Having worked this weekend on TMA North, I can assure you that LAM was busy as usual, indeed perhaps more so than usual as some flights from Italy and Greece were re-routed through LAM.
As has been already mentioned, when on Easteries, there can be more aircraft off the stack and so holding is less. As a consequence of this, aircraft on Brookmans Park departures, after 4000 feet , can be taken off the SID, given an easterly heading and climbed against traffic running into LAM ( often co-ordinated with LL INT North as "east and up"). This would indeed give the illusion of traffic heading towards LAM ( infact they fly south of LAM before turning north-ish towards Clacton).
Hope this helps.
