‘Many residents and businesses welcome the planned closure of the Camden High Street market’

• A LONG hot summer in Camden Town has seen little improvement in relentless, in-your-face, drug dealing, aggressive begging, rough sleeping, obstructive pavement clutter and windblown drifts of litter – according to residents and businesses who contribute to the monthly Camden Community Safety Partnership meeting, which I attend on behalf of the Camden Safer Neighbourhood Board.

Meanwhile in the face of council and police cuts, businesses are paying hundreds of thousands of pounds per year for private security wardens (who inevitably lack the wide legal powers of the police) in an effort to keep dealers and beggars at bay.

One positive development: many residents and businesses welcome the planned closure of the Camden High Street market on Buck Street, which, it is claimed, has consistently provided cover for street drug dealers.

A visit last Saturday afternoon highlighted the issues – Camden High Street on a warm afternoon reeling under the crush of visitors, parading four or five abreast, with pavement obstruction by traders extending their displays over two metres beyond the permitted limit, and reducing the surging crowds to single file between Hawley Crescent and the canal bridge.

I watched pedestrians stepping into the road in order to bypass the congestion caused. No police or council presence was visible. By 7pm the shops are shut and Camden Town, along with the rest of the borough, is given over to Camden’s much-vaunted night-time economy.

Despite heavy council investment in uri-lifts, the spectacle of public urination in the late evening / early hours remains an unsavoury concern for residents, along with epic quantities of litter.

At the same time, Transport for London staff at Camden Town tube struggle to cope with late-night anti-social behaviour outside and inside the station. Elsewhere, in Seven Dials and Covent Garden, residents report rough sleeping and heroin addiction dominating the night hours.

The two hard-working police teams tasked to police the night-time economy, and paid for by the late-night levy imposed on pubs and clubs, have to cover the whole borough, all 24 square miles of it, three nights a week between 9pm and 4am. It’s not enough.

These are uncomfortable truths which must be faced. With winter on the way, the hope is that improvements will be made over coming months, and will be duly praised – but right now, Camden Council and central north police have to understand the situation is bad, and getting worse.

CHRIS FAGG
Vice-Chair
Camden Safer Neighbourhood Board