• CAMLEY Street residents and business have been working together exploring options for the future of Camley Street since 2012.

Councillor Danny Beales (Facts about the council’s approach on Camley Street, July 18) misrepresents our views when he says that the Camley Street Neighbourhood Forum insists on “a massive joint venture” with Camden “…holding 100 per cent of the financial risk, but with only 50 per cent ownership”. We don’t.

He then belittles our world-leading aspirations for affordable housing by saying we make “no mention of council housing”, completely omitting our stated long-term aim of achieving 100 per cent affordable housing comprising 60 per cent London Living Rent and 40 per cent social rent levels.

He knows we’ve said that social rent housing can and should be part of Camley Street’s future and that options for keeping social rent housing outside of right-to-buy should also be considered.

All we ask is that Camden starts its process for determining the future of Camley Street by involving residents and business that already work and live in the Camley Street area as full and active participants at all stages of the Camley Street project – right from the very start.

What Cllr Beales is doing is the opposite of that. The proposal he presented to Camden cabinet contains only one option, effectively dismissing all others.

Yes, we are promised that we will be “consulted” but those are empty words if many of the options have already been dismissed and the big decisions already taken.

That’s why we asked our councillors, our democratically elected representatives, to recall the Camley Street Supplementary Planning Document and decisions by Camden cabinet.

And this is a big “thank you for supporting us” from a resident of the Camley Street area to all those councillors who did so.

Let’s have more democracy that works like that. Let’s have transparency and involvement from the very beginning and an open-minded approach to all possible options for the Camley Street project – not what we fear will be some tokenism at the end.

PETER McGINTY
Secretary
Camley Street
Neighbourhood Forum