• ACCORDING to New London Architecture’s 10th annual tall buildings report, there are 583 tall buildings with more than 20 storeys in the pipeline.

There are fears that London could turn into a mini-Manhattan as a result. From the CNJ of October 31 it seems Camden is destined to be part of this.

The local authority wants to see a 23-storey tower in Gospel Oak and Euston is lined up to become a new Canary Wharf (Sir Simon Jenkins has warned that this will result from bringing HS2 to Euston).

This follows recent development proposals for Regis Road and the Murphy sites with similar scale buildings.

In the future, if Camden Council can get away with this at Bacton estate, there is a real danger that Wendling and St Stephen’s estate and West Kentish Town estate could go the same way, with massive post-ballot increases in density and height.

This is despite the knowledge that high-rise development is not a good way to achieve well-designed, dense urban settings for people to live and work.

European cities do much better without the blight of towers that we see in Vauxhall, Southwark and Lewisham. The Greater London Authority investigated the risks of high-rise housing in 2020 (see www.coalitionagainsthighrisecamden.uk).

If this concerns you, write to your councillors to plead for a more humane approach to development in Camden. For all our sakes.

NAME AND ADDRESS SUPPLIED, NW3