Leaves pile up at the old ‘Hive’ building next to Rowley Way

WITH piles of leaves blocking the doorway, and the lights always off, a refurbished council-owned building in South Hampstead looks almost like it has been totally abandoned.

As residents on the adjacent estate, Rowley Way, walk past, they can only guess why the one-storey facility has been allowed to stand unused for more than five years.

The Hive, as it is known locally, was constructed in the 1980s and was once used as a bustling day centre for children, and later as an African and Caribbean club for cooking lessons.

After it stopped being used and fell into disrepair, the council spent £167,000 on works and in 2017 sought a new user.

The following year, a panel agreed a private nursery could rent the building. A bilingual, Mandarin-speaking nursery called Abbey Road Nursery was supposed to take over in 2018, but the doors have never opened.

A Freedom of Information request by the New Journal has revealed the council still receives £25,000 in rent a year from the company.

Even so, neighbours were this week wondering why the valuable resource of a refurbished property could not have been given over for community use during all the time.

Elizabeth Knowles, who lives opposite, told the New Journal: “The council didn’t really want to spend that amount of money [refurbishment costs] on a community thing, which I suppose was fair enough. “I understand times are hard and the council needs to get rent to get their money back.”

But she added: “I suppose it’s very nice for property services to have rent rolling in month by month for an unused building but should they even be accepting this without enquiring what is going on? “This building now needs to be given over to the community to use before it once again falls into disrepair.”

Sara Bell, secretary of Rowley Way’s tenants and residents association (TRA), explained how the council had said it needed to bring in a business to be able to pay £25,000 per year over a five-year lease to pay for the repairs.

“At the end of the day, the building has not been inhabited. There has not been a nursery,” she said.

“Public money has been spent on a nursery that never happened. How can they pay £25,000 a year when they haven’t opened a nursery. It’s the most bizarre thing. The council has got to have a bit of a moral stance here.

“You can’t seem to find anybody at the council to talk to about it. Nobody seems to want to take any kind of responsibility.”

Over five years Laura Mei-Wah Choy, the director of Abbey Road Nursery, and other partners have attended TRA meetings and assured residents they would be opening “soon”. First it needed to wait for an Ofsted licence residents were told, and then they were having staffing issues.

Tom Muirhead, who lives on Rowley Way, officially known as the Alexandra and Ainsworth Estate, said: “I’ve lived here for 12 years and for 12 years I’ve been looking at that empty building. I’ve never seen anything happening in it.

“I’m standing here at my window looking at it and it’s completely dark. It shouldn’t be, it should be lively. There should be people coming and going out; it should be used.”

He added: “I think it’s time now for some sort of decision to be made about whether these people are actually intending to use the building, or if there’s any grounds for telling them to leave because they’re not actually contributing anything to the community.”

Camden’s finance chief Councillor Richard Olsewski said: “We are aware that there is much interest locally in this property and that residents are concerned that the nursery has yet to open.

He added: “We understand that the global pandemic has caused unexpected delays for businesses and are in communication with the tenant. “This cannot go on for ever, and we are considering the options available to us as landlord.”

Camden confirmed it was still receiving the rent payments for the property and that the nursery was being maintained by the tenant, who had also carried out some of the internal works.

The New Journal contacted Ms Mei-Wah Choy, but she declined to comment.

We’d love to use it, says judo club

JUDO club Shinbudo London missed out on getting use of The Hive in the council’s bidding process six years ago – and still does not have a permanent home.

It runs lessons three times a week in Rowley Way’s tenants and residents association, providing affordable classes for around 80 children and 20 adults.

Head coach Glenn Spiers said: “If we had our own place we could run morning classes, lunchtime classes, and get schools involved. We still want to use The Hive and turn it into a dojo [space for judo].”

He added: “We could get kids off the estate and give them something they could be proud of. The whole point of this thing was to give these kids a chance.”

Shinbudo London have been left using a tenants hall for affordable judo lessons

Residents in the neighbouring Mary Green tower block have also said they could bring the building to life. Its TRA currently uses a makeshift shack next to its building to meet up – but can only do so when the weather is good.

Arun Kumar, chair of Mary Green’s TRA, said: “We don’t have a space at the moment. Next to the building there is a broken area, which we have been using for emergency catch-ups. It’s not an enclosed area; it’s open to the world. “The only time we can use it is when it’s really hot weather. It’s made up of broken boards.”

He added: “There are no walls and there is no electric point. You can’t even class it as a room.

“It would be really nice to see [The Hive] back in some sort of use. Not only for the use of residents as there is a shortage of spaces, but even for special needs.”