Concrete egg-box sale

Published: 4 February 2010

• DID you know that the council are selling off the Town Hall Annexe,  the concrete egg-box on Euston Road opposite St Pancras?
No one knows how much it is being sold for, that’s secret. Even though it belongs to us we are not allowed to know this. So how do we know if it’s reaching the best possible price?  We don’t but rumours are that it’s well below its market rate. Why is it being sold? 
Apparently because it’s too expensive to maintain. This is the council that encourages us all to be green and live sustainably, not just throw stuff into landfill. 
Where will the council staff go? To another, not yet existing, building in the King’s Cross development. So the council functions, currently well organised on a single site will be split across two sites – an efficiency downgrade.
What will the buyer do with the property? Almost certainly demolish it and build  the tallest tower that Camden (the people who sold it to them, remember) will allow.  How tall is that? We are not told but the rumour is 24 stories. And what will then happen to most of the other buildings on the south side of Euston Road? They will also be developed into tower blocks. So, sandwiched between the listed three-storey terraced housing to the south and the listed St Pancras and King’s Cross stations to the north we will have a Canary Wharf of tower blocks.
All we ask is that someone explain why?
John A Hartley
Crestfield Street, WC1