Just while the national news is dominated by topics that are inconsequential for many of us, so buried beneath are the parliamentary bills that could take away the right to strike as well as the right to peaceful protest.

This concentrated attack on our civil liberties moves the regime in government ever further away from democracy.

Also fading unresolved is the sheer outrage we all felt on finding out just how much raw sewage is constantly and repeatedly released into our rivers and beaches, poisoning the ecosystem and ruining our London and UK waterways. Industry and construction exacerbate this pollution and loss of biodiversity, and we find that the Commons voted out a Lords amendment to make the water companies accountable last year.

Planning permission in Camden is still not operating for the benefit of ordinary people. For instance, the proposed High Speed 2 Adelaide Road headhouse plans consultation also slipped past during the festive break.

Ham & High: Dorothea Hackman says that planning permission in Camden is not operating for the benefit of ordinary peopleDorothea Hackman says that planning permission in Camden is not operating for the benefit of ordinary people (Image: Archive)

Just months after renovating and retrofitting their Holmes Road depot for £8.4 million, Camden Council is proposing to demolish the building and develop the site. This proposal is harmful to the planet in terms of carbon emissions, and wasteful of public money recently spent on the depot.

We have a chance now before February 19 to impact the Euston Area Plan, which will be the framework for the Lendlease development of the area demolished by High Speed 2 Euston and for the new Euston station.

Camden’s Local Plan preliminary consultation (eustonareaplanreview.commonplace.is) on overarching planning guidance in Camden has already passed by on January 13, though you could email views on this and other local planning matters to PlanningPolicy@camden.gov.uk

The Camden Climate Action Plan lacks both quantified targets and timescales in which they must be achieved. This is made even worse by all the concrete-framed buildings currently being built all over Camden.

We know we must stop all emissions if we are to have any hope of containing global warming to 1.5 degrees, yet we just look the other way as we make the planet uninhabitable right now through rising seas, mining and debt in the global south, and through drought, famine, war and floods around the equator, and for our grandchildren, the future generations here in the UK.

Dorothea Hackman is chair of the Camden Civic Society