As walls come down worldwide, walls go up on Mill Street

AT THE bottom of my lovely little garden, there is an embankment and then the railway line.

Ardant Limited and WE Black Ltd will soon be submitting a planning application to “develop student rooms”between the railway line and 18-41 Mill Street.

It is a curious construction and the plans make it look like more of a wall than a place where people can live.  In addition, it is a three story building which will overlook the back gardens of 18-41 Mill Street.

The developers are pushing the notion that the Wall will cut down the noise from the railway. Undoubtedly that’s true, but as there’s not much noise from the railway anyway, that’s all a bit fatuous.

It would be fair to say the style of the Wall is slightly out of kilter with the neighbourhood – Mill Street is a rather nice community of people living in Victorian houses – the Wall must be very narrow indeed – more like a corridor – to house the 30 to 40 people who are going to live there.

I’m a NIMBY! But so are quite a few of the other people in this nice Oxford street. I chatted to one of the residents – her view was simple: “I can’t see any upside to this development.” Nor for the students either, I suspect.

It might be a short walk to their college, but it’s a heck of a way to get to the corner shop which is at the end of Mill Street. And crossing the grotty bridge over the railway line is never the most pleasant of adventures. We hope the trains don’t rattle and roll and interfere with developing minds when they’re trying to catch 40 winks…  ♣