Putting the Community into Murphy’s Yard
We are community organisers and official owners of Mortimer Terrace Nature Reserve — the Grade 1 Site of Importance for Nature Conservation which Camden Community Makers formally took into community ownership in July 2026, after decades of community stewardship. As a community benefit society and community land trust, with charitable status, we are seeking a significant, permanent allocation of space at Murphy’s Yard for housing, craft space, and community space as a delivery partner in what this development becomes.
We have already shaped this development once
In July 2022, we organised a community-led charrette — convening 14 local organisations, from Dartmouth Park Neighbourhood Forum and Kentish Town City Farm to housing co-operatives and tenant associations across the area, alongside our own Mortimer Terrace Nature Reserve. Around 80 people took part over two sessions. We published the findings in a report addressed directly to Camden Council and Murphy’s Yard.
Icons from Gospel Oak Primary School Year 6 Pupils 2018
Murphy’s Yard’s previous planning application — widely reported to have cost over £5 million to bring forward, plus more than £600,000 in fees — drew roughly 1,500 objections and was withdrawn. Camden Council’s own letter on the scheme stated it had fallen significantly short of the council’s expectations.
That is not a story about consultation. It is documented evidence of changing the direction of a multi-billion-pound development to ensure the community benefits too. We are asking Camden and Murphy’s Yard to build on that relationship, not restart it — by allocating space this partnership has already earned to build a community in Murphys Yard.
The mandate: what the community told us
Murphy’s Yard development plans began as part of he Kentish Town Development Framework area. This is where we live and we have been asking our neighbours what they want from this development since September 2017, starting with a stall at our Parliament Hill Street Party. Since then we have run community mapping workshops with Year 5 and 6 children at Gospel Oak School (2018 and 2019), further engagement at our 2018 Street Party, and the felt mapping and charrette that led to the charrette report above.
The results are not superficial questionnaires. They are rich and diverse: annotated watercolour images, line drawings, textile crafts, a large felt map, felted icons, and written comments from more than 213 individual responses, gathered over six years. We treat this as knowledge production in its own right.
What people told us they want: green space, blue space, educational and cultural space, play, wellbeing and health facilities — and more social rented housing. By social housing, our community means housing that’s affordable, that they have a say in, and that gives something back to the community as a whole.
Photo Jessica Jacobs 2018
A proven track record as stewards
We are not asking Camden and Murphy’s Yard to take a risk on an untested group. We already hold and manage a real asset bordering this site — Mortimer Terrace Nature Reserve, community-managed since 1987, secured for the community when Camden Council completed its purchase in 2022, and formally transferred into CCM ownership in July 2026 after four years of legal process. Along the way we registered it as an Asset of Community Value in 2016 and defended it from two separate sale attempts (2019 and 2021). As a registered community benefit society and community land trust with charitable status, we have the governance structure and public accountability to manage significant public and community space responsibly — and we have now proven we can see that process through from campaign to freehold, however long it takes.
In March 2020, we held our first open meeting for anyone interested in building and living in community-led social rented housing, at Think & Do in Kentish Town. It was standing room only. We heard from:
- Brendan Conway, GLA-funded Community Led Housing Hub
- Fabian Watkinson, author of The Golden Age of Camden Housing
- Cooperation Town
We also screened our short film Consequences (6:59) showing what was already happening to the local area as a result of the Murphys Yard plans.
Consequences (Dir Emily O’Mara and Jessica Jacobs)
What we are asking for
Building on our existing presence and the outcome of the charrette, we are seeking a significant, permanent allocation of space at Murphy’s Yard that reflects what our community has told us it needs: housing, dedicated craft space, and community space — designed and delivered with the community that has already shaped this site’s future once.
Get involved: if you’d like to take part in a working group, get in touch.