Tenants’ survey reveals opposition to £1.3m drive to bar dealers

TENANTS are calling for a halt to a £1.3 million project aimed at making life safer on a drug-hit Camden Town estate, writes Richard Osley.
Residents on the close-knit Curnock Street estate this week warned that, instead of reassuring them, the security measures will section off their homes in a prison-style lockdown.
Disgusted with the Town Hall’s consultation programme over the project, tenants’ leaders clubbed together to conduct their own survey of residents’ opinions. Results show that 70 per cent want the project to be suspended because tenants are unhappy with the security measures.
Diggers are due at the estate in two months to begin installing a series of metal security gates.
Tracy Warnes, joint secretary of Curnock Street Tenants and Residents Association, said: “Turning our estate into a ghost town will not help the community.
“If law-abiding residents cannot move freely through their own estate, there will be fewer and fewer people around. That will not make us feel safe and it will not stop the drug dealers.”
She added: “Drug-dealing in Camden needs to be tackled by proper policing, not chopping up our estate.”
Ms Warnes said the security plans had been first considered in 2001 when drug problems were rife in the underground car park which runs beneath the estate.
But tenants say that since then street wardens, police visits and dog patrols – until the service was cut – have made residents feel safer.
Association chairman John Watts added: “We have repeatedly pressed for genuine consultation but got nowhere.
“We are specially concerned that, if the works go ahead, children from our estate will have to go out onto the street and back to use the play areas inside the estate. This will put our young children at risk.”
Comments on the tenants’ door-to-door survey – filled out by two-thirds of residents – included: “If I want to live in a prison, I’ll commit an offence” and “Fix some needy council blocks instead.”
Camden has failed to respond to a fax from the tenants’ association calling for the suspension of the project.
In the meantime, Labour ward councillor Roger Robinson has thrown his support behind the tenants’ campaign.
He said: “The council has to go back to the drawing board on this one.
“It is a terrible idea. It will split the estate and put people into enclaves rather than bring people together.”
A Town Hall press official said: “The proposals to gate off sections of the Curnock Street estate were made after extensive consultation with tenants and residents on the estate as well as the police.
“The current layout of the estate means it can be accessed from many points.
“That and the basic design of walkways, squares and ramps make it vulnerable to drug dealers and non-residents who cause anti-social behaviour and commit crime.”
Tenants are now planning to appeal to Camden’s Labour cabinet to intervene and stop the project.