Good Food for Camden - Sustain

Good Food FOr CamdenCamden’s population and its challengesCamden is a vibrant and diverse inner-London borough with anestimated population of 231,900*. In addition, a quarter of a millionpeople work in Camden every day and hundreds of thousands ofvisitors come every year. The number of visitors and peopletravelling through the borough has intensified even further sinceNovember 2007 when Camden became the gateway to Europeafter the opening of the Channel tunnel rail link.Camden has some of the most affluent and deprived areas in theUK. The borough has high population mobility and is the 57th mostdeprived of the 354 boroughs in England. Camden has markedinequalities in health, with male life expectancy varying by morethan ten years across different wards. There is also a large numberof homeless people and high levels of mental health issues.Black and minority ethnic (BME) groups are estimated to make up30 per cent of the borough’s population. The largest BME group inCamden is Bangladeshis, who account for 6.3 per cent ofCamden’s population, followed by black Africans (6 per cent) andIrish (4.6 per cent). Camden’s residents are comparatively young –only 10 per cent of the population are over 65+, while 42 per centare aged between 20-29 years. This compares with national ratesof 16 per cent and 28 per cent respectively.* Corporate Area Assessment submission, May 2009Good Food for Camden: The healthy and sustainable food strategy7