• DISGUSTINGLY, the difficulties of dealing with public bodies is wider and deeper than just the devious departments of the London Borough of Camden, (Let’s boycott the council’s planning consultations, July 25, and Abuses of local power, July 18).

In my circle of friends I know older carers having immense difficulties getting care and help for their loved ones, from children to older relatives; residents of all areas of Camden fighting inappropriate developments, many involving the homes they live in; and nearly all people trying to get appropriate medical care.

But dealing with Camden clearly illustrates these wider issues as your recent pages – in fact probably every issue of CNJ in recent years – will confirm.

I have been deeply involved in trying to stop the 100 Avenue Road scheme, to be built next to our small local park and right alongside the Swiss Cottage gyratory system, after Camden planning officers sat around tables with developers for months (sometimes with knives and forks we suspect), in secret, helping them devise a scheme so utterly inappropriate that it was instantly rejected by our councillors, once they were told about it.

But this is where it turns nasty.

Thanks to our national planning regulations, councils do not have the last word over the areas they manage, so developers can appeal their decisions!

This happened with the 100 Avenue Road scheme when the appeal led to a public inquiry which an official from the national planning council conducted over several weeks.

He was presented with all the evidence from detailed technical reports covering its appalling visual impact, daylight and sunlight, issues relating to local buildings of historical importance, as well as all matters related to the specifics of the site – most notably the almost total lack of direct access to the building, except via a low tunnel under the Hampstead Theatre – and it will likely house over 400 people. Perhaps they can fly!

He then returned to his office, supposedly reviewing all this evidence, some of which he had seen for himself when he visited the area briefly.

But, after consulting the national rules and regulations, he simply overruled all the local concerns – as detailed by experts and expressed by tens of thousands of local residents – and gave the project a rubber stamp.

So, while I sympathise with your correspondents, the battle with Camden is only a small part of the problem.

We need national policies which give local authorities real control over their areas, apart from a few items such as national infrastructure projects: although the High Speed 2 disaster is an example of how stupidly bad that can become.

Then, at local level, we need our councillors to play a direct role in controlling the council departments, rather then letting them drive the system without any control, as is the case at present.

I worked for many large private companies and in them the managerial control comes by making departments develop plans which the managers then examine and decide if they fit with the company’s overall strategy before any actions are taken.

So I would like councillors to replicate that sort of management.

Instead of letting the planning and other departments do what they like, our councillors should demand monthly reports on who the departmental officers are planning to talk
to, about what, and in as much detail as possible.

This way, the councillors – who probably know their areas better than the officers sitting in dark offices with just road maps – can guide them to creating better neighbourhoods and more harmonious buildings with better facilities for local people.

This would result in a smoother process, hopefully faster too, unlike the 100 Avenue Road disaster which has just passed its first decade of uselessness.

So why plan at all?

Why not just let developers build what they want?

OK perhaps not with spikes at eye-level.

Oh, I just read that the new Labour government is planning to cut local council rights to zero, so we’ll soon see how bad things can get.

DAVID REED, NW3