• YOUR reports of the attacks and fatalities in Gospel Oak and Kentish Town make for grim reading (Camden’s bloodiest night: Family loses third young man to knife violence, February 22).

Even though the prompt police response in terms of arrests and extra patrols have had a reassuring effect on the community, the impact on the families concerned has been shattering.

But let’s make no mistake about it, this renewed level of gang violence is directly linked to the lucrative drug market in Camden Town, now increasingly franchised out to town centres outside London (the so-called County Lines) via teenagers too scared to refuse the demands of gang bosses.

There is no doubt the council is deeply concerned, to the extent of paying for extra police in the face of brutal government “savings” that have reduced the number of officers and closed police stations and custody suites.

Yet council tax payers are entitled to ask: how is it that Camden continues to host the most famous drugs market in Europe?

Where did coach loads of young people from outside London and from Europe arriving every weekend get the idea that Camden Town is the place that any drug you want is to be found for sale?

Certainly in the past Camden councillors have been eager to promote Camden Town and Camden Market as a focus for a vibrant night-time economy worth, according to some estimates, half a billion a year.

And even if it hasn’t always been easy to see how that money has gone into improving Camden services, particularly youth services, currently the victim of council cuts, its reputation has proved a boon to property developers.

Yet the law of unintended consequences means that alongside this vision has grown a monster that is now costing lives, destroying families and soaking up police resources, with every prospect of more violence to come as drug entrepreneurs compete for market share.

Isn’t it time that Camden looked again at the down side of the vision it has worked so hard to bring about, in order to come up with robust, long-term solutions?

CHRIS FAGG
Chair, Gospel Oak Safer Neighbourhood Panel