The Regis Road recycling centre would be replaced – but there are environmental warnings against demolishing the retrofitted Holmes Road depots

• CAMDEN residents will get an unmissable opportunity next week to participate in a major national climate action event, kicking off with a peaceful walk from ­Parliament Hill to Parliament Square on the morning of Friday 21st.

Extinction Rebellion are inviting everybody to “Unite to Survive” at a four-day family-friendly action, April 21-24, where people from more than 70 organisations will gather in Westminster to demand “a citizen-led democracy to end the fossil fuel era” and “a fair society that includes reparation”.

The march through Camden will enable us to highlight the council’s failure to live up to its commitments to tackle climate change and protect the environment.

Last week you reported how Labour councillors on the culture and environment committee attacked Liberal Democrat councillors who contested the cabinet’s decision to sell off and demolish the Holmes Road depot and offices, (Mini-Hollywood plan for Kentish Town as big firm plans ‘film quarter’, April 6).

Officers and members dissembled as to whether demolition is proposed. However the papers make this aspect very clear: nearly 50 per cent of the sale value of the site is earmarked to cover the cost of rebuilding the depot, offices and council homes that currently occupy it.

The depot and offices were renovated at a cost of £8.4million just two years ago. But Labour councillors would rather follow the party line than properly scrutinise council decision-making in relation to the climate and ecological emergency.

The decision to demolish and rebuild will result in construction with very high up-front greenhouse gas emissions unlikely to be compensated by energy saved in use for 60 years or more. In addition, with such an inflated price paid, the developer’s ability to provide affordable housing will be constrained.

Councillors have learned nothing from the controversial O2 Centre plan in West Hampstead, where the developer was able to get away with not meeting targets for affordable homes, green space or GHG emissions due to “viability” problems. And the plan also includes the unnecessary demolition of an existing building.

The council’s decision perpetuates “business as usual”, which must be challenged. We call on councillors and senior staff to learn more about embodied carbon and read the recent UN Inter­govern­mental Panel on Climate Change special report, which calls on all countries to step up their action on tackling the climate and ecological emergency.

A “just transition” recognises the prospect of three billion people suffering the effects of climate change in the near future; we need to take decisions that will reduce its severity, not increase it.

Let’s join Camden Extinction Rebellion and many other groups in their walk from Parliament Hill at 9.30am on April 21– to call on Camden Council to stop their climate vandalism.

Please email us for more information.

CLIMATE EMERGENCY CAMDEN
climateemergencycamden@gmail.com