Camden New Journal - by PAUL KEILTHY Published: 15 November 2007
Somers Town residents demonstrate on the big day
Group uses rail launch as platform for protest
ON a day of protests at the new St Pancras station, Somers Town residents repeated their demands that they should share in the benefits of a redeveloped King’s Cross through the building of community facilities and housing on government land behind the British Library.
Campaigners from the Unite Somers Town group demonstrated at the gleaming entrance of the St Pancras international platform in Pancras Road, demanding that Prime Minister Gordon Brown keep his Queen’s Speech promises by stopping the sale by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport of the 3.6-acre site between Midland Road and Ossulston Street until social housing can be guaranteed.
Spokeswoman Candy Udwin said: “The new St Pancras station has the largest champagne bar in the world, but what will there be in this area for ordinary people?”
The group was celebrating the outcome of a meeting with council chiefs following an emotional demonstration at the Town Hall last week, in which the heads of planning and housing agreed to write to ministers to insist the site be used in accordance with the council’s planning brief, which demands at least 50 per cent of the area be built as housing.