Breakfast meeting at a Crouch End resident’s house to discuss the TUC building. The community, the LibDems and even the Exec Member for Education on the Council are all campaigning for the TUC building to be bought by Haringey Council as a site for a new school. Crouch End is desperately short of places and we have been calling for a new school in the area for quite a few years.

The fear is though that the TUC – despite its supposed left-wing position and social conscience – will just want to make oodles of money from the site and sell it to a residential developer rather than for the common good of the community in the form of a new school.

Haringey Council as the planning authority would have to grant it permission to sell to such a developer by changing the covenant which currently prohibits it. At first sight you would think, phew it’s protected – but in reality Haringey can only refuse to do so ‘within reason’. So it’s really no protection at all.

I have gone to meet some of the key campaigners to see where I can add some value or do anything more to help. Apart from continuing to campaign and finding information – the only other avenue is to try and embarrass the TUC into doing the right thing rather than trying to cash in. I will write to them this week to remind them of their social duty…