• WHEN Camden was tasked with preserving and enhancing its historic buildings and townscapes, nobody realised this remit extended to Camden’s own website too.

The planning records site, set up to allow the public to view planning application documents, has been remarkably preserved in its original form since its creation in 1530.

Chartered by Henry VIII, this was in fact the last time that Camden achieved anything remotely useful for its residents.

As a result, it only manages to load a web page 5 per cent of the time, and remarkably only if you’re in London and at certain times of the day.

This curious feature is hardly replicated throughout the entire web, and forms an essential part of the special character of Camden’s world-famous idiocy.

Despite numerous representations made by web developers to improve the site and bring it up to modern standards, Camden’s planners have bravely refused, recognising that the public benefit of a site that actually works does not outweigh the harm caused to altering a prehistoric heritage asset in any way whatsoever.

It is rumoured that planning chief Cllr Danny Beales is seeking a Unesco World Retardation Site designation to ensure we can properly celebrate and preserve this important obstruction to Camden’s statutory duty to consult with the public, and give it the international recognition it deserves as one of the most outdated and dysfunctional websites in the world.

I will be writing a letter of support for this cause and urge all the good residents of Camden to do the same. We cannot allow modern trends and common sense to give us access to public documents which we must be supplied with by law.

OWEN WARD
Bloomsbury Conservation Area Advisory Committee Secretary
…& Web Developer