Fraud warning
We’ve received the following from the local police "We are having an increase of fraud reports whereby an elderly person is called, saying that they are from a bank or shop, and telling them that their cards have been used fraudulently and that someone will be coming to their home address in the next short while to collect their cards. When that person turns up, they take the cards and ask the person to enter their pin number on their mobile phone, they then go and use the cards to withdraw as much money as possible. Please can it be passed on that banks NEVER collect cards from people, at most they would tell a customer to cut the cards up. Also people should never enter their pin number into anything other than an official bank machine."
Sgt Nick Parry
Sgt Nick Parry is leaving us as the Swiss Cottage Safer Neighborhood Sergeant. Nick has a very good understanding of life in the Ward and is of course well known to many of you. We thank him for all his successes and wish him all the best in his new job at the Met. His successor is due to be in place very soon.
It’s very good as well to hear that a crack house in the Gardens area has been closed via good cooperation between the police and the council.
Road maintenance
The council’s provisional programme for road maintenance in the coming financial year 2012-3 includes the following roads in Swiss Cottage ward:
- Pavements: Woodchurch Rd, St Johns Wood Park, King Henrys Rd
- Carriageways: Abbey Rd, Acol Rd, Belsize Rd, King Henrys Rd, Hilgrove Rd, Woodchurch Rd, West End Lane
Iceland, Finchley Rd
We mentioned last time that a licensing application had been received from Iceland to sell alcohol at 117 Finchley Road - the current site of the KFC which is about to move up Finchley Road to where Costa Coffee used to be a couple of years back. It has transpired that there was a typo and the application is for 177 Finchley Road where Iceland are taking over the ex-Peacocks store. Let's hope that this new Iceland gives vitality to this stretch of Finchley Road.
Possible development of Broadfield End, Broadhurst Gardens
This is scheduled to come to the Council’s cabinet in July. We have objected to this and will be monitoring this closely along with interested residents. For more detail, see our blog.
New Acol Nursery
The Council has reached agreement for a new nursery on this site to be run by Camden Community Nurseries. It will open its doors in time for the autumn term. CCN which is a not for profit organisation already runs two other local nurseries.
Traffic and transport review – Adelaide/Avenue roads measures
We attended the drop-in session that transport officers held at the community centre last week. About ten people attended during the afternoon, all with good suggestions for Camden to look at.
There will be consultation shortly on two specific measures related to the UCL Academy:
The first measure is to remove the redundant school access road and build out an area of Harley Rd at the junction of King Henry's Road. This is apparently required to improve the side/rear entrance area of the new Academy. The Academy raised safety concerns for their visitors and this measure will reduce the pedestrian crossing distance of Harley Road at the junction of King Henry’s Road, which is currently very wide. In order to implement this measure it will be necessary to relocate a single resident’s parking space from in front of the new school access to a position further south along Harley Road.
The second measure is to relocate a stretch of residents parking on Avenue Road from its existing placement to a new location slightly further north which facilitates a change to the new Swiss Cottage Special School’s access requirements. There is no change in overall residents bays.
In addition there is a pedestrian crossing also planned for Adelaide Road. This crossing point will be located mid-way between Avenue Road and Winchester Road in the future. Under the planning application, this crossing needs to be in place before the September 2013 intake. However, at this time the council is not certain exactly what form that pedestrian crossing will take because further design and traffic modelling is required.
Also, following some concerns about the upgrade/modernisation of the traffic signals at the nearby junction of Winchester Road, King Henry Road and Adelaide Road, the Council has said that these works are now on the TfL and Camden signal modernisation programme and are to be delivered during this new financial year.
Abbey Rd scheme: This large scheme has been approved at an outline level by the planning committee. The detailed design of the buildings will be subject to a further application after further consultation.
Parking changes
The planned review of parking zones and times of control has been put back. The consultation with local residents groups and interested residents will start in mid May. It will take the form of listening to suggestions for changes, rather than proposing specific measures for consultation.
Meanwhile other parking changes have gone ahead. Details on www.camden.gov.uk/parking Key changes include:
- Residents will be able to purchase their annual visitor permit allocation of hours in one go rather than having to make a purchase every three months.
- The tiered pricing system for visitor parking will be replaced with a simpler flat rate charge of 90p per hour regardless of how many hours have been purchased.
- Camden Council has reduced the charge for visitor permits for the elderly and disabled people to a flat rate of 45p per hour.
- A £10 supplement for diesel vehicles has been introduced to highlight the negative impact they have on air quality in the borough
- Reduced price for daily permits for tradespeople and more flexibility when parking
- Free annual car club membership and £50 of drive hours to the first 150 residents who are willing to give up their resident parking permit
- 75% discount on their parking permit for businesses with electric vehicles.
See www.swisscottagecourier.blogspot.com for updates, or follow us on Twitter at @AndrewIMarshall and @DonSwissCottage.
This newsletter has been sent out since 2008 and a paper copy now goes to over 1,300 homes in the area.