• IN March, despite efforts to suppress it, the Community Investment Panel Scrutiny Panel produced its report.

The three Labour Party authors have since been “retired”! Their main recommendation was “to develop and publish a clear set of objectives … based on up-to-date assessment of … housing needs”.

So far as the Gospel Oak/Haverstock needs are concerned, we have the following: The West Kentish Town Develop­ment budget has now risen from £300m to £565m, with dire warnings that costs will increase considerably, the completion date put back from 2035 to 2040. All this for an extra 12 council-rent flats apparently.

Compare this with the derelict Bacton Low Rise site – scheduled for completion five years ago.

Add to this the plans to demolish the Wendling site and the controversy about the Murphy’s Yard site where the developers just withdrew their planning application.

Shambles does not even begin to describe it.

However, little attention has been given to what may be the seismic changes to Camden in the next 20 years, people working from homes outside the borough, changes already in place on deliveries .

Who will want to purchase the additional two-bedroom flats in our area, costing £750k and three-bedroom £950k when they may only come to work two days a week? Might many of the estimated extra 2,000 flats merely become very short-term lets for tourists?

Camden 2040 will not be the same as Camden 2020 upon which the plans seem to be based. Most worrying is the financial impact of these schemes on the wider council activities, education, social services and existing housing repairs, to name but a few.

MICK FARRANT, NW5