Curnock Street Estate - Perimeter Fencing

Current Challenges and Limitations

CHALLENGES

Our estate is facing many challenges (see photos below) every day such as ASB, flytips, graffitti, rough sleeping, misuse of estate spaces, etc.

Crime Increase

There were a total of 1592 street level crime incidents in Camden Town in June 2020. The largest category was Anti Social Behaviour, followed by Violent Crime. Below are these incidents broken down by category.

Crime Category	Incidents
Anti Social Behaviour	608
Violent Crime	315
Public Order	99
Other Theft	91
Drugs	84
Vehicle Crime	75
Burglary	69
Criminal Damage Arson	62
Bicycle Theft	61
Theft From The Person	34
Shoplifting	32
Robbery	31
Other Crime	18
Possession Of Weapons	13
All Crime	1592

Rubbish Disposal

All the properties surrounding Curnock Street Estate are currently using our bins for their home rubbish and heavy items. This has created a lot of frustration and arguments between the estate residents and the street properties residents. The situation is worse because Veolia does not have a consistent signs for the bins. Some of them are labelled as Business Waste which is clearly not the case. Camden Council has not managed so far to stop the tenants of those properties from throwing rubbish on our estate.

Homeless and drug users are also open the bin bags searching for anything useful leaving the whole estate in a very unhealthy condition. Limited resources from the council (2 caretakers for the whole estate) and a cumbersome system made things even worse.

Community Spaces

During the lockdown the estate residents used the open spaces and playground. Many families and especially the kids enjoyed the open spaces and facilities which were clean and safe. However, in order to continue to do that we need to keep the areas clean and safe from ASB elements.

LIMITATIONS

Our estate is facing many limitations with very limited resources from the police, council and their contractros.

Police Resources

It is not a secret that the police resources are overstretched most of the times. Especially in a busy borough like Camden. The combination of nightlife, the markets and many pubs and restaurants, increases the amount of people who are visiting Camden and hence the ASB activities. While the police does their best to attend every call, this is almost impossible without a substantial investment from the government.

Council Resources

Camden Council’s resources are very limited and especially the resources that are allocated to our estate. At the moment we have two caretakers for the whole estate. Two people are not enough for cleaning all the communal areas, removing bulky items, changing bulbs on the communal areas, reporting problems, etc