psmv5: Windsor Gardens

About two years ago I noticed at reference 1 a stalled garage redevelopment at the town end of Hook Road, a little to the north of the roundabout which used to be notable for Alio's delicatessen, since redeveloped by Zestan, a property development company with attitude, frequently noticed in these pages. See references 2a and 2b. Now, it seems, dissolved.

This afternoon, happening to be walking past the still stalled garage redevelopment, I noticed that the access road to the side had been redeveloped, so took a stroll down. Perhaps a bit of back-land development had actually happened?

And indeed it had. A very gated clutch of four houses, built with the secondhand bricks which became fashionable in Cambridge when I was a child, say sixty years ago, with three of them possibly being what is called linked detached. Being down a long alley off Hook Road, I would think that a reasonably serious gate was a sensible precaution - although these days I dare say one is not allowed the odd strand of barbed wire on top to deter the energetic. Nor did I notice any cameras, without which the estate agent could hardly call it a gated development.

Furthermore, it seemed like a lot of alley for a modest number of house, but what else could one do? Perhaps the owners of suitable houses on Hook Road were too greedy and the developer settled for what he had already got.

Back home I took a peek at gmaps which was moderately informative, then at Ordnance Survey which was slightly more so - with the gray 'L' shape off Hook Road, lower centre, being the alley in question - but misleading in that the shape of the properties is conventional rather than accurate - with the shapes for the houses along my own road being quite inaccurate.

From there to the Epson planning system where I rapidly turned up a successful application in 2018. So all done in something under three years.

Potential purchasers can also read of the activities of Epsom Council's contaminated ground officer, presumably something to do with whatever the land was being used for before. Also of the condition on the development that 'swift and bird boxes as well as a minimum of two Schwegler bat boxes shall be installed on the new houses, in accordance with details submitted to and approved by the local planning authority'. The only catch being that Amazon sell Schwegler bird boxes but not Schwegler bat boxes. Which must have been a bother for the developer.