• WE want CNJ readers to know that an FOI, freedom of information, request established that, as at the end of December 2023, Camden Council has spent a total of £6,562,281 on the consultation for the rebuild of West Kentish Town Estate.

This equates to almost £21k per household on our estate, at a time when hugely increased bills are falling through our letterboxes. How can Camden justify this expenditure when the consultation results have been totally ignored?

Not one suggestion from the beginning has been included in the final design by AHMM Architects, and we fail to understand how such an eminent firm can come up with such an outdated, unsatisfactory, and hated design.

Residents are angry and disappointed because six-and-a-half million pounds could have been better spent helping those having to resort to food banks, repairs, or any of the other failing services in the borough, or even producing designs resembling the ones residents approved and voted for in 2020.

Camden’s pretence at consultation is wrong, offers very expensive lip service to the process, and is a complete sham. It wastes money – ours and yours – not just on our estate but right across the borough.

Meanwhile councillors have given themselves a pay rise while putting up our rent and council tax. Really, we ask, how long are voters going to keep supporting this blatant abuse?

JILL FRASER
Chair, West Kentish Town Tenants’ and Residents’ Association