Camden Council has entered into a deal with a private developer to deliver the final phase of the Bacton Estate redevelopment in Gospel Oak. Camden began the process in 2012 with an architect-designed scheme developed with local residents (see here), but has now thrown in the towel and given up on Gospel Oak.
The original estate was built in the 1960s, and comprised a tower of 120 flats and a low-rise area of 99 family-sized homes. The 99 low-rise homes were demolished in 2018, at which time 87 were for social rent. Half of the tenants moved into new homes built by the Council as phase 1. The other half had to move out and were housed elsewhere. Under the current developer’s proposals, the rebuilding of Bacton Low-rise is unlikely to be achieved until 2028, resulting in a loss of homes over a 10 year period. It is very unlikely that the original tenants will return.
In 2018 the Council changed the planning permission to enable more flats to be built. Now they are asking a developer to increase the number of flats on the original estate by an additional 80%. The new scheme is completely out of scale with the area, with large blocks of 23, 15 and 12 stories. These will dwarf existing homes, Wellesley Road care home, St Martins church, the Gypsy Queen pub and the existing Bacton tower, wrecking what is currently a pleasant place to live.
This means that the total number of flats provided by the overall scheme will increase from 290 to 514 (not including the 120 flats in the existing tower), with the percentage of social housing dropping from 36% to 29%. The original 99 homes will be quintupled in number, with no corresponding social infrastructure improvements. If Camden want to provide an additional 43 social homes in Gospel Oak, there are better ways of doing it than this.
You can comment on this abysmal scheme here, until 17th November.
The presentation material provided by Mount Anvil (see below) is one the most disingenuous and deceitful examples of consultation ever seen in Camden:
You can comment on this abysmal scheme here, until 17th November.
You can read about the Council’s original objectives in building the original Bacton Estate here:
Accolades about the 2012 planning permitted scheme are shown here:
West Kentish Town 
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