• ON Channel 4 television last Thursday there was an item on the hard work being undertaken by Queen’s Crescent Community Centre (QCCC) to provide hot meals and food parcels to residents affected by the pandemic.

Demand for this vital service is increasing. What the programme did not tell us was the centre is having to pay Camden Council, we understand, rent for the privilege.

Although there had been a rent holiday and a 50 per cent rent reduction, the present position is that the rent now paid is over £1,000 a month.

True, the council does provide funding for the food distribution but claws part of this back in rent, in essence a tax on the hungry and vulnerable!

Elsewhere in the November 26 CNJ we read a plea by Camden Council for sites to locate freezers for the Covid-19 vaccine.

Less than 500 metres away from the centre is a very large non-building site (formerly Bacton Low Rise estate of about 100 council flats).

This council-owned site has been vacant for over six years and no date has yet been set for the start of building. Why not use this site for the freezers?

The rent paid by the national Health Service would easily cover that of QCCC and could even keep Carlton school from being closed as a legal entity, as is being proposed by the council. As a contributor I will waive my estate agent’s fee.

FRANCES RIFKIN,
NW5