Queen’s Crescent was portrayed as the ‘bad lands’

• TV viewers may have marvelled at the documentary on Channel 4 on Thursday February 2, In the Footsteps of Killers, about the mysterious disappearances of two of our well-known local Gospel Oak residents back in 2013.

The speculation, based purely on hearsay, was that the remains of one of them was fed to pigs in Epping Forest.

Queen’s Crescent was portrayed as the “bad lands” inhabited by murderers and drug dealers with accompanying aerial shots. Film producers possibly felt that it was too dangerous to walk on the ground in the crescent!

It might also explain why it is necessary for the Camden mayor (see Private Eye & CNJ) to travel in expensive chauffer-driven hired luxury vehicles.

The programme will have done wonders for the image of the area which is looking more and more run down by the day, despite the Greater London Authority pouring millions into its regeneration back in February 2018… or rather into the pockets of a legion of consultants. Empty building sites, vacant flats and council buildings, proliferate.

Yet despite the continuing neglect of Camden Council, others have made some progress; the police have removed some of the most dangerous individuals and the voluntary sector provides warm rooms, youth programmes, hot meals, a food bank and a food co-operative despite, in some cases, having to pay the council high rents for the privilege.

Seemingly the wicked Conservative government has recently given our area some £7.1million “levelling up” funding. Will this follow the £3.1million above into the pockets of consultants without any meaningful consultation with those of us who work and live in Gospel Oak?

Perhaps the council could use some of this money to make their own documentary of all the wonderful regeneration they have achieved in our supposedly blighted area over the last decade.

MICK FARRANT, NW5