What a film it would make: the story of how some of London’s best-known actors battled to save one of the capital’s last intact Georgian lanes.

The campaign to preserve historic Little Green Street in north London from the effects of property development has swept up actors Bill Nighy and Tom Conti, film director Ken Loach and, adding a touch of gravitas, Alan Budd, a former chief adviser to the Treasury. They are opposing what Nighy describes as a “senseless” bid to use the lane, edged with 18th-century Grade II-listed houses, as an access route to a landlocked building site behind it.

On one side are the lane’s residents, who fear the plans could destroy their homes as well as the cobbled lane, the only route to the site, which would need to be tarmacked over and reinforced to carry building lorries. On the other is London’s desperate need for more housing and the trickiness of building in the few patches of land that are left.

Conti, whose co-star in the West End play Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell, Elizabeth Payne, lives in Little Green Street, says building the new development “could destroy the lane and the houses”. With Nighy, Loach and Budd, he has thrown his weight behind a campaign to save the Kentish Town street.

The developers, EuroInvestments of Wembley, originally applied to Camden council for planning permission to build 20 houses and 10 flats with an underground car park on the landlocked site in College Lane five years ago. Two years later, it appealed to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, arguing that the council was late in making its decision. A planning inspector allowed the appeal, pointing out the need for more housing in the capital and describing the development as “an imaginative solution to a complex urban site”.

“Why did they approve such a harebrained scheme, which could destroy a little row of Georgian houses, protected property?” asks Conti.

Now, he adds, it’s the struggle of “little people” against bureaucracy. “The problem is nobody knows who to talk to there does not seem to be any challenge they can make. They should be able to say to a sensible person: please stop this scheme and take a good look at it. But that doesn’t happen in government. There is no common sense any more. Anyone with a whit of common sense would look at that piece of land, look at the access and say that’s impossible.”

Nighy, star of the films Love Actually and Stormbreaker, describes Little Green Street as “beautiful” and “very quaint”. He says the street was “part of the reason I stay in the area. It’s senseless to tamper with it in any way”.

While the actors’ involvement has given their campaign the oxygen of publicity, residents are still worried. Nick Goodall, who lives with his wife and four children in one of the street’s Georgian houses, valued at about £750,000, says: “Our houses are Grade II-listed. They sit on the ground, they do not have foundations. If someone drives a car up the lane, we feel the vibrations. To bring lorries up is a risk to the buildings and the people, like my children, who live inside them. It is an absolute no-brainer and that’s what we want someone to see.

“It is not about saying no to the development. It is about saying you cannot risk trashing the road, houses, and people who live in them. That is not right.”

There is, however, a ray of hope for the residents. In recognition of “the severe constraints” involved in developing the site, the planning inspector ruled that the developers had to agree a “construction methodology” with the council, which covered points such as the weight of the building lorries and when the builders would operate.

That is still being thrashed out and this week, despite the fact that signs have already gone up heralding road reconstruction work on Little Green Street, the council said its highway engineers planned to meet residents to hear their worries.

The next step will be to discuss those with the developers, who have suggested splitting lorry loads to reduce any risk of vibration damage and carrying out remedial work if necessary. Nobody from the developers’ architects, PTP Architects, was available to comment further last week.

The drama of Little Green Street awaits its finale.

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