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LETTERS
 
Give us return for loss of park

• Camden is proud of its £1.5m revamp of Cantelowes Gardens, a small park on Camden Road, next to Camden School for Girls.
It was made possible when the Jewish Free School moved and returned some of the land to the council.
The re-vamp begs many questions about the balance of sports and community use. Camden has designated Cantelowes as a youth park.
The site already had a popular skate board park but by 2000 it was breaking up and a replacement was needed. Combined with a lack of football pitches in the borough here was an opportunity to install a Multi Use Games Area (MUGA).
Camden went out to consultation under the tag ‘Your Park – You Use – You Choose’.
There was a good response. Sixty two per cent supported the sports pitch and the new skateboard park but also wanted a clubhouse with toilets.
Sixty per cent wanted a café as a meeting place. People also asked for better play and adventure space for children aged up to 14 years. Teenagers wanted an afternoon school hut with activities.
As Camden had promised, a local group was formed to produce a design brief. As well as the ideas thrown up by the consultation we suggested exercise trails, quiet planted sitting areas, a community garden, a performance space and a small playground. But the park element of the gardens has been squeezed and about half the park is now under hard surface.
Consultation with the community ended a year ago but we learnt in the summer that the Football Foundation, a charity set up to revitalise grass roots sport, had agreed to fund the MUGA and a pavilion containing changing rooms, staff office and a clubroom.
The design was published in a newsletter in November. There had been no consultation, there was no café and the building was really dull, a dark grey and blue brick, apparently windowless rectangle.
The community wants something in exchange for losing so much of our park.
This is one of the more deprived parts of the borough with little open space. Young people living on the Peckwater estate have been asking for a youth club for years.
There are many single old people who have lost their community pub to an expensive development, who would welcome a sheltered place to sit. Parents and children too want a meeting place overlooking the playground. A good outcome of the MUGA is that there will be staff on site which, if combined with a café, will make a safe friendly environment which people would really value.
We are having an open meeting in the Kentish Town Community Centre, 17 Busby Place, NW5 today (February 2) at 7pm to campaign for an alternative plan of a round sustainable, highly insulated building with a sedum roof and climbers up the walls, with windows. And a café. Time is short as some of the funds have to be used by the end of the financial year.
Roz Cullinan
Camden Mews
NW1
 
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