• CAMDEN streets have become filthier since rubbish collections and road-sweeping has been given to a private company, and garbage collections have been reduced to every two weeks.

Too many developers have free rein to build expensive, non-affordable, not-needed, ugly, housing blocks, with practically zero council restrictions, even though they are in conservation areas and adjacent to listed buildings.

Compensation, if any, for residents’ loss of rights to light and amenity, is nominal… one thing has become blatantly clear, the construction trade and developers rule. The ruination of a once vibrant and diverse Camden will not relieve the economics of working people and their facilities. Only the very few will fill their pockets.

A minor example is Oval Road now ruined from months of heavy vehicles passing through to the Centric Close site. Camden Council voted to build the housing in Centric Close, hinged on the fact that a large proportion of flats would be low-income affordable housing for salaries of £40,000 per year. The sign outside says, “Luxury apartments”.

HS2 has driven people out of their homes without payment of 90 per cent market value as promised. The council has not been able to help affected homes satisfactorily.

And HS2 Ltd, as well as the popular media, haven’t broadcast the fact that this high-speed train will make our air quality far far worse, especially in central London where there will be immense long-term demolition and construction works, while closing some of its inner open green spaces, and, a mass deforestation practically across the entire country.

What happened to giving huge fines to vehicle engines left running when stationary? I just returned from New York where I could breathe. Coming out of Camden Town tube for the first time, the air pollution in Parkway really hit me.

After the government lost thrice in the high courts to Client Earth, the bottom line is that the very elevated air pollution is not taken seriously enough for either our local or national government to take the necessary actions.

PRIMAVERA BOMAN-BEHRAM
NW1