FORUM: Gangs don’t look at A-Zs!

Published: 26 August, 2010

• ON the long-running saga of Gospel Oak being negatively stereotyped, it is high time that a rational perspective and objective view entered the debate rather than the blinkered bias and prejudice that has hitherto clouded the issue (Area ‘stereotype’ hurts us, August 12 et al).

Instead of quibbling over the ward boundaries that delineate Gospel Oak (I mean, violent gangs don’t consult an A-Z!).

The author of that letter, Mick Farrant needs to face the facts and stop his “in denial” stance.

Which means that he and others (for example, Nothing positive, Letters August 19) should also stop maligning one of our more dedicated former councillors, Keith Sedgwick, for describing the area as “no-man’s land”.

Keith is someone who actually lives in the heart of Gospel Oak and was himself attacked by a gang of youths and therefore knows what he’s talking about. 

These are the facts.

Eight years ago there was a drug-related murder in Weedington Road, one of the first of such incidents.

Last year a youth worker was shot outside Queen’s Crescent Community Centre; before that, a fatal stabbing; and countless drug-den raids and gang fights in the wider area in recent years. And now (New Journal, August 19) serious problems at a William Hill’s bookmakers! Facts.

But, of course, these “wildly exaggerated” claims of Mr Sedgwick affect Mr Farrant as chair of QCCC and a governor of Carlton Primary School – on whose behalf he makes the truly wild, and false, claim that this negative publicity deters potential pupils and customers from coming into the area. In fact both school and youth facility catchment areas largely debar this anyway. 

And charities too?  Another red herring! Because these are often the very areas where charities operate and have a remit to do so because of the “deprivation” that even he unwittingly acknowledges.

Instead we must face up to, and accept, the facts if we are effectively to address the nature and extent of the problem and its underlying causes.

And we might begin by asking why, just a few years ago, the council’s community wardens were transferred from Camden Town to this area and a community centre on Queen’s Crescent transformed into a police sub-station?

Five years ago, when I lived in Camden Town, I wrote an article for the New Journal “Crack Diaries” about the homeless people, drug addicts, alcoholics, prostitutes and people with mental health problems in the area, many of whom I came to know personally. 

Most of these people originally “migrated” from the Agar Grove, St Pancras Way and King’s Cross hostels because of the redevelopment there.

But a concerted campaign by council and police eventually flushed them out of Camden Town and, by some inexplicable process, many of them turned up in Gospel Oak! And the wardens and police – and the drug-dealers – promptly followed them! 

This “dispersal”, I would argue, has contributed to the rising crime levels in the area – as it did in Camden Town – and has tarnished its image and perhaps even the perception of local residents themselves, including their young people, who have seen a once vibrant community, with Queen’s Crescent market at its centre, deteriorate and decline.

Yes, the festival was wonderful, and for a while we could celebrate.

But, along with the “dispersal”, racked-up Council rates have hit market-stallholders and others hard, which undermines community spirit.

NICK GORDON
Highgate Road, NW5