How the Utopia Village proposal in Primrose Hill could look

• IN the past two issues of the CNJ there have been many columns and letters (Dan Carrier, Martin Sheppard, Hadley Freeman, John Stratton et al) about the parlous state of community engagement shaping planning in Camden.

The public meeting ostensibly to discuss the plans by Utopia Village’s owner (Rupert Murdoch’s daughter) to install three enormous heat pumps possibly exhaling 24/7 noise pollution in the midst of an area of close-knit terraced houses in Primrose Hill was a particularly striking example.

What struck me most about the evening was the unremittingly morose dispositions of the meeting’s chair, Cllr Heather Johnson and her assistant Beth (whose role was not properly explained). I did not notice one single smile from either during the entire event.

What, I wondered, made the two so apparently sad and depressed on this occasion? Many observers would answer that it was their shared sense of shame, for the meeting was a sham.

What was billed as a debate between council and citizens was no more than mediocre theatre.

The decision to approve the planning application had clearly been made long before the meeting. The carefully prepared facts and arguments presented by the deputation representing objectors to the heat pumps included lack of adequate consultation by the applicant, false references to distances between pumps and houses, total secrecy surrounding why the huge pumps were needed in the first place, lack of any attempt to check noise levels in other comparable locations.

The deputation, ably led by Simon Todd and supported politely, carefully, and bravely by Primrose Hill councillor Matt Cooper.

All objections were disdainfully brushed aside despite it being clearly possible to check their veracity. No wonder there was no smiling. The shame of it all must, even if subconsciously, have felt unbearable to the chair and her colleague.

How different all the above chicanery was to the time, some years ago, that many of us fought against the decision by the leisure committee, then chaired by Cllr Phil Turner, to close and sell some of our libraries. Wikipedia <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Turner> tells the story of the 13 courageous councillors who voted against the whip to overturn the decision.

Throughout the dispute, Turner treated us all with respect and dignity and after the death of the late Cllr Aileen Hammond he had the grace to acknowledge that she and we were right and he was wrong.

We are in a quite different space now: independence of thought is a sackable offence, as the shameful deselection of three creatively independent then councillors Paul Tomlinson, Leo Cassarani, and Simon Pearson before the local elections last year showed.

We retain one card, which fortunately turns out to be an ace. The applicant’s paid representatives at the meeting promised that if the noise made by the heat pumps exceeded that of a person’s whisper the attempt to install them would be abandoned.

We will keep them to their word. Any attempt to backtrack on this promise will lead to the launch of the strongest possible politico-judicial processes.

TOM SELWYN, NW1