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Tell us if library site is on borrowed time
• I ATTENDED the tenants and residents meeting at which the future of the land behind the Britsih Library was discussed (Land sales spark ‘We’ll get nothing from it’ protest, April 19).
An official from Camden’s planning department, Gavin Sexton, was at the meeting and gave us this information, some of which conflicts with your report:
1. That the clear-up of the site will begin towards the end of 2007.
2. That the site will be secured only with a low-tech fence.
3. That there will be no 24-hour security on the site after the contractors have left.
In fact, Mr Sexton said that it would be simply left to “normal policing”.
5. That the British Library still has plans to extend its building. That the site is owned in part by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and in part by the British Library.
I am somewhat dubious of the British Libary owning land and I think it more probable that wholly owned by the DCMS.
There is just a possibility that a not-for-profit limited company (similar to the Almo proposal) may have been set up to hold the land.
5. That the land will be sold-off in “a purely commercial transaction”.
6. That the Camden Council proposal for the site consists of things such as swimming pools and community centres but no new social housing.
7. That tenants had been consulted by Camden on their proposal for the site.
Neither I nor any other person at the meeting had been consulted. This became clear after I asked the meeting if anyone had been consulted.
Mr Sexton then claimed that 2,000 people had been consulted. I asked whether the sample was scientifically selected.
He said no, it was done on proximity to the site.
I pointed out that I lived 50 yards away from the site and had not been consulted. Other people also said they lived very close.
8. The meeting was not a genuine consultation but a bogus PR exercise.
Those attending were not consulted but merely told what was going to happen, namely, the site would be cleared and fenced.
There could not be meaningful debate about the development plans because, as mentioned above, according to Mr Sexton the British Library still has plans to use part of the site to expand the library and he did not know how much of the site would be taken up by the expansion.
Hence, any debate about what should happen to the site was effectively pointless.
There was considerable anxiety expressed at the meeting that the site might be used, legally or illegally, by travellers.
Personally, I doubt whether there is any danger of it becoming an official site, but an illegal one is all to plausible.
If a few hundred travellers got onto the site illegally they would become, for the foreseeable future, unmoveable because it would (1) take many months if not years to get a court order to move them and (2) even if a court order was granted, judged by the recent experience of other illegal encampments it is unlikely they would be moved on quickly because of appeals using the Human Rights Act and because the forced removal of several hundred people who are willing to resist violently daunts the authorities.
Three things need to be done to put tenants’ and residents’ minds need three things to be done immediately.
1. The council should give a binding undertaking that planning permission will not be given for the site to be used as a permament or temporary travellers’ site.
2. The council must approach the DCMS to ensure that the site is given 24-hour security while it lies vacant.
3. The council should attempt to find out the exact intentions of the owners of the site and let the tenants and residents know what is happening.
The council also need to consult all the tenants and residents affected by the development of the site to find out what are their views.
I am sure the vast majority would want the land to remain in public ownership with appropriate community development including social housing.
ROBERT HENDERSON
Charltron Street, NW1
• I would like to make it clear that the issue of the land behind the British Library is a matter I personally, as one of the local ward councillors, want to see the subject of urgent talks as we approach the launch of the Cross Channel Rail Link in November 2007.
I have said that many times before and indeed suggested the meeting that was held last week with a planning officer and the Ossulston Tenants and Residents Association.
The date chosen was no good to me as I was chairing a meeting elsewhere but that is how it goes.
What is necessary and vital is for the council, and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, with the British Library to discuss in depth, within the next few weeks and BEFORE the land is placed on the open market, with the Tenants and Residents Associations such as Ossulston; the residents.
The ward councillors – their needs to ensure that whatever happens the land becomes a facility and with a usage that will benefit local people.
With respect, DCMS may not be fully aware of the issues facing this part of Somers Town and, indeed, the whole of Somers Town!
The lack in playing land; the need to assist community shops; the need, as I have often said, for a swimming pool there; the absolute need for more social housing (what we don’t want is more luxury housing so it becomes another private, gated community).
We need to talk to DCMS about the issues of noise levels; of ensuring that whatever happens, the local community doesn’t lose out as so often happens with re-developments..and the matter is dealt with with the needs of the local area and residents.
Better still, why can’t Camden Council now buy the vacant land for better facilities like facilities for older people; for community shopping? If British Library now don’t want it then surely my colleagues in the council could buy it given we have so little building land left now in this borough now the King’s Cross development has taken up all the land that was really left for us.
DCMS have for a long time loaned out a part of that land for an access road to the British Library that will go soon and I have opposed an idea of the British Library to get planning permission to rebuild this access road in Ossulston Street opposite Hadstock House with about, I was told, when I recently took a deputation of residents to meet an officer of the Library, that he envisaged about 130 vehicles each day using it.
Why can’t Camden buy the DCMS land, use it for whatever is the majority view as to what is needed from liaison with local people/TRAs/councillors and also at the same time allocate the existing access road to the Library rather than development be sought to build the new access road taking all those vehicles into an already narrow and car-jammed road?
I am writing to Cllr Mike Greene, executive member for environment, to ask him to request the relevant officers to arrange a meeting when the TRAs locally, the ward councillors (Cllr Stewart would be unable to attend as she is a member of Development Control Committee) for St Pancras and Somers Town and any residents can sit down and discuss what will become a very problematic issue and to meet well beofre DCMS put the land up for sale.
Somers Town was a deprived area – much has improved, much more needs to be done and I would make it crystal clear that I would oppose any sale of this land for any usage that will make life hell for local people.
By the way, there was a rumour going round that this land would be given to travellers....that I have found out from Planning Dept in a plethora of emails last week is not true.
Cllr ROGER ROBINSON
St Pancras and Somers Town Ward
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