Anti-gentrification campaigners in north London have accused their local council of keeping residents in the dark over a housing regeneration project they fear will serve rich investors and “overdevelop” the area.
Built in the 1960s, the Bacton Low Rise Estate in Camden’s Gospel Oak was demolished in 2018 to make way for hundreds of new council homes with support from the local community. The rebuild has so far delivered 46 new council homes and 21 private flats, but the project stalled shortly after the first phase was completed in 2017.
In 2024, Camden Council commissioned private developer Mount Anvil to finish regenerating the estate. The housebuilder then presented plans to double the number of homes and construct high-rises up to 26-storeys tall. But local campaigners say the new plans will “crudely squeeze” tower blocks into the area and “turn the working class neighbourhood into a high-rise investment opportunity for private buyers”.
“Without consulting anybody, all of a sudden [the original] scheme was entirely dropped,” said Julia Oertli of Bacton Towers Action (BTA). Speaking to the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) she said: “The proposal now being developed by a private company is fundamentally different – only 26 per cent social housing, with those residents council homes completely segregated from the high-rises.”
Earlier this year, BTA set up a stall at Camden’s Queens Crescent Market canvassing views from locals about the project and reported people’s “overwhelming disapproval”.
“It’s true that people have been telling us they don’t want to live in a tower block, especially after Grenfell,” Ms Oertli told the LDRS. “But even if you had the council homes in low-rise flats with three high-rise towers around them, social housing residents would get less sunlight. It’s just a bit grotesque.”
Alongside this, the campaigners fear the scheme will drive up rents and exacerbate the housing crisis by bringing another 1,000 residents into an already densely-populated area without providing more services. They also have “no confidence” in the developer’s “inaccessible” consultation, particularly after some Mount Anvil staff’s “standoffish” behaviour.
“I pressed repeatedly for the year ago promise for visits to other Mount Anvil sites and a working group,” said Mick Farrant. “The excuse was it took a lot of work.”
The campaigners also say they have been maligned by the developer in its online consultation form, which states: “Some hostile groups/individuals are targeting consultations […] to skew results towards less favourable outcomes which are not in the public interest”.
“I can’t think of anything we’ve done that could be characterised as hostile, other than asking difficult questions,” Ms Oertli said.
Last week, BTA chair Robert Lewenstein wrote an open letter to the leader of Camden Council, Richard Olszewski, pleading for a public meeting amid what they see as the Town Hall’s “bewildering refusal to engage with us”. It was undersigned by hundreds of locals, including Sir Michael Palin of Monty Python fame.
On Tuesday Camden Leader Olszewski wrote back to say that while the council valued residents’ voices, a public meeting with officers was not needed.
“We recognise the strength of feeling in the community and the concern raised […] Please be assured these views are being taken seriously and continue to inform our discussions with Mount Anvil,” he said.
The Council Leader stressed that the scheme was still at pre-application stage and yet to be approved by the planning authority, which would assess it against local policies.
He added there had been “extensive engagement” over the design proposals – including three rounds of consultation, 14 coffee mornings and 5 ‘Meet the Developer’ events. At the council’s request, he said, the developer has also done more to engage residents. Meanwhile, locals were still able to share their thoughts directly with council officers at fortnightly drop-in sessions held on-site.
Highlighting the proposals to double the amount of dwellings at the site, Cllr Olszewski said the Bacton redevelopment was urgently needed to address the borough’s 8,000-strong housing waitlist and the hundreds of households living in temporary accommodation.
“Camden will continue to hold Mount Anvil to account. We will continue to engage and consult with local residents and stakeholders as the design proposals develop,” the leader said.
The LDRS contacted Mount Anvil for comment, but at the time of writing the firm had not responded.
