• SUCH was the Camden planning committee chairwoman’s determination to press ahead with early demolition of 100 Avenue Road to make way for Essential Living’s 24-storey tower block that she only agreed to allow a one-minute silence in the council chamber to honour the victims of the inferno at Grenfell Tower.

It seems to me remarkably insensitive that councillors carried on regardless and made swift work of granting permission for work to begin on the Swiss Cottage tower not even 24 hours after the disaster.

Perhaps they were anticipating a public outcry that would inevitably follow the disaster. Perhaps they whisked through the appeal for early demolition in the hope that building could start before calls to halt all further construction of high-rises kicked in.

Already ex-government adviser Nathalie Elphicke has written: “Following the Grenfell tragedy, we must urgently review the future of high-rise tower blocks in our cities” and “enact an immediate pause on the construction of new blocks that haven’t yet started”. Timing is all.

EDIE RAFF
Chair, Cresta House Residents Association