Time to make the farmers’ market legal
Not that it’s exactly been “illegal” since it opened. The market has been allowed to operate without planning permission for a short period of time, but now the application is in with Camden and if you are broadly in favour of us having a farmers’ market in West Hampstead every Saturday then it would be a good idea to go to the comments section of the planning application website and say so.
I’m not entirely sure why the application itself is not searchable on Camden’s website, but it’s pretty straightforward so if you like the market, let Camden know you want to keep it.
I have already sent a comment in favour of the farmers market to the Camden website, or at least I hope I have!! I am 100 percent in favour of the farmers market. It provides a wonderful service. Both in terms of the goods on sale, but also the social aspects. No doubt it will also benefit Camden by attracting people from other boroughs!!
It’s a fantastic assett to West Hampstead. It brings back some of the dying community feel the place once had before the corporations moved in. Typical Camden Council who are very keen to make Camden a miserable place to live in. Just see the monolithic Fortune Green monstrosity development they allowed and the new Gondar Gardens fiasco! And don’t get me started on the new Grey School in Mill Lane – looks like a remand centre!
This really isn’t anything to do with Camden wanting to make the place miserable. Planning permission is a standard requirement; farmers’ markets typically are allowed to start up without it and then apply for it retrospectively. Very little chance of it not being granted. While we’re on the topic, it wasn’t Camden that approved Gondar Gardens either, but the national planning inspector on appeal after Camden (twice) rejected proposals to develop the land. Not everything a council does is automatically bad, like most of us they get some things right and some things wrong.
The council received 287 comments in support of the application and 2 objecting. Suffice to say, permission was granted.