…

Do you live or work locally within the Culture Mile area (from Farringdon to Moorgate)? We'd love you to take part in our pop-up radio station...

Radio Local in Culture Mile is a hyper-local radio station broadcasting to the world from 30 May – 12 June 2020, every day from 1-2pm. 



For two weeks presenters Hunt & Darton will be broadcasting…

Below is the text of an email that I sent today to all members of the Court of Common Council (the City Corporation’s elected governing body). It covers two subjects.

First, it satirises the lack of democracy in the City Corporation. As 80% of members of the Court of Common Council are elected mainly by tiny numbers of generally uninterested business voters - a system unique to the City - the Corporation cannot claim to be a democratic institution. For background, see…

On Friday May 1^st Alderman Luder sent to all members of the Court of Common Council an email to justify work continuing on COLPAI during lockdown. ColPai. A brief reply to Common Councillors Pearson and Harrower

It’s disappointing that the resumption of work continues to be justified by the need for the social housing or the delay to opening the…