Work has now started on the William of York School site on Gifford Street that backs onto Bingfield Park. There is a long and sorry planning history to this huge site – years ago the old school buildings, locally Listed were mysteriously demolished without permission. Then the Council badly messed up planning procedure allowing a completley inappropriate development of 150 flats to sneak through.
Residents on Gifford street fought tooth and nail and did manage to amend the design to make it less hideous (one proposal for a 14 storey tower was especially nasty). Phil and Diana even managed to get it raised in the House of Lords i think. Cllr Paul Convery has been in touch. The development will be called St William’s Yard (at the link is one of those wonderful breathless estate agent spiels – no mention of the Bemerton Estate right next door why on earth not ? why don’t they link to my piece about rough sleepers on the site ?) – as you might guess it is a fortress style gated development looking like a late 1970s student hall of residence.
There is some Section 106 money due to the community to compensate for the impact of the development – most of this will be spent on community facilities in Bingfield Park. There is more money due the Bingfield area from the Railways Lands 106 so Cllr Convery is suggesting getting some people together for a park trust of some sort. This is a good idea if we can find people with enough spare time. If you are interested email Paul above (see the email attached here) Download convery_email_williamofyork.doc
Access to the park will be unreasonably messed about by the building works – a temporary entrance will be created between Sparkplug and Crumbles Castle.
Kings Cross Environment 
A little bit of history… The school was only being proposed for local listing when the then owner, Eugene Flannery, moved in the bulldozers without warning one bright October morning in 2000. We all then discovered that it is perfectly legal to demolish a building you own which is not listed, or in a conservation area, or adjoining anyone else’s property (tho you must tell Building Control within, I think, 30 days of starting). It was Moira McGhee (former resident of 110 Gifford and employed by Ten Tenths) who took that issue up, tho whether as far as the House of Lords I can’t recall. Phil and I can claim no credit for that, tho we did fight the good fight at the planning appeal in July 2004 which stopped the 11 storey tower block. One day, when there’s time left over from current battles like King’s Cross Central, there’s a fuller history to write about this beleaguered site. And I’ve got a couple of reasonable pix of the bulldozers that morning (tho not digi so can’t post them till I get time and technology to scan them).
why was such a beutiful building demolished/and why was this building not used and made into flats/thus using the great timber floors and the great green glazed engineering bricks that graced the staircases/[perhaps if it was not left to rot people may appreciate the original materials and not let them be stolen or sold to make way for inferior products/i grew up here so i know just what was inside.
Why was it demolished? The short answer is that legally the owner could (see my 2007 comment) and he reckoned he’d get even more money from a demolished site with (eventually) planning consent for 160+ flats. And I’m sure he did, particularly as the rumour was he paid something like a quarter of a million to buy it from the London Residuary Body in the first place.
When the bulldozers moved in, in October 2000, the building no doubt needed some repairs, but it was essentially intact and had been used for a variety of interim purposes (most without planning permission). The planning brief agreed in 1991/2 would have kept the building and turned it into flats, rather the way York Way School was. The demolition contractors also no doubt made a few quid from the salvageable stuff, of which there was a great deal.
The morning the bulldozers arrived (with no warning) I got a phone call from a neighbour who’s lived on the street 70 years and also went to the school. We stood on the street with Moira and cried as they began to destroy our lovely building.
Property developers? They get away with anything we don’t stop them doing…
Money and corrupt councils of the time hey it happens and always will no matter what people think I know what the materials in the building were worth and you don’t have materials like that anymore
very surprised certain parts were not listed ?