More than 200 residents at Park Crescent West opposite Regent’s Park, NW1, are fighting plans for a £450m luxury residential development.
Tenants and flat owners at 22 Park Crescent § have hit out at the Saudi and Bahraini-backed developers, PCW Property, saying the project will leave them marooned on a 2.4-acre building site. The 1960s block at 22 Park Crescent shares its entrance with the Regency-style buildings.
They also claim that the developers have refused to provide them with any compensation and that the development will be sold to wealthy overseas investors who may leave them empty.
PCW Property bought the site for £105m last year and submitted plans in May to convert 18-26 Park Crescent and 77-81 Portland Place into 64 flats and eight houses. The Paul Davis + Partners-designed plans will replace the existing office block. The scheme goes before Westminster planners next month.
Agents predict sale prices of more than £2,500 per sq ft at the development.
“Many of our residents are elderly, have limited means, and would feel abandoned by Westminster City Council (WCC) if, despite the listed status of the Regency style buildings, originally built by John Nash within what has long been a recognised conservation area, the plans were approved,” says Carlo Seidel, director of 22 Park Crescent Limited, which manages the residential block at number 22.
“If this proves to be the case, our homeowners and tenants – and the community – will have to endure pile driving, nuisance, mess, traffic congestion and noise on an epic scale that will continue for four or five years and is of no direct benefit to them. Our block will be an island surrounded by deep excavation and we will have to go in and out of our homes via a crash deck entrance, accessible only via a set of stairs, in the middle of a building site. We are expected to put up with the surrounding chaos and hazard to health and safety, not to mention the structural risks to our own block.”
