• AS a former councillor of Gospel Oak I was saddened to learn that the council has decided to withdraw from engaging with the Gospel Oak’s District Management Committee.

For any reader not in the know DMCs provide a vital interface between the councillors and council estates’ tenants’ and residents’ associations. DMCs effectively represent council tenants.

That is why prospective housing policy is always discussed and tweaked, according to the reaction of the borough’s DMCs, before final consideration by elected councillors.

Were it not for the fight put up by Camden’s DMCs, the borough’s housing stock would have been transferred, under Tony Blair, to an ALMO, arm’s length management organisation, and council housing as we know it would have ceased to exist; that is, housing whose landlords are held to account every four years at the ballot box.

How, therefore, can Camden Council unilaterally declare it no longer will meet with the one body that claims to speak for all the council tenants of the Gospel Oak area?

Was not Gospel Oak DMC constituted under the same rules and by the same procedures as all the other DMCs of the borough?

If so then why is it being singled out and effectively being shut down by Councillor Meric Apak, the lead member for housing? Was this decision made with the agreement of the local councillors?

Ultimately we need to know, is Gospel Oak DMC the legitimate representative body, or not, of the area’s council tenants?

Cllr Apak, himself once a DMC member, needs to answer.

KEITH SEDGWICK, NW6