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The seven - acre site should be saved for community use, such as a swimming pool |
Let’s keep this land public
Alan Spence argues that the area behind the British Library should be kept out of the hands of property developers
THE rich live longer than the poor in Camden. Would preventing the sale of public land behind the British Library, and instead building an ambitious sports centre, help create a fairer borough as well as some potential Olympic champions?
Somers Town – 7,000 people live on this small patch of central London.
Affluence, such as is found in Hampstead, two miles to the north, has generally escaped its population, as is shown by the 11-year gap in the life expectancy between the two communities.
To address one part of this problem – health – the public participation group of the newly formed South Camden Primary Care Group commissioned a survey of experiences and expectations of patients in Somers Town.
It follows the mini-flu epidemic of 1999/2000 when an alarmed Blair Government produced a new NHS plan.
It proposed to rectify the gross imbalances
in health provision between different parts of the UK.
Among Blair’s proposals was provision for lay bodies within the structure of the NHS to complement the external Community Health Councils, with their power to investigate and raise the alarm at medical shortcomings.
Within months NHS mandarins, hospital consultants and old-guard GPs were bending each of Tony Blair’s pliable ears, with the result that both CHCs and public participation groups were abolished.
A remnant of the South Camden group carried on with a proposal from then health minister Yvette Cooper, for doctors to be able to prescribe for patients to attend swimming pools and health centres for treatment – particularly for obesity.
Apathy towards really new ideas within the NHS, and shortage of funds of the remnant group soon ended these attempts to save something from the hopeful days of Tony Blair’s NHS plan.
Now, however, with the land behind the British Library becoming vacant, an entirely new perspective has unfolded to make it possible to carry out these old-desires for health improvement, but on an entirely higher level of expectation. This seven-acre site is the same size as the Swiss Cottage Leisure Centre, and such a provision in Somers Town would unquestionably begin to reduce gaps in life expectancy.
Furthermore, with the 2012 Olympics being prepared for and the gross shortage of Olympic size swimming pools in the UK (Paris alone has more Olympic-size pools than the whole of the UK), here is an opportunity not to be missed for one such pool.
On London’s South Bank, the Coin Street Trust provides a model for Somers Town.
In the 1980s, as a community trust, it bought local, unused land with funding from the Greater London Council, local and central government.
Over the years it has built a mixed development of co-operative housing, a market, a park and restaurants whose rents pay some of the bills.
In the pipeline is a community centre to be opened in September, with a swimming pool and sports centre already on board for further building.
The site behind the British Library in Somers Town is owned by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport.
And the above proposal directly fits its parliamentary duty to process for it to become a successful venture.
Of course, knowing British politics and the power of financial interests to weigh unduly heavily on government ministers, it will require an entirely new order of public effort to bring about the above.
Such, however, is the unambiguous necessity if this country desires to produce champions in the 2012 Olympics.
And, quite possibly, if it does come to pass, it could be a Somers Town person who trains in the Olympic Swimming and Leisure Centre, Somers Town, Camden, London, who brings the ‘gold’ back to celebrate with his or her community.
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