A planning application will be submitted for new gates to replace temporary fencing

PERMANENT metal gates are to be installed on Primrose Hill with the scenic summit locked up for three nights a week during the summer months.

In an issue which has sharply divided opinion since the Covid lockdown, the Royal Parks announced that it was responding after a survey of park users and complaints of noise and disturbance.

The announcement yesterday (Wednesday) caught the council by surprise. Just the night before its councillors at a scrutiny committee had spent nearly an hour discussing whether there should be gates. So the decision, with the panel unaware, had already been taken.

Primrose Hill has been locked down with temporary fencing, between 10pm-6am on Friday to Sunday.

Primrose Hill offers one of the most scenic views of London at night [Eightalbumdeal]

The scrutiny meeting heard that the anti-social behaviour had developed from Glastonbury-type “fun and frolics” of a lockdown summer in 2020 to more sinister crimes including, since December, a stabbing and three sexual assaults. Despite the concerns, there is currently just one police officer responsible for all of Primrose Hill and Regent’s Park – and no officer is on duty on the hill after 11pm.

Eleanor Sturdy, chair of Primrose Hill Safer Neighbourhood panel who has recently been assaulted in the park, told the committee: “Our ward is policed very well by the Safer Neighbourhood team. But the park itself is policed by the Royal Parks’ police, who are based in Hyde Park.

“They are very stretched and not on duty at night. From 11pm, if you enter the park, there is no policing and no one is responsible for your safety.” She added: “The park has developed a reputation. It is not as loud and noisy as the hot summer nights of 2020 when the raving and Glastonbury-type stuff was going on up there. It is nastier.

“What we think is happening is teenagers, who are more than welcome to celebrate exams and relax and have fun up there, are attracting the drug dealers, who set up very large sound systems to create a party, and then the streets around are used as a parking area for the drugs.”

The Royal Parks did not send anybody to the meeting despite an invitation to speak, and there was no notification of its big announcement for councillors.

Opponents of the gates say the park should keep its traditional 24-hour access and allow people to enjoy gazing over moonlit London – one of the capital’s best views.

Ward councillor Anna Burrage said she was concerned that she was hearing about criminal activity through “non-formal channels” rather that hard police data that should be more easily accessible to the Town Hall.

She added: “The park is open and unsupervised for extended periods. Gates, per se, don’t solve this.”

The committee chairman, Awale Olad, suggested more policing was what was really required in the area: “How much more evidence or intelligence do they need? It sounds like there has been tonnes available for eight years and nothing has been done.”

The Royal Parks’ survey results, published yesterday, said of 583 of those responding to one question in the survey, 59.7 percent said they had “witnessed or experienced threatening behaviour” in the park after 8pm.

Primrose Hill councillor Anna Burrage

The Parks said: “There have been very strong views on both sides of the debate between those who wish to see the park locked at night and those who wish to keep it open.”

A planning application would be submitted to Camden Council “in the coming months”, it said.