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Determined not to be ‘poor old Somers Town’
• HOW nice it is that one newspaper in this borough has actually thought to put into print what ward councillors for St Pancras and Somers Town have being saying for years: Who gives a damn about Somers Town? (Somers Town – where bad policies are easily buried, June 5).
Note the loss of our one post office in Crowndale Road; the disgraceful decision on Edith Neville School which we ward councillors opposed; the idea to shove a tram link through our narrow streets; the whole horrific issue of the land behind the British Library being turned into a medical research centre; the fight against drug dealers and crime and many more issues which we have taken up with council administrations of both political colours over the years.
Ward councillors want the land behind the library to be for council housing and leisure facilities. We continue to fight off the tram link by correspondence with the new Mayor of London and Transport for London.
We fully support and will help whatever the governors of Edith Neville School want to do to change the council’s mind and decision – a decision based only on the council’s determination to have an academy in leafy Hampstead.
We are pushing for a judicial review to get the post offices saved and we are working closely with the police and Safer Neighbourhoods team to try to smash the drug dealers in the area. We also want to work closely with the youth through their Youth Council representatives to regenerate the ward. We are seeking a farmers’ market in Chalton Street.
We worked hard with local tenant and resident leaders and members to try to regenerate Somers Town with the Camden Central Single Regeneration Board and £7million we fought for and got from the Government Office for London and which was spent on work in the area; refurbishments on estates.
There is total opposition now to us being a “dumping ground”. In the past we were the dumping ground, with nothing done about our estates and streets, a high suicide rate, etc.
But over the past eight to 10 years that has changed and we are determined to stop being the deprived, poor old Somers Town of old.
Our Somers Town Festival attracts 9,000 to 10,000 visitors. We have a new constructions coming up. Our Plot 10 play group is excellent. We have a multicultural community working together on projects.
And we will fight this council tooth and nail to stop any stupid decisions being made to affect Somers Town badly. We are determined we will not be a slum and a dump for anything that goes.
We are a ward fighting for what the people who live and work here want.
We are seeking an apprenticeship scheme to cover our area which will include not only craft skills but managerial and administrative skills; we want more open space; we want better roads and pavements.
We ain’t finished the fight.
CLLR Roger Robinson
Labour, St Pancras and Somers Town ward
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