A Guide to Living in Camden

Please review your development:

I’m a private tenant and was lucky enough to be offered a Camden Living apartment. Prior to this I was in accommodation that was more than double the monthly rent and didn’t meet my needs as a disabled person. My XY flat is built with wheelchair accessibility in mind and is massive by London standards with loads of storage, underfloor heating and a balcony.

The flats were built onto the Eastern side of Maiden Lane estate, which is a large low rise council estate . Obviously my carer and I came to have a look at the area before we accepted the tenancy (I’m amazed that some purchasers of these properties claim to know nothing about it’s existence – it’s a thousand dwellings that have been here since the sixties – hard to miss). Obviously there is some antisocial behaviour which comes with such high density occupation – I haven’t witnessed any crime, but it is noisy, especially since there’s a nightclub on York Way. This can be a real problem during the summer, as the flats get very hot. Contrary to what another reviewer states, there is ventilation – an air-exchange system – but in the temperatures of 35 degrees plus this isn’t enough to cool the flats.

However, the flats are triple glazed, which means that when you shut the door, you can hear a pin drop which is amazing considering we’re slap bang in central London. This extra insulation means we barely need to use the heating even in mid winter, so our heating bills are very low.

We have a very helpful aftercare team who have helped us with any problems.

Despite the few cons listed above, I LOVE my apartment. Without it I would have the choice of a private rented bedsit with my carer sleeping on the sofa, or to have to move out of London away from my community. Camden Living have provided a precious lifeline to Londoners on a low income.

Please share one thing (or more) which you wish you had known before you moved in:

A quick Google streetview will tell you almost everything you need to know about the area. I wish we had a loading area on my street (Broadfield Lane) as it’s hard to receive deliveries. There hasn’t been the promised maintenance of the communal areas which is a real shame.

There is also a good sense of community because we have had to get together to deal with many too many teething problems. Camden is responding but, in my opinion they hadn’t really understood what it takes to run a premium development. This means, while they say the processes and structures are now in place, still haven’t sorted out some fundamental issues with this development. Others have listed them, but here are the main ones:
– many of the units get much too hot (in the Tower especially), including at night. We think this may be due to the unvented hot water header tank in the same room as the ventilation unit, as well as a lack of lagging to the water pipes in the main services, which makes upper floor landings really warm. The benefit of this is some people NEVER have to put their heating on.
– there isn’t yet in place a process to clean the exterior pillars of the buildings. We are working on this.
– rubbish collection is unreliable because of uncontrolled parking on the estate behind (blocks the trucks)
– there have been multiple failures to hot water and lifts – though Camden claim these are fully resolved, we are yet to see concrete evidence of these (the lifts in 9c did fail recently)
– there aren’t yet abseiling points to the Tower roof which means the balcony glass to floors 5+ isn’t cleaned – again we are working with Camden on this
– transparency around the service charge is poor
– there are some people who have had significant numbers of snagging issues that remain unresolved. To be fair Camden have just instituted a new programme to try to get these finally fixed, but again, we are yet to see if this happens

More positively:
– we are able to deal with Camden CIP team at the highest levels, and they appear to have a positive attitude and a desire to change things. They say they have put processes in place that should improve all service to CIP residents (not just XY), but we are yet to see ANY REAL IMPROVEMENT to services. They are a council and they are SLOW.
– Savills and Camden’s direct management team reports has improved dramatically in terms of communications responsiveness, but problem resolution remains poor
– the concierge team are now really great, and the service they give has improved because of residents’ feedback
– there’s a good sense of community here and an informal residents’ group (ask at concierge, they can put you in touch)
– the buildings are secure and generally we have few security issues considering it’s an urban development, although there are one or two issues with specific people in a specific block that still need sorting out
– York Way is up and coming, but represents great value vs N1C, which is obscenely expensive!: the old Fayers site will eventually be replaced with new buildings, there are new plush offices opening in April 2020, Egg will be moving backward from York Way and further down Vale Royal (once Fayers is demolished), Tileyard (look it up) encourages young creative people to work in the area, Two Tribes and Little Creatures breweries are nearby and are great, the lower section of York Way (Kings X triangle extension) will soon develop and will have shops etc., and Facebook, Google, Adidas are all building offices in N1C…

In short, if you are looking to rent or buy, I would pause a few months, but do come back to these reviews once things have improved. We are keen that XY realises its true potential and many of us are working hard to ensure it does. We will be sure to shout about the improvements when they do, eventually, happen!

If you do intend to buy, these flats really do represent good value (that was one positive finding from the survey we conducted), so you WILL be comfortable and happy here. We just want you to be aware of these bumps in the road, so do get in touch with the residents’ group. I would negotiate very hard with Camden, and I would ask to be shown the units they are not listing – there are plenty that are unsold right now (Brexit I suspect), but I bet they aren’t listing all the available units right now.

Please review your development:

The flat is lovely with a great layout, the kitchen and living room is upstairs and the bedrooms are downstairs which I really like. It was built with some cheap material, for example the paint comes off the walls when you wipe it and the carpet was made of bad quality so I had to replace it. The bills are cost effective, which is great. I never find myself having to turn on the heating, it always warm in here and I even called maintenance because I thought the heating was constantly on but it wasn’t, the insulations is just great. We do pay a £300 service is charge which is a lot considering there aren’t many services to offer, a staff member just waters plants upstairs which are dead anyway. The maintenance team are great but there one concierge that doesn’t do much which is annoying.

Please share one thing (or more) which you wish you had known before you moved in:

I didn’t research the area much and didn’t realise it was unsafe on the road I live on.

What is the best feature of your home:

The best feature is the layout, it been done smartly.

Please review your development:

I do not like so much the layout of my flat, its not so smart there are a lot of big and long corridors, the bedrooms are very small, the living room are not spacious. The air condition system is very good and its a very sustainable building. I love my huge balcony and the view from it. The view its amazing i can see the regent park, camden housing and the north London area. I like so much the big windows from the bottom until roof this is one of the reason that I chose this development in comparison to others. I would like to comment an important information from neighbours. All are very international but most of them are students and unprofessionals. They change a lot maybe every year. The concierge is really nice and kind. I live here almost 6 years the building management was perfect but last year they changed and I am not satisfy.

Please share one thing (or more) which you wish you had known before you moved in:

The last two years doctors around close and I wish had known that the area its very professional an there are not families. Most of people around work in this area but they dont live here and its difficult for socializing.