• AFTER considerable ingenuity we have found that some eight firms of consultants have been, or are currently, employed in the Gospel Oak area.

Seven are paid by Camden Council, one by Murphy’s Yard. There are a further four “in-house” consultations, all of which cost the council taxpayer.

Despite requests no overall information on costs have been provided.

We found that two “consultations” related to the future of Queen’s Crescent cost a total of some £65k and the in-house one of 2016, which had almost 1,000 respondents, was said to have cost at least £35k. This outstanding report was ditched.

In addition to the above there have been extensive consultations with the Wendling and West Kentish Town estates and on the closure of Carlton School and Lismore Circus nursery.

We are also aware that the council is employing an unknown number of staff, many on consultations, through agencies on what are in reality zero-hour contracts.

The problem is that a veil of secrecy hangs over all the groups involved in the consultations.

Some consultation, like the one on libraries, does not include any input from users; and others, like the Carlton Community Provision working group, consist almost entirely of council staff.

Where residents have been “selected” for inclusion they are bound by a confidentiality clause and their names not made public.

How all these “consultations” link up nobody from the council will – or can – say. And what have we residents got for all these efforts?

Three less community buildings, 40 less workshops, 40 to 50 less council rent flats (only46 of the dilapidated 89 council flats were replaced), an about to be closed primary school, a depleted street market, broken pavements, a huge “bomb site” from 2015, that would do the Luftwaffe proud, and a legion of well-paid consultants.

Oh, I forgot the unspent (since February 2018) £1.1million grant for regenerating Queen’s Crescent from the GLA “sitting” in the council’s bank account.

MICK FARRANT, NW5