The meeting of the Planning Committee on Monday evening is to decide the application by Yoo Capital for their very large project on the Regis Road site.
Camden made it very clear to the developers at the outset that there should be an integrated scheme and vision for the site with their partner, Joseph Homes, who are planning the bulk of the housing. These partners seem to have fallen out so there is no integrated scheme before the committee. However Yoo Capital are pressing ahead and Camden officers are pressing ahead – and are recommending approval.
The officers report is posted on their website here: https://democracy.camden.gov.uk/documents/s133476/Regis%20Road%20Report.pdf good luck with Camden’s notorious IT – it was reporting a glitch this morning. And if you do open it – it’s 402 pages and because you may not be able to open it or have the rime to read it we asked Claude AI for a neutral summary and it offered this:
NEUTRAL SUMMARY OF CAMDEN PLANNING OFFICER’S REPORT — APPLICATION 2025/4861/P
Land at Regis Road, Kentish Town, NW5 3EW
The application, submitted by YC CFQ Ltd (a Yoo Capital company) and handled by agent Montagu Evans LLP, seeks planning permission for the phased redevelopment of land at Regis Road, Kentish Town. The scheme is known as the Camden Film Quarter.
What is proposed. Demolition of existing structures and redevelopment to include: a major film production facility (the Camden Film Studios); 513 new homes of which 253 would be affordable; a hotel; education space for the London Screen Academy; a relocated Reuse and Recycling Centre on Holmes Road; commercial and community uses; and public open space and new pedestrian routes. The tallest buildings would reach 24 storeys. The site currently contains a council depot, recycling centre, car pound, industrial units, and 25 existing homes.
The officer’s assessment. The officer, David Fowler, recommends approval subject to conditions, referral to the Mayor of London, and completion of a Section 106 legal agreement. He identifies the following harms: less than substantial harm to the setting of St Paul’s Cathedral through protected strategic views from Parliament Hill and Kenwood; partial demolition of the Grade II listed Kentish Town Police Station; harm to surrounding conservation areas; some loss of daylight and sunlight to neighbouring properties; and buildings exceeding the height guidance set out in the Regis Road Area Guidance. He concludes that these harms are outweighed by the public benefits, which include significant new housing, 50% affordable homes, major employment creation, and regeneration of an underused industrial site.
Consultation responses. The application attracted substantial objection from local residents associations including IARA (Inkerman Area Residents Association), Kelly Street Residents Association, South End Close Residents Association, and others, as well as from the Collège Français Bilingue de Londres school, Kentish Town City Farm, and Joseph Homes as a neighbouring landowner. Two petitions were received with a combined total of approximately 1,600 signatories. Objections focused principally on excessive height and scale, heritage harm, fire risk from the relocated recycling centre, impact on the school, and the fragmented nature of the application excluding the Joseph Homes site. The GLA (Greater London Authority) raised no strategic objection. The Building Safety Regulator confirmed no objection in principle to the fire safety design of the residential buildings.
The legal framework. Because Camden is not currently meeting its housing delivery targets, the NPPF (National Planning Policy Framework) paragraph 11 presumption in favour of sustainable development is engaged. This means the application should be approved unless its adverse impacts significantly and demonstrably outweigh its benefits. The officer concludes they do not.
Next steps. If the committee approves the application, it must be referred to the Mayor of London before permission can be formally issued. The Mayor has the power to direct refusal or call the application in for his own determination.
IARA’S RESPONSE
As anyone who scans this website will know – there has been a lot of reactions to this. Many people have said they welcome regeneration of the site and the promised provision of housing with some of it “affordable”. Many people objected to various aspect of the scheme. To achieve a balance picture and a mandate we conducted a survey strictly limited to genuine residents of the Inkerman Area.
IARA’s main submission is here:IARA’s submission to Camden regarding the application for developments on Regis Road. Submitted 10.3.26
Summary of the submissions – Conclusions
It is clear from the responses to the survey that most IARA residents who replied wish to reject the application in its present form, while welcoming some development on Regis Road, and the provision of affordable/social housing.
- The application and consultation process in itself prohibits a proper evaluation, regardless of the detail.
- The scale and height of buildings is unacceptable.
- 80% of members would not support relocating the Recycling Centre to Holmes Road
- An even higher percentage find placing flats above the Recycling Centre unacceptable, on the grounds of health and safety.
- While an overwhelming majority of members welcome new housing, this should be of a scale in line with local plans and policies, and should be geared towards affordable and family housing.
- Only a small minority of members consider that the environmental losses are acceptable.
That full submission is on Camden’s website. Whether or not they were able to access on line prior to the agenda for this meting, it is included in the full paper documentation supplied to councillors (and to us) of 700+ pages.
OUR VERBAL DELEGATIONS:
On the basis that a delegation – a verbal address to the committee may get more focused attention, a number of us are speaking on Monday. For that we are require to provide a two page summary of what we are going to say.
There are in fact two applications – one for the main site and one for the Police station /Recycling Centre site
So for the delegation we need to file both these two page summaries – which you might find easier reading that the larger documents.
1. INKERMAN AREA RESIDENTS ASSOCIATION’S DEPUTATION TO CAMDEN’S PLANNING COMMITTEE 15 JUNE 2026
Land at Regis Road / Camden Film Quarter — Application 2025/4861/P
WHO WE ARE
The Inkerman Area Residents Association represents approximately ten streets in Kentish Town immediately south of this development. We are a democratic, cross-tenure organisation recognised as representative by councillors for over thirty years. Like you, we welcome development on Regis Road and strongly support genuinely affordable housing. We do not support this application in its present form.
We fully understand the huge, unrealistic pressure on you of government targets but this application has fundamental flaws which would make it dangerous for you to approve it.
YOU HAVE BEEN SET AN IMPOSSIBLE TASK
The officer’s report runs to over 400 pages. Significant documents were filed shortly before this hearing. Dozens of public objections are buried under single obscure headings on the council’s own website. Those of many responsible bodies have not been highlighted in the Executive Summary This committee cannot, by any reasonable standard, have fully absorbed what it is being asked to approve tonight. We ask that this be formally noted as grounds for refusal.
THE COUNCIL AVOIDED A COMPETITIVE TENDER — AND THE PROMISES ARE UNENFORCEABLE
Camden sold leasehold interests in a way that deliberately avoided triggering the Public Contracts Regulations 2015, which would have required an open, competitive public tender. The consequence is that there is no binding contract with Yoo Capital. The council’s only leverage runs through planning obligations. The replacement depot, the car pound, the promised public facilities — none of them are guaranteed. They are promises, not obligations.
THERE IS SIMPLY NO MASTERPLAN — AND THE TWO DEVELOPERS ARE NOT EVEN ALIGNED
Camden’s own planning policy requires comprehensive master planning of the Regis Road Growth Area. No such masterplan exists. The original development partner, Joseph Homes, has publicly objected to this application — and their own closely associated application is not even before this committee tonight. Camden’s own Design Review Panel warned that separate applications risk incoherent development, that illustrative views may be actively misleading about cumulative impact, and called for a formal linking strategy before any permission is granted. That strategy does not exist. We ask that this be formally noted as grounds for refusal.
THIS IS A BREACH OF YOUR OWN ADOPTED POLICY
The Kentish Town Policy Framework limits buildings to eight storeys. The housing blocks on the Holmes Road frontage rise to eighteen storeys — directly opposite a school, on a residential street. Other blocks reach twenty-three storeys. For context, Monmouth House has thirteen storeys and is considered tall here. This is not a matter of planning judgment or aesthetic taste. It is a breach of your own adopted policy. Three times the permitted limit.
THE PROMISED BENEFITS CANNOT BE RELIED UPON
Homes: The officer’s report acknowledges the objections to the application and its problems but argues they are outweighed by promised affordable homes and jobs. Those promises have no binding force. Crucially, the committee will note that developers regularly renege on or avoid promises of affordable housing. One nearby example is The Goods Yard Site where 203 promised affordable homes have recently been reduced to 120 – just 13% of homes. With perfect irony one application in tonight’s meeting is for a reduction re O2.
Jobs: There is no compelling business plan guaranteeing the promised jobs. The film industry is in the doldrums. CGI is having a huge impact. Film studios elsewhere are being converted to data processing centres with almost no jobs being created. In public meetings the architects boasted that the building is flexible and can be used for anything.
THE BASEMENT EXCAVATION DEMANDS PROPER SCRUTINY
The proposed basements were not flagged up in public consultations. Extraordinarily and with no clear justification in places they reach 26 metres down — 10 storeys underground, deeper than Kentish Town tube station at 21 metres. 6 stories deep immediately adjacent to a school. In London clay and with our underground river, The Fleet, running close by. The engineering risks of an excavation of this depth and proximity have not been adequately addressed in the publicly available documentation.
The removal of soil would generate truly enormous traffic, possibly 56 two way journeys every day for years in addition to construction traffic, with consequent pollution in an area with a high number of children who are “sensitive receptors” in planning terms. Are you satisfied with evidence of compliance with the National Planning Policy Framework on that subject? And National and London and Camden policies and guidance?
THE DECISION TONIGHT
You may be told — by officers, by your party — that you have no real choice. But over the years, many Councillors have faced exactly that pressure. Some had the courage and clarity to refuse it.
We are asking you to refuse this application on the grounds that the consultation process has been procedurally defective, that the scheme violates adopted policies on scale, height, and comprehensive master-planning, and that the health and safety implications of the recycling centre proposal and basement excavation have not been subject to adequate public scrutiny. And that the officers own report outlines the defects and costs of the proposal but says they are outweighed by alleged benefits – benefits that cannot be relied upon.
If something goes wrong — with the fire hazard recycling centre opposite a school, with a thirty-six metre basement excavation in London clay close to another school, with affordable housing promises that evaporate — this meeting will be the subject of close scrutiny with a paper trail that leads here. With the known risks to residents and with Camden and councillors at professional reputational and electoral risk.
The Inkerman Area Residents Association
And as regards the Police Station / Recycling Centre application which is procedurally separate:
2. SUBMISSION re planning application 2025/5084/L: FIRE SAFETY RISK FROM PROPOSED RECYCLING CENTRE RELOCATION
IARA submits this to draw the Planning Committee’s attention to evidence of serious and immediate fire safety risk arising from the proposed relocation of the existing recycling centre from Regis Road to the car park of Kentish Town police station — directly opposite a primary school and next to residential housing.
1. The Proposal and Its Location
The application proposes to relocate the Regis Road recycling centre to the car park of Kentish Town police station on Holmes Road. This is an unprecedented siting for a recycling facility in London. Residents of the proposed development — including the 28 families currently housed above the depot — would be subjected to seven-days-a-week noise and pollution in addition to a serious and foreseeable risk of fire.
2. The Lithium-Ion Battery Fire Risk: A National and Local Emergency
According to Westminster City Council, hundreds of devastating fires occur every year across the country in recycling and waste management facilities and vehicles. A significant and growing proportion of these are caused by discarded lithium-ion batteries, which are present in a wide range of consumer goods: electronics, toys, power tools, electric vehicles, e-bikes and scooters.
This is not a theoretical risk. The following recent incidents illustrate the scale and consequences:
- In June 2025 — this week — 100 firefighters were called to a major fire at a recycling centre in Bermondsey that caused significant rail disruption across South London.
- Very recently a lithium-ion battery exploded when a vehicle ran over it at the Islington waste transfer station. The site had to be closed for three days. The volume of water required to control the incident flooded the site and caused extensive damage to essential equipment.
The North London Waste Authority has itself raised concerns about the Regis Road police station proposals. Its concerns should be accorded significant weight.
3. Proximity to a Primary School: An Unacceptable Risk
The proposed recycling centre location is immediately opposite a primary school. IARA is not aware of any other location in Britain where families are housed above a recycling centre, or where such a facility is sited directly opposite a school. There is a reason for this: it is dangerous.
The consequences of a lithium-ion battery fire at this location — adjacent to residential buildings, opposite a school, in a densely populated urban area — could be catastrophic. The comparison with Grenfell Tower is not rhetorical. A foreseeable and preventable fire risk in proximity to a school and homes is precisely the category of planning failure that public inquiries and coroners have identified as requiring a higher standard of precautionary decision-making.
4. The Committee Is Asked to Refuse This Application
IARA submits that the Planning Committee should refuse this application on fire safety grounds, independently of the other material planning objections previously submitted. The proposed recycling centre relocation:
- Creates a foreseeable and serious fire risk to children, residents and emergency services;
- Has been identified as a concern by the North London Waste Authority;
- Would locate a fire-risk facility directly opposite a primary school — a standard that is, to our knowledge, without precedent elsewhere in Britain;
- Would expose residents in the proposed development to seven-days-a-week risk of fire, noise and pollution.
Approving this application would expose the Council itself to serious legal and reputational consequences if the foreseeable risk materialises. The Committee is urged to refuse.
5. This leaves aside the whole issue of the partial demolition of a listed building which others are dealing with.
Submitted on behalf of the Inkerman Area Residents’ Association (IARA)