• HERE in Gospel Oak the designated area for January’s Queen’s Crescent pedestrianisation consultation (purportedly all about reviving the neighbourhood high street) was different from the consultation area for last autumn’s “Haverstock & Gospel Oak Community Vision” which also identified QC as the neighbourhood’s high street.

The inconsistency is aggravating partly because it shows the dodgy relationship between the idea of a “consultation area” and the established, credible, one of a defined political area like a ward. For want of anything better, I think wards should be used for all neighbourhood consultation.

We’re told: “The local community have expressed to the council that they would like Queen’s Crescent to be more pedestrian and people-focused…”?

As for getting a representative population sample from the consultation area to take part, forget it.

So one ends up with a dodgily defined consultation area, a non-representative sample response and a consultation full of non-neutral agenda-setting.

Meantime we have put up with the pretence that a sequence of consultations is a fine way to work things through with the community. It doesn’t make sense.

Who knows how those taking part in consultation one relate to those in consultations two, three, four and five?

Sampling the population rigorously means hiring expensive people who know how to keep things honest so the data isn’t bad. But I doubt Camden actually cares that much.

Consultation is a phony substitute for investigative work that could illuminate the sociology or economy of our neighbourhood.

Camden has shown scant interest in work by sociologists who’ve studied Queen’s Crescent or proper understanding how a neighbourhood economy like ours works.

Don’t ask for consultation. Ask for a vote. If they say they want to understand your neighbourhood, tell them to do it properly without bothering you with Mickey Mouse consultations.

TOM YOUNG, NW5