Showing the height of the proposed structure

• READERS should be aware of just how high the proposed replacement hostel at 2 Chester Road will be compared with the existing structure – designed for mentally ill residents – and which earnt the young architect Bill Forrest and Camden Council a Civic Award back in the golden age of Camden housing and community provision.

The current architect plans, as shown on Camden Council’s planning site, provide measurements but the images, unsurprisingly, give no indication that the proposed structure will dominate this part of the Dartmouth Park conservation area, block views, create wind tunnels, and cut off light.

With great ingenuity nearby residents constructed an extendable pole measuring precisely 10 metres, the height of the proposed structure, at its lowest point. See the picture, above.

It is evident that the roof line will be higher than the nearby lamp-post and considerably higher that the housing in Chester Road.

The four-storey long section of this hideous, green-tiled, industrial, structure running along Dartmouth Park Hill will be 14 metres – nearly half as high again.

Unfortunately, and despite our best efforts, we were unable to show you how high Camden want to build in order to squeeze up to 200 people into this small site.

For the sake of our community – and those homeless people who deserve reasonable habitable space – we must hope that this site does get listed.

CATHARINE WELLS
Balmore Street, N19