Camden Council and the developers of the huge Guardian building going up on York Way stole our pavement last year. They hoarded it off for lorry deliveries and it makes walking up and down York Way a nightmare. There was no local consultation nor common sense. People have to cross at a badly designed set of traffic lights . Or, people being people they pick their way gingerly down the outside of the hoardings in the traffic (which comes down the hill pretty quickly). You can see this in the picture from last October when the hoardings were going up. The route from the South is especially complex. The way the site is used has changed since then. Cllr Convery has written to the developers to get the pavement reinstated:
‘….I now realise that there’s no reason at all to retain the hoarding. What’s more, over the weekend I saw a slightly hair-raising incident as a mother with pushchair stepped out into the highway in order to carry-on up York Way. I was forcibly reminded that this really is a pretty selfish bit of land take in order to facilitate the development. The "alternative route" for anyone reaching the blocked pavement northbound is pretty unappealling … it requires retracing one’s steps back to the Wharfedale Road junction, crossing at the lights and proceeding up the west side of York Way and then crossing back … to then be about 15 metres from the original block point. Surprise, surprise, few people do this.
It is clear that this hoarding extension is no longer required. The building is at a fairly advanced stage and there is scaffolding all along the York Way frontage which fills-up any space originally required for lorry delivery.’
Let’s see what happens.