Potential impact of towers over the city farm

• THE Kentish Town City Farm is very disappointed with the scheme produced for the Murphy’s Yard site and urges Camden councillors and the community to object to the planning application in its current form.

We have engaged with the development team both in person and in the online consultations to express our concerns and, contrary to all reports of what the developer has said, all comments have fallen on deaf ears.

Even comments from Camden’s own design review panel about the scheme have not been heeded as can be evidenced in the submitted planning documents.

The development as currently proposed involves building three tower blocks containing apartments, two of which are 18 storeys and directly overlook the Kentish Town City Farm.

The scale, height, and overall bulk of these two towers adjacent to the farm are completely out of scale with the surroundings and will be detrimental to the immediate neighbourhood.

They contravene policy D3 – Design Principles of the Kentish Town Neighbourhood Plan, which clearly states developments “must be well integrated into their surroundings and reinforce and enhance the local character”.

The location of the towers directly overlooks the riding arena, which is often used for programmes run for vulnerable young adults and children as well as disabled participants.

This poses a real problem for the farm to provide adequate safeguarding to those that are taking part in these programmes who may well be affected by the fact of being overlooked.

What is incredible is that in the planning documents there is a “town and visual impact assessment” produced for the developer which brazenly states that “the proposed development would improve visibility in the area” and that “this change would be of a moderate magnitude to a view of low-medium sensitivity. The significance would be moderate. The effect would be beneficial”.

This is incredible on both levels – a totally inaccurate statement which is unbelievable; and, secondly, this should throw a lack of credibility on the whole report.

An attached visual is taken from this report with the wire frame outlines filled in to give a more realistic idea of impact (above).

We would also like to draw to the developers’ and to Camden planners’ attention that lower height developments can still achieve densities and give improved neighbourliness, as evidenced by the many recent neighbourhood schemes such as Rochester Way built for Greenwich Council or McGrath Road in Newham, the latter receiving the 2021 Neave Brown Award from RIBA and both designed by the same architect who has been working sensitively around the Kiln Place neighbourhood, adjacent to the farm and to Murphy’s Yard.

We wholeheartedly support other neighbourhood groups and members of our community in objecting to this application and for the developer and their team to create better solutions that suit this site and our neighbourhood.

ANGELA WOODS
The Trustees of KTCF