• THE continuing charm offensive for the Royal Free Hospital new building unwittingly revealed its true motivation at a recent meeting.

It became clear that the location, dangerously close to Grade I-listed St Stephen’s, was chosen specifically because the “landscaping” (destroying a leafy cobbled lane with ugly, municipal terracing) could conveniently incorporate the meadowland gifted to the community of Hampstead Green.

The landscape architects gushingly told the meeting how excited they were to be able to take advantage of (that is, get a free ride from) this attractive prospect.

Many can’t quite see how or why something gifted to the community needed to become a cipher in a complex revenue-raising scheme for the RFH Trust designed to give private patients the charming view of meadow grass and meadow flowers in season, as opposed to the grim brutalism of the Royal Free itself.

CHRIS FAGG
Hampstead Green Neighbourhood Group