• THERE is a great deal of dissatisfaction and dismay among many residents and businesses in Camden Town’s community.

The cause of this is the manner in which a number of the council’s departments have made decisions that have had a direct impact in our neighbourhood and the people who live and work in it.

Over a period of many months, nay years, different departments of the council, in particular those responsible for licensing, planning and traffic management, have repeatedly ignored the results of local consultations and pressed ahead with what has been proposed without the support of the communities most affected.

Many of Camden’s decisions have been hastily conceived, ill-considered or ideologically motivated, which have often led to the material detriment of Camden Town’s environment and the quality of life of those who live and work here, while being speciously justified by skilful and artful Kafkaesque bureaucratic gobbledegook and virtuously presented as being for the public good.

This cannot simply be the consequence of mismanagement or incompetence by the various departments in question. Residents have seen this happen so regularly that it appears to be a deliberate and cynical abuse of power which has made many local people feel that they have been robbed of their inalienable right to have a meaningful role or contribution in the decisions that affect their lives.

Although it is understood that consultations are not referendums, it is imperative that the wishes of local people are taken into serious consideration by those in authority when major proposals are being considered.

Consulting communities on major proposals and paying proper attention to their responses is a fundamental principle of local democracy. Councils have a responsibility to ensure those who will be most affected by their proposals are properly informed and given sufficient time to prepare a considered response. All too often Camden’s duty of care to ensure that this happens has been totally inadequately.

In fact it has happened so regularly that it is hard to escape the conclusion that there has been a deliberately calibrated policy to attract as little attention as possible to potentially unpopular or controversial proposals so that those most affected are given insufficient time to respond.

As a result, many local people have often felt that their reasonable objections have been unjustifiably dismissed by those in positions of power, thereby proving themselves either incapable or unwilling to fulfil their democratic obligations with honesty, integrity or in good faith.

Such officers are ill qualified to occupy positions of responsibility or authority and unworthy of the trust with which they have been invested.

Such seemingly small scale abuses of local power, when selfish and fixated ideologies are placed above the best interests or the wishes of local people, is symptomatic of a deeper malaise. When the principles of local democracy are not properly observed in either practice or spirit, or even abused, it sets a dangerous precedent that undermines the most basic principles of democracy as a whole.

It reduces the essential and necessary accountability of the decision makers to those they represent, thereby developing a schism between those who govern and those who are governed.

Alienation and distrust of the democratic process soon creates a dangerous atmosphere of cynicism which, as we have recently seen, is fertile soil for extreme groups all too eager to leap upon the failure of democracy and those in authority.

If we truly wish to live in a fair society governed by democratic principles, it is essential that democratic practices are seen to be done in a fair, open and meaningful way.

RUSSELL GRANT, NW1