• IS it only me that finds it ironic that in the September 27 New Journal we get a two-page spread about the council’s latest glossy report – this time on knife crime – and an article about how a project which focused on one of the documents five key recommendations, (Prevent) was forced to close?

The project ran over the summer and was attended by over 200 young people. The reason for this closure was because Camden is now demanding £10,000 a year rent from the voluntary organisation to continue its much needed work in Gospel Oak.

However this is by no means the only voluntary project working with “at risk” young people which has to pay the council high rents and other hefty charges.

The official council mantra is that they give total grants of £6million a year to the voluntary sector in the borough, not all to youth projects, of course, but more, it is claimed, than any other London borough. What the council fails to explain is that an estimated £2million is clawed back in rents and other charges.

Perhaps somebody in the council could explain the bizarre rationale and logic for such a “policy”; £10,000 would pay for an additional part-time youth worker for a year. A young person taken into care for just 10 weeks would cost the council, we understand, £10,000.

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