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No need for developer to ruin the gardens for everybody
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MAY I remind Camden Council, Town Hall officials and the community housing group that where public money is being spent, the public has a right to know where such funds go. It is no good blaming the private developer at Dalby Street for their silence (Housing Association refuses to talk about scheme and All hush hush over Dalby Street plan, November 2).
In this case big sums of money are involved. Land once designated as open space is and has apparently been disposed of without the benefit of competitive bids.
We need to know for how much. This is especially important in view of the recent knowledge that land already acquired by the developer has been sold off to an overseas company for some £3.5 million.
Part of the land used for the developer’s scheme involves a forecourt to the Sports Centre, expensively finished with cobble stones which was financed by Lottery money and Sports England. Do these organisations know their investment is being sold off for the benefit of some overseas company?
The Housing Association is getting financing from government grants to build their 19 allocated flats in the scheme.
This represents only about one third of the total number of flats. The usual number required is 50 per cent. Yet having established a price of some £3.5 million for a minuscule part of the scheme by selling it off to an overseas company, the developer has inflated the price of the land to such an extent that the cost of each flat will be needlessly high.
As a retired developer, I can predict what will happen if Talacre Gardens is used even temporarily to access the Sports Centre. It will become the norm.
The developer does not have enough land available to provide a suitable two-way access road to service both the Sports Centre and his scheme. His next bright idea will be that the New Dalby Street would become a one-way road and end up in Talacre Gardens with exit on Talacre Road.
Residents are right to protest as loudly as they can because unless they create a mighty uproar they will lose both their Community Sports Centre and their park.
Those involved should beware. An inquiry is bound to be called. The road scheme will not work. There will be gross abuse of park users.
Those responsible for this will be exposed. My advice to Martin Stanton, head of parks and open spaces, is not to enter into any sort of talks or compromise with the developer or his architects. Stay clear of them. Or your head may well be the first one on the chopping block.
DV FELIX
Southampton Road, NW5
• TALACRE is not just a blot on the Camden map. The people who live in and around here are a close-knit community. Most live in social housing properties.
They have little or no access to any sort of green space.
Talacre Gardens is their ‘oasis of calm’.
Our park and the Community Centre are part of our heritage and we must and will fight for their preservation. Just as we fought successfully for the Kentish Town Swimming Baths and all the concessions we won, so far, at Talacre Gardens after long campaigns.
We had to fight for the park to be kept locked at night for security reasons. We fought for the kids to have a free pitch to play football on, then Talacre Gardens needed a full-time warden to keep the park safe and well tended and then, a hut so the warden could store his tools and shelter from the elements.
A plan for a crude road through the park to give access to vehicular traffic will cut the park in two, produce noise, create pollution and safety issues and reduce facilities for residents. Our oasis of calm will be gone.
How could Camden even consider such a proposal, never mind including it in some agreement as a realistic possibility?
GRENDA GILLEGAO
Talacre Road, NW5
• THERE is absolutely no need for the developer at Dalby Street to encroach on Talacre Gardens whilst erecting his scheme (Our green spaces must be preserved, November 9).
One needs to look no further than down the road where the University College London Hospital (UCLH) is building an extension for an example of how to store office huts and the like. The builders on that site have erected a platform on metal supports over the road on which such business is conducted without interfering with the normal day to day running of the hospital.
If the NHS which is known to watch the pennies can afford to use such a method, then surely a developer who is swimming in profit from selling a small share of his scheme for £3.5 million, could also do the right thing. Complete a suitable alternative road to Dalby Street to allow for normal business at Talacre Sport Centre to go on, then erect a platform over the road for temporary storage.
Ruining the park is not an option. The public has made it clear that they will simply not allow it.
ANGY MARTEL
Prince of Wales Road, NW5
• ALL the nasty stuff which is being revealed in a dip drip fashion about the Dalby Street scheme might have been prevented had we listened to one of our more respected former Labour councillors Gerry Harrison.
Earlier this year, he warned us about the Dalby Street development when he referred to it as “that extremely suspect application.” (His letter of Jan 12, 2006, Don’t crush heritage to save a few pounds.)
All it takes is one brave, honest councillor or official to make a big difference to the community. Who is now going to take Gerry’s place to champion local residents and help prevent further disaster at Talacre?
Even if one does not comprehend the complicated ‘stopping up’ order application, it does not take a genius to understand that a road going through our busy Talacre Gardens is a crazy idea.
It will serve no one, except perhaps the developer concerned. Yes, that same developer who has just sold a tiny bit of the scheme for which he received a planning application for a staggering £3.5 million, having paid only 3190,000 for it. And there is still plenty more to sell.
The council should insist that the developer completes his proposed “new” Dalby Street before he can even put a foot on Dalby Street itself.
J TREADGOLD
Leighton Road, NW5
• THE controversy over the blocking up of Dalby Street should lead us to look at the statutory framework within which planning decisions are taken.
The Lib Dems have a policy of amending planning legislation so that it favours residents rather than developers.
Crucially, whilst objectors can only overturn the grant of planning permission by identifying a legal flaw in the decision, the developer has an automatic right of appeal against refusal to an inspector appointed by a government minister. The presence of this right acts as an incentive for local authorities to approve plans, even when they have doubts about them, if they believe that a refusal is likely to be overturned on appeal. It can also result in tremendous frustration for local people who, having successfully persuaded their democratically-elected local authority to reject planning proposals, find that the decision is then overturned by an Inspector with no democratic accountability whatsoever.
All this makes it vitally important that councillors serving on the development control committee should be vigilant in the defence of the interests of Camden residents.
The Liberal Democrat members of the committee respect officer advice but are not afraid to challenge that advice where necessary.
Some prominent Labour members of the Committee appear to see it as their job to rubber-stamp officer recommendations on the vast majority of applications.
CLLR DAVID ABRAHAMS
(Lib Dem) Town Hall
Juddd Street, WC1
• OUR new council has been entrusted with power. With power comes responsibility. The people of Camden are entitled to know what has been going on at Dalby Street (The story of No 52 Prince of Wales Road, November 9).
Until the council finally decides to co-operate, however, I hope the CNJ will keep on digging for the truth. We need to know.
WILLIAM NAWROCKI
Savernake Road, NW3
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