• IN their deal-making with Landsec, developer of the vast O2 site, Finchley Road, Camden Council’s negotiators really need to smarten up their act.

Your March 25 report of the public meeting about the envisaged 2,000 new homes makes a comparison with the nearby Alexandra and Ainsworth Estate, which is the same size as the O2 but consists of only 520 homes: a number that was already controversial in the 1970s when the A&A was being designed, because the council feared the density would be excessive.

In the case of the O2 environmental conditions in the 2,000 homes – four times as many – are likely to create a 21st-century slum, exacerbated by Landsec’s miserably poor design proposals, which Katharine Bligh tellingly characterised as “Micky Mouse cartoons”.

And when it comes to Landsec’s promised 700 (35 per cent) “affordable” housing (which actually means “unaffordable” anyway) will Camden’s highly-paid lawyers let themselves be hoodwinked yet again?

Will they finally learn how to tie a developer into a contract that doesn’t allow it to escape from its commitments at a later stage, regardless of “market forces”? Their track record of failure suggests they probably won’t even try.

TOM MUIRHEAD, NW8