Single Aspect Blog

Browsing the stats the other day I noticed a visit from Squire and Partners who converted the former Kensington Odeon into flats and a basement cinema.  While looking at the drawings for the site, which normally contain outline images of kitchen units, sofas and a dining table, I was intrigued to notice that each of five apartments in a row, had a piano outlined.  More in keeping with a music school than a residential street I would have thought or is this how the rich pass their time?

Kensington Odeon – Drawing

I regularly cycle along a street of three storey houses through whose bay windows may be seen a baby grand in a least half of them but all?  Perhaps it was simply wishful thinking on the part of the architects in order to generate sales.

I have written to Squires to ask but have not so far received a reply.  I’ll let you know when I do.

There seems no end to the lengths this bunch of millionaire muppets will go to sell the family silver, well what’s left, but this really must be a bridge too far.  The Guardian article that appeared yesterday has so far attracted over 2000 comments, a rare event even for the frantic bloggers from both sides of the Atlantic who keep an eye on such things.  I’ve read most of them, of which the vast majority are bitterly against, and angry.  This [edited] one below pretty much sums up how I feel about it all and if you want to look up my two short contributions they’re under Piecesofeight

november19

3 March 2012 7:15PM

I’m outraged and shocked by it all naturally. In fact, I’m starting to suspect that Cameron is on a mission to make sure the Conservatives are never a palatable voting option for an entire generation and he’s doing a brilliant job at it.

29/11/16 – This article is rather out of date. If the sightlines are important to you please keep an eye on this webpage:-

London View Management Framework

UPDATE: 25/11/16 – and another one Manhattan Lofts Stratford

If the following is the result of the present building restrictions supposedly preventing visual clutter obscuring or degrading the views of St Paul’s Cathedral from well known landmarks around London then why bother? They have clearly been watered down to the point of no return. I thought they were intended to PROTECT the views of St Pauls from a set of established points around London including Primrose Hill.  Who is responsible for this change?  Ken or Boris?  How is this protecting the view of St Pauls from Parliament Hill?  I am horrified.

The best exposition I have seen on TV about the St Pauls sightlines has been from Andrew Marr in his series Britain from Above when he devoted a whole section of the programme to the Abercrombie plan for London and to the subject of sightlines.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/britainfromabove/stories/buildingbritain/3dmodelling.shtml

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I know that in the 1970s squatting was popular. I’ve got a book on my shelves entitled Alternative London which tells you how to get up to all manner of things to do with accommodation of dubious legality but those times are past. Owing to comprehensive redevelopment and “twilight areas” rows of perfectly good houses were being emptied by thoughtless councils intent on demolition and with new build council housing not keeping up the result was, perhaps, coupled with the lassez faire attitude of the times, inevitable.

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dgriz

On my Lubetkin visit to the capital last year, across the road from LSE Rosebury Hall where I was staying, I noticed this  magnificent building, origin unknown to me until serendipity played a hand while going through some old Look and Learn magazines from the 1960s I came across this article (large graphic) showing it to have been the headquarters of the Metropolitan Water Board.

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UPDATE: 25/5/18 Royal Free sells Queen Mary House

UPDATE: 9/1/18 Now a report from the NEF No Homes for Nurses

UPDATE: 11/06/17 Better late than never. Pity they sold them off in the first place. Thank goodness the NHS still owns most of the land.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/jun/10/nurses-homes-nhs-staff-shortfall

https://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/jan/31/nurses-face-eviction-staff-housing

This makes me very angry, comment to Guardian below:-

1 February 2012 2:07PM

This is absolutely appalling news but sadly only too predictable. When the police section houses (behind police stations) started to go I seem to remember being told that the police preferred to live with their families (wives and children) and that demand for bachelor (of either gender) accommodation had fallen away.

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Tonight I’ve reached something of a milestone for the blog.  They may not all be great writing, they may not all have good photographs or indeed any photographs. But in just over two years I have managed to churn out two hundred articles with thanks in order to the London Evening Standard for Plot to rid council estates of poor which started all this off on 9th July 2009.

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The history is pretty straightforward if depressing in that before the war large amounts of housing throughout the country were unfit for human habitation and had been built during the industrial revolution to the standards of the time which for working people were often what the employer could get away with.

The 1930s was seen as a time to start clearing the slums and large housing blocks such as Quarry Hill in Leeds and Gerard Gardens and others were built in Liverpool, it’s worth seeing the film Homes for Workers to see what was being done at that time.

After the war the Modernists had their chance to rebuild the housing of Britain and in addition to many houses with gardens large numbers of flats were built often on estates, with varying degrees of success, let’s not forget the new towns either.

Unfortunately the situation in the inner cities was less good.  London had much new housing built but this fell short of that required leaving many people trapped in poor quality privately rented accommodation with the scandal of Rachmanism that marked the early 1960s.

With families being broken up by social services if they became homeless, the film Cathy Come Home by Ken Loach was a cry for help for those families so troubled and led, ten years on to a change in the law such that council homes were no longer allocated to those who could show good references and a record of employment, but rather to those most in need.

While a worthy aim the long term effect of this policy when combined with the inevitable effects of right to buy has been to create sink estates where in earlier decades lived a range of people of all backgrounds.

Which brings us back to Ferrier.  From the podcast linked below we learn that former inmates of the asylums were housed in small numbers on Ferrier and there was of course the compounding effect of right to buy where those who could afford to bought and moved out, letting the property, often to recipients of benefits. Some who could not afford to but bought anyway, defaulted and had their homes repossessed thus losing their security of tenure and reverting to the bottom of the waiting list,  and lastly those left behind who could not afford to buy even with the discount.

UPDATE: This gives a good account of public housing in the last century:-

Peter Shapely

Thought for the day – Regeneration is social cleansing

In my continuing quest for béton brut (raw concrete) I wandered along to what’s left of the Heygate to snatch a few shots.

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