Agar Grove estate

Number of homes: 249
Landlord: Camden Council
Ballot Status: Exempt
Planning Status: Approved
Developer: Camden Council
Architect: Hawkins Brown/Mae

249 council homes have been demolished on the Agar Grove estate in Camden.

The estate is situated near Camden Town to the north of Kings Cross and comprises 249 homes in circa 10 blocks of low-rise maisonettes and an 18 storey high-rise block (Lulworth House - which is supposed to be refurbished as part of the plans).

The scheme was funded by the Mayor and exempted from his requirement to ballot residents on the demolition of their homes.

The scheme is being delivered by Camden Council directly. A 2013 Cabinet report estimated that the scheme will cost the council £143m but that most of this will be compensated by sales receipts for the private housing. There is no publicly available information on how much the scheme has cost to date and how much has been recovered from private sales.

Planning consent for redevelopment was granted in Dec 2014 which spans six phases of development. The first phase in currently underway and Camden has already started marketing the new private homes on this phase https://thecamdencollection.co.uk/:

In 2019, Camden Council issued a Compulsory Purchase Order in order to remove the remaining leaseholders in the next phase. The Council's statement of reasons for redeveloping the estate gives the following explanation of why demolition is necessary:

It also explains that only 216 replacement social rented homes will replace the 249 being demolished (para 3.10).

In August 2023, it was reported that new build homes on the first phase have been plagued by a series of major build defects.

In January 2025, it was reported that works on the final phase of the scheme (refurbishment of Lulworth House - the retained tower block) had been halted due to design issues stemming from changes to the Building Regulations and isn’t expected to finish until 2030.