RCKa wins go-ahead for controversial Camden scheme – for second time

In 2017, the council’s planning committee granted permission for a previous proposal by the practice, which included 31 homes and 2,200m² of community facilities. It was backed despite objections from local residents including Levitt Bernstein director Jo McCafferty.At the time, McCafferty, a member of the project champion group set up as part of the scheme’s consultation process, told the Camden New Journal that the plans had ‘significant failings’ and would ‘loom over the neighbouring streets’. The contentious development plot sits within a cul-de-sac of 1950s former Territorial Army buildings in Bertram Street, next to a Grade II-listed terrace of five houses in Winscombe Street designed by Neave Brown in the 1960s. An existing community centre will be flattened to make way for the three-block scheme.A year after the first approval, the practice returned with reworked plans which consolidated all the proposed community spaces into a single building, removed the basements across the site and increased the number of homes to 41 – including seven affordable homes for Camden Living.According to planning consultant Iceni Projects, which was commissioned by the project’s backer Camden Council, the revisions were driven by the changing economic landscape.A planning statement, submitted alongside the modification to the original application, reads: ‘The consented scheme was designed to ‘break even’, with any additional profit being generated through increased sales revenue to be recycled back into the council’s affordable housing fund.The revised proposal again sparked debate, attracting numerous objections.