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Lorry chaos ahead
• MAKESHIFT unloading of 22-wheel, 40ft-long semi-trailers in Bath Street, Finsbury, when it is busy with pedestrians and cyclists will become worse next week with the opening of a Peacocks clothing store in the adjacent Old Street shops parade.
There’s a purpose-built unloading hall below the shops, but it is not being used for these big vehicles because BT, a tenant, has not allowed drivers to manoeuvre onto its leased land at the hall’s entrance, I have been told.
But BT is now in only three of the 20 floors of adjacent 207 and 211 Old Street on which it has leases expiring in 2008 and 2009.
The semis often park dangerously in the Bath Street cycle lane when their lay-by is filled by other vehicles.
The shops, Argos, Somerfield, Superdrug, the post office, a chemist and soon Peacocks, and the two buildings, are now controlled by one company, Frogmore Property.
Islington Council needs to see Frogmore urgently about getting the 40ft semi-trailers off Bath Street.
BT’s need to use the open space at the unloading hall’s entrance has vastly decreased.
A large goods lift is not working but two small lifts that can hold wheeled cages are used by Somerfield and the post office. Somerfield uses the hall for its 27ft semi-trailers.The large lift needs to be inspected and brought back into use quickly.
As reported last week, Frogmore has sold the whole 2.8-acre site at 183-213 Old Street to an offshore syndicate Fusion Gold for £64 million, for a £19 million profit, having bought the properties for £45 million in 2004 (Roundabout threatened by Olympic gateway plan, April 6).
But Frogmore will develop the site for Fusion Gold as it has become a property fund manager, probably for a share of any profits. Plans are for 16 acres of floors in two new buildings.
The site’s value would have benefited from the council’s and EC1 New Deal’s award-winning Promenade of Light new frontage to the site.
The council is spending £670,000 and EC1 New Deal £475,000. With extra spending by Transport for London on part of the frontage near the roundabout, the project will cost about £2 million.
LEO CHAPMAN
Dufferin Street, EC1 |
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