Shamed by the state of our ‘premier’ shopping street

Published: 16 December, 2010

• I HAVE been away a while, so on Monday I went towards Camden Town in search of something nice to show an overseas friend.

I was ashamed. 

We walked from the direction of Mornington Crescent only to find that this end of Camden town is “a toilet” with the smell to match. 

There’s polluting traffic, uncollected, spilling sacks of rubbish, filthy unusable “recycling” bins, badly stained and broken paving, dogs’ mess, spit and few decent cafés… unhealthy chicken/rib joints seeming to be the council planners’ preference. 

Another friend tells me that besides it being a run-down shopping area for local people, this is an ugly face of London shown off to weekend overseas visitors as they have to make their way along here to the Mornington Crescent tube when Camden Town tube is closed.  

My friend suggests that I ask how come that the chief executive of Camden Council is on more than £200,000 per year and somehow she was “awarded” a flipping bonus of £15,000? How can this be when she presides over such low-grade conditions in the local “premier” shopping street?  

We can only conclude that neither she nor anyone else in Camden Council ever uses this sorry end of Camden Town.

It’s the 21st century in the fourth richest country and one of the foremost cities in Europe. So surely Camden Council should be doing better than this?  

Just where do our taxes go, bankers’ fraud notwithstanding? 

ANNE HUMPHREY
c/o Longford Street
NW1