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The view after building work |
Room with a view… until builders arrived
‘They’ve ruined my restful outlook,’ protests TV criti
ALL she wanted was a room with a view but for TV critic Hermione Eyre the vista from the window of her flat in Finsbury has turned from green to grey seemingly overnight.
Ms Eyre, 27, who writes satirical features on celebrity for the Independent on Sunday, moved into leafy Claremont Square close to the Angel a year ago after being attracted by the outlook. Late Georgian and early Victorian houses in the Grade II-listed square in a conservation area sell for more than £1 million and flats are highly sought after.
But Ms Eyre maintains she was never told when she moved into the first-floor flat off Pentonville Road that within six months the view from her back bedroom window would be spoilt by a homes development.
Ms Eyre said: “Part of the reason I bought the flat was that it was nice and quiet at the back. The view contained lots of tall, leafy trees. It was a restful place that residents could look onto. I’m not against housing, of course. But you would have thought that planners would be a bit more sensitive about where they build.
“They have ruined the outlook for hundreds of residents and that is very sad.”
Ms Eyre said that, since the removal of the trees, there had been less birdsong in the morning.
She claims the new development will mean more cars and noise at the back of her home.
“I suspect I missed my chance to object to this scheme before I moved in,” she said. “But people have a right to open spaces, particularly in the inner city where we are all so crammed in with developments.”
Jane Wainwright, treasurer of conservation group the Amwell Society, said: “It sounds like her solicitor or whoever conducted the searches should have discovered that this scheme was on the cards.
“We fought it tooth-and-nail about a year-and-a-half ago but unfortunately Islington Council gave it the green light.
“It is a terrible shame because the land could have been used to provide gardens to many of the properties which only have patios.
“Or it would have provided a desperately needed piece of communal green space.”
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