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Property

from Cathy (cathyvpreece@aol.com)

Times

June 15, 2003

London: Neighbours unite to lift prices

A group of homeowners raised £135,000 in grants to improve their street — and added serious value to their houses. Anna Bruning explains how to benefit from community action

If you fancy smartening up where you live but can’t afford to move, help is at hand. A new government scheme is allowing residents across England to improve their environment in a bid to reduce the gap between deprived and other areas. And as John Ashwell, of King’s Cross in London, found, big business can also be persuaded to upgrade its run-down land assets in such areas, giving the added bonus of improving house values, too. So successfully did Ashwell, 38, lobby the King’s Cross Partnership (KCP), one of the government’s new single-regeneration budget (SRB) schemes, plus Islington council and leading King’s Cross landowner P&O, for funding to improve his terrace — one of three on busy and neglected Wharfdale Road near King’s Cross station — that he was able to give up accountancy for a new career as a consultant with his own company, KX Design Solutions, helping others do the same.

“There are just four residential squares in the immediate surrounds of the station. Wharfdale Road was a polluted thoroughfare, but centrally located and in an up-and-coming area. Three years ago, a former student digs came up for sale at £235,000. It was dirty and neglected but was crying out for sympathetic renovation,” says Ashwell. The converted digs became his home.

He and Philip Gee, a structural engineer, spent £70,000 gutting the property, which had been subdivided into four bedrooms, and restoring it to its original two-bedroom state. “We also painted the front a historical deep blue-green colour.”

The house front was so attractive that strangers started ringing the doorbell to find out about the colour, and this set Ashwell thinking about further improvements. “I doorstepped neighbours to see if they might be keen on planting trees in our street. I also approached the KCP to see if they might help fund this and they were delighted, but wanted residents to contribute too. I got so many offers from residents that we were able to distribute 25 saplings between all our terraces without official funding.”

The KCP then sent a representative to Ashwell’s house to sound him out about other possible improvements. “Of the eight houses in this terrace, two were tenanted, the others owner-occupied, and P&O owned a derelict row of terraces at the start of the street.” The company owns four big blocks of land from King’s Cross up to Wharfdale Road. “One of the problems with the area was that P&O just sat on its land. Now, at last, it is undertaking redevelopment, and a P&O renovation of the derelict terrace is imminent, too,” he says.

It took a year but Ashwell raised £135,000 for improvements — £50,000 from the KCP; £50,000 from Islington’s Conservation Area Partnership (Caps) scheme; and £35,000 from P&O. He then agreed to project-manage the renovation — which led to his career change.

“But we were still short of what we needed, so I asked owners to buy into their own improvements with a 10% contribution — from £800-£3,000 per household, depending on what needed doing. Only one of the eight owners declined to take part.”

Colour schemes were then approved by residents and sponsors. The council insisted on period-style front doors and sash windows, while a 100% Caps grant covered the £7,500 cost of restoring the cornice plasterwork at each end of the terrace rows. Railings were specially cast to replace the existing corroded ones, their finials matching the originals, and with the addition of a bespoke bronze-cast finial with the dates of build and restoration, 1845-2002, at the corners and centre of each house.

The project has spurred residents of the next Wharfdale Road terrace to spruce up their railings. “There is a wonderful sense of pride,” says Ashwell. But owners will have to wait before they can cash in. “If we sell within three years, we will have to repay costs, of about £21,000 a house,” says Ashwell, whose home is valued at £450,000.

In Streatham, Nick MacRae and his wife Isabel Ryan own a house on Palace Road estate off the South Circular — a mix of 350 homes ranging from flats of one to four bedrooms in low-rise blocks, to terraced houses valued at between £200,000 and £300,000. MacRae decided to improve his environment when Lambeth council imposed a draconian parking scheme on residents without consultation five years ago.

“When every single visitor attending a funeral was clamped, I saw red,” he says. MacRae contacted Lambeth’s housing office. A housing manager assessed the problem and withdrew the scheme. “It shows community action can achieve tangible results,” he says.

From there, MacRae took up other causes. “Our park, which serves the estate and 5,000-6,000 other households in the area, was in a state: full of dog mess and playground equipment no longer fit to use. There was graffiti and drug dealing.” A parks department official told a public meeting that the then Railtrack “had been nagged for years and years” to improve the fence running along the adjoining railway line, whose proximity posed a significant danger to children.

“For the price of one phone call — to the right person — we got the rail authorities to spend £40,000-£50,000 on installing a new fence,” says MacRae of his subsequent triumph.

In Kennington, south London, residents of Georgian West and Walcot squares have successfully lobbied to close off a rat run, while English Heritage contributed to restore the railings of the Walcot terraces, where unmodernised three- bed houses are marketed at £485,000. Now residents’ associations are consulting about lobbying Lambeth to replace concrete lampposts with period ones in the conservation areas.

MacRae advises: “Don’t be put off by the excuse of ‘no budget’. There are many ways of funding things, from local initiatives to business sponsorships to charity or lottery monies. Work in partnership with your council — your taxes pay their wages, after all. Play the long game: it can be labyrinthine to get through to the right person to hear your case, but once you make contact they are generally sympathetic. It’s by no means impossible to get things sorted.”

KX Design Solutions, 0870 744 5063;  www.urban.odpm.gov.uk/programmes

(posted 7593 days ago)

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