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Camden New Journal - by DAN CARRIER
Published: 6 September 2007

Group calls for action on basements and gardens

GARDENS being turned into car parks and digging out underground rooms are the two major planning issues Camden’s new director of environment must tackle, the Camden Civic Society has warned.
In a letter to Rachel Stopard, who was appointed to the Town Hall post a month ago, society chairman Martin Morton has urged her to take action over what they have identified as two of the most important environment issues.
Backing a policy document issued by the Heath and Hampstead Society calling for stricter guidelines over basement excavations, he said the rules needed to be reviewed.
Mr Morton said: “These applications may well be a sign of land shortage or increasing affluence, but they give rise to serious practical concerns in residential areas that require urgent addressing as part of the planning process. It is a wider problem than merely a potential and possibly expensive dispute between neighbours. We hope you will arrange for this to be done as a matter of urgency in the way Hampstead has suggested.”
Mr Morton also outlined the trend to concrete over front gardens to create private parking.
He added: “In some parts of the borough this involves a hard choice between on-street parking that may be subject to theft or vandalism and the greater, but no means complete, protection offered by a front garden. The current policy of a general permission as permitted development lacks objectivity. That policy has serious visual, drain off and greenery removal objections.”

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