2-887-588 - Historic England Archive/Heritage Images

Pooles Park, Finsbury Park, Islington, London, 20/05/1970. Two children playing on posts in a playground besides blocks of flats at Pooles Park, built using the 12M Jespersen system. In 1963, John Laing and Son Ltd bought the rights to the Danish industrialised building system for flats known as Jespersen (sometimes referred to as Jesperson). The company built factories in Scotland, Hampshire and Lancashire producing Jespersen prefabricated parts and precast concrete panels, allowing the building of housing to be rationalised, saving time and money. The Pooles Park development was built by Laing for the London Borough of Islington and was designed by architects Max Long & Partners in association with Sydney Greenwood. The contract was for flats and maisonettes in a 12-storey block, a six storey block and seven four-storey blocks, to be built using the 12M Jespersen system, with precast units supplied by the John Laing Concrete factories at Andover and Heywood.