PROTESTERS fighting plans to demolish a back street pub and snooker hall are appealing for objectors to storm a crunch council meeting in a final bid to have the proposals torn up, writes Richard Osley.
Councillors are due at the Town Hall tonight (Thursday) to decide whether developers can bulldoze the Crown and Goose (pictured) and neighbouring New Camden Snooker Hall, both in Delancey Street, Camden Town.
Applicants DE & J Levy want to replace the current buildings with a new all-in-one venue, which many residents fear will be a giant ‘superpub’ similar to larger venues operating around Camden Lock.
A campaign against the project has grown larger every week since the plans were sent to the Town Hall’s planning department at the end of last year.
More than 550 protest letters have gathered in the council’s planning department.
Campaigners now want the discontent to be hammered home by residents filling the public benches at tonight’s meeting. Posters advertising the meeting, which begins at the Judd Street building in King’s Cross at 7pm, have appeared on public notice boards in the area, as the campaign nears its climax.
Catherine Colley, chairwoman of the Delancey Street Residents Association, said: “We are urging people who are concerned about it to come along to the meeting and make their presence felt.”
The New Journal has learned that councillors could impose a clause that would force DE & J Levy to use the new building as a restaurant and not a high-capacity bar.
But the concession is unlikely to wash with protesters who now want the corner buildings to be preserved from future demolition plans.