The development site in Kentish Town

• READING your report (High times ahead in Kentish Town? November 14) about the forthcoming redevelopment of the very large site just off Kentish Town Road, it is surely concerning that the developer envisages putting yet more people into tower blocks up to 18 storeys in height, at a time when the building regulations have not yet been revised in the wake of Grenfell and it is still perfectly legal to build residential towers with a single dark narrow staircase as the only escape route – still relying on the discredited “stay-put” policy that led to so many deaths.

I am particularly concerned that the Kentish Town Neighbourhood Forum seems to welcome the developer’s ideas and is satisfied with reassurances along the lines of “never mind the tower blocks, look at the wonderful landscaping”. Alternatively the Kentish Town Road Action Group is already, correctly in my view, is warning that high buildings are not the appropriate solution.

I am equally concerned by the Dartmouth Park Neighbourhood Forum member Kelly Pawlyn who says how impressed she is by the so-called “landscape-driven” project and the future prospect (which I would call a mirage) of “a meandering route to the Heath, through a series of changing urban landscapes and gardens” which she believes will be “aspirational and respectful… offering a contemporary vision of how live/work spaces and accommodation can create a vibrant garden city/village”.

I find it depressing that such PR guff can hoodwink intelligent people. The claim of the developer seems to be that the required number of dwellings cannot be fitted on this site without going high. That is not true.

As a architect, I can assure your readers that the same amount of residential accommodation can be achieved by the imaginative design of low-rise housing interspersed with meaningful public spaces, gardens, etc. Back in the 1960s exactly the same issue arose on an equally large construction site between Kilburn and Swiss Cottage.

It was suggested to the architect, the late Neave Brown, that he should quickly plonk three or four 16-storey towers on it, leaving open (supposedly “landscaped”) space all around them. But the perspicacious Brown challenged that assumption.

Working carefully, he designed instead a low-rise housing estate for 520 families that is a wonderful place in which to live, with a real sense of community, and that has become one of the most famous architectural masterpieces in the world, the Alexandra and Ainsworth estate.

I suspect the real reason why developers want to put people into tower blocks is that tall buildings are much, much cheaper to design and build.

The architect simply needs to plan one floor and then stack identical floors one on top of another. Tower blocks of that kind are very cheap and quick to construct because each block only requires a single set of foundations to support the whole building, and very simple, single, vertical stacks for all the pipework and drainage, etc.

For a more complex development of low-rise flats and houses, the foundations are much more extensive and each individual dwelling or group of dwellings requires its own water pipes, drainage, etc.

I feel that in pursuit of profit, the good people of Kentish Town are having the wool pulled over their eyes with fancy language and PR guff about “landscape-driven” design and are being persuaded to accept the idea that this site must necessarily be developed as tall buildings.

That is not the case, and there is an opportunity here for thoughtful architects to design something much better. Let’s not throw it away.

TOM MUIRHEAD
Address supplied