Nightingale Lane Safety/Audley Retirement Village Petition! Post Reply

[Hawthorne4]

For those who are as concerned as I am about the safety hazard the development of the Audley Retirement Village adjacent to Clapham South Tube has created- I am posting the attached letter written by J**** B**** and addressed to Nick Sanderson, CEO of Audley Retirement. J**** B**** is co-ordinating a response on behalf of local residents to the development. This letter and it’s signatories will be communicated to our local councillors and our local MP.

Many local residents and local businesses have lent their support to this letter. They intend to submit this letter with over 500 signatures and if you would like to add your name to this petition please email James with your first name, last name and first line of your address. He has requested that any responses reach him by the end of the week-


Mr. N. Sanderson
Audley Retirement Villages
Head Office, 65 High Street
Egham
Surrey TW20 9EY

Dear Nick,

We are writing to you today as concerned local residents asking for Audley to radically change its attitude towards us and to be a better neighbour.

Since the development at Audley Nightingale Place has begun, on Nightingale Lane we have lost a much-used bus stop, a post box and now a major closure of the busiest pavement in our local area. All of this is planned for two years according to your on-site staff.

Whilst we welcome the development of the site, the intrusion on to the pavement of the three storied portacabins for the builders goes beyond “some disruption”. The expectation that all local residents should simply have to cross a busy road twice as a result of the site staff extending their offices on to the pavement is not only manifestly unfair but a poor way to introduce Audley to the local community.

We appreciate that the plan for the highway was approved by Council officials but as local residents we are appealing directly to you as CEO of Audley Retirement to resolve this major disruption and to ensure that we get a better outcome.

The portacabins are enormous. Put simply they are unnecessarily big and they dominate the entire pavement. The suspension of parking across the road would allow for a walkway along the side for residents to pass by still and wouldn’t close the pavement for thousands of us for two years.

The pavements of Nightingale Lane do not deserve to be a building site and closed off to residents for two years. This is a busy commuter thoroughfare in Zone 2 of London, it is simply wrong to assume that the level of disruption is something which must be forced on residents.

We are appealing to you directly with our concern and asking that you help us find a solution, reopen part of the busiest road in our area and ensure that residents are not blighted by these temporary offices for two years.

We want to welcome Audley to the area but we also want it to consider the major impact closing off our busiest pavement has on both local residents and businesses.

We appreciate that the portacabins have already been erected but we would ask you as a matter of urgency to find a way for a walkway along the side to help resolve this terrible situation for residents.

We look forward to hearing from you.

[twinmum]

I really can’t understand why the council allowed this to happen. Thanks for starting this, I’ll send my details on.

[balhambloke]

I hope people get behind this letter. I’m amazed they have been allowed to erect portacabins over the pavements like they have. There are a lot of children and elderly people trying to walk on the road - it’s literally an accident waiting to happen.

[Ippyevie]

I fully agreed. People with limited mobility like my son have been having a hard time commuting around that area. Crossing the road is dangerous and as twinmum said, I can't believe the council gave them a go ahead on this.

[movingsouth]

Where does it say they even had permission to build on to the pavement? Skimmed the planning permission but couldn't see that

Noticed planning permission was granted on the basis of the homes being provided specifically for dementia patients. No mention of that on Audleys sales site, where the flats are being offered for £1.6m+ for a 2 bed flat and can apparently be sold on in the open market.

May also be worth sending to the group that provided financing (Apache Capital). Apparently it specialises in putting middle eastern investor cash to work in the UK via shariah complaint investment schemes.

[lydia249]

Couldn't agree more - how the council approved the plans and paid to move the bus stop, remove the postbox, allow the humongous portacabin block creeping into the road and close down the footpath - all for a private retirement village is beyond me!

Incredibly dangerous on such a busy road with the school nearby and lots of young adults using the G1 to get to school after getting off the tube. Who do I send my details to? Not immediately clear from your post Hawthorne! Thanks for posting.

[sloaney donkey]

I say stop the works !

[Wandsworth Council]

Here is a written response to residents who have expressed concerns about this issue:

Dear Resident

Thank you for contacting us about the difficulties you’ve encountered whilst walking past this development site in Nightingale Lane. We agree that the existing arrangements are far from satisfactory and we are taking steps to put this right.

Over the course of the next few days our highways engineers will be improving pedestrian safety by installing a new temporary walkway which will be fenced off from passing traffic so that people no longer need to walk in the carriageway. We believe this will address the concerns that have been expressed to us by local people.

In order to make this change, we will need to suspend some parking bays on the opposite side of the road and also make some physical changes to the kerbline in front of the adjacent bus stop. This will ensure that as well as offering a safe environment for pedestrians it will allow bus services to continue unchanged and provide enough room for other vehicles to pass in both directions, thus preventing tailbacks and delays.

We are treating this as a priority but the work will take around a week to complete so we would please ask people to be patient while the changes are made. We will of course press our engineers to complete the task as quickly as possible.

[balhambloke]

Why did something so inconvenient and unsafe for local residents like this happen in the first place? Have the council not got a duty to check things like this properly before the public’s safety and well-being can be compromised?

Also, why not force the developers to move the huge, multi-storey portacabins a couple of metres off the pavement instead so the public can use the pavement?

Whilst I welcome any sort of remedy, it sounds like a very strange series of events with a messy and inefficient solution.

[ppe]

I'd also like to know how long is this going to go on for? How long will the portacabins be there and when will the G1 bus stop be reinstated to it's original position?
There are many elderly residents who use the GI bus and now there is nowhere for them to sit whilst waiting for the bus. Should/could not the developers pay for some seating at the new (temporary) GI bus stop as well?

[sloaney donkey]

Just to be clear:- are the Portakabins actually the retirement village (people would live in them?)

[balhambloke]

Did anyone get a letter through from the local Conservative MPs on this last week?

After all of the fuss above, the developers have put in plans for the walkway to be REMOVED AND for the portacabins to be extended so they can be used as marketing suites.

I am gobsmacked. I think it’s totally unacceptable to remove the walkway after the rather stupid idea to close off the pavement in the first place, putting so many children / elderly / vulnerable people at risk, having to cross a busy dangerous road twice, just to walk in one of the busiest areas locally.

I don’t know where the blame lies but my guess is with Wandsworth Council for allowing this development to proceed on these terms and putting local residents at risk in this way, and then managing it in such an incompetent manner. Coupled with a developer who seems to have no interest in the wellbeing and safety of local residents. The Conservatives claim a chunk of the glory for getting the walkway sorted out and have their own agenda but I at least welcome them letting me know of these latest developments.

There is a link on the letter to object to the plans so please can you sign and forward this on to others too:

https://planning.wandsworth.gov.uk/WAM/ ... =2018/3431

Remember to select the radio box to ‘Object to the proposal’.

[balhambloke]

I’m guessing you don’t do that walk twice a day and see the kids and elderly crossing the main road twice when they shut the walkway. Anyway, each to their own.

[balhambloke]

Petal - as I said, they want to close the walkway that the council only just recently installed.

There are over 150 objections to the planning and not one show of support.

The deadline for objecting is TOMORROW.

https://planning.wandsworth.gov.uk/WAM/ ... =2018/3431

[dequacivis]

Hello All, There is a lot of frustration with this development, and the disruption thrust upon local residents. Would everyone be even more outraged to discover that Audley is there in name only, in order to detract from the fact that the real benefit structure has been constructed in Jersey to hide the main Arab/Middle eastern speculators.
Audley own 4% and are required to buy the freehold after all the apartments have been sold.
As it stands, the very cleaver disguised scheme looks like to divert the £40m - £50m profit back to the overseas investors, COMPLETELY tax free!
Amazingly the MET Police sold the plot to the Jersey structure, knowing that this would be the likely outcome..... this dispite all Political Parties pretending to be outraged by the secrecy of the tax free offshore centers? No need for secrecy, if UK Public Bodies stopped helping £billions get into these jurisdictions!
Wandsworth Council also gave them planning permission, letting them maintain the pretense that the local community would benefit....!!!! The large development site next to this one (The Drum - 3-6 Balham Hill) was also given planning permission to a Jersey structure (tax free) so .... all that disruption and probably around £100m profited offshore tax free, and the locality has 180 more 1 to 3 bedroom flats ranging from £800k to £3m....... and we haven't touched upon the scams pulled to restrict the proper supply of affordable homes!!