Gondar Gardens plans unveiled

Linden Homes and Wates Developments held an exhibition on Saturday of their proposals as they are at the moment for the Gondar Gardens resevoir site.  I too a few snaps on my phone of their display boards.  The quality isn't great - but you get an idea. (You can also get a bigger version of these snaps by clicking on them)

The developers were very keen to emphasise the low rise nature of the development - the artists impression below shows that just a few feet of the tops of the houses will appear above the level of the ground already there.

The next (rather poor) photo is of the inside of the existing structure.  The Victorian vaulting takes up most of the front of the site that appears to be a flat area of grass from on top.

By sitting the development in the bottom of the resevoir that already exists they are keen to demonstrate that the development will do little to interupt the impressive views that existing residents of Gonday Gardens enjoy.  These photos of their model don't really show it very well - but, once its built, their presentation suggests that it will be fairly hard for most existing residents to notice much impact from the development.

That said, the impact on the biodiversity of the site is still likely to be considerable.  The whole site enjoys special protection under Camden's planning regulations - and no matter how low-rise the development is, that is likely to be interupted by a massive disruption to the site as it is at present. There just aren't that many spaces in Camden that add to the biodiversity of the area.
Also whilst there is no mention of  any contribution to social housing.  Our part of London needs family sized homes - but it especially needs family-sized social housing.  This week's surgery was typical in presenting some very difficult overcrowding cases to us as local councillors - and if developments like this do nothing to alleviate the situation we'll never get on top of the problem.
We don't know how much the plans will change between now and submitting a full planning application to the council - but we will keep the blog updated of any news as it comes along.