2025 planning application

July 2025: Camden Council has submitted a planning application for the redevelopment of West Kentish Town Estate. The application reference is 2025/2667/P ; see this link to make comments. NB. remember to tick the ‘OBJECTION’ box if that is what you want it to be registered as….. You can also email planning@camden.gov.uk, giving reasons why you want to make an objection and stating the planning reference number, and your name and address. You can also write to Development Management, Camden Town Hall, Judd Street, WC1H 9JE.

The statutory consultation period ends on the 3rd August 2025 however personal responses can be submitted later.

The planning application- shown above in a view from the daylighting report – is for permission to knock down all 316 homes on WKT Estate and build 856 in their place. 530 will be for sale at very high prices, 40% of which will be 1-bedroom flats. 326 will be for social rent.

The image below is a more accurate depiction of the height that would be permitted were the planning application documents to be approved.

THE PROPOSED SCHEME SHOULD BE REFUSED on the following grounds:

It does not follow national guidelines for acceptable design: it is not in scale with its context and does not respect the existing place. The new building will overwhelm the area with high-rise blocks and towers. This will affect the whole area, particularly:
- Grafton Road, Athlone Street, Allcroft Road, Coity Road, Bassett Street, Rhyl Street, Talacre Road and Queen’s Crescent
- the whole area through increased traffic from delivery vehicles servicing the 540 additional flats (which are to be ‘car free’) – our roads which are already congested, eg. Mansfield Road.
- The external public spaces will feel hemmed in, overshadowed, wind-swept and inhospitable.
It will cause poor living conditions for existing and new residents:
- poor daylight and sunlight and loss of views
- narrow distance between buildings causing loss of privacy
- no community facilities (99.7% of the floorspace is residential)
- impact on existing infrastructure, eg. West Kentish Town and Gospel Oak overground stations, existing sports facilities, dentists and doctors surgeries
- loss of mature trees and green space
- crammed together blocks causing a ‘heat-island effect’: high concentration of buildings that absorb solar energy, combined with lack of trees and vegetation to provide shade, means our area will be living in increased temperatures
- high-rise blocks (up to 16 stories in the middle of the estate and up to 12 stories on Althone Street and 8 storeys on Grafton Road), will exacerbate social isolation and be prone to maintenance failures when lifts break down.
There should not be such a high number of private homes (60%) built on public land; social-rent homes and key-worker housing (for nurses, teachers and other vital service providers) should be prioritised.
- Sizes and bedrooms should be to suit the requirements and need for family homes, supporting local schools which are in crisis due to reducing numbers of children. Currently only 25% are 3 bedrooms or more. This will not help schools and multi-generation families and is not an adequate response to one of the primary identified problems which is serious overcrowding.
- The phases of the development mean that tenants are effectively trapped on the estate until their phase comes up and they are eligible for re-housing.
If built, our neighbourhood would become an anonymous high-cost area where existing residents are priced out.
- Private homes will likely be bought by investors for rent which will further drive up rental prices in the surrounding areas.
The impact on people of building the scheme is unacceptable and this is another reason why the scale of the scheme should be reduced in scale. These impacts are:
- 20 years of disruption to schools, residents and businesses
- 120,000 construction vehicles coming through our streets (see more detail of vehicle routes below)
- This is unacceptable in terms of noise and air quality, for which there are serious emotional, mental and physical health consequences. It will make the current living conditions of both those living on the estate and neighbours much worse. Air pollution is a recognised medical health risk associated with stunted lung development, and known correlation with heart attacks and strokes. There is no safe level for air pollution.
Tall buildings: the majority of homes will be over three storeys will be reliant on lifts which are subject to intermittent breakdowns and often slow repairs. This is a serious issue most significantly for the elderly, disabled, movement impaired, and carers for young children.
- People don’t like living in tall buildings.
- Camden has identified loneliness as being a factor in poor emotional health of the borough. This design with tall buildings, very few social or community areas exacerbates this issue.
Communal play spaces in the courtyards of the blocks will only receive sunshine for 15 minutes a day. There are no additional sports facilities.

THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IS TO SUBMIT YOUR OBJECTION TO THE PLANNING CONSULTATION NOW. Only then will your objection be counted. See the top of this page for information about how to do this.

When you have done that, please also email your local councillors as well, to express your concerns. THIS APPLICATION AFFECTS GOSPEL OAK AND KENTISH TOWN SOUTH WARDS AS WELL AS HAVERSTOCK. Unfortunately the Council has refused our requests for deputations to be heard.

You can join the Better West Kentish Town WhatsApp Chat to keep informed about meetings and thoughts about the application at this link: https://chat.whatsapp.com/LTtyoU14Qht48sKEc9QSp9

You can look access the planning documents on a shared drive at this link:https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Nl1L7ydPEO6MGBC8EOgt3CIzKqY2HQQ1?usp=drive_link

The overall master plan will quadruple the floor area of the estate, which constitutes over-development with adverse outcomes for existing and new residents. The development is too big- the construction will take 20 years and result in 118,220 vehicle movements through our streets, causing noise, disruption and poor air quality.

The 120,000 estimated lorry journeys along changing routes are an extreme hazard. These effectively hem-in public facilities like the library, post office, the Queen’s Crescent NHS surgery, plus essential and established businesses.

Part of the lorry route will be along Prince of Wales Road which is both a designated cycleway and a bus route. This a clear risk, to cyclists, dangerous and will slow these buses journey times further. It is also a risk to people using Talacre and going to and from Rhyl School.

There are detailed documents on environmental impact at this link, including assessment of daylight and sunlight. DSOSG in the title stands for Daylight, Sunlight, Overshadowing and Solar Glare- there are 20 appendices! The homes shown in dark blue on the following plan will have significant reduction in daylight (see list below):

More than 50% of the existing trees will be felled (see above). Many of the retained trees will be pruned back to make way for buildings, and at are risk of being removed later, as at other CIP schemes.

The scale of the new buildings is out of scale with the existing Queen’s Crescent area (see following extracts from the planning application documents). The pink lines are the maximum height that would be permitted if the application is approved:

Above: the rendered view down Grafton Road

Below: un-rendered massing models

Below: VP 21- Carlton Tavern

Below: VP 22- Looking east along Athlone Street

Above: the rendered view of Queen’s Crescent

Below: un-rendered massing models

Above: the rendered view along Rhyl Street

Below: un-rendered massing models

Above: the rendered view along Athlone Street

Below: un-rendered massing models

Camden did not look at how retrofit could be a solution to modernise homes , provide new homes to address overcrowding and make alterations to deal with access issues. A retrofit proposal was developed as part of a RIBA research project.

SAVE CAMDEN’S SCHOOLS
There is a crisis in Camden’s schools due to the falling birthrate. This is due to families being driven out of the area by housing costs and demolition of housing estates (Bacton and now West Kentish Town Estate where 70 households have already moved out). The proposed scheme will make this worse:

The scale of scheme results in a 20-year construction period with 20 years of disruption for schools
There is an unacceptable risk to children of accidents and poor air quality caused by 120,000 construction vehicles coming through our streets, where numerous tight corners make this very difficult and dangerous.
30% of the new homes overall will be 1-bedroom flats, above Camden’s recommendations (20%).
530 expensive private flats will drive the cost of housing up for everyone, driving more families out.

CUMULATIVE IMPACT OF WEST KENTISH TOWN AND BACTON ESTATES REDEVELOPMENT

The following model views have been set up to show the relationship with the current Bacton Estate proposals (see https://bactontowersaction.org/).