Anger as tarmac is laid on top of the cobbles in historic Little Green Street

IS this the beginning of the end of Kentish Town’s oldest street?
People living on the Georgian terrace Little Green Street woke up last week to find workmen laying a tarmac section over the tiny historic stretches granite cobbles – prompting fears that an eight-year planning battle to stop 30 homes being built on derelict land at the bottom of the dead end stretch may be finally coming to an end.
The council-employed road workers said the repairs were needed because a puddle kept forming in the street – and that instead of taking up the granite stones and repairing them, they were going to lay a temporary surface as, according to one resident, “the whole street will be dug up in the new year for work to start on the development.”
The terrace has become the focus of a long-running planning battle after land at the foot of the street, which is off Highgate Road, was bought at an auction by a consortium of developers in 2000.
They were given planning permission in 2003 to build 30 luxury homes with an underground car park on the land – but failed to come up with a way to get lorries and construction traffic on the site, except by using Little Green Street.
It has become a cause celebre among neighbours, who say works will damage Grade-II listed cottages.
Architect Satish Patel, who has been working on the designs, said he hoped work would start in the very near future.
He said: “The work done on the cobbles is news to me – but we are getting on with it.
“We are trying to finalise all the things we need to agree with the council. I think work will start early next year.”
Resident Amanda Blinkhorn said she and her neighbours failed to understand why the work had been completed like this. She added: “If this was a cobbled street in Hampstead this would never have happened. It is a real shame – I simply do not know what they were thinking. They should just repair the cobbles as they were. Instead they have used a surface that is suitable for the M1 – not here.”‘
A council spokesman said: “Camden Council was recently made aware of large pools of surface water in Little Green Street, in response to this we have laid a patch of tarmac to improve the road and make it safe. This is a temporary measure and unrelated to the developer’s proposals at the end of Little Green Street.
DAN CARRIER