From Tuesday 3 March 2026, the front counter at Kentish Town Police Station will no longer be available 24/7 and will be changing its service to extended hours.  From Tuesday 3rd March, this front counter will be open from Monday to Friday, 10:00 – 22:00, and Saturday to Sunday, 09:00 – 19:00. 

If you need to report a crime outside of these hours, the police station front counters that are open 24 hours are: 
·  Charing Cross Police Station , 2 Agar St, London WC2N 4JP 
·  Lewisham Police Station, 43 Lewisham High St, London SE13 5JZ 

Alternatively, you can report an incident by: 
·  Visiting the Met Police website 
·  Calling the non-emergency number 101 
·  For hearing or speech-impaired users, you can text 18000 to access the textphone service 

If a crime is happening right now or if someone is in immediate danger, please call 999. You can stay 100% anonymous by contacting the independent charity Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111 or via their untraceable online form. 

​With effect from the 1st January 2026 our long-time committee member Lucy Findlay became our new Chair following the retirement of Eric Bergsagel, who has kindly agreed to remain on the committee.

No one will be surprised that Land Securities has chosen to revise its plans for the Phase 1 development of the car park site at the O2 centre. Hot on the heels of the government and Mayor of London's planning requirements' changes, Land Securities has chosen to reduce its affordable housing offer from 35% to 20%.. It has submitted a bunch of revised planning documents to Camden which are available at https://www.camden.gov.uk/search-for-planning-applications application number 2025/0484/P. The new documents are dated 2 February 2026 onwards and comments are due by 28 February While there are some oblique references to changes in massing and footprints it is almost impossible to tell what the changes are to its proposals. or its commitments to the local area.

Land Securities update is at: https://o2centremasterplan.commonplace.is/en-GB/news/our-response-to-new-government-policy-to-tackle-industry-wide-challenges-facing-delivery-of-new-homes and there is a drop in at the O2 centre Tuesday 24 February, 12-6:00pm. This will be followed by a Quarterly Community Meeting from 6:30-7:30pm which will be held in the O2 Centre’s ‘Number 7’ unit (the former Pizza Express).

Meanwhile a separate application for the former Homebase site has been submitted with the full knowledge of Land Securities proposing 10 padel courts, sauna and  club house for five years or until Land Securities is ready to bring their project forward. The planning application number is 2026/0201/P with a deadline of 20 February. 

Those of us who are old enough to recall the days when 100 Avenue Road was a pleasant modern office block, housing for some time the editorial offices of the venerable Ham & High, suspected we wouldn't live long enough to see the more recent 'hole in the ground' became a completed building with homes and commercial spaces fully occupied. There is still some way to go, but, believe it or not, construction work is to commence on site shortly. The dates being posted by the developer - Arada aka Regal - are:

• February 2026 - initial site work commences.
• March 2026 - Main construction work commences.
• Summer 2028 - Project completion. 

As with all construction sites in the London Borough of Camden  working hours are 8am to 6pm Monday to Friday, 8am to 1pm on Saturdays and no work on Sundays or Public Holidays.

As readers will recall, residents, local politicians, neighbourhood organisations etc fought tooth and nail to prevent this development. Thousands of people lodged objections to the planning application. Its one and only supporter of any repute was  the Winch youth project on Winchester Road who were to be rewarded for their support with shiny new premises in one of the new blocks. It is ironic that the Winch has now decided it would rather not move into 100 Avenue Road.

CRASH, alongside virtually everybody else, was glad to see the back of the reviled Essential Living, the initial developers of the site. Some hoped for a more sympathetic scheme from a developer based locally - just down the road in Fairhazel Gardens. Sadly that wasn't to be the case. The 'local' developer, Regal, is now owned by Arada, a property developer founded in 2017 in the United Arab Emirates by a couple of local sheikhs. So, in a few years time when you are sunbathing on the Swiss Cottage Open Space and you have to move every fifteen minutes to avoid the looming shadow of Arada's tower blocks be consoled by the knowledge that the desert sun is ever-present in the UAE.