When I was a small boy, my grandparents’ favourite joke involved a sign outside a public toilet in a car park that said “Have you paid and displayed”. Oh how we laughed. Well, I laughed the first time, aged about six. After that I laughed politely, then just smiled, and eventually took to walking off in disgust.
I don’t own a car, and therefore the question of paying and displaying is not one that vexes me personally very often. However, for many people it’s a big issue – whether it’s paying for a residents permit or paying to park for 30 minutes so you can pop to the shops, parking is an emotive issue in these parts.
We’ve touched on it before, after Wet Fish Café owner Andre openly mused as to whether the lack of visitor parking was the single biggest problem facing local businesses.
Now is your chance to do something about it.
Camden is in the middle of its parking review focusing on the size of residents’ parking zones (careful there Grandpa), parking zone hours, and pay & display parking hours. If you have views on how your local zones will operate in future, please fill in the online questionnaire or contact or 020 7974 4639 to get a paper version.
The consultation runs until 18th June and is an “open” consultation; i.e., there are no specific proposals, the council wants to collect residents’ views. Any proposed changes would then be subject to further consultation.
The West Hampstead Business Association has some quite strong views, and its chairman, David Matthews (from estate agent Dutch & Dutch) has given me permission to reprint the letter he sent Camden on behalf of the organisation.
Dear Sirs,
I write on behalf of the West Hampstead Business Association, a recently formed group set up to support and promote all businesses within the West Hampstead area. Local residents and businesses alike are making every effort to improve West Hampstead by doing all they can to create a pleasant environment and encourage good quality shops and amenities in the area. All of our members sight parking as the biggest obstacle to growing their businesses and achieving these objectives.
The most prevalent concerns of our members are:
The limited number of available Pay & Display parking spaces for visitors in and around West End Lane and Mill Lane
Shared Use bays being rarely available for visitors
The poor provision of Loading Bays for retail units on West End Lane and Mill Lane
Attached is a petition with over 200 signatures highlighting the concern of both business operators and customers.
Clearly for Pay & Display parking to benefit local businesses they need to be in close proximity to West End Lane and Mill Lane and not shared use as these bays are very rarely available to visitors. We feel the following should therefore be implemented:
The loss of 8+ Pay & Display bays to form the new First Capital Connect Station should be provided elsewhere and in close proximity to West End Lane.
The ‘Shared Use Bays’ in Sandwell Crescent and Dennington Park Road should be ‘Pay & Display’ only as they are very rarely available to visitors.
Between 10am and 3pm various parts of West End Lane could accommodate additional Pay & Display parking. Clearly at peak times it needs to be clear.
There is currently an overprovision of Shared Use and Pay & Display bays in Alvanley Gardens. If some of these bays became ‘Permit Parking’ there would be no net loss for local residents.
We look forward to hearing that West Hampstead businesses have your support.
It appears that work is due to start soon on alterations to the O2 centre on Finchley Road. These are largely cosmetic. If you’re interested then the relevant planning applications then head off here, here, here, and here, but these are probably more of interest to specialist architects than to most O2 users.
Instead, I can offer you a picture of what it’s supposed to look like when it’s done (this is from a 2011 application and there have been some amendments since then, but they are all minor). There are some interior changes planned as well, but really everyon’e waiting to see what happens with the large premises immediately to the right as you walk in, which has been empty now for some time.
At last week’s Development Control committee meeting, councillors voted 7-2 against the proposed development by Linden Homes and Wates Development of the Gondar Gardens reservoir site up in Fortune Green.
The reservoir site at sunrise (photo via GARA)
This is the second time Camden has turned down a plan from these developers to build flats and houses on this disused but much loved plot of land. The first proposal, for “Teletubby” style semi-submerged dwellings, is in the appeal process (due to be heard next week) and Linden Wates will presumably appeal this latest decision too.
There seemed to be some confusion as to why Camden planning officers were recommending that permission be granted, while acknowledging in their report that the plans were not always in keeping with planning policy. That, combined with an impassioned speech by Fortune Green councillor Flick Rea (who chose to remove herself from the DC for this vote so she could speak against it) and the articulate statement of a 13 year-old boy called Benjamin seemed to sway councillors.
Cllr Rea invoked images of bucolic destruction in her statement: “Imagine the diggers destroying grassland, sending valuable wildlife scurrying or slithering off into the undergrowth. Two years of construction will drive away birds and bats and probably kill off the slow worms.”
Benjamin meanwhile focused on the legacy that Camden would be leaving if councillors approved the proposals. “This is like children going into a toy shop knowing they can’t have anything. You are the parents. If you give in now, they’ll be back for more. When did one lonesome toy ever satisfy a child?”
Councillors ultimately deemed that the scheme was of little architectural merit and not in keeping with the area, while the issue of public access to the remaining open space was unclear.
For the Gondar and Agamemnon Residents Association, this was another significant victory in what has been a long-running campaign to preserve the reservoir site, which is home to slow worms and other species rarely found in built-up areas.
Loading…Webcast Available Here : <a href=”http://www.camden.public-i.tv/core/portal/webcast_interactive/56645/start_time/7787000″>http://www.camden.public-i.tv/core/portal/webcast_interactive/56645/start_time/7787000</a>
Camden has been postponing the public engagement part of its parking review – it was supposed to have happened in March, now apparently it wil be in May. Camden will be seeking residents’ views on parking zone days and hours of control and pay & display maximum stays. However, many other parking changes have been made already, without consultation. Here’s an overview of the major changes implemented in April. The full details are available on Camden’s parking pages.
Residents with the lowest polluting vehicles that fall under tariff 1 will pay slightly less but the price has risen for other tariffs, with the largest increase for those with the largest and most polluting vehicles.
A free annual car club membership and £50 worth of drive hours for the first 150 residents willing to give up their resident permit.
A £10 supplement introduced for diesel vehicle owners.
Classic car owners will no longer be eligible for a free resident permit.
A £50 and £75 charge introduced for registering a 2nd or 3rd vehicle to a resident permit.
Persistent evaders (someone with three or more unpaid parking tickets beyond the appeal stage) will not be able to apply for a 6 month or annual resident permit.
The discount for electric car owners has been retained and will now also apply to electric motorcycle owners.
Renewably sourced electric vehicle owners will no longer be eligible for a free resident permit
Resident visitor permits
The tiered pricing system is being replaced with a flat rate charge of 90p per hour.
The charge for disabled people and the elderly (over 75) falls to 45p per hour.
Residents can now buy their full annual allocation in one go if they wish, rather than having to buy visitor permits every three months.
We will no longer sell the 30 minute visitor permits when an alternative electronic visitor permit system is ready.
Pay & Display parking
Camden is no longer enforcing meter feeding contraventions meaning that customers can now top up their parking session.
Electric vehicle owners will no longer be able to apply for the pay & display permit
Business permits
Camden is increasing the price of business scheme A and B annual permits to £290.
A 75% permit discount has been introduced for businesses with electric and bio methane vehicles.
Applicants will be asked to supply proof that the vehicle is insured for business purposes (where a permit is being requested on the basis that there is an operational need for a vehicle for the viability of the business).
The price for installing a dedicated bay on-street for business scheme A first time applicants has been increased to £1,689.71.
We are proposing to convert resident bays to permit bays in four zones which will give business permit holders greater flexibility when parking.
Business visitor vouchers
The tiered pricing system is being replaced with a flat rate charge of £2.50 per hour.
Restrictions that prevent businesses in certain streets from applying for business visitor vouchers will be removed.
The all day business visitor voucher will no longer be available.
Parking permission
We are merging the current Permission to Park and Dispensation to Wait into one product that will allow tradespeople to park in permit bays or on a single yellow line.
We have reduced the daily charge for a parking permission to £30.
Parking permissions for funerals and weddings will remain free of charge.
It’s been a month now since the dust settled on the 187-199 West End Lane development. You may recall that the plans had to go to City Hall where the Mayor would take a decision on them. His decision, or at least that of Sir Edward Lister, deputy Mayor and Chief of Staff, was to allow Camden to determine the case itself. In other words, City Hall saw no reason to intervene.
Building is scheduled to start in the spring of 2013, although it is unclear when the site is likely to be cleared – which is of specific interest to the businesses on the site, some of whom have commented on a previous post.
I’ve mentioned the newly formed Neighbourhood Development Forum a few times before – it’s being set up so that locals can have a little bit more say into local planning issues.
The group has just launched a website, so I no longer feel the need to post the full minutes of meetings, but I will certainly continue to link to them when they are published and will keep West Hampstead Life readers up to speed with developments.
The minutes of April’s meeting aren’t quite up yet, but I have had a sneak preview, and below is an abridged version of item no.3, which is worth reading as it sets out what the Forum and the Plan can and can’t do based on a presentation by Camden planning officer Jennifer Walsh and answers she gave to questions. (For much more about the general concept, I’d suggest exploring the NDP website in more detail).
NDPs have to fit in with Camden planning policy, the London Plan, the national planning framework, plus some aspects of EU legislation.
Once the Plan is submitted to Camden Council, it then goes to an independent planning inspector for approval. If it is found to be sound there is then a referendum in the area covered by a plan; approval is by simple majority of those who vote. The government has yet to publish the rules about the referenda, so the process is not currently clear.
If the NDP is approved in a referendum, it becomes at statutory planning document, sitting alongside the Camden plan.
The NDF can make comments on any current planning application, just like any other local group. The NDP has to fit into the national planning policy of ‘pro-growth’. Questions were asked about the growth predicted in both wards; it’s not clear if the Camden plan goes into this much detail for the two wards.
Once the NDP is approved, it will be used as a framework for development by developers. There were questions about how specific the NDP can be – it can’t have a blanket ban on basement conversions; it can mention a general height limit and require new developments are in keeping with existing buildings (the example given was red/grey bricks); it is difficult to be too prescriptive in architectural terms.
The NDF will need to liaise with Conservation Areas in our area.
Questions were asked about high streets/shops – we can’t regulate who occupies each shop (eg we can’t have a ban on new Tescos); we can have design guidance (eg for shop frontages); we can seek to promote diversification of shops & facilities.
Questions were asked about how we express social provisions – eg for schools, health facilities. We need to get the opinions of schools and health centres/surgeries. We are still awaiting data from the 2011 census; information from the 2001 census will be circulated, although this may be significantly out of date.
The NDP needs to consider where future S106 payments [Ed: that’s the extra money developers pay to the council in theory to mitigate any financial impact the development has on public services/public realm] should be directed; into what services & facilities we would like to see more of.
A new Camden council initiative is seeking to produce a ‘Local List’ for the borough. This is a list of undesignated (ie not currently listed) ‘heritage assets’ – this can be buildings, monuments, sites, places, areas or landscapes – which merit consideration in the planning process. These can be listed in the NDP. It might be possible to protect certain views.
The NDP can be used to raise issues like the need for a permanent area available for markets. In terms of the number of licensed premises, licensing is generally separate from planning, but there is some overlap.
It will be interesting to see how much influence these Plans really do have when it comes to larger planning decisions. The whole process is obviously brand new and although such groups are springing up around the country now, even the pilot schemes haven’t been in place long enough to give a clear indication of how it works in practice. Lets hope it’s not just a talking shop, nor that the people giving up their time to put all this together end up being frustrated. A few early successes in driving positive change would help enormously in generating support for the idea.
The stretch of West End Lane from Nando’s to Walnut is set to see big changes over the next couple of months.
As many of you will have read on Twitter, or (heaven forbid) seen with your own actual eyes, Walnut has closed. The ethically minded restaurant has been a fixture on the corner for just over 10 years, but came up for rent back in June (at just under £2,300 a month if you’re interested). Feng Sushi – also known for its ethical stance – will be moving in this June. Indeed work has already started on what will be the chain’s eighth outlet.
£18 for the 22-piece selection box
There’s much more detail on the design of the 50-cover restaurant here. Feng Sushi expressed an interest in West Hampstead a long time ago, so may feel a bit miffed that in the meantime, the area has become sushi capital of NW London. Alongside MeLoveSushi on West End Lane, there’s also newly opened Sushi Kou on Fortune Green, competing head-on with the well-established Yuzu. There are two newish sushi places on Finchley Road, and the longer-standing outlets Sushi Gen (with an ominous For Lease sign outside), Atari-ya on Fairfax Road (for my money the best of the local options), and Yo! Sushi in the O2 centre.
If the rumours that Karahi Master has closed are correct, hot on the heels of Bon Express shutting down, then are we finally relinquishing the mighty kebab for the healthier sashimi?
Still, if you’re missing your meat fix, rejoice. Apparently some of you haven’t yet caught up with the news that a butchers is coming to town. Since I started this whole blog/Twitter thing back in 2009, this has probably been the single biggest moan of locals: “Why can’t we have a butchers”. The fact that such places have to make a profit in what is a tough market has largely washed over you. So, I don’t want to hear a single person complain that Hampstead Butcher & Providore is too expensive. The high-end butchers already operates on Rosslyn Hill in Hampstead, and has done so for a couple of years now. The only way that a butcher is likely to survive in a high rent area like West End Lane is going to be to target the higher end of the market, and differentiate itself from the supermarkets.
£54 for this “Meat for a week” selection
Hampstead Butcher & Providore (I assume it’s not changing its name for us) will be at 260 West End Lane, where the Chinese medical centre has been (next to Domino’s).
If you fancy a chop with your chop, then step next door. 258 West End Lane is becoming a new salon. Because that’s what we really need in the area. Marco Aldany is a new name for me, but then I’m not really a salon kinda guy. It appears to be a Spanish chain of hairdressers. I can’t tell you much more about it, but I can show you a picture of what the front will look like if it gets past the planners, and tell you that the glass will be armour-plated. Should you be thinking of driving a car into it or anything.
Throw in the changes to The Lion – which has been learning the hard way about the power of Twitter – and the northern end of West Hampstead will have a very different feel to it by the end of the year.
Alongside the Abbey Area and Lymington Road proposals, Thursday’s Development Control committee meeting was also meant to discuss 163 Iverson Road – known as the “garden centre site“. This had been postponed from the previous DC meeting, but was now removed entirely from the agenda of this meeting. The reason was not given at the time, but I heard later from cllrs Risso-Gill and Rea that the developers are increasing the proportion of affordable housing in order to comply with Camden’s own planning guidelines (the council’s planning officers were recommending rejecting the proposal). So this one is still to run.
Fortune Green ward councillor Flick Rea posted a useful summary of other local planning news this week. The headlines are:
“The Gondar Gardens reservoir site proposals rumble on – having appealed the previous refusal by the Council,(decision by Government Inspector pending) the developers also submitted a new plan which still didn’t find favour locally – it encroaches on the open space and towers over the rear of the houses on Sarre Road. It was withdrawn for further consultation and will probably come up for decision in May.”
“The new block on Maygrove Road is complete but an application for its neighbour “Handrail House” was basically refused by Camden before it ever got to Committee decision. In a way its a shame as they had worked out a good deal for improvements to the Peace Park and Sidings Community Centre ( a new cafe for example) which may get lost with a new application.”
“From 1st April most developments over a certain size will have to pay a special levy to the Mayor which will go towards the mounting costs of CrossRail and therefore have less to spend on local improvements.”
When I gatecrashed the Crediton Hill Residents Association meeting a few weeks ago, it wasn’t just to see how many of the celebs who live on West Hampstead’s poshest road I could spot. It was also a great opportunity to catch up on the proposal to turn part of the cricket club land into a temporary school – temporary being two years. The proposal went before Camden’s Development Control committee last Thursday and was narrowly passed.
The background
South Hampstead High School, a private girls school in Maresfield Gardens in Hampstead, is undergoing an enormous refurbishment/rebuilding program. It had initially hoped that the school could function around these works, but it became increasingly clear this was not viable, so an alternative was needed.
The school is run by an organisation called The Girls’ Day School Trust, which conveniently owns the cricket club land in Lymington Road. So, the proposal is to relocate the majority of the school to the cricket club for two years while work is carried out. Despite owning the land, this isn’t something the school can do without planning permission as it’s a change of use and requires the present day squash courts to be knocked down (and then rebuilt afterwards). All the details are in the document below (the tick marks show the most important pages).
South Hampstead High School Design Access Statement (annotated) Crediton Hill voices concern
The idea has been discussed for some months now but, although public meetings have been held, judging by the mood at the residents association meeting (held in the bar in the cricket club itself) some local residents remain sceptical. The primary concern is traffic and parking, noise is a secondary concern, and for actor, local resident, and keen cricketer Greg Wise, the risk of girls invading the cricket pitch itself.
The deputation from the school and developers handled the discussion rather well I though – if a little caught on the back foot initially. They argued that today, some 80% of their 500 pupils walk or cycle to school, and that they are working very hard to explain to parents that driving their child to the new site is a bad idea. Maresfield Gardens is about a 10 minute walk away from the sports ground, and depending where you live a child’s new route to school might involve walking down the less than user-friendly Finchley Road. It’s hard to believe that some parents – especially of younger children – won’t be tempted at least initially to run their kids down rather than have them walk further along a busy road. Of course, the reverse also holds true and perhaps some kids will now live nearer and that will make life easier for them.
There is simply no parking along Lymington Road, so a little bit of coordination with Camden council could see revenues from parking tickets soar!
Aside from the traffic, noise is understandably a concern – one resident who works from home, clearly envisages two years of high-pitched screaming ahead of her. The school argued that while, of course, some noise was inevitable at breaktimes and as pupils arrive and leave, the girl at South Hampstead were generally a well-behaved lot and there were so many school activities organized at lunchtimes that they weren’t generally running around the place. Lunch would be held in the large room in the cricket club.
The deputy head also explained that not all the children would be on the site at any one time – most sixth formers and approximately a fifth of the other pupils would be at the Maresfield Gardens site as some lessons will stay there (I think largely for science, so no bunsen burners to burn down the portacabins… temporary modular accommodation. Equally, she was sure that the girls would respect the wicket and although they couldn’t be stopped from walking over the outfield of a lunchtime [here she adopted a slightly steely gaze and politely reminded Mr Wise that the school owned the land], many of the girls were keen on sports and would quite understand.
Some residents were keen to pin the school’s deputation down on exactly how many children, teachers, and other staff would be on site at any one time, but given that the existing site will still be operational, this number seemed hard to come by but around 400 seemed to be the broad consensus.
Over to Camden
On the surface, this might have looked like a fairly simple decision. A school needs land, whether its private or state-owned. The school owns the land, and visually it is not an eyesore. In fact, it turned out to be a rather contentious application. The planning officer’s report, which recommends apprival is below.
Camden Report on SHHS Hampstead CC Application – annotated
There were strong objections here from residents of Alvanley Gardens and from West Hampstead ward councillor Keith Moffitt (who does not sit on the Development Control committee). The objections boil down to three topics: increased risk of flooding, noise and traffic. The flooding issue is hard to understand without diving into the details, but given that hard surface tennis courts are going to be built on I’m certainly not sure what the additional impact is meant to be – it would be different if the units were being built on grass or open land.
Cllr Marshall made the point that it’s hard to consider noise at school breaktimes as a serious planning consideration in an urban area, especially when one factors in that this is weekdays, working hours, and term times only. The planning officer pointed out that noise is a legitimate planning consideration, but far more so for a restaurant open in the evenings than for a school active only during weekdays. Cllr Freeman suggested that it was a sad indictment of our times when the innocent noise of schoolchildren is deemed offensive.
Traffic was unsurprisingly by far the most legitimate consideration. There was some disagreement about the impact on traffic, with the school arguing that it is putting in place all sorts of measures to mitigate the impact on traffic – and from the meeting I went to on this, I believe they really are doing this. At the same time, it’s “a stretch” as Cllr Marshall put it, to believe that parents are going to drop their kids at the Maresfield site and let them walk down.
For Cllr Simpson and others, the traffic plan currently in place was simply too vague. There was a high degree of scepticism that any attempts to dissuade parents from dropping their kids off could be enforced; concern about the girls crossing the Finchley Road; and general worry about a main east/west road being cluttered up with cars at peak morning times. My personal view on this is that the school should be given the benefit of the doubt but that the situation should be very carefully monitored and if traffic and short-term parking levels become unaccpetably high, then further action should be taken.
There was a broader point that the Girls Day School Trust is a wealthy organisation, so although it’s clear that trying to combine the work on the Maresfield site with the running of the school would add substantially to the time taken for the build, and thus the cost, this shouldn’t mean that local residents have to suffer for two years as a result of saving money. I suppose a counter argument is that the pupils deserve a reasonably quiet educational environment with minimal disruption, especially those in exam years – and that is independent of their parents’ ability to afford a private education.
There was also some confusion about the number of pupils on site at any given time. The vote was taken as to whether to grant planning permission conditional on a limit of 500 pupils (which is the size of the school, so not going to be breached, and who’s going to count anyway) and, more importantly, a much stronger travel plan to be submitted ahead of work starting on the site.
On that basis, the decision was approved by six vote to five.
Councillors in favor: Hayward, Apak, Freeman, Marshall, Braithwaite, Nuti.
Councillors against: Simpson, Gimson, Rea, Risso-Gill, Sanders.
The whole webcast of the discussion is available below:
Three local planning applications were on the agenda for Thursday’s Development Control committee meeting (Where Camden councillors vote on large planning applications).
The major decision to be made was regarding the Abbey Area development. This a proposal by Camden council itself, so naturally planning officers were recommending approval. The full 171 page report is here (sorry, not annotated this one!). There was a lengthy discussion in the meeting about this, with some strong views concerning the mix of housing in the new proposal as well as the impact of another large-scale development. Kilburn ward councillor Mike Katz perhaps captured the challenges of the plan most eloquently, pointing out that although the plans might not be perfect, “The best is often the enemy of the good and there’s much good about this development” He went on to address one of the criticisms head on: “I rather take objection that by trying to address our housing needs in NW London that you create a ghetto.”
Loading…Webcast Available Here : <a href=”http://www.camden.public-i.tv/core/portal/webcast_interactive/55628/start_time/3684000″>http://www.camden.public-i.tv/core/portal/webcast_interactive/55628/start_time/3684000</a>
Eventually the vote was unanimously in favour, with two abstentions (Cllrs Rea & Braithwaite). There was no news of what might happen to the businesses that will see their premises destroyed – both under Emminster (Oscar’s Den, the piano shop, the pub), and in the car park (the framers, the upholsterers etc.). The entire webcast of the discussion can be viewed here.
