The original WHAT protest 50 years ago in 1973 

THERE are hundreds if not thousands of people across Camden who devote many hours of their lives, unpaid, to protecting their own little patch of the borough for future generations to come.

Whether it’s housing, parks and greens, community venues or making official representations to the powers-that-be, this is the kind of work that often passes under the radar and more often than not is a thankless task.

Of course there are some people who put themselves forward for committee positions for the wrong reasons, while others become corrupted as they cling on to authority for too long.

You know who you are. But I feel that the vast majority of these sort of people are motivated by a genuinely selfless commitment to what might be bluntly described as neighbourliness.

So this week let’s hear it for all the chairs and vice chairs, the treasurers and secretaries, all those toiling away with niche sub-committees work – and not forgetting newsletter editors!

I was thinking all this while reading a real collectors’ item of the genre from West Hampstead Amenity and Transport (WHAT) – marking the group’s 50th anniversary.

It seems extraordinary now to think about it now, but in the late 1960s the Greater London Council was planning to build a six-lane motorway through West Hampstead, Kilburn, Swiss Cottage and Camden Town.

The London Motorway Box plan would have seen thousands of homes demolished in NW6 with “huge multi-level junctions”, akin to the Westway, towering over residential streets.

Outcry stopped that madness but like an earthquake’s aftershock, authorities proposed an alternative that would divert motorway traffic through West End Lane and Fortune Green.

Residents got together to fight the plans and – 50 years ago to the day this week, on September 10, 1973 – West End Lane was shut for a slow-walk protest. Parents and children walked back and forth over the zebra crossings to stop the traffic.

“So it’s fitting that our 50th anniversary event is the closure of West End Lane for a day on September 24,” writes John Saynor, WHAT’s current chairman in the newsletter.

The newsletter reveals how the group went in to oppose council plans for “Environment Areas”, which would have created no-through routes for cars in residential streets.

Geoff Berridge, WHAT’s chairman between 1976-1983, recalls in the newsletter how WHAT opposed this concept, saying it would “lead to more congestion on the main roads, and therefore more pollution – especially lead pollution as this was in the days before lead-free petrol”.

Mr Berridge writes: “As I look back on 50 years of WHAT, it is a great vignette to illustrate the difference we’ve made to the lives of all those who live in West Hampstead.”

Flick Rea – who retired in 2021 as Fortune Green councillor after 35 years – recalled how her lifetime of civic duty began thanks to WHAT.

She writes how she had “never been an activist before” until she turned up to the “first manifestation of WHAT” and joined the protest West End Lane 50 years ago.

“I was asked to join the committee and discovered a whole new world where people welcomed you just for turning up (unlike my theatre background where there’s always someone queuing up to take your place).

Thus I fell into the arena of minutes, agendas, constitutions, resolutions, protests, letters to the press, to the council, even government ministers and, guess what, I enjoyed it.”

Ms Rea became a WHAT secretary and a chair and has stayed on the committee for 50 years. Virginia Berridge – chair from 1998 to 2016 – recalls her role in WHAT’s most successful campaign, an improvement to the sewage system in Sumatra Road following terrible floods in 2002.

She also recalled the Sainsbury’s “trolley-gate”, a TfL bus website statistics victory, and getting rid of the traffic lights at the West End Lane / Mill Lane junction.

The group also played a key role in the new Overground station, which opened in 2014, and the original 02 Centre dispute in the 1990s.

Of course recent years have been dominated by developer Landsec’s plan to demolish the 02 Centre, less than 30 years after it was built.

Janet Grauberg writes in the newsletter how WHAT will keep a beady eye over the works after the 1,800 homes scheme was approved.

Helpers are needed for the big “car-free” day in West End Lane on September 24 when the road will be closed except for buses and emergency vehicles between 7am and 6pm.

There is also a 50th anniversary part in Emmanuel Church on September 16. You can join WHAT for £5 per household a year.