One of 10 fire stations shut by Boris Johnson while he was Mayor of London is to be converted into luxury flats – by a company whose directors include a Tory donor.

Belsize fire station, which was closed in 2014 after 100 years of service to the local community, will be turned into 16 apartments, the Camden New Journal have reported.

Vulcan Property Ltd, which bought the grade II listed building from the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority (LFEPA) for £7.8 million, was given planning permission for the flats this week.

Scrapbook has found that Electoral Commission records show one of the company’s three directors, William Richard Woodward-Fisher, made a £2000 donation to a Conservative association in 2005.

Camden Council’s planning committee gave the scheme the go ahead this week, but at a previous meeting local councillor Flick Rea said: “It is patently clear that we did actually need this fire station.”

Firefighters at the station rescued a man from a fire in a block of flats on the same morning that the station was closed.

Last year a house just a 20 second drive away from the station was destroyed by a blaze. The owner of the house told the Camden New Journal: “If Belsize was open, the response time would have been quicker. There is not even a conversation about that. It’s a 20-second drive away… I want to praise the firefighters but criticise the politicians that closed Belsize.”

And the closure of the fire station was blamed for the death of a pensioner who died after jumping from his burning flat. Here’s the ITV news report from the time…

The fact that two flats in the new development are allocated for social housing will be of little comfort to those paying the price for Johnson’s closures.

Especially given that Tory supporters are now profiting as a consequence of his deadly cuts…