Camden New Journal - Letters: Recycling drive-in

Publications by New Journal Enterprises

Home

Archive

Competition

Camden New Journal - LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Published: 23 August 2007

Recycling drive-in

• THE recycling centre in Regis Road has been reorganised.
It used to be a bit like going to a farmyard. You entered a big open space with the recyling bins arranged all round it. A shared space. Pretty straightforward, but you could catch the eye of one of the staff if you needed to and get some help, or strike up a conversation with someone: it was quite a friendly place.
Now, they’ve got a traffic engineer in to sort out the “traffic flow” so it works like a drive-in takeaway. The result is that cars queue in a narrow, high-fenced roadway waiting to access the containers. It’s far more difficult to get any help if you can’t work out what to do.
To say the charm has gone from the place is an understatement. Going there in your car must now be complete torture; I could see that from my vantage point on a bike.
Things are less safe now. Check out how you can’t see the big bulldozer. It’s there behind the containers. We can’t see the driver, he can’t see us. And there will probably be a road-rage incident soon. Who knows how many drivers will be put off going to recycle. The place begins to be as grim as Islington’s hideous dump.
The whole thing is a classic piece of debasement. A minor increment of extra efficiency has been achieved at the cost of vital qualitative effects that the bean-counters will never grasp. It will put people off coming here.
As for working there, it must be worse; the centre has gone from being a simple, clear cut space, a yard essentially, to being a collection of strange, high-sided spaces made of metal and mesh fencing. It must be like working in a nasty maze where it’s very difficult to see and communicate between compartments. This is a failure of common sense.
TOM YOUNG
Bassett Street, NW5

Send your letters to: The Letters Editor, Camden New Journal, 40 Camden Road, London, NW1 9DR or email to letters@camdennewjournal.co.uk. The deadline for letters is midday Tuesday. The editor regrets that anonymous letters cannot be published, although names and addresses can be withheld. Please include a full name, postal address and telephone number. Letters may be edited for reasons of space.

Comment on this article.
(You must supply your full name and email address for your comment to be published)

Name:

Email:

Comment: