The area outside the British Library is now a place where the public can eat, drink, relax… or even read. Photo: Courtesy of SK Hagan

• THE plan to build the new British Library in Bloomsbury would not only have meant “knocking down a swathe of historic Georgian streets”, (Dan Carrier’s review of the book Designing London’s Public Spaces, April 30); it would also have thrown around 1,000 people out of their homes… if they hadn’t, successfully, resisted.

This seven acres at the historic heart of Bloomsbury was one of the few remaining densely populated patches in central London where a community of “ordinary people” lived. And, 50 years on, it mostly still is.

Though it’s a continual battle to maintain it as such, given the predations of “developers” trying to drive us out, attempts to push the West End’s entertainment zone into hitherto peaceful residential streets, the loss of social housing on account of Margaret Thatcher’s disastrous Right to Buy scheme, and – not least – because of Camden Council’s changes to our streetscape which prioritise tourists (and planners’ fantasies) over residents.

ALBERT BEALE
WC1