• HAVE you played it yet, Camden’s very own version of Development Monopoly, the game that gives you the regeneration shivers and viability a bad name?

The council had to be dragged kicking and screaming to follow other boroughs in publishing viability reports.

You know, those documents which provide a guaranteed 20 per cent profit on development, irrespective of whether other factors in the economy go up or down; the documents that pretend to value future sales on current market expectations but always find they cannot deliver on commitments.

Since we are talking viability, what do we think of an outfit purchasing a plot of land, after being wooed by our borough to come to Camden for fantastic investment returns and with planning permission to build a structure with X number of investment homes, within a year discovering that they simply cannot make the finances stack up unless they are given permission to expand the number of agreed homes by 25 per cent (plus a whole lot more amendments to add to their profitability), while residents lose even more of the little they had in terms of green open space for an expanding population?

All labelled amendments.

This is what is being asked of Camden, and if there hadn’t been a huge brouhaha about it, these would simply have gone through on the nod.

No doubt they still will at the planning committee, but at least it is not behind closed doors.

At the same time, the venture capitalists tell us they cannot contribute more in terms of social homes or community benefit (or so we are told).

It is obvious that to allow this practice is to set a dangerous planning precedent.

The key players in the Camden Development Monopoly hold a fistful of “get out of jail free” cards and may as well rely on the spin of the dice as on viability assessments authored by profit-making organisations.

The biological definition of “viability” is ability to survive or live successfully.

How ironic, as so many development schemes do just the opposite, making it impossible for neighbouring communities to survive or live successfully.

JOHN WOOD
Chair, Walker House Tenants’ & Residents’ Association
& DMC Vice-Chair