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Gardens question time!
• IN response to Martin Plaut’s letter (Talacre outrage, July 10) the situation at Dalby Street and threat to Talacre Gardens and the taxpayers of Camden is far worse than anything you might have heard before or imagined.
Being a retired property developer, I should know. I made it my business to study the new S106 Agreement being drawn up between the Dalby Street developer and the Camden solicitors. For those of you who still wonder what this agreement is about, it is the means by which a developer negotiates access arrangements and the management of the new road at the New Dalby Street and finally acquires the public land on which Dalby Street now rests.
Plans accompanying this so called S106 Agreement indicate clearly a substantial intrusion into Talacre Gardens.
This has been accomplished by the developer delivering a final plan which shows the fencing having been moved well into Talacre Gardens, hence redefining its boundary. This might explain the incomprehensible decision by Camden Council to delay granting the Town Green status for Talacre Gardens.
When I attended the inquiry into the Dalby Street matters in January of this year, I clearly remember Camden and the developer’s representatives swearing that no intrusion into Talacre Gardens would take place.
Well, I can tell you that it has and, unless the plans are adjusted, the developer will have a good case to insist that he has every right to move the fencing of the park and intrude upon it.
Furthermore, there is an even more disturbing development. Camden’s solicitors are apparently willing to bend backwards to help the developer by allowing them to own outright Dalby Street before they have completed any substantial work.
What this means is that the developer is acquiring valuable land without any obligation to build their scheme.
They could conceivably sit on this land indefinitely.
Alternatively, they might choose to wait until the land has acquired a much greater value and suit themselves as to when they redevelop it or, indeed, decide not to do anything with it at all.
There could, therefore be no social housing going up on that site now or ever in the future.
My advice to those who care about Talacre amenities is: be careful, be very careful.
Nothing is as it seems and especially not as Camden Council and their officers say they are.
DAVID V FELIX
Fraser Regart Court
Southampton Road, NW5
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