When this group of people chose this street to move into, their clever strategies worked out just how much collateral and social damage the project would do.
With natural wastage, the people who lived around the monstrous building would gradually disappear and the incoming culture would be able to settle indefinitely, aided by a battery of press officers and international interest in their social experiment. Those who remained would gradually come to accept the newcomers, one of the neighbours was told rathe patronisingly, because psychologists had worked this out in previous cases. Gradually, people in the small terraces have indeed sold up and gone away. This started during the hellish building works, six days a week and once even on a Sunday because they were 'behind schedule'.
The builders were rude, and involved in dangerous practices, despite their badges saying how fantastic they are (how very 2000s: the century of the fake). They regularly drove diggers the wrong way down this one-way street, often without a lookout. The lookout appeared after I'd witnessed an almost-accident and tweeted as much in exasperation; the response was to tweet that I am a 'scaremonger' (cheers!) and then to block me on Twitter. And the dangerous practices continued. Huge lorries parked on the pavement so that people with pushchairs and wheelchairs were forced to walk on the road, which is often unfortunately used as a rat-run. Of course, individuals with pushchairs and disabled people in wheelchairs don't count, because they are not part of a large community who feel their needs are more important than anyone else's.
As a person who lives opposite the gigantic windows, the scale of the architecture (while looking inoffensive from the street) appears from inside my house as though the development is actually about to march straight into my home, into my front bedroom. So I've stopped using that room.
Lastly: the architects built an entrance arch into the development that is too low for ambulances, fire engines and delivery vehicles. The former is a desperately important safety issue, and the latter, too, but for a different reason. Grocery delivery vehicles are unable to enter the settlement, so they park on the pavement of the houses opposite, often leaving their engines running. This street is too narrow to have vehicles parked on both sides, which is why they park on the pavements. But many of us have doors that open straight on to the street. So as well as pedestrians being unable to pass and sometimes almost being knocked over, as happened last week, it's sometimes impossible to get out of the house because a van is parked so close to the front door.
Is it pleasant having the exhaust from these vehicles pumping into the living room? No.
Is it pleasant hearing people's reactions after almost being knocked over? No.
It's early in the morning, and I'm sure this posting is full of mistakes. I'm on my way to work.
But there is a massive publicity push about this scheme today. This is the only avenue that I have to say how I feel about it- nobody ever considers the fact that there might be people shoved out and made to feel uncomfortable long-term by 'innovative' ideas like this.
I have also noticed that the street view of the estate never appears on the media, probably because it looks like Feltham Young Offender's Institution from our perspective. We don't get the balconies and the nasturtiums: we get the flat beige bricks, the corporate ironwork and the eff-off light-blocking height. Lucky us.
Yesterday
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