A car park with nowhere to go

The hoarding still carries the artist’s impression: four blocks, a courtyard, a row of trees at a scale no sapling reaches for thirty years. Behind it, the site has been a car park for three years.

Nothing about this is irregular. The interim use was approved, the fees are declared, and the permission has not lapsed. What is harder to find is anyone willing to say when the first block starts.

The developer says it is reviewing programme. The district office says it is a matter for the developer. The residents I spoke to on the facing street have stopped asking either, and have started asking how long an interim use has to run before it stops being interim.