Our key role is to represent your interests
We represent the aligned interests of our members so that they can focus on running their businesses. Our reputation and the fact that we’re speaking for 300 businesses in Camden Town opens doors, allowing us to communicate what the area needs in the rooms that matter; modifying plans which would be harmful, supporting those which would help and being ready to respond to those we can’t change. With the drastic changes to policy due to Covid-19 giving voice to our members is more important than ever.
What we’ve achieved
2011 Fought the Northern line closure program for the 2012 Olympics. Initial plans proposed 33 consecutive, full line closures and 16 months of early weekday closures. We intervened and negotiated a greatly reduced closure programme.
2012-17 Secured £2 million to fund additional police.
2012-14 Secured £3 million for Camden Collective.
2013-18 The introduction of Permitted Development Rights allowed commercial space to be converted to residential with no oversight, hollowing out our high streets and increasing the cost of the remaining commercial space. We responded by expanding Camden Collective to give businesses an affordable home, and later secured an Article 4 directive to protect Camden’s business space.
2014 Removal of the HS2-1 link which would have ripped through the heart of Camden Town, affected every business with a decade of disruption and cost £631m to the local economy.
2014 Helped get Camden Town selected as a pilot area for an EU Smart Cities trial.
2015 Modified Euston Station development plans to include a northern entrance connecting to Camden Town.
2009-2016 Secured £6 million to improve Camden’s streets, including the updates to Britannia and Cobden Junctions and the pavement widening on Camden High Street.
2019 Secured £50k grant for experiments around the future of High Streets with alternative.camden.
2020 In response to the impact of Covid-19 on the hospitality industry we made the case for a relaxation of street table and chair licenses, the new Pavement Licenses do this.
2020 Since the start of Lockdown we’ve lobbied for a more imaginative use of the roadway, we’re now seeing this bear fruit with new experimentation with the pedestrianisation of high footfall streets.
2020 We argued for additional business support in the form of easily accessed low interest loans. The government then introduced Bounce Back Loans and the Future Fund.
2020 The reliance on the business rates system to allocate emergency grants left the many businesses who don’t pay rates directly behind, we argued for more support, which was achieved with the introduction of Bounce Back Loans and Discretionary Grants.
2021 CTU lobbying unlocks the new 25-strong Camden Town centre police team, providing almost 24-hour coverage from Thursday evening to Sunday night.
2023 Article 4 directions once again applied to Camden Town, protecting business space from conversion to residential.
Who we talk to
Simon Pitkeathley is the LEAP’s Champion for Small Business, a 16-member GLA group chaired by the Mayor of London. He also chairs the ESIF committee and the Workspace Advisory Group, and sits on the newly formed London Transition Board and Camden Economic Renewal Commission who are coordinating London’s and Camden’s post-lockdown reset respectively.
We have police, resident association and Councillor representatives on our Board, and the meetings are regularly attended by representatives from TfL. We also work closely with Camden Council, ATCM, Cross-River Partnership and the Canal and River Trust.