Whitbread have submitted their planning application for the proposed hotel on this site. It’s live on the Islington website. Here are some links to a few documents – to get the whole lot search for application number P2013/3202/FUL or hopefully click here. (I still haven’t worked out how to put proper links in to the dire website). The drawings etc can be found at the bottom of the page by clicking ‘Related Documents’. The comment form is here – comment by 4 October.
Transport Statement – TfL are dismissive about any junction changes (page 3 email)
You can get to previous posts about 62-68 York Way via this link
The Whitbread team have proven amenable to discussion – you can contact them via rhian.ellis@ppsgroup.co.uk – well worth doing if you have questions about how bits of it will work. Or add comments here or by email and i can pass them on.
BTW – Islington have been messing around with the address of the site which they now have as ‘64-66 York Way, 68 York Way, 3 Crianan Street, (Formally known as 62-68 York Way) London N1 9AG’
Apologies for earlier publication errors in your email today. First an empty publication, than a draft copy appeared in your email box. This was caused by an application for editing this website (Android Phone) that uses the “save copy” symbol. But rather than saving the text for later preparation, it publishes it straight away.
We hope you will be forgiving, and put it down as Monday job gone wrong. You will find a corrected up-to-date version online.
Thank you for understanding and keep up your support.
Changing Times? Does Kings Cross, a place soon populated by tens of thousands of residents, with several hundred thousand residents in the wider area deserve more adequate and better managed sport and leisure facilities than Cally Pool, such as an Olympic sized (50m length) swimming pool? Category:Outdoor_swimming_pools (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Cally pool may be popular amongst some, but the swimming pool has probably seen better days: The changing rooms have permanent stained puddles, the facilities are beyond yesteryear, and who dares to use the toilets or send your child to them? This in the middle of Islington, a borough that is relatively affluent and usually known for high standards in many things.
Whilst many say swimming-lessons for children are excellent here, not much else will keep one’s spirits up. Even the entrance-fee is higher than in neighbouring Camden pools. Whilst the building is old, the problem appears to be managerial.
Aquaterra, Cally Pools managing company, has a policy of using staff such as life guards to clean the facility. That cleaning is not a priority job is obvious. Best example teaches that pools require dedicated permanent cleaners who clean non-stop, and who are not occupied with the thought of rather teaching or following life guard duties.
Cally pool has a high volume of users, including many school-children, who all have to change in relatively cramped changing rooms (which are getting dirty and unhygienic fast). It should be obvious that staying abreast of cleanliness continuously must be an an essential priority. But it is not.
It is interesting to note that on Aquaterra’s Islington website one reads about Cally Pool, a pool that originally opened in 1895:
“Inadequate changing facilitiesled to the building being completely replaced by a modern facility …. as the Cally Pool.” (emphasis added)
Well, they appear to be inadequate again. And as I found out in Archway Pool, which is also managed for Islington Council by Aquaterra, it is not much better there, due to the same policy of using life guards as cleaners. Whilst I witnessed good cleaning, when it was done, it was not carried out, nor could it be carried out continuously, due to the other duties of staff. High tide to recruit some on-site cleaners, Aquaterra.
But there is a second question here. Perhaps it is also time for councils to think of building new modern pools in this area. Kings Cross could have been and still is a potentially brilliant location for a joint venture between Camden Council and Islington Council to construct a new state of the art sport and leisure facility. The Kings Cross Railway site would have been well suited and spacey enough for even an Olympic sized pool if not several pools and other facilities. Given the many thousands of new residents it would make logistic sense.
But until such utopian hopes become established (one wonders though why it was not thought of so far), let’s admonish Aquaterra to mop those floors with Olympic rigour and several times each hour, for one thing is sure. With the newly built properties in Kings Cross quickly being populated, Cally Pool can only get busier. Whether hygiene in the facility will further drop through predictable proportionality remains to be seen.
(Note. A heading without supporting text appeared earlier, followed by a draft copy, due to software application issues. Apologies for the problems. We are aware what caused this now.)
Local resident John Ashwell (trustee of King’s Cross Community Projects) is known here as ‘the tree man’ because he is responsible for the vast majority of street trees in the north east quarter of King’s Cross. He fundraised for them from the local community, identified where they were to be planted and liaised with Islington Council to match his funding, survey the potential sites, procure, plant and maintain the trees. Yesterday he wrote:
Car about passing the Wharfdale Rd tree stump left by hit and run lorry driver yesterday
I am very saddened to see this beautiful Avium Plena gone from the western end of Wharfdale Road at the junction with York Way. Residents funded the planting of the original 4 Avium plena trees along that first block of Wharfdale Road about 10 years ago.
Although never officially proven, JC Decaux felled the four trees we’d originally planted there as they were hiding the unlicensed advertising hoardings on that section of the road. Residents campaigned to have the illegal advertising hoardings removed and the trees replanted with four new Avium Plena.
A bus moving at speed then wiped out the two trees closest to Crinan Street when it came around the York Way/Wharfdale Road. The two were replaced with the smaller winter flowering cherry trees that stand there now.
Now a lorry has destroyed one of the large two Avium Plena. The lorry drove off without leaving any details. Thank heaven it wasn’t a person being ploughed down – this time. Luckily there were witnesses so the company that owns the lorry can be identified and Islington Council’s tree department have stated they will investigate. I hope that a prosecution will follow and that, at the very least, the company involved will replace the destroyed tree with one of the same species at the same maturity – it would be a travesty if the replacement were a younger tree or smaller species; these by rights are community assets and should be respected as such.
Tree outside EC Harris’ office on York Way
Our trees have not had an easy time of it since residents funded them. A Ginko tree on The Cally opposite Wharfdale Road looks to have had concrete poured onto its base. The soil around it needs to be broken up and the tree given intensive care until it comes back to full health. One of the Ginko trees at the entrance of E C Harris on York Way, along with its protective cage, has been knocked by a heavy vehicle leaving it badly leaning to one side. Several trees around the BAM construction site on Railway Street/York Way have been under scaffolding for some time. Ideally these need to be inspected and where necessary replaced with the same species at the same maturity. Those trees at the BAM site that have been recently uncovered need careful pruning to encourage them back to full health.
The junction needs to be redesigned urgently. If it had been up to Islington Council it’s likely the redesign would have happened some years ago, possibly at the same time they redesigned Wharfdale Road by narrowing the traffic lane, introducing the cycle lane, zebra crossing and parking bays complete with physical build-outs for the trees. Islington Council has recognised the need for safe walking routes in this very densely populated area with a high proportion of children and disabled people. Unfortunately any redesign has to be approved by both Islington and Camden Councils and Transport for London (TfL – this site has documented how TfL is more interested in ‘smoothing’ motor traffic flow than in providing safe crossings for pedestrians or safe routes for cyclists).
Access into Wharfdale Road should be pinched to force drivers of large vehicles to slow down and take the bend carefully. The current poor design has no complete north/south or east/west crossings yet the desire lines here are clear. Pedestrians are forced to cross at what is a blind corner for motorists: from Pret a Manger to the site of the new Whitbreadhotel. Pedestrian numbers have increased dramatically in the past few years following developments further up York Way. It is essential that there are full width crossings for pedestrians at this junction with the traffic lights fazed so that there is a complete break of traffic entering Wharfdale Road whilst pedestrians are able to cross safely. It must be very worrying for Whitbread knowing that the site of their new development is right on such a badly designed dangerous junction.
It’s the excellent Cally Festival 2013 this Sunday and the Met Office forecast is for a dry day, somewhat less humid than recently. Things kick off at 1200 and run until 1800 up on the Cally Road south of the new Cally nee Ferodo Bridge. For more information check out the Cally Festival website or follow them on Twitter @thecallyfest. They can always use a few more volunteers.
To get a feel for the size and friendly nature of the festival have a look at this simple film of the crowd a couple of years ago:
The excellent Cally Festival runs again this Sunday from noon on the Cally Road and they are looking for volunteers. It’s a great local event, I hugely enjoyed helping out with the first one in 2011 just turning up very early to help lug things about. To get stuck in see below or go direct to the website and fill in a simple form:
>>
Volunteer Spaces
Cally Festival is a free event and needs volunteers to make it a day to remember. With 7 days to go we’re still looking for a few more people to help on festival day. We’ll feed you Caledonian Road’s finest foods, and you’ll get a t-shirt to keep! You’ll be part of making this amazing community event come to life!
Setup – 7am-12pm – this will involve getting the street ready for the 8,000 people that will be passing through. You get a t-shirt and breakfast on us!
Day Volunteers – 11am-6pm – volunteering during the festival could involve anything from running workshops, helping at the music stages, to welcoming and directing festival-goers.
Setdown – 5:00pm-10pm (at the latest) – we’ll have a briefing where volunteers will each be given a team and a job to do.
We particularly need 10 or so more people to help on the morning shift, getting the street ready for the event. Why not get your friends along and come as a team?
None of the local residents needs them, these half tourist preying, half alcoholism serving over expensive stores. But we have yet another one. Next to the Tune hotel on Grays Inn Rd. emerged yet another off licence convenience shop the seventh or tenth within 500 square meters depending how you count. Who is welcoming it?
Resident Stuart Cottis has used his contacts at Argent to shed some light on last night’s appalling anti-social roadworks at the junction of Copenhagen Street and York Way. Greer Allison of Argent (Property Developer of the Year 2012) says:
‘Thank you for your email of 10.40am on 23 August (copy attached) about highway works on Copenhagen Street on the night of 22 August 2013. I can confirm that we have raised this matter with the main contractor, Kier, whose Building Engineer has provided us with the following response today:
“This was the works Maylim were conducting. We did a letter drop around the area earlier this week informing as many of the residents as we could. The works were authorised by Camden and were carried out to their conditions – which is planing up to 11pm and tarmac until 6am. As the resident notes, the works are carried out to avoid highways disruption as we have to go across the mouth of Copenhagen Street and no traffic would be able to turn left or right into there, as well, half of York Way would be disrupted. Although the resident points out that part of York Way was segregated anyway, this was as a pedestrian walkway and as working room for the paving and kerbs to be laid on Copenhagen Street.
The paving is now finished and final tarmac and a little area of planing will be finished tonight. All traffic management will be removed tomorrow (Saturday 24 August) so that hopefully will be the end of the York Way disruption.”
We would hasten to add that this was something which we, King’s Cross, as developer were not aware of in advance. Our Construction Director has written in the strongest terms to all of the contractors to ensure that this doesn’t reoccur.
Separate email:
I also just wanted to let you know that I have received an email from Kier which was sent to our Construction Director confirming that the York Way/Copenhagen Street works will complete this evening and Kier will ensure that any noisy works are finished by 9pm, with just the black top to be completed from 9pm – and which will be done by 11pm.’
Camden Highways are also culpable to my mind for authorising these works, which conveniently for Camden are not in Camden and so won’t affect Camden residents and voters.
Kings Cross Environment 