In 2022, after a campaign that began in 2019, Camden Council completed the purchase of Mortimer Terrace Nature Reserve to protect it for the community in perpetuity. It then took four years of legal process before ownership formally transferred to Camden Community Makers in July 2026. It is our first asset — and proof that we follow through, from grassroots campaign to legal freehold, even when the path isn’t always clear or doesn’t always exist to begin with.
Infographic by Emily O’Mara
A green buffer with a 19th-century pedigree
Mortimer Terrace Nature Reserve was originally established by covenant in the late 19th century as a green buffer, protecting the houses along Gordon House Road from railway pollution. It remains a vital lung for a community living on one of the busiest streets in the area, and a haven for wildlife. It is a Grade 1 Site of Importance for Nature Conservation (SINC), designated as a green space in the Dartmouth Park Neighbourhood Forum Local Plan (adopted by referendum in 2019), and it holds a rare Camden Woodland Tree Preservation Order protecting every tree on site, not just one.
Photo Debbie Humphry 2020
Nearly 40 years of community management
The reserve has been managed by the local community since 1987. For much of that time, local resident Jeanne Pendrill ran the site — for a period alongside the London Wildlife Trust — keeping it open, free, and accessible to schools, clubs, and community groups. In 2016, the reserve formalised as a community-managed nature reserve with its own constitution and board of trustees (renewed in 2018), and was registered as one of the first Assets of Community Value in Camden.
Defending the site from developers, twice
2019. After many years of management, the site’s owners started to reduce the length of the lease, from five years to a rolling tenancy at will. In 2019 they suddenly moved to terminate the lease. Without warning, a member of the owning family owners changed the locks while schoolchildren from Gospel Oak School were visiting, and told them to leave. The gates were locked and the site put up for sale at auction. Camden Community Makers mobilised the community, pushing through a stalled renewal of the site’s Asset of Community Value status, and after a sustained campaign, the owners were forced to withdraw the sale. It wasn’t hard to see why the owners had decided to sell after years of inactivity. This was the time that the Kentish Town Development Framework was launched by Camden, covering the Regis Road site and the Murphy’s Yard site. It was clear major development of these sites was putting neighbouring areas at risk. In the same year, Camden Community Makers also made Consequences, a short film documenting the pressure that speculation around the Murphy’s Yard development was placing on both the nature reserve and Kentish Town City Farm while local people were being forced out because of the increasing cost of housing.
2021. Despite our success at getting the site withdrawn from sale, ownership of the site changed hands, and the new owner put the reserve up for auction on 14 October. We disputed the legality of the change of ownership and asked the auctioneers to withdraw it — they refused, but the lot had to be withdrawn when it failed to reach its reserve price. We engaged a surveyor to get the site valued as a nature reserve (not a block of flats) and launched a crowdfunder to help buy the site for the community. We also continued to call on Camden Council to intervene.
From campaign to freeholdSave Mortimer Terrace Nature Reserve campaigners in October 2020 (Photo Debbie Humphry)
The next time the site went up for auction, Camden agreed to put in a bid on our behalf. The owner agreed to withdraw the sale when he received the offer and Camden Council completed the purchase of the site from its owner in 2022, committing to hand it back to the community and protect it in perpetuity. It then took four years of legal process before that commitment was fully realised: on 15 July 2026, ownership formally transferred from Camden Council to Camden Community Makers. The site continues to be looked after by its board of trustees maintaining nearly 40 years of continuous community management.
Why this matters for what comes next
This shows that Camden Community Makers doesn’t just campaign — we deliver, and we stay the course through years of legal and bureaucratic process to secure lasting protection for community assets. It’s also why we’re not approaching neighbouring developments, as an outside interest group: we’re already an established, accountable community landowner on the boundary of the sites, with a governance structure built to hold and manage significant space responsibly.
Photo Ciaran Reynolds 2022
Find out how this connects to our work at Murphy’s Yard →