This was not the lead story I had planned for today’s Camdenist.

That’s partly as the fabulous tale I did have, all ready to send - involving a risqué intergenerational local cultural escapade - has necessarily been put on hold at the 11th hour (more on that soon, I hope).

But also because, a decade deep into planning, news dropped this week that Camden Highline, the ambitious project to turn abandoned railway lines running between Kentish Town Road and King’s Cross into an elevated public park, was also having to be paused - indefinitely.

Apart from obvious strong local support for such potentially dynamic new green space, the idea has always been particularly close to my heart, as it was inspired by a cover story I wrote exactly 10 years ago this month, back when we published Kentishtowner as a monthly print newspaper for the area.

I’d been researching a series of exciting mooted suggestions for local public realm improvements, including a walking route up to Hampstead Heath alongside the railway tracks from Kentish Town station, turning nearby Wolsey Mews into a live/work designer-maker alternative high street, and even outlandish suggestions to bring the decommissioned Kentish Town South tube station back into service on the Northern Line.

(Ten years on, it’s worth noting that none of those plans have got off the ground, although the Heath connection does feature in the longer term redevelopments of Regis Rd, now dominated by the more recent announcement of the Camden Film Quarter).

I stumbled upon some research by UCL geographer, Oliver O’Brien, who had identified a number of terminally disused sections of Network Rail infrastructure in his quest to see whether London could produce its own answer to the highly successful New York Highline.

His work suggested the Camden section was by far the most doable of the lot.

“Should the route remain abandoned, eventually Network Rail will have to maintain or demolish the bridges, which will be expensive,” Oliver said when I first called him up, back in May 2016.

“So, if that expense is on the way, then it might as well be used for something constructive, such as opening up this route. In a place like London, which is growing all the time in population terms but not in footprint, every spare space should be used for something, not allowed to sit and rot quietly.”

The good folk at local business tubthumping organisation, Camden Town Unlimited, picked up on the idea, and only bloody well went and attempted to see how far the could actually take it, attracting top architects, the support of City Hall and numerous small doners, volunteers and enthusiasts in the process.

I had begun to dream of feeling a soft radiating glow of pride when walking/doddering along the verdant strip at some point in the future, finally content with the knowledge that, while producing local media ain’t exactly a pot of gold, it still has the power to inspire and help germinate the biggest of ideas.

One month after the cover story ran, Brexit became a thing; just the first in the rolling sequence of national and global shocks and setbacks that haven’t exactly helped get the project off the ground, particularly with a £50m price tag required for completing just the first section. And I believe that was the pre-Covid quote!

So this week’s announcement, while probably the least shocking of the endless financial shocks, is still a bitter blow for everyone who had their own dreams of walking through the magically finished park, one day.

Rightly, there’s a never-say-never approach to the end of this decade-long chapter, in the words of Richard Terry, Chair of the project’s trustees, who says: “The work is not lost. The planning, creativity and imagination that brought the Camden Highline this far will be carefully preserved by the trustees, so that whether it is us or others who one day pick up the mantle again, the project’s achievements can be carried forward for the future.

“It is, in that sense, a time capsule: a record of what has been imagined, designed and built in partnership with the community, waiting to be reawakened when the time and conditions are right once more.”

We’d better hope (and dream) that Network Rail will maintain the Victorian infrastructure that long, as our general state of perma-crisis sure doesn’t look like abetting accommodatingly any time soon.

Happily, new stages are arriving all around us like the proverbial busses right now. First up is confirmation of the opening of pop-up 594-seater right by Marble Arch, to host the Arts Theatre programming while that West End venue undergoes a major 2-year refurb.

Snappily nicknamed Marble Arts, or rather ‘The Arts at Marble Arch powered by TodayTix’, to give it the official mouthful, it opens in July with a big new version of Christina Aguilera’s stage show, Burlesque.

The project has been conceived by Louis Hartshorn and Brian Hook, who locals may know previously ran the Peaky Blinders immersive show, Farrier pub and Lucky Club cocktail terrace at Camden Stables Market.

👯‍♀️ Meanwhile, the former Proud Cabaret spot on the Embankment, now reborn as Emerald Theatre, is about to start an ultra-limited 6-show London run of Sinematic, a cabaret extravaganza where every act is inspired by an iconic movie moment, and which exploded in popularity on its debut in LA, when Quentin Tarantino visited and gave it his thumbs-up. It will be showing on Friday nights only, from May 22nd.

🎤 While we’ve got to wait until next year for the biggest new theatre opening in the capital for 50 years, the 1,575-capacity British Airways Theatre at the impressive reinvented Olympia, its sister live music venue, the British Airways ARC, a 3,800-capacity monster operated by AEG Presents (another branding mouthful there), opens next month with Mercury-Prize nominated Self Esteem headlining the first two nights.

🎭 News also landed this week about the return of The Yard Theatre, out on my other beat of Hackney Wick, which has been totally rebuilt, after the original scaffolding and pallet-built DIY incarnation finally gave up the ghost. The new space has risen in its place in only a year, and has delivered a launch coup by announcing Ian McKellen in LEAR, which sees Shakespeare reimagined by playwright Simon Stephens and The Yard’s Artistic Director Jay Miller, due in November.

🌃 And Troubadour Theatres, who have already plonked big new immersive show spaces at Wembley Park and Canary Wharf, and preparing to open a huge new venue at Greenwich Peninsula later this year, boasting not one but two 1,500 capacity auditoriums, phew!

🌟 Finally, at the opposite end of the scale, with just 55 seats squeezed in above a pub, Hampstead’s recently opened Circle & Star continues to punch well above its weight when it comes to putting on delightfully intimate shows with big name stars.

MUSIC: 🎸 Join local 6-piece band SHY at MAP Studio Cafe on Fri 22nd May as they draw on tales of their own escapades, local cab drivers and more for their genre-bending sound that promise to take you on a journey through the streets of London. With support from Leisure Centre, too.

FESTIVAL: 🍻 Who am I to say it’s optimistically a touch early for a summer fair, when the mighty Primrose Hill Summer Festival returns to pack out Regent’s Park Rd and surrounds this Sun 17th May. It comes with the legendary dog show, with celeb judge Gail Porter, too.

MUSIC: 🍺 The prolific DJ crew Dig It Soundsystem are celebrating the reopening of The Star pub in Chester Rd on Sat 16th May with one of their classic local backroom boozer hoe-downs and it looks set to be a bigg’un.

CABARET: 💃🏼 Drag star Honey Foxx kicks off The Foxx Den, her ferocious and feral new affair at The Black Cap, with assorted guests, showing late night tonight Fri 15th May.

CLUB: 🎧Esteemed producer, Ibiza legend and global DJ Nic Fanciulli & Butch, the German tastemaker in his own right, both touch down at KOKO tonight, Fri 15th May for an all night house and techno session.

MUSIC: 🛢️ Chalk Farm’s lovely Spiritual Bar move up the road to the larger room of Camden Assembly for the 20th edition of their Spiritual Records Spring Festival 2026 featuring 12 bands from afternoon into the night on Sun 24th May.