• CAMDEN Council is to be applauded for dedicating a full council meeting to the climate emergency and considering various ideas from a range of sources to include in an action plan to begin next year.

Although this is not enough or fast enough to halt, let alone reverse, the damage to our planet, Camden still scores better than most at 84 per cent in the Friends of the Earth assessment of local authorities. https://friendsoftheearth.uk/climate-friendly-communities.

However there’s no point in having a climate assembly and purporting to lead the way on all things green, while building investment blocks on green space.

You will remember how trees and green spaces were sacrificed to the detriment of the residents on the Regent’s Park Estate, and this has happened again in Somers Town.

At the very same meeting about the climate emergency, on October 7, the council agreed to hand over the Brill Place park area to a foreign consortium for many millions of pounds. So that is yet another green space with trees lost as a community resource in Camden.

Even though this project was championed by councillors Phil Jones, Theo Blackwell and Sarah Hayward, almost all the current administration voted for it as cabinet or planning committee members.

We are in a context where first HS2 has been allowed by the government to demolish and destroy the area to the west of Euston station.

This is noise, pollution, vibration, traffic disruption and stress suffered by thousands of local residents for decades, without compensation, and the damage has been done with mature trees felled whether or not the HS2 tracks are constructed.

The area is at the mercy now of developers, but it is essential it is returned to us as a green lung. And secondly the planet as well as Camden must preserve trees and reduce pollution if we are not to degenerate into food and water shortages with refugees fleeing rising ocean levels.

The tower of luxury flats to be built on Brill Place will overlook neighbouring council tenants, taking their light and integration as well as trees and green space.

It was fully detailed in the planning application, and was part of the master plan granted full planning permission.

There is an application in at the moment to alter the tower’s design to include an electric substation at ground level. https://www.pbctoday.co.uk/news/planning-construction-news/joint-venture-kings-cross/60599/

DOROTHEA HACKMAN
Chair, Camden Civic Society