Camden New Journal - News: Caught in the works

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Camden New Journal - by DAN CARRIER
Published: 8 November 2007

Bob McMahon

Caught in the works

FOR one guest, the opening ceremony was time to breathe an immense sigh of relief. Cab driver Bob McMahon, chairman of Somers Town’s Coopers Lane Residents and Tenants Association, has fought for more than six years to ensure the work did not disrupted life on the estate.
His efforts led to a public inquiry into the Channel Tunnel Rail Link (as the work was originally known) wanting to work 24 hours a day. The Town Hall and the Camden Primary Care Trust produced reports into the effects on the health of people living near the massive building project and battled to ensure residents of Somers Town were not forgotten.
“Thankfully it is all over,” he said. “It has been a long, hard few years and there has been a human cost for people living around the works. That should be recognised. We have had had to make so many complaints about working practices and we seemed to have been organising meeting after meeting after meeting.”
He added that by the end of the project he had got to know the team behind the construction well.
He said: “We eventually came to a fairly good understanding. When we got them to stop the 24-hour working we got the chance to live a fairly normal life.”
And Mr McMahon said people living on the estate were proud of the station.
He said: “St Pancras is now the best train station in Europe.”

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