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‘Marshals’ to patrol sports centre route
Plans for seven-storey flats await road handover
TRAFFIC “marshals” will control access to a community sports centre for ever when a public highway is handed over to private developers under plans for a Kentish Town homes development expected to be rubber-stamped by councillors tonight (Thursday).
Permission for a complex series of road changes is the last obstacle facing developers planning a seven-storey apartment block in Dalby Street, next to Talacre Gardens in Prince of Wales Road, which has been resisted by neighbours for three years.
The development, which will provide a new base for the Prince of Wales Road GPs’ surgery as well as 55 flats, will be built on the existing Dalby Street highway, the only road to Talacre Community Sports Centre.
The developers will build a new access road, which is so narrow it has been given permission only if they guarantee the presence of traffic marshals for 13 hours a day, in perpetuity.
The development – thought to be the only one of its kind in London – has attracted criticism for its complexity and long-term financial uncertainty.
It has been through two public consultations and a planning inquiry, which approved the proposals. Councillors on the executive environment sub-group are expected to give it the green light tonight.
Campaigner Nick Harding said: “Since the public inquiry approved it, we have been campaigning absolutely flat out and we haven’t found a single person who supports the scheme.”
The cost of paying the marshals will fall on the owners of the new flats – 19 of which are affordable housing, to be provided by Community Housing Group (CHG).
After some confusion, CHG, now known as One Housing, has confirmed that its tenants will not pay service charges for the marshals. This will leave private tenants with service charge bills of at least £10,000 per year per household.
Chairman of Friends of Talacre Gardens, Peter Cuming, said: “The sports centre is the second most popular gymnastics centre in Britain. It will become invisible and inaccessible, behind this mammoth building. The uncertainty of the marshal system means that, in the future, there is no guarantee the burden of keeping the route open to the centre will not fall on the taxpayer.”
The project began when Trac Properties Ltd, a Camden business owned by father-and-son team Charles and Professor Bill Fulford bought a derelict house in Prince of Wales Road for £90,000 in 2001.
They agreed a deal with the Town Hall under which a council-owned travellers’ camp-site directly behind the house and adjacent land occupied by the Dalby Street public highway were granted to their development.
Within weeks of gaining planning permission in January 2006 for the enlarged site, Trac sold the land for £3.5m to Cornwall Overseas Development Ltd, which is registered in the British Virgin Islands.
The council, which initially set aside a budget of £12,500 to deal with the legal issues, has so far spent in excess of £100,000, largely on costs associated with January’s public inquiry. The developers have agreed to pay these costs in full.
The developers and the council point to the benefits the scheme will bring. As well as the affordable housing element, Camden’s schools will benefit by £65,000, and the sports centre will get £10,000.
And the developers said this week that they remain confident the scheme is viable despite the controversy and the housing market slump.
A spokesman for Cornwall Overseas Development said on Tuesday: “We are confident there is a market for the commercial housing element of the scheme and that it will go ahead.
“We have carefully calculated the impact of paying for the traffic marshals, which will be borne by the residents. It does not affect the feasibility of the scheme and actually adds much-needed security to the area.
“For a small scheme of this nature, there has been unprecedented scrutiny and audit of this development, and this adds to our confidence that it will be a success.” |
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