A Guide to Living in North London

Please review your development:

Great location in Islington, I live in a modern and nicely furnished flat with an amazing terrace with view of the Shard. The canal leading up to Angel is a lovely area and provides all the amenities you need.

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

Flat is very warm and well-insulated, never had to use the heating up until now.

4

Facilities

3

Design

5

Location

4

Value

3

Management

Please review your development:

The customer service is appalling. A2 responds to about 5% of queries and usually those answers are insufficient. The security issues are life-effecting, the echoing sounds around the atriums wake us up at all hours, the new hideous lights outside are not an appropriate replacement for the originals, the plants are all dying, the cctv all in the wrong place, the fire alarms are all faulty and that’s before you even get to the cladding issue.

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

How slow A2 would be to make anything alright. That they would replace the lights with such terrible lights, that Forge building would be such a problem, that the cladding would be an issue

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.