St James Gardens in Euston

• IN her letter (Does the council back flipping plan to distort our townscape? March 30) the chair of Camden Civic Society Dorothea Hackman rightly draws attention to the fact that the historic urban landscape of Euston Square Gardens is apparently being ignored.

First, no thought at all has been given to the fact that the square is in the Bloomsbury Conservation Area. When Camden Council designated the conservation area they specifically included the gardens in Euston Square as the northern-most extension to the area.

Secondly, at no time has the Bloomsbury Conservation Area Advisory Committee, which covers this area, even been consulted about these proposals.

On October 18 2014, Bloomsbury CAAC submitted our detailed comments on Camden’s draft Euston Area Plan with full details of all the historic buildings in the remaining parts of Euston Square around the gardens, together with a list of all the famous architects responsible for them.

In those comments we stressed the fact that Bloomsbury is not merely of national but international importance, with the earliest garden squares developed in the English manner, supplemented by later but sympathetic classical squares and developments.

Any proposal for Euston Square and the gardens has to be considered not only in the light of the council’s duty to preserve or enhance the conservation area, but also to comply with the statutory protections for the listed buildings in and around them, including, importantly, the obligation to preserve or enhance the “setting” of those listed buildings that has been confirmed and strengthened by recent case law.

Any reorientation of the square and the development of any tall building there would fail all these tests. It would also be a most extraordinary irony in the year in which we are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the introduction of conservation areas following the rabid development of the 1960s.

ANTHONY JENNINGS
Bloomsbury Conservation Area Advisory Committee
Bloomsbury Street, WC1