May 2007 Archives

Wandsworth Planning Committee discussed an application to amend an S106 agreement dating back to 1994 earlier this week. Under the original legal agreement the developer of a scheme on Knaresboruogh Drive in Earlsfield, completed in 1995 was obliged to provide public rights of way and maintain the highway, with a view to allowing locals access to King George's Park and the River Wandle. Permission was recently granted for a 195 residential units scheme on a site at the end of the road, formerly in use as an archiving facility and as such resulting in few journeys.

An appeal for non-determination has already been submitted, but the council was minded to refuse a variation. As things stand the council is entitled to carry out repairs and reclaim expenses from the developer of the 1995 scheme. The developers of Westfield House (Q Developments Limited) have already offered, in writing, to pay a contribution towards the upkeep, but it seems there may be some legal wranglings still to come......

This place will sap your will to live.... the bathroom was like something from a horror movie..... I booked here for 2 nights and have only managed 1...these are just some of the comments made about The Mater Brewer Hotel in Hillingdon. Unfortunately you'd be unable to form your own opinion because on the 12th January 2007 the place closed down for good. Tesco however may still have plans to resurrect the area despite having been refused planning permission earlier this year for a 82,600 sq ft supermarket and over 200 flats on the site.

A word of caution if you're driving a narrow boat up the Limehouse Cut next month, something very big is coming in from the west. The super barges are on a test run. Weighing in at a colossal 120 tonnes each and carrying six lorry loads of "material" these specially adapted canal barges will transport the sand and gravel required to build the 2012 Olympics from a depot close to the Millennium Dome. Of course this is just a trial run, the final mega barges will be nearly three times bigger...

Jamie Moralee joined Watford Football Club in the summer of 1994 for £450,000, for almost the same price in 2007 he could have bought a 3 bed flat in Oakmaynes O-Central development in Elephant and Castle....but he didn't. No instead he bought (well negotiated the purchase of) 30 flats at Galliard's City Step development just up the road, in his new role as managing director of New Era Wealth Management, a company that sources off-plan buying opportunities for football players. The company has also bought units at another of Galliards developments, the Freemans Catalogue Site on Clapham Road. The connection with O-Central is that one of his clients (and the companies patron), a Mr R Ferdinand did buy a flat there recently as well as a couple of properties in Chelsea, Battersea, Morocco.....etc

What do you do with an old gas-holder? Well if its part of the King's Cross redevelopment you stick some flats in it... O'Mahony Pike did it in Dublin..