Kings Cross Environment

The saga of the huge blue sea containers stacked two high on Rufford Street and Randells road drags on like a Whitehall Farce set in Islington Town Hall (see posts  with photos of just how big these things are here here and here).  The containers are for workmen doing work for the Council who put them here on instruction from Council officers.  They appeared in our area without any consultation in October.  In the latest iteration, Council officers have shown some remarkable incompetence.  Working with the Council, the owners have moved half of the containers but without working out where they should go – which other street they should blight.  And half are left behind on Rufford Street and Randell’s Road to continue blocking traffic and pedestrians!  Nuts. 

Some very frustrated emails are being exchanged with the Council, ultimatley Cllr Lucy Watt is respsonsible.  I can’t understand why a Lib Dem Council, with their emphasis on ultra local democracy could bring this blight to a challenging area without any consultation at all.  Why were they not put on a street in a less difficult area or in an industrial area ? Looks like we shall be stuck with them for another month.  I have emailed Cllr Watt to see if she can give us an explanation (click on the lin ot drop her a mail and join in).

UPDATE

I was losing the plot above when i wrote that this morning – slight improvement this evening – all the containers on Rufford Street have been removed – hurrah – now only two out of the original eight remain – round the corner on Randell’s Road…….

Do you want more police on the beat in our area?

If you’re interested in the improving the quality of life in King’s Cross, one of the most valuable meetings that you should consider attending is the Caledonian Ward Safer Neighbourhoods Panel that usually meets about once a month.

As the title would indicate, this meeting is about local residents working directly with the Safer Neighbourhood’s Police Team to discuss ways in which police resources can be best directed to problem areas in our Ward.  More importantly, as this meeting is chaired by our local Councillor Paul Convery, your views will be directly heard by your elected representative as well as the Safer Neighbourhoods Police Team!

One of the initiatives, now being pushed by Councillor Convery is a development of a pilot project to increase the size of our Safer Neighbourhood’s Police Team – from 6 to 9 members.  This would be a significant achievement as currently every ward only has six Team members.  Councillor Convery believes that as our Ward has now developed such a good working relationship with our Team, that our Ward could be considered for a pilot project that could eventually be rolled out to other Wards following our example.

Naturally as with any initiative seeking expanded resources, this is an uphill battle and we must be able to demonstrate that the Ward residents not only support this initiative, but will continue to be active members of the panel that provides real direction to our Team.

We need your support for the initiative. Specifically, we encourage you to come to these meetings and to send emails encouraging the Met to consider Caledonian Ward for this unique initiative.

As government agencies are now developing their budgets for the coming year, time is of the essence and we want the Borough’s Police Commander to know that the residents of the Caledonian Ward want to see this initiative put in place.  A short email showing your support for Councillor Paul Convery’s initiative to expand our Safer Neighbourhoods Team would be very helpful.  His email address is paul.convery@islingtonlabour.org.uk

And please, try to come to our next meeting.  To be added to the Panel’s mailing list for future meeting notifications, please send an email to Jennifer Christie, the Panel’s secretary, at jennifer.christie@talk21.com. Should you also wish to be added to the King’s Cross Community Mailing List, please send an email to me, mentioning where in the ward that you live – stephan@yorkcentral.co.uk

The wretched St WIlliam’s Yard development is going through an incredibly noisy phase of construction as the site is cleared and sheet piles are driven along the site boundary to enable the basement car park to be dug out.  The noise this Saturday morning was appalling – from before nine o’clock the most awful noise was being created that reverberated around this densely populated residential area.  I shot a video to get the noise across which should play if you click the window below (remember to turn your speakers on).  If that doesn’t work for you click here.

MONDAY UPDATE – Cllr Paul Convery is on the case and has mailed the Council officials and the construction company as in the attached document. There is some handy information in there about vibration in construction  Download st_williams_yard_convery_mails_re_vibration.doc