Empty commercial building in Queen’s Crescent

• THE Community Investment Programme scrutiny panel report concentrated, rightly, on the abject failures of the programme to meet the needs of homes for ordinary Camden residents, rather concentrating on the needs of the super-rich, who can afford £950,000 for a three-bedroom, leasehold, property on a council estate.

It did not address the issues of other properties. In Gospel Oak the programme has led to the loss of around 40 small workshops, all employing local people.

No sign of their replacement, but there are at least five empty, large, commercial council buildings in the area which could be used for this purpose. Some have been empty for many months or even years.

Two of these on Queen’s Crescent are now being converted, no doubt at great expense, into offices for council staff. See the picture, above, of one of these with its decoration, no doubt part of the nearby street painting which is reported to have cost £25,000.

Elsewhere, in Lismore Circus, there is a former children’s nursery, closed, along with Carlton school, by the council last summer.

Officers have allowed two voluntary groups who provide food to those struggling to manage to move into the nursery.

While this is to be applauded, why were other groups not given the opportunity to bid for the space? Why have officers failed to respond to other applicants? Are these groups having to pay rent?

A nearby community centre which has, as part of its services, a food bank, is to pay the council £50k per year and another local charity gets a 10-year rent-free period.

Do we need another scrutiny panel to investigate what is going on to lift the blanket of secrecy, explain the squandering of our money, and very questionable and seemingly unfair decision-making… in essence the council taxing those in food poverty?

MICK FARRANT, NW5