Arbury Park

[ewx]

Not so long ago the land between King's Hedges Rd and the A14 was undeveloped; there was a car repair place for a while and the other path, but for the most part its main use was people walking their dogs. Over the last few years it's acquired housing and a school.

I think the houses look quite nice from the outside (though I'm sure they're not to everyone's taste).

However, the place is still a building site:

The route for the misguided bus, still under construction, can be found at the northeastern end. Formerly you could go under the A14 at this point, currently there's a sign telling you not to (no fence though).

Quite a few houses had bits of paper in the window with numbers and street names, and there are several rather ad-hoc name plates:

Hooray for graffiti?

A lot of other street furniture isn't ready yet, despite in some cases asking nicely:

...and some appears to be for the chop already:

Detail:

I assume the bollards will rise at some point (this is after all Cambridge).

I liked these:

Looking at www.sameanddifferent.net, this might be the source of the painted street signs?

I didn't try the benches but they don't look entirely comfortable to me.

I wish them luck selling houses right now:

There's already a one-way system.

A few more here.

Comments

[aldabra]

They look depressingly like the slum housingluxury yuppie flats on our road. Is it true that they've stopped all work until the economy picks up?

[ewx.livejournal.com]

That's what I hear. Not much evidence of building activity but then it was Saturday.

[gerald_duck]

Mmm. I also hear existing residents are very cross at being left living in a building site.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't have an account here, but wanted to post that most of the frustration for residents here is that the public facilities haven't been built having missed pretty much ALL of their target dates. I think the recent media coverage has been mis-leading...they wanted to make more of the credit crunch...that's only a minor factor here!! The community centre should have been opened in Nov 2007...Gallagher Estates have taken so long to do this, it's now unlikely open before Easter 2009...and the same issue goes for the tennis courts, the multi-use games areas, the football pitches, the skate park, the two additional play areas, the LAPS (Local Areas of Play) and the Public Open Spaces...

Some of the building site issues are a nuisance, but most residents realised that building work was going to continue for a few years after they moved in. However, the failure of the builders to keep the site tidy is frustration - these photos don't show any of the rubbish particularly, but there is A LOT around the site.

Great photos though, there really are lots of wonderful aspects of Orchard Park (the new name!!) including the "stones" - if we can get the public building work completed, the private housing demand WILL definitely increase...just take a look at teh one play area we have already to see the high level of quality and provisioning that has been financed.

And I can vouch for the inside of at least some of the houses being as good as the outside!!

As soon as I can, I'll link here from my web site www.insidearburypark.net ... thanks for the interest!! Hope this is okay!!

Thanks, Nick Warren

[ewx.livejournal.com]

Nice to hear from you. Interesting about the crunch being used as an excuse rather than being the real cause. I did spot the playground but didn't photograph it since it was in use at the time.

[new-brunette.livejournal.com]

I like these a lot. Did you do much pp?

[ewx.livejournal.com]

Lightroom auto tone; increase contrast a little; correct CA in the wider-angle ones. One or two are cropped a bit but mostly not. I made the yellow in the art unit a little less orange to match my memory.

[arnhem.livejournal.com]

does anyone know what the ski-jump-roofed building is ? (pic 0611)

[ewx.livejournal.com]

Some kind of electrical substation I believe.

[dave holland (from livejournal.com)]

Arbury Park Henge! That's fantastic.

In the mean time, SCDC are proposing to put more houses on the land adjacent to this, if I understood their recent leaflet correctly.

I think public benches are designed to be uncomfortable to stop people sleeping on them. :-/

[david jones (from livejournal.com)]

I hope the graffiti road names live forever. They are awesome. Just the sort of touch a grim development like that needs to add a bit of character.