All over West Hampstead wherever you go - there are giant cranes! Across NW6 and NW2 developers have their eyes on our area and are hatching schemes. Many of these involve West End Lane, Mill Lane, the railway corridor and along Maygrove and Iverson Road. Lots of local residents are worried about the pace and scale of these proposed developments and feel that West Hampstead as they know and love it will change for ever.
There is a huge rash of meetings going on to discuss these and at most of them developers and Council planners are going away with the same message in their ears - Too much, too fast!
As local councillors, we are very concerned about the depth of people's concerns - particularly those who live in the affected areas. Cllr Keith Moffitt organised a meeting a week ago for representatives of local groups to see whether it would be possible to organise this network into a forum to take action on a Neighbourhood Plan (possible under proposed legislation). This is not as easy as it sounds as parts of West Hampstead feature in successive Mayor's Plans for massive amounts of new housing and these plans are "statutory" (ie difficult if not impossible to challenge). What we can all do is to push for changes to make individual schemes more acceptable but it's hard going!! Developers naturally want to maximise their profit by squeezing in as much as they can and it this means an extra couple of storeys on top - they'll go for it!
We're going to discuss all this at the next Fortune Green/West Hampstead Area Forum which will be held at the Dennington Park Road Synagogue on Tuesday 6th December, 7-9.30pm.
Meanwhile there is also a meeting - organised by the Council - on Wed 9 November at 6.30 at Sidings Community Centre to discuss the "Ballymore" Development (they are calling it "West End Square") 187-199 west End Lane wnich proposes up to eleven storeys residential with some retail along the front. Suspect this will not be a quiet meeting!
(And see next post)
Please note that the developers are talking about making the building 12 stories high, not 11. The developers have cleverly been using the term "11 stories from West End Lane" When in fact the site dips down and the tallest building in the proposed development will be 12 stories high as measured from the ground. This is completely out of context in the area where buildings are no taller than 3 stories at present.
ReplyDeleteThey were talking about 11 storeys when this article was written - but their recent presentations have admitted that they are 12 storey's high (their line is that they are 11 storey's above the level of West End Lane - but its not West End Lane that will effected as the tallest towers are set back from the road quite a distance.)
ReplyDeleteOur latest story, with pictures of what is being proposed, talks about 12 storeys.
http://fortunegreenspotlight.blogspot.com/2011/11/west-end-square-proposal.html