The Circular Economy in Camden

CEC responded to the Circular Economy Panel’s Report, discussed by the Culture and Environment Scrutiny Committee on 15.07.24:

1) Camden Council should prioritise repair of its housing stock, rather than demolishing and rebuilding it.

For example, the Council should reverse its current proposals to demolish Wendling estate, which is in a reasonable condition and does not merit demolition. Its rebuilding will result in an unnecessarily high quantity of Greenhouse Gas emissions. (Replacement homes for market sale will not meet local need; social homes are better protected through refurbishment of existing estates.)

2) The Council should retain Holmes Road depot, which has recently had extensive public investment to create a fit-for-purpose depot for council housing maintenance teams, including stores for the electrical and mechanical services components and building materials. It is irresponsible for Camden Council to propose to sell the Holmes Road facility to Yoo Capital without having plans in place for where a replacement might be located, as this will severely compromise the Council’s ability to provide housing maintenance services in future:

2.1) Having sold all other council depots, Holmes Road was intended to be the main centralised building maintenance and street cleaning hub. Camden cannot develop its own in-house maintenance and retrofit services without a like-for-like replacement. However, there appears to be nowhere else within the Borough where this could be located, and planning officers working on the redevelopment plans for Kentish Town Industrial Area have not been able confirm any likely sites. Disposing of the Holmes Road facility was not part of the Kentish Town Framework plan developed by Camden; the proposal appears to have been a rash and ill-considered executive decision taken to ‘kick-start’ development.

2.2) Ideally Holmes Road depot should be expanded as part of the Regis Road Industrial area development, which is an ideal location for this and related circular economy activities.

2.3) Without a large footprint for this type of use Camden Council will be incapable of bringing building services in-house. This is necessary for two reasons:

• It is more economically viable. Camden is hamstrung by the high costs of large framework contractors. The best way forward is to develop in-house maintenance services, which will be more affordable, effective and responsive to residents’ needs.
• It will enable a greater quantity of building materials to be stored and re-used, thus contributing to the reduction of GHG emissions that result from the mining and manufacture of new building materials.

2.4) Temporary storage of re-usable building materials on building sites is unlikely to result in a large increase of re-use of materials as it is impractical for contractors. There needs to be a semi-permanent store so that materials can be moved off site. Temporary stores could be located on large sites awaiting development, such as HS2 in Euston, but there are few such possibilities and when these are developed the facility would no longer be available. Provision for storage of building materials needs collaboration with neighbouring boroughs such as Islington (from our previous enquiries they are interested in discussing this).

3) Highways Maintenance construction activities need to be considered in the same way. Climate Emergency Camden have highlighted previously that granite setts and kerbs are thrown away. Sometimes the contractors have the nous to take these components to their own yards, but in many cases they won’t have the space or facilities. Reuse of existing materials such as granite setts needs to be facilitated by Camden. What happens at present is that Camden’s Highways works use new granite setts and kerbs imported from China rather than reusing the existing materials, resulting an unnecessarily high quantities of GHG emissions and ecological harm.

4) Repair, upcycling and sharing facilities should be expanded with much greater ambition that the current projects.

5) The response to point no. 26 about planning is specious. The so-called ‘strong policies on retrofit and re-use’ are completely ineffective in stemming the tide of demolition and rebuild schemes across the Borough. There is no evidence that developers have been deflected from their desire to demolish and rebuild. The requirement to produce ‘feasibility studies of alternative options that involve the retention of the building or part of it’ to our knowledge have never to our knowledge resulted in planning officers requiring the developer to revise their proposals for demolition and rebuild. It is a paper exercise that developers know that they can get around. There is a whole range of consultants who provide services to do so.