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College Lane campaign too narrow
• DELIGHTED as we all are that the planning committee have unanimously rejected the wholly unacceptable plan for the derelict College Lane site, I feel that the campaign mounted against the plan has been fought on too narrow a basis, and that this will not be helpful if the development company concerned make further efforts to gain their ends.
Two basic points:
First, the Little Green Street residents’ fears for “their” street, and the development company’s emollient attempts to pacify these, ignore the fact that this small, cobbled 18th street of one-time shops is unique in Camden and does not belong just to its current occupants but to all of us and to posterity.
The importance of preserving it should be seen in this context.
Secondly, much has been made, rightly, of the street’s utter unsuitability as a route for heavy builders’ vehicles and the damage likely to result. But in this preoccupation with the four years during which the College Lane site is proposed to be developed, many objectors have apparently lost sight of a far more serious long-term aspect to the plan, namely that the developers also propose/assume that the route up Little Green Street and thence across the wasteland behind College Lane will form a permanent vehicle access to their new block of flats. Their current plans are for an underground parking space under the block with room for 30 cars. This would mean a daily procession of cars up and down Little Green Street for ever, a complete and irrevocable change in the street’s nature. For 250 years it has been virtually a pedestrian way, first because it led only to fields, then because, for 100 years, it led to semi-wild surplus railway land, and then, for the last 30-odd years, because it has led into a council estate road barred except for emergency use.
College Lane itself (at right-angles to Little Green Street) has never been anything but a pedestrian way and cannot be anything else. The houses down it, including two built in the late 20th century, have no vehicular access, and their occupants are obviously content to live in such a favoured spot. There is no reason whatsoever why the occupants of any new block built in College Lane should expect vehicular access either. Lady Somerset Road is only 50 metres away. In addition, it has for years been council policy not to allow off-street parking in any new development.
If an acceptable plan is ever to be worked out for the derelict site, then it would seem sensible for the developers to take their plans back to the drawing board and modify them considerably.
Gillian Tindall, FRSL
Leighton Road, NW5
Clear message
• IN a triumph of reason. Camden’s planning committee unanimously threw out plans by Euroinvestments plc to drive its trucks up Little Green Street.
Residents in the street, the Ingestre estate and across Camden have campaigned hard to stop this developer ripping up our historic street, with its Grade II-listed homes, to provide a works access for their site. If they had succeeded it would have brought more than three years of misery and chaos. Every few minutes a truck would have rumbled past – in some places just 40cm from residents’ front doors – with huge implications for safety, local amenity and traffic congestion.
These plans were a nonsense from the beginning – but we expect that the developer will try to appeal against the decision. What is important now is that Camden does everything in its power to fight any appeal. The council must stand up for local people’s rights to the quiet enjoyment of their property.
Euroinvestments should take their plans back to the drawing board. Their scheme – on the old rail lands between College Lane and the Ingestre estate – is clearly out of touch with today’s priorities.
It has a huge underground car park and the bare minimum of sustainability measures. Excavation alone would have accounted for about two thirds of the traffic on Little Green Street.
Instead it should be smaller, simpler and car-free, with more affordable housing and measures like green roofs and solar panels. Maybe then they can find a way of developing the site that local people can accept.
I believe we have sent a clear message to the developers that they cannot ride roughshod over Camden’s residents.
Cllr Ralph Scott
Liberal Democrat, Kentish Town Ward
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