Kings Cross Environment

The Cross Kings pub on York Way is a huge improvement on its predecessor the Backpacker.  But it still manages to annoy some local residents with noise from its forecourt late at night.  People go outside to smoke and their mates follow them yakking away at some volume.  The pub is now applying to change its operating conditions to allow people to smoke outside after 11pm.  The Council licensing officer Simon Gallacher explains:

‘Essentially the current licence for the Cross Kings has a condition that prohibits customers gathering or loitering on the forecourt after 11pm (..condition 20..).  The licensees wish to remove this condition [by applying for a new licence] in order that their customers can go outside to smoke after 11pm. ‘

The Cross Kings is going to become incredibly busy when the Guardian building opens next door in the Spring – the Guardian is a 24 hour operation and journalists are known for their thirst.  So there will be a fair bit of smoking and noisy chatting and shouting in front of the pub.

It is always tricky to get the right balance but in a closely packed area such as Kings Cross where people live and work cheek by jowl residents should come first late at night.  The new licensing laws are designed to give residents a formal say in the process.  It is common to have rules closing beer gardens in residential areas after 2100 – as the noise of people drinking outside can be very intrusive – the same principle could be applied to the Cross Kings forecourt.

So if you are affected by this and want to stop it send an email to write to Simon Gallacher by clicking here and say that you object to the new licence application by the Cross Kings in respect of the removal of the former condition 20.  And that you don’t want late night noise nuisance that is likely to arise from people smoking outside late at night,up to 0400am.  Give your name and address.  You have until Monday 19th.

Last night, The West Area Planning Sub-committee voted to refuse Planning Application P070753 for a six-storey office block at 62-68 York Way .

This represented a big win for the neighbourhood as the site has been plagued by application after application without any work ever beginning.  Clearly those who controlled the site have been seeking to hold out as long as possible with speculative proposals while the area around them increased in value.  They have had an approved plan for the site in place since 1995!

Led by Committee Chairman Paul Convery, the Committee felt that the last approved plan for the site, granted to the same developer back in 2002, really set the outer limits for development of this site.  And while the Committee was generally pleased with the character of the newly submitted plan, the consensus was that it represented overdevelopment for the size of the site because of its proposed height and mass.  However, the Committee made it clear that they would consider the new application more favourably if it was re-submitted as a smaller version – something that all the objectors would also most likely support.

Although the new 2007 plan was refused, the Applicant’s representatives told the Committee that they had now commenced work on the 2002 approved plan (which would have expired two days ago), by paying the Council £150,000 in S106 monies, and by starting their foundations. However, local residents remain sceptical, as the relatively small-sized hole recently dug looks suspiciously like another attempt to try to extend the life of their 2002 approval.  Progress on the site will now be closely monitored to ensure work progresses.

The success of residents gaining refusal of this new yet larger plan was down to the work of many local folks who wrote letters (56 letters for both the initial and secondary consultations), attended the planning meeting last night, who spoke at the meeting on behalf of those who could not attend.

An important note of thanks should also be extended to our Caledonian Ward Councillors: Paul Convery (Chair of the Committee), and Rupert Perry, and Emily Fieran-Reed (Councillor for St. Mary’s Ward).  Each spoke eloquently detailing their objections to the plan and on the rocky history of this site.  All stressing the Council’s and the resident’s desire for the Applicant to get on with building under the existing approved plan.

The saga continues, watch this space for future developments.

There was a good turn out this evening to see Councillors turn down unanimously the mistaken proposal for an inappropriate building at the corner of York Way and Wharfdale Road.  We have covered this long saga here and here and here.  This is a real victory for local people who have worked diligently at a campaign.  The Councillors took a good discussion and came up with reasonable grounds to reject it.  Well done everyone.

The ‘Nido’ redevelopment of the old NatWest towers on the Pentonville Road has not been without controversy.  This website has covered the loss of 100 year old trees, the self parodying promotional material and the un-liklihood of completing the development before tenants move in.  Now about 800 students are living there they are mightily hacked off that, surprise surprise the development isn’t finished. 

Nido’s interior is quite remarkable a rather beautiful Ikea imperialist style and the rooms are tiny but well designed.  The people who run the building are doing their best, but it simply wasn’t finished and trying to cope with normal snagging problems with 800 residents must be a nightmare.  JG Ballard covered this sort of thing in his masterpiece on vertical living – High Rise –

‘The building seems to give its well-established tenants all the conveniences and commodities that modern life has to offer: swimming-pools, its own school, a supermarket, high-speed elevators. But at the same time, the building seems to be designed to isolate the occupants from the larger world outside, allowing for the possibility to create their own closed environment. 

Life in the high-rise begins to degenerate quickly, as minor power failures and petty annoyances over neighbours begin to escalate into an orgy of violence. ‘

Our student neighbours are now trying to bring BBC Watchdog into the frame, complaining, probably rightly that the expensive experience does not match up to what was advertised in the videos and promotional bumf.  A more direct route would be to start with the Council – for instance trading standards at first for the contractual issues and then even building control.  There is also the Housing Ombudsman Service. Any suggestions on how we could help our neighbours advance their case gratefully received as a comment here or make them direct on the Nido facebook site.  There is an excellent article here at the Shelter site