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Lorries queue up for the Stables Market on Harmood Street |
Queues for building site are causing a lorry load of trouble
HGVs causing chaos in narrow streets as they make their way to Stables Market
WITH heavy goods lorries as far as the eye can see, the scene looks more like the 2012 Olympic site than a Camden Town conservation area.
Residents of Harmood Street, Hartland Road and Clarence Way have issued an angry plea to the Stables Market developers and Camden Council after 12-tonne trucks from the construction site wreaked “havoc” in their neighbourhood over the past week after an on-site equipment fault forced vehicles to back up.
A four-storey glass and chrome shopping complex, featuring housing, restaurants, shops and bars, is being constructed on the site, to be completed in 2009.
Until now the lorries, which remove rubble and earth from the multi-million-pound development from 7am to 6pm, seven days a week, have enjoyed an uneasy truce with neighbours, making some efforts to stay out of the quiet streets surrounding the site.
But Stephan Janes, chairman of the Harmood Street, Clarence Way and Hartland Road Residents Association, said: “It’s been going on for a long time, but what we saw last week was on another level. There were up to 10 lorries at a time, parking on double and single yellow lines, and double parking. This is in a conservation area, leading to a primary school – it’s created havoc.”
According to Mr Janes, the lorry drivers played “cat and mouse” with parking wardens, moving on when they were in danger of getting a ticket. Every time a lorry drives through the street the houses shake violently, said Mr Janes.
“The developers are not taking into account that people live in the area,” he added. “They have no intention of keeping good relations with their neighbours.”
When Mr Janes took residents’ concerns to the Town Hall, he was told no restrictions had been put in place to protect local amenities when the project was approved in 2006.
Respite came on Friday after highway chiefs sent a team of parking enforcement Smart cars to book any illegally parked lorries .
The trucks have returned to congregating on Chalk Farm Road, but Mr Janes remains cautious.
“It could happen again any moment,” he said. “It seems when it comes to parking, big developers have different rules. We’re worried this will cause problems on a long-term basis.
“We want some assurance this won’t happen again,” he added
A council spokesman said: “The contractors, McGee Group Limited, assured us that the problems on this occasion were a one-off, owing to a breakdown of a conveyor belt on site causing a backlog of lorries waiting to take waste away from the site.
“They have now put alternative arrangements in place and our follow-up visit to the site showed no problems with lorries parking on Harmood Street, Clarence Way or Hartland Road.” |
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