Camden New Journal Comment - High-speed route to maximum community disruption

Published: 15, April 2010

• THE chronic problem of top-down government and Whitehall secrecy that has ridden roughshod over our democracy for decades, is exemplified by the Lord Adonis High Speed rail plan destined to cut a swathe through parts of Camden.
The proposal by Lord Adonis, an unelected minister, may make perfect engineering sense but whether it is the only solution for the transport needs of Britain does not appear to have been made public.
Apparently, the experts, known as HS2 Ltd, examined 20
different possible routes for the  project and eventually chose the one now being promoted by Lord Adonis.
Rightly or wrongly, as soon as the plan was unveiled, letters appeared in the broadsheets questioning whether alternative routes had been examined.
Presumably, they had been, but  the experts and high civil servants at the Transport Department did not think the public needed to be aware of them.
This is the top-down governance in its full glory.
That is why doubts and disaffection are surfacing among the public.
Recently, Frank Dobson alerted the public to the danger that Silverdale, a tower block  on Regent’s Park estate, would have to be pulled down to make way for the project.
Last night (Wednesday)  councillors and residents met at the Primrose Hill Community Centre, fearing that a tunnel that would have to be built under the area to carry the high-speed line.
If Lord Adonis had come clean and laid out both the preferred route as well as the alternative ones, the public would felt more reassured.
Experts keep on getting a bad press.
In the 1990s, they said University College Hospital should be closed down because central London had too many hospitals. Only public agitation saved it.
Recently, we have had climate-gate and the swine flu fiasco.
Experts  have to shake off the cloak of secrecy and take the public into their confidence.

• BIT by bit the mystery surrounding the death of Jennyfer Spencer is being unravelled. Last week council officials said they had offered her five alternative ground floor flats.
Now, the council admits the flats were not entirely suitable.
The council plead they do not have the type of ground-floor flat  a woman as handicapped as Jennyfer Spencer needs.
Is it really possible that not one of the council’s 25,000 properties was suitable for her?
Only a few months ago the Town Hall offered for a sale a properly adapted ground-floor flat in Agar Grove. Poor policies and questionable methods of manage­ment are coming home to roost.