Finsbury Park Station/City North Development

Arkady

Me too. Granary Square sets my principles and practicalities at war. Of course, if local government was properly funded it might be different.

LukeG

Another 100% agreement as those spaces are meant to be for us. Reminds me I really need to read some books about the reversal of the free public space we were treated to in bouts between the 1800s and 1960s.

Scruffy

The availability of truly public spaces predate the 1800s by a few centuries. In recent decades the ancient (public) village green (such as the ones connected by Green Lanes, and presumably Stroud Green as well) has been replaced as a centre of activity by the privately-owned shopping centre or “mall”, from which you can be excluded on any pretence.

marko

They are likely to take a far harder line on vagrancy and to have full time security to enforce it.

Scruffy

And they are likely to take a far harder line on public demonstrations and to have full time security to enforce it.

miss annie

I probably live nearer to this than most of you and I'm interested to see what happens during festival season next year when 10,000 off their heads marauding teenagers on their snack run meet the landlords private security team.

LukeG

Sad that we have to trade in public space to a private company to get a patch which is more looked after.

HolbornFox

The trouble is that the leaseholders will be paying a king's ransom for the upkeep, it seems to be the new scam all over the UK.

LukeG

Yeh, I mean, I pay a housing association for the upkeep and that's dear, so I'm sure that a brand new block owned by a developer will be creaming it!

adrienbe

Est Service Charge: £3.75 psf so yes ridiculous amount of money.

LukeG

I learnt that all upgrades/refits are added up, then divided across the whole of all the estates that the housing association run rather than calculated per-job and per-building - which is stupid af. At least in a private development that doesn't happen, you just pay more anyway haha

HolbornFox

You have the service charges and then "essential maintenance" on top, as well as putting right all the shoddy work from the build, all done at top dollar rates and totally unregulated.

I have heard of some flats being impossible to sell because the legal packs contain the previous fees paid out by leaseholders.

Almost as big a scam as road works.

Ali

Buyer beware

marko

@LukeG Islington (and probably other Councils) operate like this too. One of my neighbours - a leaseholder in a flat where LBI own the freehold - got charged some crazy amount of money towards a site compound for cyclical improvement works when all she got was her front door painted.

kreuzkav

It's a load of capitalist planning. I told you that was how it was heading five years ago but you made fun of me. These guys don't care about people but profit.

LukeG

@marko yeh, they are charging us loads for 'fire protection work' which comes out in the thousands over three years; for that we get a new front door and a fire safety check... Bit overblown, but what they're doing is cynically transferring costs over from the older tower blocks that need re-cladding onto all their estate.

HolbornFox

It's also mental that if you refuse to pay they can snatch the lease back.

I had involvement with the new Battersea Power Station Estate the other day, the leaseholders there are getting absolutely hammered for legal fees.

The fees relate to the lawyers changing the terms of the leases (in other words increasing the costs) and then charging for the time and to notify the tenants.

It all started with William the Conqueror apparently, bloody French.

Ali

Side effect of the right to buy at a pretty massive discount and possible value increase. I guess at some stage buyer's must have thought they had done well but it all comes home on the end although it does seem that owners are trying it on a bit but occupants must have signed up for it on their leases. It also takes away affordable housing.

LukeG

Yeh, but now it's leasehold, the residents need to be treated fairly, not my fault some dude 20 years ago bought their council house for 10k. Anyway, seems like Haringey council are building tons of new social housing, so that's great, but the system is a little broken when a council tenant next door drives a new jag (no jokes) haha

Papa

When you see some of the bills the councils present it's shocking. The charge for scaffolding, for example, is often way higher than what it would cost one of us to sort privately... Surely the councils get bulk discounts on scaffolding?

LukeG

I'm not sure how they procure, but if it's anything like government, the tender process is laughable, costly and inefficient. I get that they need to ensure that suppliers aren't just 'Joe's mate'.

But comon, I called the department who sort out these things and there's not really much to answer from their POV apart from the fact they merge all the works (i.e. fire prevention / new doors etc) into one big pot and then divide that across all the tenants and leaseholders.

That really gives no incentive to look after your block as the costs are standardised across everyone.

gardener-joe

But previously this area was utterly (en)closed space, privately maintained. Now it is to be mostly open space, privately maintained. A bit of an improvement.

Arkady

gardner-joe makes a good point. Also true of Granary Square.

HolbornFox

Although (predictably) I quite liked Kings Cross as it was, much like Tottenham and Hackney.

Ali

LukeG.

At the time of purchase in the block it will have been a leasehold I guess because it would quite impractical to do it any other way. That lease will have obligations on both sides but I do agree the process doesn't seem very fair. Is it not possible to use FOI to get to the bottom of the costs etc? I also suspect that quite a few of the purchased flats will be rented out as what seemed to be happening at Grenville.

thompson

Perhaps everyone else knows the answer to this, but I am wondering if there is any update as to when we will again be able to access the station from the Wells Terrace side? Any news would be really appreciated.

Scruffy

@thompson See Arkady's comments from 7 September.

HolbornFox

@LukeG yeah it definitely isn't 'Joe's mate', it's worse than that, it's 'Tarquin's mate' and he's employing Joe on a zero hours contract.

LukeG

Well I don't know about that, not many poshos at the council haha

LukeG

Nah it's more that it's just layers and layers of useless bureaucracy that's well intentioned but useless