• SORRY, I’ve only just caught up with the local elections after digesting a 24-page booklet pushed through my letterbox by the Tories, titled Make Camden Listen, and produced “at no expense to taxpayers” it proclaimed, not adding “thanks to our sundry collection of billionaire supporters”!

But it was enlightening and said much I agreed with on almost all the local issues, although it failed to point out that much of the mess surrounding us, literally and politically, is down to major cuts in council funding in the last decade of Conservative rule.

However having spent much of the last decade trying to make Camden listen, in connection with the appalling plans for the 100 Avenue Road site at Swiss Cottage, where work recommenced on a Sunday (yes, Sunday) I welcome anyone adding to the noise!

I planned to vote for any candidate saying they would replace Camden’s “developer-friendly” strategy with a requirement for all applications for development to be presented to our elected representatives before any formal process starts.

Then the councillors should engage in proper consultation with residents, whose views they must respect, and not just be lackeys for the planning department.

The developers cleverly invented the concept of nimbyism – not in my back yard – to downplay residents’ concerns. But who on Earth should have the most power to control their neighbourhoods?

In the case of 100 Avenue Road, the developers – Essential Living (Swiss Cottage) Ltd (based in the Channel Islands, I wonder why) – are mainly funded by American hedge funds with absolutely no connections to the United Kingdom, never mind London or Swiss Cottage.

But they will soon be dumping an appalling set of buildings on the tiny site at 100 Avenue Road: a monstrous 185-feet tall skyscraper and two side slabs seven and five storeys high, looming over the one building of note in the area, Swiss Cottage Library, and shadowing the little local open space here.

The fact that it will contain 165 flats, mostly for rent to rich people passing through London, is just the scum on top of the plans: the 400-plus inhabitants will add to the local chaos.

Of course, one of the key drivers of this strategy is down to the fact that councils have been under immense funding pressure as central government, controlled by the Conservatives, cut and cut again and again, reducing funding by more than 40 per cent in the last decade.

As for voting for councillors, who will make any difference? What we need is a new government.

So my postal vote went to three people I think will best represent my views. But what difference will this make?

DAVID REED
Eton Avenue, NW3