Camden Labour is supporting the Crown tenants in their campaign to prevent their landlord, the Crown Commissioners, from selling off their homes to a speculative developer. The proposal involves 539 units of social housing in Regents Park Ward. Many of the residents are elderly and have Rent Act protected tenancies. More recently, flats have been allocated to “key workers” under assured shorthold tenancies.

Local residents, Mary and Bill Greenleaf with Cllr Heather Johnson, Frank Dobson MP and Cllr Nasim Ali

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Holborn & St Pancras MP Frank Dobson has sent the following letter to residents affected by Camden Lib Dem’s proposed cuts to the Maiden Lane Community Centre.  You can read about the cuts here.

“For years now the youth club at Maiden Lane Community Centre has been doing a really good job.  Everybody benefits – the young people benefit and everybody else benefits.  The youth workers have come to command the attention and trust of young people and as a result the young people behave better.  They even do better at school.  That, in turn benefits everybody else because the young people cause less trouble and nuisance to people who live on or around Maiden Lane.

Sadly the future of the club is threatened because the Lib Dems running Camden Council are withdrawing the grant that keeps it going.  The young people and their parents are devastated.  The police have described this decision as an “absolute disaster”.  And they are right.  This savage cut is nothing to do with the credit crunch.  The Lib Dem local councillors decided on this cut.  Nobody else has been involved in this decision.  The councillors didn’t do it because the Council is short of money.  In fact, Camden Council has reserves of £100 million.  As a result of the public outcry the Council have promised a small ‘one off’ grant.  But don’t be fooled.  It isn’t enough to keep the youth club going.

At the protest meeting I attended at the Community Centre on Wednesday 16 September I was impressed by the young people themselves, the youth workers, the police and the United Maidens mothers group.  At the meeting I pledged my continued support for families, for children and for young people on Maiden Lane.  I was heavily involved in the successful effort to get the children’s play equipment renewed a few years ago and in the effort to get the football pitches brought up to date.  The recent decision by Kentish Town tenants to pay to fence the pitch and provide floodlighting should be another step forward.  So to close the youth club on Maiden Lane would be a real stab in the back for the efforts of local people.

I will do whatever I can to support bids for extra money from charities but in the end what is needed is for the Lib Dem Camden Councillors to change their minds and pay up.”

Tags: Youth cuts.

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