The Old Post Office, the Telephone Exchange and the 'Eden Quarter'

There has been a lot of talk recently about the proposal to do something about the Old Post Office. And finally the planning application has gone through. The tallest block will still be sixteen storeys high and people will still say this is going to turn our town into Croydon.
I'm not sure though. The Old Post Office has been derelict for years and the area around it is an eyesore. If we can get the vicinity smartened up then that is no bad thing. Yes, it may generate traffic but what's there at the moment? A car park. (it also used to have a public recycling collection point but doesn't any more). Betwen the bizarrely named Lady Booth Road (near where the old Castle pub used to be until it was demolished for a road-widening scheme) and Brook Street there is just the Old Post Office and desolation boulevard. The site also includes the Telephone Exchange building on Eden Street. There will be 319 housing units in a mixed-use development.
At least the consultation process having gone on so long means the borough council realises they can't just allow any old planning application to go in without anticipating public displeasure.
The Old Post Office campaign states its aims as:

• Conservation and sustainable community/cultural use of these local landmark, heritage Grade-2-listed buildings;
• A permanent and visible base for a public-facing Kingston Environment Centre / environmental information and resources;
• An attractive and sociable meeting/drop-in space;
• An organic-vegetarian café as the heart of this community hub;
• Affordable, flexible spaces for regular or "pop-up" shops, classes, workshops or events;
•  Affordable work and office spaces/hot-desks for small businesses, sole traders, start-up enterprises, local charities and groups.
• A piazza "pocket park" as a model sustainable garden.
• Affordable art and craft studios/workshops, with space to exhibit and sell art;
• Affordable multi-purpose meeting room(s) for rehearsal and performance space, public events, film shows, exhibitions...     

It remains to be seen how many of those points will be met, despite the developer's description of the project as: "new homes, shops, restaurants, offices and community space, with over half an acre of landscaped public realm and the restoration of two listed buildings which are on the Heritage at Risk Register."

Photo by Stevekeiretsu, used under Creative Commons license

 It will de It will deliver new homes, shops, restaurants, offices and community space, with over half an acre of landscaped public realm and the restoration of two listed buildings which are on the Heritage at Risk Register.liver new homes, shops, restaurants, offices and community space, with over half an acre of landscaped public realm and the restoration of two listed buildings which are on the Heritage at Risk Register.

 It will deliver new homes, shops, restaurants, offices and community space, with over half an acre of landscaped public realm and the restoration of two listed buildings which are on the Heritage at Risk Register.

The Craft Market needs to stay in the Market House

Today I bought these delightful cushions (left) from the Market House in Kingston. This historic building situated in the town's heart, Market Place, was for a long time the Borough Information Centre and is now a craft market, full of cards and cushions and pictures and other bric a brac made locally - Kingston's creative heart.

But now there is an application to turn this key building into a pizza parlour. Just what Kingston needs (not): another chain restaurant, when the place is teeming with them already, and there would be no place for the craft market. Apparently the council estimates that "three times as much rent" could be made from the Market House by moving in an "established retailer." And never mind the town's heritage or cultural identity, apparently.

More information here: Kingston Guardian

This, it seems to me, is Wrong on so many levels. Is the new Tory administration so craven that it will deprive Kingston's creatives of their key space in the town centre in the name of yet more glorified fast food?

The planning application can be found here. Otherwise you can comment by emailing development.management@kingston.gov.uk. The deadline for comments is 7 March 2016.

This Day of Independents

These are not good times for independent shops and Kingston is especially not a good place for them. The last indy music shop in town, Hands Music between the Market Place and the river, is about to close (link here). There is only one indy bookshop that I can think of: Regency Bookshop, in Surbiton, shortlisted for the Bookseller's regional Independent Bookshop of the Year this year. And where food places are concerned, there are several cafes including my favourite Caffe Jax on Old London Road - where there are a few indies including a vintage shop and an antiques emporium. But restaurants? When asked (on Tuesday) whether he'd ever dined out in this town, food writer Jay Rayner basically said, it's all pizza places and chain restaurants so why would I bother?

Kingston First has produced a list of indies with quite a few on it, though not that many considering the size of the town. I would like to see an Independent Kingston card, similar to the Independent Birmingham card that allows the holder a reduction when shopping at an indy. Otherwise everything is going to become chain burger bars, chain boutiques, and we will never break the chain.

Tonight we Dining Hell

As Tolstoy might have said, All good reviews are pretty much alike but all bad reviews are bad in their own particular way. Good restaurant review: 'this is a clean and pleasant restaurant, the food was good, the service was helpful but unobtrusive, the cost was reasonable'. Bad review: well, take it away maestro.

The 'maestro' in this case being the Guardian and Masterchef's Jay Rayner, son of agony aunt Claire Rayner, who opened his show 'My Dining Hell: An evening of food and agony' at the Rose of Kingston by the endearing observation, "There can't be much else on in Kingston on a Tuesday night." I would concur, despite there being a big band night at the Old Moot House on London Road. He went on to give us his rundown of the most meretricious restaurants in London - with slides - many of which are fortunately not there any more. The only one I've been to is Bloom's and that many years ago. Then there was the restaurant that only does steak and crabs - described as 'testosterone central' (or something like that, you want quotes take a recorder). And Novikov, which I won't even describe but he wouldn't go there on moral grounds and when he did it looked like a mediocre pizza parlour. Then there was the wine list with bottles of wine for five thousand quid. Yes this was a tour to announce his new book ("My Dining Hell") but why not? At least Rayner, who has a Rabelaisian look to him suitable to a restaurant critic, is entertaining. I get the distinct impression that AA Gill for example doesn't actually like anything or anybody. There was a Q and A session afterwards but unfortunately despite my hand being up I wasn't called (what I was going to say: what do you think about the tendency to serve food on things that aren't plates? And what are the other fads you'd like to see disappear? Fortunately he's already answered that here: http://www.jayrayner.co.uk/news/these-are-a-few-of-my-most-hated-things/

In the interval I bought an ice cream and went wandering down by the river, rather than queue up for drinks from the Rose's bar which has not been a good place for me on several occasions. Who knew Jay Rayner also plays jazz piano? Second half was a quartet doing some classy numbers interspersed by tales of growing up with a sex advice columnist for a mother. Glad I stayed.

Originally I was going to call in at the Ram just down the road for a pint afterwards but having stayed for the music wandered home through a dark, cold Kingston town, past Fairfield, sticking to the lit pavements like chewing gum.

Non-Co-Operation

Apparently no planning permission is needed to convert a pub into a shop. This makes sense: it's already a food and drink retail premises and an 'on' licence is a step up from an 'off' licence, as food hygiene rules for on sales are stricter.
Unfortunately what this means in practice is a number of public houses closing down and turning into small branches of supermarkets - for example Tesco Metro and Sainsbury's Local.
The latest example is the old Richmond Park Hotel in north Kingston. Once the home of okay beer and good Thai food it had been closed down for some time. The other day I was coming home from having a pint at the excellent Park Tavern and decided to go via Kings Road to pick up some groceries - as it happened from the Co-Operative Food.
Imagine my astonishment to find that the Co-Op is no longer a small shop near the old barracks but has taken over the Richmond Park Hotel in blue and purple gaudiness.
And the layout! I have rarely been so horrifically smushed. Could barely get inside due to someone using her phone by the entrance and when you get in the aisles are narrow and all at right angles to the entrance so you need to execute a quick turn right away and then try to negotiate further turns at the end of long narrow corridors designed to maximise shelfage and make it impossible to negotiate especially at 4pm when the place is full of mums and small children. The walk home, this being Kingston of the narrow pavements, was increasingly nightmarish and I took several hours to recover once I'd got home.
It's a shame as I am a true supporter of the Co-Operative movement, I even have a Co-Op membership card. But I can't say I ever want to go there again.