Better West Kentish Town (BWKT) is a coalition of local groups including Queens Crescent Neighbourhood Forum (emerging), Inkerman Area Residents Association, Neighbours of West Kentish Town, and Kentish Town Neighbourhood Forum, who are working for a beneficial outcome from the large scale development in our area. These include the redevelopment of West Kentish Town Estate and the Regis Road Industrial Area.
July 2025: Camden Council has submitted a planning application for the redevelopment of West Kentish Town Estate. Please see this page for key details of the CURRENT APPLICATION.
Please help with our fundraiser to help raise money for printing fliers, venues and expert advice. All small contributions will help- many thanks!
https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-objections-against-kentish-town-west-redevelopment
2023: Better West Kentish Town campaigned against earlier proposals for West Kentish Town Estate, see below. The 2025 planning application scheme is similar in many respects.
Camden Council is planning to knock down West Kentish Town estate and rebuild it. We need better homes and support development, but Camden is proposing a plan that will bad for everyone in the area, with:
- Overbearing buildings much taller than the surrounding streets
- 4 times as much building with 100 more flats than recommended by the planners, leading to over-dense and crowded conditions
- Existing tenants segregated in one part of the estate (shown in lighter red)
- Most social rent homes more than 3 stories above ground
- 85% of additional homes not affordable, making our neighbourhood more expensive for local people and driving out families
- Lack of social and community facilities
- Poor design:
o Over-shadowing and intrusion to privacy from tall buildings around small courtyards
o Minimum space standards
o North-facing flats in a14 storey tower
- Tall buildings unsuitable for families and cause isolation
- Approximatgely half of the trees felled and loss of open green space
- 20 year construction period is too long to live on a building site
- Adds to the climate crisis through high-carbon construction
- Designed during lock-down without collaboration with residents, based on developer funding model- not people’s well-being and social good
- The scheme clearly prepares the ground for selling off chunks of the development to private developers by segregating social housing in only a few of the blocks.
Above: proposed view of masterplan looking from south west
Light red buildings in the image above are replacement social homes for rent: 263 for existing tenants and only 12 additional.
For details of the impact on neighbouring streets see this link.
Camden say “there is no alternative”, but we think that there is, as residents need decent homes sooner, a human scale and a greener, healthy environment.
One option is to keep the existing buildings and refurbish them instead. This would be much less disruptive to existing communities and the overall neighbourhood, and much quicker to build. Camden’s current construction programme as of May 2023 (see below) does not complete until 2043, which is scandalous and harmful to residents.
Another option is to build smaller scale buildings on the sites of the existing blocks, retaining the trees and green spaces.
JOIN THE BETTER WEST KENTISH TOWN CAMPAIGN
Better West Kentish Town demands better outcomes for all – better quality homes, lower buildings, larger and greener spaces and more affordable homes for local people in need. A better neighbourhood for all.
- Join the BETTER WEST KENTISH TOWN mailing list to keep up to date with the campaign by emailing BetterWKT@gmail.com
- email your local councillor
NEIGHBOURS OF WEST KENTISH TOWN – Residents and neighbours of West Kentish Town Estate, demanding ecologically conscious and socially responsible development, involving proper town planning. Established 2019.
neighboursofwestkentishtown.org 