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West End Extra - LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Published: 21 March 2008

Carving up our Fitzrovia

• PROPERTY developers Candy and Candy’s “nohoing” in and of (part of) Fitzrovia is set in your article against developer Derwent London’s sticking with “Fitzrovia.”
The article (Look out Fitzrovia, here comes Noho, March 7) describes a Fitzrovian “identity crises.”
What is not explained is that Derwent London, in their brochure for “the cube” on Whitfield Street, demarcates Fitzrovia as a smaller area than it actually is.
Derwent and Candy and Candy, as land-holders, have among themselves, decided to carve-up Fitzrovia for branding and marketing purposes.
The rising fury from the Fitzrovia community stems from the many oversized developments which are gradually overshadowing the scale and proportion of the area.
Worse still, it’s not as if these buildings are world class or stunning or welcoming or interesting even; these buildings are bland; ugly!
Greed and corporatist interests are welcoming the international market in homogenised blocks and are smothering what attracted them to the area.
Camden councillors, Rebecca Hossack’s and Penny Abraham’s championing of the Fitzrovia community is in stark contrast to their Westminster Conservative counterparts who allowed the wanton destruction of the Middlesex Hospital and the Candy and Candy Square erection on that site.
What with New (corporatised) Labour’s wanton allowing of the south of the country to become overpopulated – a problem entirely of their own making – the two main political parties are over-burdening the civic fabric of this country, let alone little Fitzrovia.
Now, there are plans to knock down the 18th-century workhouse building, the last of its kind in central London, in Cleveland Street in order to build modern homes.
The existing building, with some attention, is perfectly functional and in keeping with Fitzrovia.
name and address supplied

Send your letters to: The Letters Editor, West End Extra, 40 Camden Road, London, NW1 9DR or email to letters@westendextra.co.uk. The deadline for letters is midday Wednesday. The editor regrets that anonymous letters cannot be published, although names and addresses can be withheld. Please include a full name, postal address and telephone number.
Letters may be edited for reasons of space.

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