The Town Hall after the pandemic

THE work to revamp the Town Hall building continues with the virus pandemic not standing in the way of a plan to get councillors back in Judd Street by 2022. They had just been getting used to the airy surrounds of the Crowndale Centre when the coronavirus sent everybody home to work through screens.

You can’t blame them, or any of us, for dreaming of a time when we won’t have to worry about facemasks and social distancing, and this week the council released CGI images of what it will look when they return. There’s no hand sanitiser points or queuing systems in the pictures of how the new foyer and staircases will look.

Half of the building will be council services and the civic floor, while the rest will provide rented space for small businesses. Camden say they already have interested from the science, tech, art and entertainment industries.

But are the council having a little joke with me here? When you zoom in, who’s this Osley type character struggling to bluff his way past a suspicious security guard? One of my colleagues actually asked if I had to pose for this. I’ll remember a tie next time.

Other characters possibly in the pics are a council comms officer who knows she’s only staying for three months before getting a job at the Home Office, an elderly woman fed up with her overbearing daughter-carer and a know-it-all guru techsplaining over some superbyte java coffee. It almost makes you miss Ellen Luby and the mutton curry stand. 

More on the work to the building in the CNJ.