Help wanted!

Anyone interested in the heritage and conservation of our area? If so, this might be just the thing for you! The West Hampstead Conservation area needs a Secretary(unpaid alas) see below. If interested, let Flick know (7794 8454) JOB SPEC The West End Green Conservation Area was established by the London Borough of Camden in 1993.It has been updated and reappraised in 2010. The new Conservation Area Statement was adopted by the Council in March 2011. The aim is to provide a clear indication of Camden Council’s approach to the preservation and enhancement of the area. WANTED A volunteer Secretary for the West End Green Conservation Advisory Committee WEGAAC meets whenever there is a planning application, which falls within the area We meet in the offices of the Chair, Yiannis Pareas in Mill Lane. From to time meetings are held at other venues. Responsibilities would include Receiving copies of planning applications entering them in a register Arranging meetings Keeping minutes Liaising with the Camden planning department and other CAACS Storage and filing Qualities An interest and knowledge of the conservation area Patience when dealing with planning officers Orderly and organised Time There are no more than six meetings per annum and three or four hours a month would be required

A worrying letter

Nancy, Flick and myself have just received the following, rather worrying letter...

Dear Stakeholder,

Finchley Road – National Grid Gas Works

TfL is writing to make you aware of forthcoming works proposed by National Grid Gas (NGG) on Finchley Road between Swiss Cottage and Hendon Way. NGG wishes to replace 6.5km of old metallic gas mains, replacing them with new hard wearing plastic pipes.

NGG would like to start their preparatory work in April 2011 for a mains replacement programme lasting up to 24 months. TfL has yet to receive NGG’s detailed proposals, however we thought you would wish to be made aware of their broad intentions. TfL will of course consider the proposals in the light of any other works proposed in the area, and in light of the Olympics, will work with National Grid to reduce the impact of these major works on the area as far as possible. NGG will be working extended hours in order to complete the works as quickly as possible.

TfL will write to you with details of each phase of work, including the traffic management plans, once these are known. In the meantime, if you have any queries regarding this please contact TfL’s customer service team on 0845 305 1234 or via our website at www.tfl.gov.uk/contact.

Yours faithfully

Samantha Clarke-Jackman

Lets hope they share the information with us before plans are finalised. There might be unecessary disruption to surrounding roads that can be avoided if we're able to let them know ahead of time of potential clashes that are best avoided.

Cricklewood - No longer the land that time forgot?

At long last - and after much pressure from local residents and councillors - the 3 Boroughs of Camden, Barnet and Brent and the relevant police teams have agreed to work together to try and sort out some of our regular Cricklewood problems and complaints. This week is the designated "Clean up Cricklewood week" - we hope the effects will not just be temporary. See below for Camden's plan: Issue(s): In conjunction with a pre planned tri borough working partnership with Brent and Barnet, and the local Met Police SNT who have targeted, amongst other aspects: littering / fly tipping via e.g. domestic and business waste; graffiti vandalism, and to a lesser extent, prostitute’s cards in phone booths and forecourt abuse by certain businesses as regards vehicular parking, sales and storing of equipment. Local residents especially in multi occupancy residences at Cricklewood Broadway are placing waste onto the public highway outside of the advertised collection time(s). Also, certain businesses are also behaving likewise in the Cricklewood Broadway area thus creating a build up of uncollected commercial / recycling / domestic waste which has led to attracting ‘other’ fly tipping naturally followed by vermin such as rats and foxes. This has led to a negative and detrimental impact on the local environment and followed by complaints from concerned local residents. There are also concerns that certain businesses at Cricklewood Broadway may not have a commercial waste agreement with any reputable waste contractor. Additionally, certain areas of Cricklewood Broadway are also occasionally blighted with graffiti vandalism. Objectives: Via proactive enforcement the endeavour is to drive compliance by all local residents and all local businesses and all (private) waste carriers as regards how, where, and when commercial and domestic waste is presented / collected from the public highway. (Note: preliminary work has already started on this) We also intend to identify any businesses that do not have commercial waste agreements and to either follow up with initiating legal procedures or / and afford them the opportunity to obtain a waste contract with any legitimate waste carrier. To ensure / promote a clean, positive, and attractive physical / visual / environmental impact within the said area especially Cricklewood Broadway as it is a major thoroughfare in / out of the north of the borough.

Last week for library consultation

Camden have just circulated the press release below...

It's a timely reminder to get your comments in before next week. Remember, West Hampstead library counts as a 'medium' library in the question about which option for closure you support.

If you fill out a paper version of the form you don't need to answer that question - but, really irritatingly, if you answer online you can't fill out the survey unless you say which libraries you want to close (or opt to slash library hours by 40% across the board).

Last chance to have your say on Camden libraries consultation

Residents are reminded that there is just one more week to respond to the Camden libraries consultation.

The eight-week consultation comes to an end on 4 April.

Over 3,300 people have responded so far. Camden is reminding library users and non library users to complete surveys before the closing date.

Surveys are available in Camden’s 13 libraries, online and there is also a children’s version of the survey to help young people to take part.

Councillor Tulip Siddiq, Camden Council’s Cabinet Member for Culture, said: ‘We have already had over 3,300 responses to our consultation and this shows how important libraries are to people in Camden. That is why I want to ensure as many library users and non library users as possible respond to us before the closing date.’

To take part in the consultation - copies of the survey are available in Camden libraries, or you can complete a form online, at:http://camden.xarg.co.uk/surveys/respond?survey_id=469001

Ends

West End Lane roadworks

From our "sister" blog West Hampstead Spotlight
posted by Keith Moffitt on March 9

Flick Rea and I did a walkabout with Camden council officers this morning to get an update on the progress of the various roadworks in Camden.Before getting into the detail, quite a few people have asked us how Camden can afford to be doing this work when we’re hearing so much about cuts. The answer is that this work is being funded from this year’s budget, which is relatively speaking unaffected by the cuts, which really begin to bite in the next financial year, which starts in April.We kicked off with a quick look at the West End Lane/Iverson Road corner. You can now see all the extra space that’s been freed up by demolishing the two corner shops, which is going to make that corner a lot safer for pedestrians. And if you stand on tip-toe and look over the fence you can see how incredibly wide the new Iverson Road pavement is going to be between West End Lane and the new Thameslink station due to open towards the end of the year. I don’t think any of the “artist’s impressions” we’ve seen so far make it clear just what a wide and open space this will be and just how different this part of our area will look. It should open up all sorts of interesting possibilities.We also looked at the new surface on the Thameslink bridge, which mimics paving stones using an “imprint” technique. This is being used because bridges – and we have three along that stretch of West End Lane, including in front of West Hampstead tube station – are unsuitable for paving stones because there just isn’t room to accommodate paving stones and the sandbed they sit in together with all the utilities that have to be fitted in as well. But the “imprint” finish is pretty impressive and will also be used in front of the tube station.Don’t be fooled by the rather messy finish at West Hampstead tube station entrance at the moment, it’s just work in progress and should look a lot better when it’s finished. The area in front of the station also feels a lot more spacious now the railings have been removed.Various other work is going on, and one aspect that will be very welcome is a slight widening of the pavement in front of the “Paramount building”, where the narrow pavement has been a bone of contention ever since the building was erected. It’ll only be slightly wider, but as our supermarket friends up the road say “every little helps”. The same applies to a slight widening of the pavement on the Thameslink bridge on the other side of the road.The other main point we discussed was the removal of the traffic lights at the junction of Mill Lane and West End Lane, which are being replaced by two zebra crossings – in fact going back to the way things were before the lights were installed six or seven years ago. When Camden consulted on this proposed removal, opinions were divided, but a key factor in the decision to remove the lights was that they were put into improve safety for Emmanuel School, who feel they made things worse rather than better.It's frustrating that in some places the new pavements won't be as good as we'd like because they adjoin forecourt owned by the adjacent shops, but we've encouraged Camden to do the best they can in those circumstances. It's good they're managing to relocated some of the irritatingly located black boxes, particularly the one just in front of Costa Coffee.So there’s a lot going on at the moment between the tube station and Mill Lane, but we hope that when it’s all finished it will feel worthwhile.

Works to Fortune Green

While the rows of daffodils are gloriously blooming on the lower half of the Green, work is well

under way on the northern side. The "mound" has almost gone, the railings are being repositioned and several disconsolate footballers are looking for somewhere to kickabout while the "dog-free area" is fenced off. However, after all the work on the plans and the funding applications, it is good to see something happening.

The Friends of Fortune Green are to be congratulated on their tenacity in getting to this point. The largest amount of the funding comes from a programme called "Changing Spaces" and not out of of Camden's pocket although Camden's officers have been working closely with local residents (the Friends group) on the scheme. Fingers crossed - it will look great by the summer - (that is if we get a summer this year!)

Waiting for the tube...

Interesting snippet from our colleagues on the London Assembly that might apply to many people in Fortune Green...

Millions of Londoners missing out on compensation from Transport for London – Caroline Pidgeon

More than 10.5 million Londoners missed out on compensation last year after facing excessive delays on the London Underground.

Extensive questioning of the Mayor by Caroline Pidgeon, leader of the Liberal Democrat London Assembly Group, has revealed that more than 14 millon tube passengers suffered delays of 15 minutes or more for the 12-month period ending in January. Despite more than 11 million qualifying for compensation under the Transport for London Customer Charter, less than 400,000 people actually received any compensation last year.

Commenting on the figures Caroline Pidgeon said:

“No one should have to wait 15 minutes for a Tube train, yet incredibly more than 14 million people had to in the last 12 months. It must be the Mayor’s top priority to tackle these excessive delays. And until the Mayor tackles this problem it is vital that everyone who is entitled to compensation actually receives what they are entitled to.”

For more information see the Evening Standard

Details of how to claim compensation can be found at the TfL website.