We’re geting nearer to the completion of the new West Hampstead Thameslink station on Iverson Road, and this morning I was sent some photos of the work so far by Roger Perkins, Thameslink Programme and King’s Cross Communications Manager for First Capital Connect, which I thought I’d share with you.
For more information on how station access will work over the next few months, please see my earlier blog.
Lots of you will have noticed that the new Thameslink station on Iverson Road is nearing completion. So, I thought it would be worth clarifying what’s going to happen over the next few months as the station transitions from the northern to the southern entrance. Handily, Thameslink have produced a useful guide to just this.
On November 14th, the existing station closes temporarily as work begins on a new ticket gate. This means passengers will have to enter the station by the side of the new station in Iverson Road. This will coincide with the work site hoardings along Iverson Road being pushed back to create a much wider pavement, although not yet to the full width we’ll see when the project is complete.
The new entrance will lead on to the new footbridge, although the old footbridge will stay open to allow people to change between platforms 2/3 and 4, but the stairs from platform 1 will be closed because the work for the new ticket gate enclosure will straddle the top of that staircase. The lifts on the new footbridge won’t be working until the new station building is complete in December.
Closing the existing entrance will mean today’s ticket office will be separated from the station. However, there will be two ticket machines at the Iverson Road entrance and staff will be available during normal ticket office hours with portable machines to sell people the full range of tickets.
On December 12th, the new station on Iverson Road will open, along with the public area in front of the station. Ticket office staff will relocate to the new building and the old ticket office will close. When the station is manned, passengers will pass through ticket gates inside the new building to reach the footbridge.
In mid-January the new ticket barriers will open above platform 1, and the original entrance will re-open. So, the station will have two permanent entrances and exits, and work will be complete. There will be a new ticket machine at the existing entrance and two machines at the new station building.
The ticket office hours will remain the same as today – 0615-1930 Mon-Fri; 0645-2000 Saturday and 0740-1715 Sunday. Outside these hours, people will access the platforms via the night entrance alongside the building, which will also be the temporary entrance from November 14th to December 12th.
There will be two touch-in/touch-out Oyster card readers at the Iverson Road night entrance, as well as Oyster readers on the new permanent ticket gates inside the station and at the existing entrance once the ticket gate enclosure there is complete.
For more information, visit the Thameslink programme page.
Last week, the Fordwych Residents Association discussed concerns about the number of large developments being proposed in the area. James Earl, vice-chair, told me that the meeting came up with this list of 10 developments that have been recently built, are under construction, or have been proposed:
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NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN WEST HAMPSTEAD & FORTUNE GREEN
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| Sager development (FortuneGreen ) | Residential block – built |
| Mill Lane | Residential block – under construction |
| Maygrove Road | One Housing Group/residential block – under construction |
| Handrail House (+car park), 65 Maygrove Road | Possible demolition & new residential block |
| Liddell Road | Proposed new school [pdf p39] & possible residential development |
| Iverson Road (old garden centre) | Likely development of hotel or flats |
| 156 West End Lane (council building) | Likely demolition & new residential development [pdf p38] |
| Blackburn Road | 9 storey student block approved & to be built |
| 187 West End Lane | Proposed 9-11 storey residential development |
| O2 Centre car park | Possible future housing development |
The meeting concluded that there seemed to be no over-arching plan to deal with these developments, which are all very close to each other, and which have the potential to change the character of West Hampstead and Fortune Green for ever.
At the recent placeshaping events, residents have expressed a desire to preserve the ‘village’ feel of the area; to reduce traffic and to create more green/open spaces. These developments, argue the residents association, appear to be focused on the complete opposite.
The FRA is proposing that a coalition of local residents associations use the powers of the Localism Bill (now going through Parliament) to create a “Neighbourhood Development Plan” for West Hampstead and Fortune Green. It is proposing that this issue to be on the agenda of the next Area Action Forum – with the aim of having a draft document in place by the end of the year.
If you’re interested or affected by the development of the 187-199 West End Lane site (for background, I suggest reading this), then you might want to go along to the meeting on Monday night. The relatively newly formed West Hampstead Gardens Residents Association (with its ‘rhymes with Viagra’ moniker of WHGARA) is certainly going to be represented if this flyer is anything to go by.
I got sent a fantastic link via Twitter this morning. It was to a photograph taken in 1965 of the State building on Kilburn High Road. The photograph is interesting, but the history site that it’s part of turned out to be a treasure trove.
Click on any of the seven photos of Kilburn taken around the same time, and you’ll find a few dozen comments from people who grew up in the area. It takes a bit of diving into the site to find all of them – some are comments to the initial memories, and so on. They paint a picture of post-war Kilburn that in many ways we could recognise today: a lively, bustling, rough-around-the-edges neighbourhood that people generally have an affection for, with characters such as Biff Lewis (who of course gets into a fight) and Susan the Swedish employee at Woolworths.
Naturally there are also some big changes – not least in the number of cinemas. One person recounts four different ones: the Ionic, the Grange, the Essoldo and of course the State.
I shall leave you to browse the site, but here’s one of my favourite excerpts as Fred Parker’s recalls trips to the cinema:
“Every Saturday evening I would go to the ‘pictures’.. with a group of friends. Often we would have to queue to get in and maybe stand for some time once we got in. We sat in the 1/6d seats. Films ran continuously in those days and we often saw the end of the film before we saw the beginning. We would walk home after the cinema and probably buy a bag of chips plus a pickled onion if we were flush.”
Thanks to Jon Kelly for the original link. Look out for an architecture competition on the blog in the next day or so. And if you want to read about some West Hampstead history, check out this post about how our part of London fared during the Second World War.
Update 4.30pm, 20th Century London sent me a link to some more great old photos of Kilburn including one of the Rolling Stones backstage at the Gaumont State.
You may recall that at the end of June I was invited to join a “place shaping” workshop organised by Camden council. I wrote it up, but explained that the full report would be available later. That later is now. I received the document this morning. It’s quite long so, although I feel it’s a very fair reflection of at least my workshop (there were two in total), I’m not sure you need to read the whole thing unless you’re really interested.
Therefore, I’ve circled paragraphs that I think capture the main points, and made a few annotations. It’s important to clarify that the purpose of this was not to find solutions, but to try and establish some common purpose that can inform decisions taken by the council. Of course, much of what came up is not really in the council’s purview, and to some extent the least tangible concepts of community are up to residents to demonstrate themselves. Do leave comments and (if they’re appropriate) I can pass them back into the whole process.
The path from West End Lane to Lithos Road was named Billy Fury Way last year following a poll. Billy Fury – one of Britain’s original rock & roll stars – recorded regularly at Decca Studios on Broadhurst Gardens.
On Friday, the path was officially opened and a new mural was sprayed on at the West End Lane end of the path by graffiti events company Graffiti Life.
As well as being a interesting visual addition to West End Lane, the idea is to spruce up this path and to encourage young people from the area to contribute more artworks along the whole path. I understand that Graffiti Life will be supporting this and working with the local community.
Festivities began yesterday at 1pm with a song-title laden address in St James’ Church hall from Sgt Dave Timms, from West Hampstead’s Safer Neighbourhood Team. Odd? Well, not really – this is in fact an initiative driven by the police. Some of you will remember that one of the imperatives for naming paths such as this one and the Black Path was so the police could identify their location when chasing wrong-uns down these network of alleyways. It’s great to see real community support from our local police team who have similar plans for other parts of the footpath network.
Some 40 or so Billy Fury fans came along – many of whom had travelled from all over the country – including Holly Johnson of 80s band Frankie Goes to Hollywood.
After a blessing of the site, councillor John Bryant who had driven the renaming exercise cut the ribbon.
ShakeTastic took the opportunity of a crowd just outside to hand out free samples, while the police were spending half their time posing for photos and half stopping the traffic on West End Lane from mowing down ageing rock fans.
The Safer Neighbourhoods Team also worked with Network Rail on the land it owns alongside Billy Fury Way, which included overhanging shrubs, hidden lighting and damaged fencing. Network Rail has undertaken a ‘deep-clean’ of one the most badly affected areas of litter and have re-fenced the area.
Meanwhile, Camden’s Highways Engineering Team plans inspections and repairs to damaged pavement, and street cleaning contractors will clean these paths twice a week. The council will also start patrols to identify any irresponsible dog owners. Dog litter bins, as well as free standing regular litter bins, will be placed halfway along Billy Fury Way.
PC Ruth Marshall, also from the Safer Neighbourhoods Team, said: “We want people to feel safe using Billy Fury Way. By keeping the area maintained, it will encourage the public to use it,” adding that the artwork was a “fitting tribute” to Billy Fury.
There are more plans for more murals to celebrate the area’s musical heritage. Lets hope that this one sets a good precedent for the paths.
I received an e-mail yesterday:
“I heard today that Adrian Hall Garden Centre on Iverson Road, right next to the new Thameslink station entrance, is to close at the end of the month. The staff only heard two days ago. Apparently Network Rail sold the land at the point when Adrian Hall would have needed to renew their lease.
West Hampstead is fast becoming a desert as far as useful supplies are concerned. First Tesco and Sainsbury and now we will have no garden centre. And who will take over the site and for what? Adrian Hall has been there for 34 years…”
If anyone has any more information on this, do please let me know. Note also that this site is adjacent to the Liddell Road industrial estate, which is a potential site for a new primary school.
You’ll recall that on July 2nd there was a “Community Planning Day” to discuss the plans for the site adjacent to the tube lines to the west of West End Lane currently being used by the car wash, limo company, motorbike dealers and retail services such as Peppercorns and Café Bon.
The report back was apparently very much a presentation rather than a second opportunity to discuss the plans. The distributed “newsletter” sketched out a very rough plan for the site, but this is extremely preliminary.
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| Click for full-size version* |
The document included a list of “key themes”. These are based on the public’s contributions to the planning day. They are broadly ideas most people would agree with, but note that the newsletter doesn’t say that these ideas will be implemented, it is merely a synthesis of comments.
Residents will probably hope both that the developers and architects will do more than just bear these comments in mind, and that the council will take them very seriously when assessing the plans – especially in light of the place shaping conversations. Questions were apparently raised in the report back session about the need for public service provision in light of an increase in population, notably in schools and medical services.
The key points so far:
What next?
“The Ballymore and Network Rail Team [the site’s co-owners] now plan to meet with London Borough of Camden’s planning officers and Councillors in the coming weeks or so to discuss the community feedback and work with local stakeholders to form a steering group which we intend to work with during the remainder of the consultation”
I will of course continue to keep you all up-to-date with any developments and if I can get a full PDF of the newsletter, I’ll add the link here.
Wednesday’s Place Shaping meeting was very hands-on, so I wasnt able to take copious notes. There’ll be a full report produced by the independent facilitators, which naturally I’ll let you all know about. [update 18/8/11: that can now be found here]
Perhaps the most revealing moment came when the various sub-groups we’d been assigned to came together to share their visual (read “simple”) vision for West Hampstead. Three of the four groups had identical visions. They comprised green spaces, transportation, a vibrant shopping / café culture, and a coherent community. Idealistic? Perhaps a little – and of course this masked nuances – but I was pleasantly surprised at the uniformity of our basic desires for the area.
One hopes that the council (three of the West Hampstead & Fortune Green councillors were present) take note even of just this simple exercise when it comes to approving development plans for spaces coming up. Perhaps pressuring the 187-199 West End Lane developers to give the existing retailers on that space not just first option on new retail units, but first option at a reasonable rent. Perhaps suggesting that when the Travis Perkins site is sold off (that’s all council-owned property), any retail frontage is split into smaller units that would encourage independent traders rather than kept as a large unit that only a chain shop could operate. Just perhaps.
Anyway, despite going to the meeting with a fair degree of cynicism, I left marginally more optimistic. I shall be interested to see whether the synthesis of the discussion reflects my own recollection of how the evening panned out. In the meantime, do please read my original blog on it and add your comments below – I shall try and ensure that they get fed back into the process at some stage.