Buffy in Bloomsbury

Bloomsbury sounds so different from Holborn and St Pancras, but the London enclosed by the Euston Road, Gray's Inn Road, the river and the Tottenham Court Road is one entity bound together by its gardens and squares, its universities and libraries, hospitals and research institutes, Inns of Court and professionals' pied-a-terre in pretty edwardian blocks, its museums and art collections, and diversity of shops and restaurants. Bloomsbury conjures up georgian splendour while Holborn and St Pancras brings council blocks to mind;both are here and as integrated as the population, in all their diversity.

Which is why we all put our stakes into our handbags and coat pockets and went to the Stakeholder Workshop on the Bloomsbury Corridor (refreshments provided), despite the effort it took to find out where and when - having emailed our acceptance of the inaudible invitation. They had underestimated our bush telegraph. And us. They've been doing that for ages; they want to end the community that lives in such a desirable, central quarter between the City and the Government; we aren't their sort. So spurning their sandwiches and juice, we set to on the vampires of undemocratic governance.

They fought hard. Each stake holder was required to state name and number - and the names rolled: the British Museum (a Slayer and his Watcher);the University of London (a lone Slayer but with wonderful braids);the Vicar of St Pancras (he had no stake with him but his church, with its caryatids, has one of the finest organs in London); the chairpersons of the Bloomsbury Square, Russell Square, Tavistock Square, any Square you can bring to mind, (and their Watchers); the Marchmont Street Association, traders and residents (Slayer and Watcher); our local, elected Councillors.....and a resident Angel.

They had us sign in and leave addresses; our lips curled like their sandwiches.

Then the self-designated Chair of the meeting told us the order of business: the last item would be Questions and we would possess our souls in patience until then as there was much to get through.

Item 1 - Welcome. We all understood how welcome we were and the platitudes petered out.
Item 2 - Project Background. Woburn Place, east side of Tavistock Square, Russell Square, Southampton Row, and Kingsway into the Aldwych needs to be turned into a race track for the Olympic delegates and press who will be quartered here. A barrage of questions and well-yielded stakes turned presumptions (and presumption) into dust. The agenda collapsed.

The Transport Liaison Officer of Camden (lead apparatchik) was separated from the Consultants, who took their chance to begin demonstrating (with passion, and film and graphic representations) their alternative plan for the reconstituting of a unified series of Bloomsbury Squares and the ending of the division of the quarter by the trafficking of Russell Square.

Slayers, Watchers and Angels, backed by their Councillors roared them on with helpful contributions ( notable was the Slayer for Russell Square who explained the Acts of Parliament governing the great Bloomsbury Squares and their design and planting; the opinion that there was a sub-agenda to cut off grander, institutional west Bloomsbury from livelier, residential and trading East Bloomsbury, as there has been for decades so that East Bloomsbury's poorer sectors can be 'redeveloped', was greeted with cries of 'Well said, that Angel' from the West Bloomsbury grandees, who eat, shop, and go to the pictures too. )

Camden's apparatchiks seized the Chair from the Consultants, who had the bit between their teeth by now, and were showing film from European cities of re-pedestrianisation techniques, and discussing plans for a great North Entrance to the British Museum from Montague Street, linked by these means to the University of London Senate House area (both of these public and private spaces being currently used as coach and car parks), for social mingling. "It is not your brief to discuss the coach parking which is crucial to the Olympic needs" the Lead Apparatchik roared in pain as stakes sank into him. Mingling, not coach parking for Olympic delegates, was winning. And, worse, the assembled company, whose joint IQ, and social, cultural and political connection was stratospheric, were demanding that he speak up, speak clearly, use consonants, stop mumbling, and sit up properly.

The Marchmont Street Traders and Residents were in tete-a-tete with a charming and clever Consultant on the enhancement of Marchmont, through Brunswick, across Coram's Fields and on to the Grays Inn Road; it emerged that this was the object of a separate 'Study' of which no hint had got out. Stake holders handed in their emails and credentials for that meeting too.

The Camden Lead Apparatchik finally got order and faced a cold and ceremonious questioning. The British Museum was surprised this was the second Stakeholder Workshop, what of the first? The University of London had heard nothing of any of this either; as Bloomsbury's main resident it was odd. The Chairman of the Bloomsbury Residents' Association noted that the Camden apparatchiks seemed unaware that 5000 people, many of them shift workers at the hospitals, lived where a coach park was planned for a sports festival. The Councillors enquired where was the public consultation and were given the astonishing reply that 'public consultation' would come when the Executive was good and ready.

At this point a sub prime Apparatchik stood up and began photographing the people present. The Vicar remarked that was a bit much. The photographing and videoing continued.

Walking home, it was agreed that we had seen just a flank of the monster that is the New Order - the arbitrary powers, the pretence of consultation, the hidden agendas, the sheer scale of contempt for us all, even major institutions that are not part of the Project. Most of all, the loathing by all involved, even the Consultants, of the new Order's programme.

But who are they? And why do they want to spoil the world?