Give our High Street back to the people

Published: 23 December, 2010

• I GREATLY sympathise with the lady distressed at Camden High Street (Shamed by the state of our ‘premier’ shopping street, Letters, December 16). 

There was a time when real businesses made real products in the Stables Market; when you could hear The Clash rehearsing meaningful punk rock there every afternoon; and when you could buy fresh fish from Tallboy’s the fishmonger near the canal. 

We are all, I think, appalled at how an unholy alliance of greedy property developers (the ruin of the planet) and smirking consumerism backed by a complacent Camden Council has allowed the destruction of the original, unique rebellious bohemian Camden we all used to know and love. 

However, salvation may be at hand, in the unlikely guise of planning reforms offered by Eric Pickles. 

Who would like to be part of a “neighbour­hood committee” for Camden High Street and Camden Market? 

We might have the decentralised power to ban all multinationals and chain stores from the High Street, to set up zoning groups that decree the return of fishmongers and bakers to the High Street, that demand the removal of the grotesque Disney-land fantasy that has overtaken the Stables, and generally make all property rights entirely subject to the will of the people. Property developers will not give us plans: we will, as citizens of Camden, tell them what to do. 

Otherwise, I expect the Coalition to impose a cap of £75,000 per annum on all council salaries in the country in order to help the disadvantaged child struggling to pay the bus fare to school, the pensioner freezing to death for want of a day care centre, and so forth: the Big Society starts with protecting the underprivileged and the vulnerable. Bureaucrats must start to go hungry. Very hungry.

CHRISTOPHER TRUMAN
39 Marsden Street, NW1