Kings Cross Local Environment

Argent property developers try to throw resident out of Kings Cross planning exhbition

Sophie Talbot was asked to leave Argent's planning exhibition by security guards for trying to talk to the developer's representative Bob Evans and Islington planning officials.  Sophie had gone to the exhibition in the German Gym which has a huge model of the development with a bridge over the tracks at Wharfdale Road which is unfunded by Network Rail.  Sophie has posted the below on our sister site 'KingsCross Access'.

'I asked if I could show him [Bob Evans] what I was concerned about on the model, he was reluctant as several LB Islington Planning bods were about to arrive for a meeting with him. As he said that, the planning bods arrived and I asked them all if I could take two minutes of their time to share my concern – I handed them each a leaflet. From there on in it went badly wrong. Bob said I was being misleading about the bridge and the boulevard, he said he did not like the way Michael Edwards etc were dealing with the issue (Michael is a member of King’s Cross Railway Lands Group). I asked if I could talk to him about all that because it is not my intention to mislead anyone. He said, ‘not right now’ and I asked if I could make an appointment to meet with him – he gave me his card.

'I was then approached by the security guard and a member of staff attached to the exhibition. They asked me to leave and I said I wanted to see the exhibition… long story short, eventually they let me see the exhibition – which is not just about King’s Cross Central.'

Argent says it was all a bit of a mix up.

'We do however have an art installation upstairs as part of the London Festival of Architecture and people have been coming in, on a managed basis, to see that. So when you asked Eric (the doorman/security guard) if you could come in to see the exhibition, that is what he thought you were referring to. If there was a misunderstanding about access to the building, then I apologise.

'I had arranged to meet some representatives from Islington Council and other organisations at the Gym for a site tour and it was those guests that you met. I freely admit that you caught them and me by surprise, and that is no doubt what you saw "in my eyes"'

Not great community engagement from the developer whose corporate 'aim' is: 'To be the most respected and successful developer in the UK'.  Argent support the bridge across the tracks but don't seem prepared to lobby Network Rail to get it built.  The exhibition is part of the London Festival of Architecture and is open 10:00 to 1530 until 20 July - link here. Go along and have a look, just don't mention the bridge.

Ben Kinsella tribute in Bingfield Park

These impromptu tributes by local young people to Ben Kinsella appeared in Bingfield Park yesterday.  Paul Converys touching comment here explains that Ben played football with CYP the local youth group. 

'A random act of violence in the small hours of Sunday morning has shattered a family and shocked a neighbourhood.

There is a palbable sense of distress around here. Ben was a local boy. He played football for the Copenhagen Youth Project team. His desperate phone call begging for help minutes before he died was to a young man who was the CYP's table tennis mentor. Many of us have tangible connections with this incident, it's timing and place. '

'We desperately need activities and services that help kids to understand that violence is the wrong reaction. Co-operation, self respect and respect for others has to be strengthened by giving kids the space and resource to relate to others and to find themselves. They also need to burn energy and engage in activity that is risky yet controlled. That requires massive investment in activities for young people.'

Intended or not, the only way the tag on the surface of the pitch will go is if hundreds of young people play football together on it. Normally I am tough on graffiti and on the causes of grafitti (Banksy) but i hope this stays for a while until plans for a more permanent memorial are in place.

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Safer Neighbourhoods - Your Local Police Team

Want to know what our Safer Neighbourhoods Team has been up to.  Then find out by taking a look at their Spring/Summer Newsletter

Fatal stabbing near Kings Cross

Terrible news of a young man stabbed to death on North Road, near the junction with York Way (map). 

The basic facts seem to be that on Saturday night the man was drinking in Shillibeers, got involved in an altercation and was stabbed, made it as far as York Way along North Road before collapsing and later dying in hospital.  Two young men have been arrested and are being held by police.  The national press are covering the celebrity connections with their usual morbiditiy as if celebrity grief is more newsworthy than any other grieving human.  The young man, Ben Kinsella - either 16 or 18 years old seemed to have a bright future ahead of him according to reports from Holloway School where he was a student.

Adding to the sadness is that this part of Kings Cross is recovering.  The area where this took place, near the Market, York Way estates has its challenges but has improved a lot in recent years.  The Market  is being rebuilt and the York Way estate is apparently regarded as well run.  Shillibeers is a good pub attached to the Pleasance comedy theatre - a bright spot in a challenging area - and not somewhere i would asscoiate with trouble and i would be happy going for a drink there on a Saturday night.

If anyone knows anything they would like to share with the local community or pass on in confidence please drop me a line (click here).

Aggressive and persistant begging in Kings Cross on the increase.

Residents of the Kings Cross Road based hostels (I mean those that accommodate "hard to ordinarily house Camden based (anti-social) people," the local authority has a "housing obligation" towards) are noticeably more present and aggressively begging in the surrounding streets and areas and are harassing local residents lives.

It is hard to explain why this has happened but part of the explanation could be an increase in tourism traffic at Kings Cross since the opening of St Pancras International, and the hostel occupants taking advantage of this."Managed" low key prostitutes, alcoholics and drug users are asking for money or sit around corners drinking. Aggressive intimidation and verbal abuse may occur if you refuse to give them attention.

Apparently (from hear and say) the hostels are badly managed, but evidently they seem to have no control over the residents put there or how these behave outside, and this paid partially through council tax monies, that is you and me.

It can not be right that respectable tax paying residents are increasingly and continuously being harassed by the users of a local Camden service, even if it may right to house  groups like these.  I believe more must be done in terms of cooperation between local police and the hostel management and a more thorough service that challenges these hostel occupants. 

Well patrolled St Pancras and Kings Cross Station must  extend its service more rigidly to a radius of at least 1 1/2 miles around the station, including all those areas were major hotels and the Tesco supermarket are based.

Have you experienced harassment or anti-social behaviour by such people recently,
or noticed an increase too?  Share your experiences here, and let everyone know.

Also do Contact your local Safer Neighbourhood team, instantly:

For Kings Cross Ward
020 8721 2694
07920 233769

Email


For St Pancras and Sommers Town
Phone:
020 8721 2810
07867 536621

For the Islington based safer neighbourhood numbers click here.

Modified version originally from Daniels Counter Blog.  Creative Common Licence Applies.

Outram up in flames again - but CCTV well positioned to give vital evidence.....

Oh dear, i was only thinking the other day that it had been ages since someone torched a stolen moped, when i look out ofhte window, see smoke and someone has set a moped on fire.  A moped was put onfire in the Outram undercrofts this evening (Sunday 27 May) at about 2000.  The fire brigade came quickly and put it out.  I think elderly people live in this part of the Outram - setting a fire under an old persons house is serious stuff.

There is some hope of solving this one though - overseeing that part of the Delhi Outram estate is a monstrous 3 camera CCTV tower that appeared from nowhere in April to protect the Council depot (in the pic above it is just out of shot to the right - see below for mast).  One of the cameras points directly at where the fire was set, one other covers the entrance to this dead end yard.  Unless the arsonists had an invisibility cloak it would have been impossible to sneak in un noticed.  So let's see if the council and the police can share CCTV footage to crack this one. Or will it be another case of 'there wasn't a tape in' etc

Dogs Vs. Trees

For those of us who have grown up with dogs as pets, one of those fun passtimes has aways been having your dog fetch sticks. But now there seems to be a new activity for those dog owners that seem to be more "yobishly challanged." It is encouraging your dog to gnaw at young trees with the intent of destroying them. Yes, I do not lie.

We have now had a number of reports of someone allowing their dog to attack some of the trees planted on Railway Street with the effect of destroying them. When this problem was raised with the folks from Greenspace, they had this to say:

The kind of dog damage you describe is unfortunately becoming more and more common, though not quite as blatant as Railway Street. It seems to be one of the more recent trends to have a Staffordshire type terrier and train them (to what end???) by getting them to chew on trees. Obviously, the implication must be that if you own a "hard" dog, then you yourself are "hard". Perhaps it's a sign of my old age, but I find such behaviour risible and very, very frustrating.

At first thought, my simple solution to the problem would be to coat the base of the trees with RAT POISON, but on second thought, that would simply punish the dog and the dog is not the problem (but then how could we apply the Rat Poison to the owner). So short of having a vigilante committee to "sort" these people out and "re-educate" them, I'm now stumped. What do you think we should do. Please post your comments here. We can send the good ones to Boris for immediate action.

Bingfield Park and dogs - possible solution?

Despite Islington's concrete and tarmac there is often unused green space that goes to waste.  Next to Bingfield Park, along Pembroke Street there is a 50metre long 15 metre wide green strip with about a dozen trees on it.  There is a map at the link here showing the space.  Something undefinable about local geography means that this Council owned 'amenity strip'  is completely unused. 

The area could be converted into a large dog exercise area with the addition of some simple fencing and a dog toilet sandpit.  Then people could exercise their dogs there and Bingfield Park be made dog free, for the first time allowing children and people to use it without fear of dog poo or bad dog behaviour.  Also it would bring more footfall to an end of Pembroke Street that has had a problem with car break ins over the years.  The Council are investigating the feasibility and costings.

Let's help our Bemerton neighbours

Reports reach me from Paul Convery of trouble in the neighbourhood - it seems the outbreaks of graffiti are only the tip of the iceberg.  We need huge investment in large scale youth work to give kids, who are essentially decent something more useful to do.  And palliative measures to help out the overwhelmed  estate staff. Paul Convery in a mail to Councillors, police, youth workers and officials says:

'The Bemerton has gone through a very difficult couple of weeks as upwards of three to four dozen teenagers from all over the Borough have begun to socialise, drink, smoke and then get pretty aggressive and destructive. Almost every day there are smashed bottles, graffiti, urine, scattered foodstuffs, up-ended garbage and other damage to the estate's fabric. I've run into these kids almost every day and evening over the last 10 days and their behaviour is completely unacceptable. It needs tough and determined action right away to provide some relief to residents on the estate ... combined with some longer term solutions to stop it happening again.

'I hope that the combined efforts of the police, HfI's anti social behaviour team and others will have the desired effect over the coming few days. Islington Council has this evening issued a press notice saying that all necessary measures will be used to crack-down on the trouble that has blighted the estate over the past couple of weeks....I speak for all the local Councillors when I say it's appalling that it has taken this long for the penny to drop: ordinary, decent kids when massed in a gang and left to their own devices end up causing damage and distress.'

'For too long, Islington's policy has concentrated resources on a tiny minority of very bad offenders and has ignored the majority of young people - only when these kids start to run amok does someone start paying attention. We need proper investment on a significant scale.'

Alex Scourgie who manages the estate with a high degree of professionalism says:

'Again we start our day on Bemerton with 8 caretakers spending the next 6 hours clearing graffiti, clearing broken bottles, clearing drugs paraphernalia, mopping urine and alcohol from our stairs and not carrying out any caretaking duties on the schedule.  The office will be fielding calls for our residents who were too scared to leave their homes last night.  If this was a one off then we would just get on with the clear up and try to pacify our residents. 

Unfortunately this is not a one off and it seems that every day we are sending photographs of graffiti around in the hope that someone will actually help us.  We never get as much as a call back!

'The overall and immediate concern...is that tonight the situation will return and the residents on Bemerton will have to endure another frightening night in their homes.

'We urgently require action today to prevent this situation escalating.  There are resources out there to deal with this type of circumstance and we need to pull them together today.   We all need to rise to this challenge and see it as an opportunity to demonstrate to the residents the effectiveness of the services we provide.'