Disability & The Police Compound On Middlesex Street Estate

The summer holidays are nearly over but before the another season of the City of London council ‘leadership’ looking out for the interests of the financial city at our (resident) expense kicks in, the ongoing issue of the police compound being carved out of Petticoat Tower on the Middlesex Street Estate should be addressed once again.

At the Capital Buildings Board meeting of 10 May 2023 Oliver Sells whinged about the amount of money being spent on installing cycle lifts* – detailed as part of the report about the alleged benefits to residents’ from the police hub refurbishments at Middlesex Street Estate and its impact on service charges.

On 26 November 2022 the members of the Capital Buildings Board had received the report of an independent consultation with Middlesex Street Estate residents that the council was forced to undertake following its initial shoddy “consultation” and botched attempt to rush through a decision on reclassifying most of the estate’s car park as non-residential use so that it could be used for City of London Police purposes.

The November 2022 consultation responses revealed significant issues, potentially, for mobility impaired residents, but these were not referred to by the Chair Michael Snyder or the officers when Councillor Sells raised his cost concerns at the Capital Buildings meeting in May 2023.** Instead, the relevant officer said they would commission an audit of current bicycle use by residents.

This gives the impression that the members of the committee had not read the residents’ responses in the full consultation. Or perhaps they made no impression because their own life experiences have never included these kinds of daily challenges.

Firstly, the City of London Corporation has a statutory duty to meet the needs of people with disabilities to the greatest extent possible.

Secondly, clean air and discouraging the use of environmentally damaging vehicles are key health policy objectives nationally and locally, with a projected steep rise in the number of people “choosing” to walk or cycle in the future, especially as private (and public) transport becomes more unaffordable for people on low incomes.

It’s worrying that the comments relating to the needs of people who rely on wheelchairs and invalid carriages – quoted in the notes below – seem to have been overlooked. Are the proposed cycle lifts going to be spacious enough to accommodate these essential disability aids? The needs of people with baby buggies should also be taken into account in the audit.

The header shows the Capital Buildings Board meeting of 10 May 2023.

Notes

*The Capital Buildings Board meeting of 10/05/2023 can be seen here. Transcript of relevant part: “Item 4 Subject: Middlesex Street Estate – Resident Improvements and the Impact on the Service Charge”:

1:54 Chair Michael Snyder: Item Four, which uh certainly one member um, Alison, um quite rightly uh pointed out…… but I’d already scribbled all over it myself…. is that this is largely nothing to do with us – it’s just for information. This is the uh Community and Children’s Services report, and the only thing we’ve got to note is the range and cost of benefits to be provided to residents. And I mean it, really, it’s in passing because this is firmly their responsibility. But I’m very happy to have any comments or questions.

2:28 Deputy Chair (Oliver Sells): um on Item Four, I just wanted to say that um I have been looking in some detail at one particular item, which is the cost of bicycle provision and bicycle lifts. um I’m not yet persuaded uh of the need to spend the kind of money that is set out there on that. And Ola, who’s on screen looking beamingly at me, and I having, how can I put it, “discussions” on the matter.

3:03 Chair: Is that it? Ola, would you like to say anything?

3:08 Officer: I agree Deputy, and I’m going to come back to you with the numbers. I have asked if we’ve got an audit of the number of cyclists, and we haven’t got an audit, so we’ll um do that to come back to the number of cyclists we have on the estate.

3:18 Chair: We did we did discuss this at callover yesterday and  the issue is that we have to provide the number of spaces that are required for planning purposes um irrespective of how many are actually used, um and that is the dilemma. But I’m sure that the Deputy Chairman will enjoy um being educated in terms of the numbers of people that actually have uh cycles.  But given that there are only, um I think 40 from reading something, 40, 43 spaces on the ground floor I don’t  think we’re going to be able to avoid having some sort of lift, um whether it’s this lift or another lift I don’t know. Anyway, yes sure….

This agenda item (4) at the Capital Buildings Board meeting of 10/05/2023, concerning the Middlesex Street Estate car park redevelopment, was discussed by the Community and Children’s Services Committee at its meeting on 15 November 2022 (Item 3).

**See page 13 of Summary Of Section 105 Consultation V2 OCT 2022 here:

7.8 Disabled/elderly considerations
Some disabled residents are very concerned about the potential loss of a valuable and accessible storage space in the basement. Some feedback below:

• Another concern we have a garage which we keep our two wheelchairs walking frames mobility scooter and a three wheel trike etc which we can load into the car as and when needed we have no room in the flat for the said items and even if we had it would be difficult to get to the car without the use of lift number 4.
• No concideration [sic] has been given to the elderly and disabled people who live on the estate
• I also have a garage which we need and I think this would mean we would lose it, my mum has walking differculties [sic] and we store her frames etc in the garage
• What provision is there in the plans for disabled parking as a ratio to the number of residents on MSE?