Traders protest at the meeting

Warning to Tube chiefs: ‘Leave our market alone’

Public meeting lays down challenge over Camden Town rebuild

LONDON Underground (LU) was yesterday (Wednesday) publicly warned that new plans to seize land around Camden Town Underground Station will be fought every step of the way.
The warning came as it emerged that LU’s dream of opening a new station on the site is unlikely to become a reality until 2018 at the earliest. An above-ground development is likely to take even longer to complete.
LU’s most recent proposal for the site – a seven-storey glass tower of shops and flats – was spiked by Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott last year following a lengthy planning inquiry.
Transport bosses are now ready to submit a new blueprint but they have angered residents and businesses by persevering with plans to bulldoze the Electric Ballroom nightclub, popular Buck Street Market and the United Trinity Reform Church.
They say the demolition plan is needed as part of their long-running plan to improve the congested Tube station.
Camden Council’s planners told a public meeting at the ORT Conference Centre in Camden Town last night (Wednesday) that Mr Prescott had not made a provision to save the threatened buildings in his final ruling.
Officials were supposed to be collecting evidence for a new planning brief for the site but came up against huge resistance for any demolition at all.
Peter Black, representing the Electric Ballroom, said: “I am feeling a complete sense of déjà vu. My client has endured six-to-eight years of London Underground planning to take their building. What we have got to remember is that this is purely about development. The above ground development is to pay for the whole project. London Underground doesn’t need the land.”
Henry Leonard, boss of Camden Lock London Limited, the company that runs the market, told the meeting: “We want a clear answer from the council. Do you support the market?”
Labour councillor Jake Sumner opposed LU’s previous plans but told the meeting that he hoped new proposals would create a “landmark gateway for Camden Town”.
John Lefley, a Liberal Democrat candidate at May’s council elections, said that there was no need for the project to take so long.
He said: “The main concourse could be below the road junction and you could leave the site largely the way it is. The response that should go back tonight is that people don’t want so much of the site to be lost.”
Camden’s assistant director of planning Anne Doherty said the project could face another public inquiry, adding: “A guestimate would be that it could be 2010 before diggers start work. LU have said it will take eight years to build a new station. The council has not made a statement on the future of the market.”
A London Underground spokesman said: “We are at very early stages at the moment. We attended the meeting to hear the views of residents and to see how we can go forward with this. There are no new actual designs at the moment.”