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Hawley Wharf, which the council sees as a lifeline in the face of the recession |
‘Camden Lock is a spreading cancer’
Residents voice concerns as council unveils vision for redevelopment of Hawley Wharf
YEARS of planners hoping that a rising tide of entertainment will float Camden Town into prosperity have left a group of residents feeling as if they are struggling to keep their heads above the flood.
Last week, they raised their voices as the Town Hall outlined its vision for another chunk of Camden Town ripe for development – the Hawley Wharf site, currently filled with railway-arch garages and the wreckage of last year’s market fire.
While the council’s planning guidance is broad – “Creating a mix of appropriate town centre uses including retail, market retail, leisure uses, new homes” – residents are braced for more of what they have had in recent years.
Speaking at a packed meeting at the Castlehaven Community Centre, one resident painted a grim picture of life in Camden: “The market has grown like a carbuncle. The streets stink. Our front doors are toilets for these tourists.”
And while Camden may be renowned for its “celebrity chic”, residents are aware the area is among most deprived 2 per cent of England.
“What we do know is that whatever goes in there, there is going to be a substantial increase in tourists,” said Eleanor Botwright, director of the Castlehaven Community Association.
“People are going to go to bars and hang around late- night food outlets. What will the transport arrangements be? What thought has been given to this?”
Successive councils have tied the fortunes of Camden Town to the coat-tails of the entertainment business and the growth of a weekend market into a global phenomenon.
But the expansion of the night-time economy causes misery for those who live in residential areas around Camden Town and Chalk Farm.
Lib Dem council leader Councillor Keith Moffitt said: “We’re trying to hold on to what’s very special and unique about Camden Town – the ‘edge’ – while at the same time trying to make it a place where people of all ages can come and enjoy it. Tourism is one of the ways that Camden is going to get through the recession.”
But “tourism” and “edge” are the words this group did not want to hear.
Billy Osbourne, who lives in Clarence Way, told the meeting: “We residents don’t see any benefit from tourists in this area.
“The one thing that we don’t want is any more bars or food outlets. Camden Lock will become a cancer spreading through this area. We are building up an area that is based solely on entertainment.
“If you look down through Hawley Wharf there are a lot of garages, a lot of people who work with their hands. That will be lost. Don’t give us any more booze areas.”
The existing owners of Stables Market, through a subsidiary called Ground Gilbey Ltd, have spent at least £17m buying up the Hawley Wharf development area piecemeal from the council and small businesses.
Whatever comes on the site will come from them.
But many are baffled at how these extra people, these tourists or drinkers or customers, are going to make it into Camden Town at all.
Overcrowding on the Northern line is so marked at Camden Town Tube station that it has to become exit-only on Sunday afternoons.
The most significant night-bus, the N29, starts in the West End and is frequently full when it reaches Camden, fuelling the bus’s reputation for violence and crime.
And the prospects of the infrastructure being improved are bleak. Alex West, a transport planner from Transport for London, bluntly acknowledged last Tuesday that urgently needed works to rebuild Camden Town Tube station were further away than ever.
With the Olympics and the scrapping of the Cross River Tram, TfL’s funds have been allocated until 2018.
“I can’t see us getting the extra money to invest in extra services for Camden Town before then,” Mr West said. |
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