Watch as UVAs Christmas Light installation goes up in under 30,241 minutes, through the wonder of time-lapse photography.  From the excellent CoventGardenLondon channel on YouTube.

It is wonderful to find a restaurant like this in Covent Garden, near the top of Drury Lane at No 176 WC2B 5QF– an absolute gem.  It seats about 20 in a small premises that curiously is on the site of the original C19th Sainsbury store at the corner of Macklin Street. Phone 02074055551 to order a takeaway or reserve at table.

There seems to have been a lack of rolling investment over the years and now bits of the Oasis are clapped out.  For instance in the mens changing rooms there is a badly leaking radiator – the sort of thing that should have been easily fixed by a plumber but has been allowed to leak for ages staining the floor.  Some of this is cosmetic and irrelevant, but it is hard to tell what state the boilers etc are in.  According to the local papers, an engineers report into the pool recommends a major overhaul.  

‘The New Journal can reveal how leisure chiefs have been warned that a list of problems at the popular centre in Endell Street, Holborn, includes ageing heating and electricity controls, broken fans and ventilation, and leaking pipes and tanks.
Several fittings and components have “passed expected replacement age” and in a final report to the council’s top brass, a team of outside inspectors have ruled: “In order to guarantee the continued use of the centre we would recommend that a major refurbishment of the building services is carried out within the next five years.”
It added: “The refurbishment would include the replacement of the majority of the building services. Some works to the internal building fabric will also be required.”

This sounds like ripping out the boiler plant and rewiring and replumbing.  The sort of thing you would always have to do every 25 years or so.  You have to ask though how the operators let it get into such a state.

In the world of Camden Council politics this has now become a ‘threat’ to the pool as the Labour wards try to make some milage against the LibDem Conservative coalition.  Given that councils aren’t very good at these sorts of works in today’s austerity times let’s hope they keep it minimal and just go for a basic refit, rather than trying to ‘reimagine’ the baths as something they aren’t.   Look what a mess Bath and Hackney Councils got into with over elaborate pool developments.

Does this affect you? plans for 7 storey building in Macklin street

By using the site planning alerts you can register to find out all the planning applications going on around your neighbourhood.

Just set your postcode and the site will do the rest, emailing you whenever a planning application is registered. In an area like ours this can be crucial!

You can also have a look at Camden’s interactive planning applications map here…

Share your local photos in Flickr!

I’ve been having a look on Flickr (the worldwide photo sharing site) and all the fantastic photos in the Covent Garden group. There is an amazing quality of work and a different perspective in the local sites. Why not have a look and then post some photos of your own? This blog has a feed of of photos from the site, (bottom right)…