[updated 7.45pm]

A stretch of Maygrove Road is set to be closed for three months from Thursday [originally was to be Monday] as part of the redevelopment of Handrail House. Local groups are unhappy that they were alerted to this only after residents received a letter yesterday informing them. The road closure and attendant parking bay suspensions are needed to divert the existing storm drain that runs through the Peace Park into Maygrove Road.

The road will be closed from 80 Maygrove Road to Ariel Road – not a very long section, but enough to cause disruption for local residents. Traffic heading west will have to turn down Ariel and onto Loveridge Road and traffic heading east would be better off not turning onto Maygrove Road in the first place but continuing down the Kilburn High Road and turning onto Iverson Road.

Residents of Fordwych Road trying to drive through West Hampstead will have to now either go via Mill Lane, or go onto the Kilburn High Road in order to turn onto Iverson Road.

James Earl, chair of the Fordwych Residents Association, epxressed surpise that no local groups had been consulted. “Clearly, the closure of the road will have an impact on other roads, such as Iverson, Fordwych and Mill Lane – so there should have been widespread notification.”

Access to Sidings Community Centre and Maygrove Peace Park will not be affected, but the pavement on the north side, by the development itself, will be closed.

Residents whose parking will be affected may find that the short notice is problematic, especially any residents with limited mobility who rely on their cars.

John Howard, project manager at Eurobuild Properties, which is carrying out the work, told West Hampstead Life that he would be on site at all time and would be happy to address any residents’ concerns.

Sue Measures, manager at Sidings Community Centre, which backs onto the park, said “whilst the centre knew of the disruption to the top of the park (which we are assured will not affect use of facilities or access to the centre), this was the first we realised that the planned closure of Maygrove Road was to be so extensive or prolonged.”

Hannah Lewin, a spokesperson for  the developer Regal Homes (Eurobuild is registered at the same address as Regal), apologised for the late notice of the announcement, but said that Camden had only just given the authorisation for the closure. The developer is planning to hold regular meetings with residents to update them on progress and listen to any issues they have. Nevertheless, after fostering a good working relationship with Sidings in the run-up to the development, the community centre will rightly be miffed that it didn’t get some advance warning of this closure.

Rob Slaney, network coordinator at Camden council, said that he knew about the proposal for the road closure about four weeks ago, but there was still no definitive plan regarding communication with residents. He didn’t sound optimistic that this would be resolved before the road closure came into effect.

Diversion signs will apparently be in place at the junction of Maygrove Road and Iverson Road and Maygrove Road and Shoot-up Hill. It would seem that signs are also needed at the junction of Fordwych and Maygrove and possibly Garlinge and Fordwych if Camden wants to minimise the number of u-turns.

West Hampstead ward councillor Keith Moffitt said there had been a bit of a breakdown in communication and that councillors had only just heard about it. Some residents were informed about the parking bay suspensions by Camden, but there was a disconnect between the parking suspensions and the road closure information.

Maygrove Road cuts across both West Hampstead and Fortune Green wards, so all six local councillors must be braced for a barrage of phone calls next week when the rest of the neighbourhood realises they can’t drive the length of the road.

Since this post was first published, Regal Homes has circulated a two-page letter with more details.

Regal Homes Maygrove Road letter by WHampstead

Here’s the text of the original letter received by some local residents:

Dear Resident

I am writing to inform you of the commencement of works to Handrail House, 65-67 Maygrove Rd. The first part of the enabling works will be to divert the existing storm drain which runs through Maygrove Peace Park into Maygrove Road. The duration of these works will be from the 27th January to the 28th April 2014.

For these works to progress we have been granted a road closure from the London Borough of Camden from no. 80 Maygrove Road to the junction of Ariel Rd.

Whilst these works are carried out the road will be fully hoarded and non-accessible to all road traffic. All parking bays within this area will also be suspended and therefore require all vehicles currently using these bays to be moved before 27th January.

We apologise for the inconvenience that these works may cause and will endeavor to keep all works to a minium.