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You’ve probably heard that the old copper phone lines will soon be switched off for good, after over a century of service. Since December 2023, you haven’t been able to buy a new land-line service from any company, the so-called “Stop Sell” date.
The exact switch-off dates have been moving around between the end of next year and January 2027, with variability in what Openreach (the wholesale supplier), and BT, Plusnet, Virgin Media etc (the retailers) say, which confuses the situation, but early 2027 appears the latest possible date. Beware that if you upgrade your broadband to “fibre” now, or terminate your phone service rather than switching to another provider, you’re on the slippery slope to no conventional land-line, you cannot get it back once lost – possibly including your number – at any price.
Here we look at what the options and opportunities are, and note how surprisingly environmentally unfriendly and limited the default BT offer turns out to be, when compared with other options, and especially when compared with existing and in terms of environmental impact, the old tech. Google has similarly discovered that its new AI tech caused a 40% rise in power consumption last year, with AI reckoned to be 100 to 1000 times as energy intensive as traditional server activities, but here the percentage increase can dwarf even that, recalling that the IT industry is currently as responsible for as many global CO2 emissions as air travel.
The change is happening globally – the US date was 2022, Canada 2023, and European countries have set various dates from 2021 to 2030. The Luddites amongst us will be forced to act shortly, in one way or another, and if “full fibre” needs to be installed, the front of your building will very likely need a new hole drilled in it, hence our interest.
Here’s what Ofcom say. What they don’t appear to say is that there are independent services, a range of magic boxes, and even virtual solutions to convert your land-line number to the new tech, so that if it’s of value, you can keep it, without physical upheaval, and even use it on a mobile, independently of your existing supplier or broadband contract – read on.
The lack of a land-line won’t worry many, with unlimited calls now the norm for mobile contracts, and the most frequent users of land-lines now possibly nuisance callers, but it may be of concern if :
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Under the banner ‘Taking a View’, from time to time, we’re pleased to publish articles by members on a subject of their choice, which they believe will be interesting to the wider membership.
Late last summer we wrote about Wheelie Bins, which seemed to touch a nerve amongst members and affiliates. It continues to be one of the most popular articles on our website nearly a year later, and now that the bins have arrived, its predictions appear more accurate than many an election claim, as More or Less may confirm.
In this follow-up, two longstanding members detail what’s happened in Brackenbury, with photos. The council might reasonably improve the situation for the large number of smaller properties in the borough by rightsizing the default offer, as described here.
If you have an article you would like to be considered, please contact .
Articles are unedited personal viewpoints, and may not always represent the views of the Society
Planting at 181 Talgarth Road – the new Premier Inn and PBSA, still under construction
The small bed which is the first thing you see as you arrive at the Premier Inn from Hammersmith underground station is almost bare, and compares especially badly after the very good planting at The Ark next door.
The planters to mask the new building from the houses in Margravine Road are nearly dead and planted in what looks like builders rubble not compost, which makes it unsurprising that they won’t grow.
The office of Beata Heuman
See Beata Heuman and House and Garden
Nominated by a member who says “There are often members of the public taking photos of this building, especially at night, as it is beautifully lit as well as sympathetically restored. It is a joy to walk by. The small “Wildlife” Garden is very well tended and is a great addition to having some plants and greenery to admire along this road”
The Sindercombe Social has had an interesting makeover for 2024 with a Ziggy Stardust-inspired “youth club vibe”.
It’s rather a contrast to the work undertaken to The Defectors Weld to improve their façade on the opposite corner of the green, nominated for its improvements. Ziggy famously shocked his fans by falling to Earth with his ‘Spiders from Mars’ in the nearby Hammersmith Odeon, on 3rd July 1973.
We’ve reported on progress of this substantial development three times over the last two years; the plans are now complete and public, with 385 documents under planning reference 2023/03129/FUL. We’ve been in regular contact with the developers and attended meetings, as have the immediately neighbouring residents, and groups including Residents Associations either side – Ravenscourt Square – and our affiliate in Ravenscourt Gardens RA. These public consultations are summarised in the proposal’s Statement of Community Engagement on the planning portal.
We’ve said publicly many times that rescuing and repurposing this Grade II* set of hospital buildings is most welcome, but as usual, not at any cost. We review the proposal in that mindset. On the plus side, it’s a relatively sensitive proposal without the usual gross overbuilding we see in almost every other development. The team has engaged widely and openly with interested community groups, and many of our concerns have been considered and several addressed in the plans now proposed.
We welcome the refurbishment of this precious building, and appreciate the care that has been taken in the design of the alterations necessary for the new residential use; however we still have some significant concerns, most of which have been expressed in previous updates and are summarised as follows:
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The council has reworked several pieces of longstanding planning work, and is asking for feedback from you in a series of consultations – details in our diary. We’ve been keen to progress this matter for a while, and it’s good to see new activity. Firstly we should set the historical context, to better understand how we got here, what’s new, and not so new.
Longstanding members will recall the 2008 Flyunder proposals that were developed originally by the West London Link group of architects and Hammersmith BID, including our former chairman Tom Ryland as a leading light, and then presented to the London Festival of Architecture that year. A significant part of that plan involved a reworking of Hammersmith to face more towards the river, by removing the awkward A4 spur road to the Broadway (seen above), and connecting King Street to St Paul’s Church, creating a much better and more identifiable ‘centre’. The flyunder would have been funded by building over what is now the A4, linking the roads cut in the 1950’s. This website maintains a series of articles under the flyunder tag, that details some of this work, along with the WLL website above which includes a detailed archive and feasibility study from the time.
The potential money ran out fairly spectacularly a year later when the finance industry melted down, but the whole issue had its first revival in 2011 when the flyover closed and was thought to be doomed. However the 2012 Olympics came to the rescue, because, as those imbued in the dark arts of Olympic transport will know, there are very strict maxima laid down for journey times between Olympic venues, no doubt causing the Parisians sleepless nights ahead of this year’s games. Without a flyover, the time to the western venues such as the rowing in Eton would be easily exceeded. That logic led to the special Olympic Travel Lanes, of which there is still the odd vestige if you know where to look. The flyover, as a piece of critical Olympic transport infrastructure, was patched up quicker than you can say ‘Hammersmith Bridge’, and then said to be good for about another fifty or sixty years.
The Hammersmith Residents Working Party was an early version of what came to be called resident-led commissions, which produced the Grimshaw report of 2019 addressing the central Hammersmith regeneration area. Sadly due to the range of topics covered and the divergent nature of the competing demands and constraints, the HRWP couldn’t agree the outcomes in the report and it was never adopted as a Town Centre Supplementary Planning Document as intended.
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Under the banner ‘Taking a View’, from time to time, we’re pleased to publish articles by members on a subject of their choice, which they believe will be interesting to the wider membership.
Earlier in the year, we wrote about the parlous state of some shopfronts in the borough, giving some examples of better practice. The story was part-inspired by affiliate BRA’s activities and those of our members, in appealing to the council for enforcement of existing planning regulations. We note that this issue is not specific to LBHF – there’s been a rising tide of graffiti across London, even recently reported in Barnes.
In this follow-up, two members detail particular issues and the enforcement actions they’ve been working on with the council and with our encouragement and support.
If you have an article you would like to be considered, please contact .
Articles are unedited personal viewpoints, and may not always represent the views of the Society
There should of course be an obvious answer to the question of what constitutes a park. Summer’s faded into a distant memory, so it’s a good time to take stock, with a season of site visits, reviews of virtual CGI, and actual wooden models of new developments in full swing, showing the newly alluring sunlit ‘park’ images, here in our mid-winter. So far, these suggest that many a developer has rather different idea to us, but perhaps it’s just a naming thing.
Without even considering Wormwood Scrubs, we have several wonderful parks in H&F, the largest of which – Ravenscourt and Bishop’s Parks – provide for almost every conceivable outdoor leisure need, even including exhibitions and Laser shows. From basketball nets in the north to a paddling pool in south, taking in sufficient space to play several team games – of football or cricket – in the middle, tennis courts, toddlers playgrounds, dog exercise areas north and south, popular all-weather football pitches adjacent, and greenhouses and community gardening alongside. Even a renovated and listed Tea House. And that’s just Ravenscourt Park.
Bishop’s Park has a Grade I listed palace adjacent, the river and riverwalk too. This gives us a pretty comprehensive idea of the purposes of a park. We even have possibly the world’s smallest park, Beckett Wharf Park, between the bridge and Riverside Studios. One of our members has recently worked with Kier Construction to renovate it as part of a community contribution.
The Open Spaces Society, to which we’re affiliated, noted recently that parks are under unprecedented pressure from commercial activities, and we see a little of that here with fairs, concerts and so on, but those are modest by comparison with say, Hyde Park, where a good part is cordoned off for most of the summer for the huge ‘BST’ outdoor concerts. Even so, some damage occurs as the photo adjacent shows.
Perhaps we’ll get a better feel for the modern take on a ‘park’ or open space by looking at recent developments? Kings Cross seems a reasonable place to start, with the possibility to do what it likes with public spaces and presumably with few budgetary constraints. The ‘park’ shown adjacent is about the size of a communal garden of the type you might find in Notting Hill, the difference being that this is expected to be shared by a thousand or more people, the original by perhaps a hundred or two. There is perhaps no coincidence that the name of this example is connected to one of the great 18th century builders, Cubitt, rather than a name we might choose, say, Capability Brown.
A review of some proposed new developments we’ve looked at might help. We don’t have to go far for CGI proposals, and to compare then with some recently built. Mayoral Opportunity Areas, notably Old Oak and it’s environs provide good hunting grounds, in addition to those actually in the borough. The evidence suggests that developers, rather than producing fanciful CGI’s, might perhaps go and visit some of the many Victorian and Edwardian parks around us to see what they do, and what their public values might reasonably look like.
Which one of these new developments has the space to play a team game of some sort or an individual game of tennis? Or any of the other activities listed above? Perhaps one.
Increasing physical activity must be a central part of everything we do
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The council held a planning committee meeting on 5th December, as noted in our Hammersmith Weekly email, with the majority of the agenda devoted to the market redevelopment proposal. Officers have recommended consent.
After a short speech by one objector, following on from a rather longer exposition of the proposal by the planning officer and daylight consultant, the meeting was spectacularly derailed by protesters related to a group called ‘Protect Shepherd’s Bush Market’, and then cancelled.
We first engaged with the developers in October 2020, and most of the committee has been to one or more of the four exhibitions in various locations in the market over the last three years. The development hasn’t changed significantly over this time, it was born as a large set of buildings, somewhat awkwardly dropped into the Old Laundry Yard. We made our observations public back in April.
We followed up with a letter to the planners in August when the plans had been published and we’d reviewed them, detailing a significant number of issues that need to be addressed before any consideration of consent, these being:
We were pleased to hear the independent daylight specialist’s review at the start of the planning meeting, addressing one of the concerns. This shows that there are some daylight issues, but they appear fairly modest for neighbours. However one or two locations will be significantly affected in and around Pennard Mansions, and mitigation needs to be provided, in addition to proper consideration of the likely limited daylight in the market, due to the size of the proposed overshadowing building – point 4. The meeting ended abruptly before we’d heard answers to the other equally important issues that we’d raised.
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