Camden New Journal - by DAN CARRIER Published: 27 September 2007
An artist’s impression of how the beacon in Britannia Junction might look
Bright beacon to beat crime
Opinions divided over plans for a 30ft rainbow-coloured pole at the Britannia Junction
THIS is how a giant rainbow-coloured pole at the centre of radical multi-million pound plan to give Camden Town a facelift could look.
The 30ft beacon is planned for the main Britannia Junction, with designers hoping it will help get rid of the area’s scruffy image and unenviable reputation for drug dealing.
Business association Camden Town Unlimited (CTU), a group of traders who volunteered to chip in for improvements, also want to spruce up Camden Town by rerouting traffic at Mornington Crescent, creating wider pavements and installing public art.
CTU chief executive Simon Pitkeathley said: “The problems facing us are how to create a better pedestrian experience and how to design out crime We have already had a lot of work done on drug dealing and homelessness by increasing the police’s presence but we have to change the environment as well. We don’t want Camden to be just tourists and drug dealers, we want to make a real café society.”
The plans were unveiled under the statue of Victorian free trade campaigner Sir Richard Cobden in the High Street on Tuesday morning.
Alex Proud, the gallery owner who is a member of CTU, said: “We want to make this place feel civilised without being like a template of a nondescript Middle England town. It is all about getting the balance right – and this plan does that.”
CTU hopes to persuade the Town Hall, Transport for London and property and business owners to contribute to a £10 million pot and is considering an application for a Whitehall single regeneration budget – normally used to renovate the country’s most deprived areas. With money yet to be raised, CTU is not able to say when the work will be finished, but hopes it will be completed in time for the 2012 Olympics.
The striking giant beacon, however, has already stirred debate over whether it is the right way forward.
Publican Henry Conlon, who runs the Dublin Castle, said: “Camden Town is worth celebrating and that is what this plan does.”
But opera director Dr Jonathan Miller, who lives in Camden Town, said the revamp would not solve deep-rooted crime issues. He said: “Illuminating drug dealers does not eliminate them. It is naïve to think creating piazzas will stop people committing crime. It is not the configuration of streets that stop crime, rather the configuration of the inhabitants who live there.”
Novelist Beryl Bainbridge, who lives in Camden Town, said the money could be better spent elsewhere: “I think it would be better to spend the money on extra police officers.
And she added the work would do little to improve the street. She said “It is past saving, full of ghastly shop fronts and cheap cafes that are always empty.”
Conservative London Assembly member Brian Coleman, said “I lock my car doors every time I drive through Camden Town. The beacon is simply ghastly, pointless and phallic.”
Broadcaster Robert Elms, who lives in Albert Street, said the work must not sanitise the things that make Camden unique. He said: “I am fearful it would make it homogenised. It would be nice not to be accosted by dealers every time you go down the street – but will bigger pavements really help?"
Comment on this article. (You must supply your full name and email address for your comment to be published)
