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COMMENT By CAMDEN NEW JOURNAL
 
Resist another Canary Wharf

FOR more than 15 years the scheme to reinvigorate King’s Cross has been the subject of endless debates – among councillors, conservationists and tenants’ organisations.
Over the years different sets of proposals have bitten the dust, different developers have left the battlefield defeated.
Finally, a detailed planning proposal – 600-pages thick – has been drawn up by Town Hall officials for approval by councillors – usually the last and vital step before a dream becomes a reality.
Much of the report deals with extremely complex matters which the decision makers would normally expect to be given a lengthy amount of time to chew over.
And how many days have councillors got to take such a momentous set of decisions? Sixteen. Because D-Day is March 9. That’s when the planning committee have to say Yes or No to a project that will cost around £2 billion.
And 16 days, as critics this week have pointed out, is obviously far too short a timespan.
Broadly speaking, we would hope the planners will insist that the project will provide much needed leisure facilities, open space including a football pitch, a great deal of low-rented properties, perhaps even a site for a secondary school .
At a cursory glance, however, it looks as if the plan is lopsidedly pointing in the wrong direction – too many office blocks, too many expensive flats and the demolition of much loved old buildings.
In short another Canary Wharf lacking human scale!
And are not the critics right to warn that in view of the fact that the supply of office space in London today is already far in excess of demand, it would be folly to create more office blocks that will simply lie empty?
The giant Centrepoint block lay empty for years. Do we want the same to happen in King’s Cross?
However, let debate now reign over the planning brief published this week. But it should not be confined to the planning committee. It should be on a much wider scale.
After all, what is being proposed is the creation of a new city in central London.
And as that is the case why should such a momentous decision be left to one local authority? Shouldn’t other local authorities be involved as well? Certainly, it would be ridiculous if this were to be rushed through a single committee in a matter of days.
If that were to occur, would there not be grounds for objection? And could it not be argued that due process had been brushed aside?
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