please empty your brain below
'so within a decade expect numerous blocks to be packed in along the remainder of both sides', really?, things won't return to full normal until there is a vaccine.

Expect Cooks Road to look much the same in 10 years time.

Still Anon | 19.04.20 - 9:09 a.m. | #

There will be a new normal after lockdown, but it is not clear how similar the new will be to the old normal, or when it will be established.

Andrew | 19.04.20 - 9:43 a.m. | #

I enjoyed reading this. As I currently don't have much to do I thought I'd go back and list DG's well-chosen adjectives. In summary Cooks Road is a grimy, smelly, decrepit, grubby, ancient, backwater dump. I liked the description of the knobbly silvery transformers in the substation. I also wonder if there will be any changes in ten years time. One for the diary DG?
Cheers!

Dave | 19.04.20 - 10:07 a.m. | #

A fascinating virtual stroll through my favourite kind of landscape. Thanks dg!

Sarah | Homepage | 19.04.20 - 10:20 a.m. | #

Going past here in the train the smell was utterly, sickeningly abominable. Brown stuff issued from metal chimneys. Now it’s just the smell of money - or it was until recent events.
It will be interesting to find how the area changes now. Thanks for that look DG.

Herbof | 19.04.20 - 10:57 a.m. | #

A great post.

As for Vulcan Wharf, looking at the model, it's one of those cases of a 'waterside development' where most people will be looking straight across to other people's windows in cheek by jowl manner, and people living on the waterfront won't actually see the water because it's too narrow to come into the field of view from upper floor windows. They will, however have a prime view of the A12.

NickW | 19.04.20 - 11:27 a.m. | #

I wonder what's in the small brick structure and how Premier Pumps came to own it. Historic Google street view suggests it's a local substation, with an initial Premier Pumps label only appearing after the rest of the surrounding site was hoarded off for Bellway Homes. The doors are neatly repainted and the 'for sale' note is added even more recently. Presumably the owners want a high price from Bellway (in whose masterplan the building has vanished) - but I'd imagine Bellway could just as easily build around it.

Intruguingly the Bellway masterplan also features the little-known "Bow Back Green" on a currently rather shabby looking vacant lot behind Legacy Wharf - so there is some hope for a future view for at least some of the residents.

David | Homepage | 19.04.20 - 11:46 a.m. | #

All this time I've been thinking that the Malaysian investors were buying up properties and leaving them empty.

TheLupineOne | 19.04.20 - 1:29 p.m. | #

It's great to know that the explosion at the Pudding Mill power plant didn't put off the planned December, 2018 opening of the Elizabeth Line.

Chris | 19.04.20 - 4:31 p.m. | #

There's going to be little left of my favourite proper smell-festered, coal-dust-coated no-nonsense wot you doin round ere son backstreets of this city eventually.

It's encouraging that there are still places to be discovered and I hope that the rents allow them to carry on boiling up chemicals, mending taxis and dealing with our crap because they're essential and people apparently appreciate that now. For how long before NIMBYfication returneth I wonder?

We can't all live in a 22nd storey lounge diner stinking of last night's fish supper still with a view of the pylons being the only inkling of the real necessary world in our lives; clapping for them from behind our unopenable triple glazing.

JP | 20.04.20 - 1:27 a.m. | #











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