• MANY of us living in Dartmouth Park or Gospel Oak will have experienced Gordon House Road bottle-necks. When they happen, you are stuck.

And, worse still, this is the only through-route connecting Dartmouth Park and north Kentish Town with Royal Free Hospital and the local ambulance station in Cressy Road.

What we have with Gordon House Road is narrow road, narrow pavements, heavy traffic, heavy footfall. Not a good combination, and neither road nor pavement can be widened.

Among those squeezing along these narrow two-abreast pavements, between pedestrian railings and crumbling, leaking, railway bridge walls, are Gospel Oak station passengers and hundreds of school children attending Gospel Oak Primary, Parliament Hill and La Sainte Union.

Accidents are waiting to happen right here, right now, even before Murphy’s Yard development adds further footfall to these wholly inadequate pavements.

And what happens when existing vehicle numbers are swelled by heavy construction vehicles or tradesmen’s and delivery vans, taxis, and the like, once the estate is completed?

And how will the new Murphy’s Yard ingress-egress planned for Gordon House Road further restrict traffic flow? Maybe the whole area will grind to a halt, ambulances and all?

Murphy’s traffic flow modelling, done before Covid-19, appears somewhat of an underestimation and does not seem to reflect the reality of what will obviously be increased traffic movements.

Similarly the reality of actually living on the new Murphy’s estate may be different from what we’ve been told; 825 homes are planned for tower blocks up to 19 storeys high for an area as small as the triangle running from Gospel Oak School, along Mansfield Road, to Estelle Road, up Estelle and back down Savernake to the school. A tiny space for a massive development.

One side of the blocks will overlook the railway, and from Murphy’s model most appear overcast in shadows produced by neighbouring blocks.

And that’s without considering windshear, or the strong evidence that tall tower blocks generate all manner of social problems and are not conducive to safe and comfortable living or a healthy new community.

My local residents’ association, Elaine Grove and Oak Village Residents’ Association, has worked with Murphy’s on these plans for some time, as have others.

In various responses we have pointed to the excellent examples of low-rise housing just round the corner from the Murphy’s site, in Cressfield Close and Woodyard Close.

It’s not too late for Murphy’s to reconsider, and also to go back to the drawing board regards the unresolved problems with Gordon House Road.

If you have concerns about this development, you can lodge comments by February 7 – with Camden planning.

See plans: http://camdocs.camden.gov.uk/HPRMWebDrawer/PlanRec?q=recContainer:%222021/3225/P%22

Add comments: https://planningrecords.camden.gov.uk/Northgate/PlanningExplorer/PLComments.aspx?pk=567580

MYRA FARNWORTH
Oak Village, NW5