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From: Vanessa
Ryan
We are about to see it all over again with Twickenham Riverside. We've lost Richmond Ice Rink, Hampton Court House and Fulwell golf course. We've seen disastrous developments at Teddington Wharf, Ducks Walk, QR at Kew riverside sewage works, the Three Pigeons and in many small ways all over the borough. We can only blame the stupidity, short-sightedness and timidity of our own elected representatives. And do they learn? No, they do not. What we are about to get at Twickenham is a horrible gross over-development, a cross between Charter Quay in Kingston - all residential with a few cafes, restaurants and bars - and Teddington Wharf, Tescos architecture at its greatest. These developments should be on a ring road. Who can believe for a moment that there will be public benefit for a period of 125 years - that's five generations, longer than living memory - while a £12m site is unaccountably leased out at £1.00 a year? And this is a council that's broke! Is there any other organisation that would dispose of its valuable assets like this? Who's going to take on a three-screen cinema or a private pool and health club as a commercial proposition on little old Twickenham riverside? No-one, so far. There won't be a three-screen cinema at all. My bet is that restaurants and bars will go underground and be consolidated with a well sound-proofed night club/casino complex with one exit into Back Lane after 11.30pm. The rest will be a luxury development. The double-height commercial units will conveniently split into two floors and the so-called podium will become private balconies for the ground floor flats. I predict there will be about 60 flats at the end of the day with a private health club, probably with a pool no bigger than 12m as they have at Kew, so not much good for swimming lessons for the masses. The developers just want the consent, then they'll fiddle the changes - just as they did at Charter Quay and Kew where they added storeys and bumped up the number of residential units. Just like they did at Teddington Wharf, where they never had any intention of allowing boats up the slipway or kids clubs in the "boatsheds", where they park the Porches. It's the normal thing, we expect it to happen. Only Richmond Council continues to put its faith in the siren song of the developer, and is too pathetic to do a thing about the broken promises. At Teddington Wharf and Charter Quay residents are getting public walkways and river access gated off. The development on Richmond Ice Rink is barred, secure and impermeable. The St James' Kew development has already got the piers built and the gates up - and ready to be shut and locked, even before the lucky buyers have taken up residence in their gilded ghetto. The pathway to the river towpath is unfinished, however, and the gap in the wall fenced over. The "public-private" areas on riverside developments from Barnes to Hampton are used only by the brave who are prepared to overcome the deterrent of heavy metal gates that close on automatic hinges and stay shut with magnetic catches. So much for
Richmond Council's conditions and agreements, which are unenforced. If
the Dawnay Day/Richmond Council "preferred" option goes ahead
at Twickenham we'll see what really happens to this forsaken borough,
yet again. Vanessa Ryan
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