Redbrick Estate Communal Spaces

**Update: The Redbrick Estate garden surveys are now open, please take a few minutes to respond. Full details are below**

Your Bunhill ward councillors, Cllr Troy Gallagher, Cllr Phil Graham and Cllr Valerie Bossman-Quarshie, have teamed up with environmental charity Groundwork London to improve three green spaces on the Redbrick Estate.

We know how important these spaces are in allowing residents to connect with nature, come together with their community, and boost their mental well-being, so we would like to hear your views. This is an opportunity for you to be actively involved in shaping the communal spaces where you live. The project will be fully funded via Thriving Neighbourhoods and Community Infrastructure Levy funding.

The purpose of this work is to give you and your family places on the estate where you can relax, exercise, connect with nature, and play. Spending time in green spaces is essential for our physical and mental well-being. These improvement works will make the estate a better place to live with better access to play equipment for children, more opportunities for experiencing nature, and an overall boost to the sense of community.

It is our policy that communal green spaces on housing estates are accessible to residents, so eventually the spaces on your estate will be open during the day and locked in the evening.

Islington Council will take on the responsibility of opening and closing the Butterfly Garden, the Wildflower Meadow Garden and the Wildlife Sanctuary Garden after the work is completed.

We know that there are some people on the estate who are concerned about potential anti-social behaviour occurring in these spaces after we improve them and make them more welcoming. We want to reassure you that your feelings of safety where you live are very important to us. We will conduct a review after six months to assess how well the new process for opening and closing the spaces is working.

Whilst the communal areas on your estate are always most likely to be used by the people who live there, access will not be exclusive. Other local people will be welcome to use the facilities appropriately and respectfully.

If anyone does behave inappropriately on your estate, you can get in touch with our anti-social behaviour team: www.islington.gov.uk/ASB. Always call 999 in an emergency.

The most recent update (Jan 2026)

Groundwork have taken all the feedback and ideas received from the estate residents during the design workshops and other engagement sessions, and combined them into a master design for each garden. This master design includes all the ideas for each garden that were considered viable, although it must be noted that there is not sufficient budget to take forward all the items in each design.

A list of the items which were not considered viable for each garden, and the reasons for not taking these ideas forward, can be found in the 'Important Documents' section of this page called 'Design Rationale'.

We are now in a position to share those master designs, and would like to know which elements of these designs you would like to see included in the final plan.

We have created a survey that gives residents an opportunity to vote on every single item in each garden, so we can see exactly what items are the most popular, and what residents don't want to see taken forward. This is your opportunity to vote for the changes you'd like to see.

Items that receive 51% or more 'yes' votes will be considered for inclusion in the final design (depending on the available budget). Items that receive 51% or more ‘no’ votes will not be considered.

The surveys will close on 15 February 2026.

Please note that a maximum of one survey can be completed per household. If we receive more than one survey per household, we will accept the first survey submitted. There is no obligation to complete a survey for every garden, but within each survey you do need to respond to all the questions.

If anyone would like help to complete the survey, we are holding drop-in sessions at the nearby Vibast Centre where staff can assist you with this:

• Drop-in session 1: Saturday 17 January 2026, from 2pm – 3.30pm at the Vibast Centre
• Drop in session 2: Wednesday 4 February 2026, from 5.30pm – 7pm at the Vibast Centre

Please note, these sessions are to assist people with completing the survey, and not a forum for discussion on the gardens.

The next steps

After the closing date, Groundwork will review the feedback received, and will produce final designs based on this, and the available budget. These designs will be shared, along with a full report of the survey results to all residents, and then we will start to move forward with implementing the designs. The report will also be made available on this page, and residents can use the 'Who's Listening' section to request a paper copy of the report.