Climate Emergency Camden has written to the Council to express dismay at their proposal to sell the Holmes Road Depot to a private company for redevelopment, 2 years after it was retrofitted at a cost of £8.4m. To throw away this investment in insulation and a low-carbon heating system, which itself has a carbon cost, makes a mockery of the Council’s purported intention to address the climate and ecological crisis. Demolishing and rebuilding the depot will generate a further huge amount of unnecessary carbon emissions, actively contributing to the climate crisis.
The sell-off, which includes the car pound and the reuse and recycling centre, aims to ‘kickstart’ the regeneration strategy for the Regis Road industrial area. However, the council has not yet identified suitable locations to replace these essential facilities and its strategy is based on squeezing up to 1,000 new homes plus new jobs and open space on a site that is far too small.
Camden’s plans for Regis Road and the nearby Murphy site are set out in the Kentish Town Framework. This was developed before the Council declared a Climate and Ecological Emergency and will not result in the transformation needed to address these existential threats as it continues to promote high-carbon development. Unfortunately, in their current development plans in the borough, Camden fails to take account of the carbon emissions caused by tall and massive building structures, and continues to promote these rather than the greener alternatives, which would be lower, less dense and human-scaled.
climateemergencycamden.org 