Wednesday 29 July 2015

Parklife



PARKLIFE

Green Park
Westbourne Green Park is looking unusually green at the moment, but is still largely inaccessible to the public. This is a huge frustration, but I suppose we should be grateful that at least it looks green, even if we can’t actually get onto the grass. The reason it’s so green is that it has just been re-turfed, and there have been multiple sprinklers playing on it for the past couple of weeks. The re-turfing was actually quite impressive, with the fresh turf coming off a roller, like so much carpet, but the newly turfed area remains fenced off, accessible only to men in hard hats and high-vis jackets.

Thames Water
The reason the Green had to be re-turfed is that it has been dug up. Thames Water have just put an enormous sewage tank under our park, twenty metres in diameter and twenty-three metres deep. This tank is then connected by means of a deep-level tunnel to a major sewer junction about a quarter of a mile north, so that when sudden downpours overwhelm the system the excess sewage flows into the tank instead of into people’s basements, as had been happening.

Victorian Engineering
Now you will be objecting that rainwater has nothing to do with sewage, and that’s certainly true under modern regulations, which keep the two separate, but we are operating with a Victorian system, where rainwater does indeed flow into the sewer. In fact, the sewer in question is one of the great Sir Joseph Bazalgette’s pioneering works, and not only does it use rainwater to ensure a flow, but a natural watercourse as well, because our sewer is the old Westbourne River in a culvert. The river had already been dammed to create the Serpentine before Bazalgette got his hands on it, but he put it all into a culvert (and detached the Serpentine) and made it a main sewer emptying into the Thames at Chelsea. You can see its pipe crossing above the platform at Sloane Square tube station, but it’s deep beneath Westbourne Green, and far beneath the Canal. The problem in modern times has been that it’s just not big enough to cope with a sudden influx of rain, and people living in Shirland Road and Formosa Street have really been suffering. A second, smaller, tank has been dug under Tamplin Mews Gardens to address a second area of flooding, near the Chippenham pub. The noxious flooding went on for quite some time before Thames Water were pressed into doing something about it.  

Problems and Solutions
Obviously Thames Water needed to stop sewage flooding people’s flats, but some of us campaigned hard to try to achieve a different solution. A couple of years ago I appeared on the front of a local paper, looking very grumpy, alongside the chair of our Neighbourhood Forum and one of the councillors, under a “save our park” headline. The councillor (Labour) was very concerned that it was just us in the photo and so it looked like an “elite” protest rather than something coming from the community; I muttered that he shouldn’t worry because we were a vanguard, but he doesn’t seem to know his Marxist-Leninism. The point was that another section of the park had just been requisitioned by Westminster Adult Education Service for a temporary building to replace their local centre in Amberley Road which they had sold to property developers, and so people on the Warwick Estate were losing two chunks of open space. It was clear that Thames Water had looked for publicly-owned space on which to site their tanks because that would involve far less legal bother and potential compensation than private land, and that the perception was that placing one on the Warwick Estate would be fine because people there could just be ignored. We proposed a number of alternatives, but it was clear that the Westbourne Green tank was much easier and cheaper for Thames Water, and would create less traffic disruption than the alternatives. Some of us did feel that there was a bit of an injustice in blighting the lives of people in W2 to solve Thames Water’s problem in W9, but to be fair to them, some of the sufferers in Formosa Street would have been perfectly willing to have had the tank right there if it had been possible.

Seasons in the Sun
So our campaign then turned to trying to mitigate the impact of the tanks, and we extracted the assurance from Thames Water that the parks would not be out of use for two summers. That was true for Tamplin Mews, (where a much-improved children’s playground is being enjoyed as I write) but certainly not for Westbourne Green, where the actual work seems to have been finished some time ago, but handing back the park does not look imminent. We had also extracted a promise to renovate and landscape an area known as “The Pit” on the corner of Bourne Terrace, so that this could provide a bit more outside space for people to enjoy during the works, but incredibly, that has still not been completed. Thames Water say that was all held up by Westminster planners, and profess ignorance of the idea that it should have been done first to provide an alternative. We had provided evidence of groups that used the park, and so Thames Water were required to mitigate this loss of amenity, which they did by providing some extra sports facilities for young people, and some support to local clubs. The problem really was with informal use of the park, and its intangible benefits, because what Thames Water provided was never going to address the issue of the damage to people’s mental wellbeing from losing the open space. A colleague and I tried to fix something up, but our lack of facilities (and volunteers being stretched) made it a non-starter, and when I suggested that Thames Water might support the local community choir, which has a demonstrably good effect on wellbeing for a significant number of people, that was politely forgotten. It was frustrating that academic research proving the value of access to recreational space for mental wellbeing among the poorest in society has become available this spring, about two years too late for us, and that we couldn’t fix up more projects in mitigation for Thames Water to fund.

Development Opportunities
One of the people at Thames Water said to me that we could rest assured that Westbourne Green could not now be developed because of their enormous sewage tank, which I agreed was something, but it seems unlikely that the City Council would actually sell off one of their relatively few significant parks. In fact they are from time to time put under pressure for not having enough public parks (for, bizarrely, the royal parks don’t count) and so their planners are rather jumpy about public open space. It may be worth pointing out, though, that a large chunk of what appears to be park alongside the Canal is not: the canalside open space west of St.Mary Magdalene’s School is housing land, maintained by CityWest Homes (the City Council’s housing subsidiary) rather than the Council Parks Department. That land was part of a recent masterplan that failed to obtain sufficient public support to proceed, but there is nothing to stop the Council going ahead with piecemeal development in future (which would undoubtedly have fewer community benefits than were included in the masterplan).  


Wednesday 15 July 2015

We're Shopping...



We’re shopping…

As the Pet Shop Boys said, everything’s for sale. The trouble is that round here, the shops themselves are for sale. Not only shops, but pubs as well, in fact pubs in particular. On our small stretch of the Harrow Road we have recently lost the Neeld Arms, the Windsor Castle and the Prince of Wales, while a couple of blocks away the Chippenham Hotel (with its gorgeous interior of faience and mirrors) seems doomed, as it has been bought by the people who illegally demolished the Carlton Tavern, just up the road in Maida Vale.

Ex-pubs

The Neeld Arms commemorates the family who developed the area a hundred and fifty years ago; they were Wiltshire landowners, hence Chippenham Road. It is now to become fancy flats (“The Marylands Apartments”); I hope the prospective owners enjoy their proximity to the Paddington Fish Bar.

The Windsor Castle, with its battlemented façade, is a distinctive building, and has been closed for some time, pending development. The city council turned down an application to make it into an “aparthotel”, but clearly it isn’t going to be a pub again. It hosted music back in the seventies, and I’m told The Clash played early gigs there. A man on the 18 bus told me it used to have extended licensing hours, like a market pub, but I can’t see why that should ever have been the case.  It is certainly a building with a history. Curiously there seems to be a concentration of pubs with “castle” in their name around Paddington, but more of that another day.

The Prince of Wales is our current major talking point, as community action has, for the moment, thwarted an attempt to open a betting shop on its ground floor. It is a more than local landmark, standing on an important junction, where Elgin Avenue and Great Western Road meet the Harrow Road, and is an acknowledged bus destination. The building is adorned with an enormous relief of the Prince of Wales' feathers high up on the corner, and despite the council's best efforts to rename it Maida Hill Piazza, the spot is still generally called Prince of Wales Junction. The pub closed a few months ago when the Council revoked its licence after the licensee was convicted of a serious sexual assault on the premises. It’s not entirely clear why the owner doesn’t want it to be a pub any more, except, presumably, that he can make more money by selling up. So we ended up with BetFred applying for a licence for a betting shop.

BetFred

Now you may not know BetFred, but they are a business founded by a Mancunian, Fred Done (and his brother Peter) and are the most innovatively-run betting shop chain. They bought the Tote when that was privatised four years ago, which is how they came to acquire their present shop on Harrow Road (by the bus stop near Sutherland Avenue). Now when publicly-owned the Tote used to support horseracing in various ways, but BetFred has largely withdrawn from that. Fred Done apparently prefers football.  

Opposing the granting of a betting shop licence is quite a tricky task, because you have to convince the authorities that a new betting shop would actually increase crime and disorder. It isn’t enough to say that there are enough betting shops already, (three within fifty yards) or that they are obviously parasitical and sucking the blood of the poor. The bookmaking chains vehemently deny that they are targeting the poor and vulnerable, but it is perfectly clear to anyone with eyes to see that, in London at any rate, the presence of multiple betting shops functions as an index of the economic deprivation of an area. You can expect fried-chicken shops, payday loan shops and pound shops as well. To be fair to the bookmakers (“the leisure industry” as they like to style themselves) I expect that their policy for shop openings is based more on the cost of leases than on any targeting of the vulnerable. The thing is that betting shops are looking like an increasingly old-fashioned way of doing business now that gambling is so readily available online, so margins must be getting tight and hence shops with cheap leases are the way to go. Obviously the fact that Harrow Road has a relatively high proportion of residents who don’t have access to the internet at home is also a positive factor. So it’s not quite fair to say that the bookmakers target the vulnerable; it’s more collateral damage.

The main point that the community raised against BetFred was that there was a record of crime and disorder centred on one of the existing shops at Prince of Wales Junction, and that it was reasonable to suppose that this would only increase with another shop. The counsel for BetFred made the pleasing point that fights and drug dealing outside a betting shop were evidence that the shop was actually well-run, because the manager was ensuring that those activities didn’t take place inside his premises! He also asserted that crime and anti-social activity were the result of the neighbourhood harbouring a number of unsavoury individuals, and really nothing to do with the betting shops.

Temptation

Now it would be foolish to say that there is a necessary causal link between any betting shop and crime, but it’s more about climate and opportunity.  The presence of places dedicated to offering financial gain without any actual productive work is bound to create a particular climate, and it is not surprising that they should be especially attractive in communities where paid work is scarce. The prospect of disproportionate financial returns is an attractive one for any investor, but the reason this becomes immoral in a deprived district is that the temptation becomes greater the more desperate you are, and if you have no spare cash then losing has really serious consequences. 

Yes, of course nobody has to bet, it’s always a decision you make, just as you decide to drink, smoke or take drugs, but like those you can become addicted to it. It’s a temptation you may or may not be able to resist, and sadly that’s not just a question of lacking moral fibre. Like other addictions too, gambling can be presented in such a way as to lure people in, which clearly happens (and which legislation around alcohol and tobacco recognises), and that presentation normalises it. The difference is that while the others can only ever make you temporarily feel better, gambling offers you the illusion that you can actually escape from desperate circumstances, and so is somehow morally more insidious.  

It is, then, particularly perverse that a government that is so keen to end a “something for nothing” culture should also be keen on liberalising controls over gambling, which is absolutely predicated upon getting something for nothing. But then you could say that much of what takes place in the City is just gambling but with no sport involved. You might also observe that betting industry figures (Peter Done included) give lots of money to political parties.

Anyway, BetFred’s application was turned down, after much testimony about how many vulnerable people were liable to be affected. We thought this was a great victory for the public good, but the story now is that someone wants to open a payday loan shop on the premises!
       

Monday 6 July 2015

The Green, Green Grass...



The Green, Green Grass…

I don’t understand why open cannabis use has increased so markedly in this neighbourhood in the last couple of years, but it certainly has. If you walk along by the canal any afternoon or early evening your senses will tell you that cannabis is being smoked or has recently been smoked. I first noticed it when the numbers of more or less permanently-moored boats increased, but it is clear now that this is mostly happening ashore.

The policemen and PCSOs seem to take no notice. Now in a sense I can understand that; cannabis use is a fairly low-grade crime, and what is the point of antagonising, and ultimately criminalising, otherwise blameless individuals if they aren’t causing a nuisance or harming anyone else?

Fair enough, but some of the groups of people who seem to gather round here to smoke dope do actually seem rather intimidating, and come pretty close to being a nuisance. And surely it is, actually, against the law, isn’t it? More than that, my own experience inclines me to be rather less than relaxed about cannabis use.

A few years ago I conducted a funeral for a young man who had died suddenly and inexplicably (sudden death syndrome) but the striking feature of the household was the industrial quantity of cannabis consumed, especially by the young man. Of course it may not have had anything to do with his death, but it worried me, as it seemed to be the only unusual thing about him.

More recently I have been struck by how many of the mentally ill locally are also cannabis users, and how regularly one hears horror stories about bad experiences from skunk, the genetically-engineered high strength cannabis which seems to be the only sort you can get in London now. Yes, I know there are nice respectable people with MS who say it eases their pain, but there are also vulnerable, damaged people for whom it triggers psychotic episodes. So, pardon me if I’m a bit illiberal about this one.

Little Silver Canisters

The other morning I met one of the school staff putting a load of rubbish in the bins, which she had just swept up from near the church. It turns out that this was a large quantity of nitrous oxide canisters, sudden evidence of the craze for laughing gas reaching our estate. Perhaps that explains the noise that woke us up at 2am, though I don’t remember laughter being prominent. This seems a particularly futile exercise in escapism, as I am told the effects are very fleeting. Presumably that is why there were lots of canisters, which look a bit sinister, frankly. I suspect that’s part of the attraction for Gilbert & George, in whose most recent show the canisters were a repeated motif. Having a pile of them on the pavement doesn’t make the neighbourhood feel hip or edgy, I can assure you.

Mounting the Pavement

A young man who uses our support services needed our help to put pressure on his landlord because of an incident. A Range Rover had mounted the pavement and crashed into the front of their building, at 3 o’clock on a Sunday afternoon. He says that shots were fired, and that a chase had taken place. He apparently knows the driver, who denies firing the shots, “Because if I had shot, I wouldn’t have missed.” Ho, ho, very amusing. The transport of cocaine was allegedly involved. I jokingly asked whether it was a black Range Rover with tinted glass, and was pleased to be told that it was! When we first came here, eight years ago, you could be confident that if you saw one of those on the estate it was bound to be a drug dealer, but now it’s much less predictable, because crazy property prices have meant an influx of wealthy Arabs and people with diplomatic plates. Still, this one conformed to type; having wrecked the Range Rover, he apparently came back in a Porsche.