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Becalmed King’s Cross site could become whole new city
TWO great schemes destined for Camden – the redevelopment of the giant King’s Cross site and that of the Middlesex Hospital in Fitzrovia – have become becalmed by the financial crisis.
Only a few weeks ago their future looked so bright – in the eyes of their visionary developers.
Now, bleak clouds hover over them.
Money men had fixed their eyes on converting the hospital into luxury flats. For the site in King’s Cross, developers had sketched out a new city of offices, shops and blocks of flats, the latest dream for a site that has remained derelict for decades.
The collapse of the investing Icelandic bank, and the withdrawal of another set of backers, the Candy brothers, virtually means the end of the Fitzrovia dream, unless a miracle occurs – and how many of them make an appearance in the hard-headed world of big finance?
To fulfil the dream of the Candy brothers a great hospital edifice had to be torn down. In its place now lies an eerie wasteland. Here can be seen the mad results of a deregulated free market. Opponents of the original scheme describe events as pure vandalism. That’s a pretty good description.
Remember, too, how the skyscraper block Centrepoint scandalously remained empty for nearly 10 years in the 1970s.
Only direct intervention by the government can revive both sites.
If the government were to embark on a large-scale housing programme, where better to begin than in King’s Cross? This is said to be the largest urban site in Europe ripe for development.
Why cannot a new city, backed by the government, emerge at last on the site – residential blocks, a park, a school, recreational areas? This would mean significant changes to the scheme mapped out by the developers, Argent, but there is no reason why they could not become partners in such a venture.
Is it not disgraceful that such a large site has been allowed to remain derelict for so long? Unless the government steps in, bangs heads together, opens the sluice gates of cash, Gordon Brown’s pronouncements on Keynesian-style investment as “automatic stabilisers” for the economy will be seen as empty spin .
The same type of solution can be applied in Fitzrovia. There is no other capital in the developed world where governments would allow such magnificent developmental sites to remain fallow. |
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