Kingsthorpe Close plans -- residents taken by surprise

in Mapperley on Bank Holiday Monday, I visited Kingsthorpe Close, the proposed new development area, to take a look around.

This is what the area looks like today.

Developer Keepmoat Homes is to submit a planning application shortly, to build a number of new social houses on the former site of Kingsthorpe & Kildare flats in Mapperley.

The developer already has permission to build 111 new homes, on the Stonebridge Park Estate in St Ann’s.

Residents in Kingsthorpe Close were surprised by the news. The locals I talked to, said they had not been consulted by the City Council or the Developer, about the new plans over the last year.

Locals were especially annoyed by the prospect of a large new children’s play area, being laid close to their homes.

The Kingsthorpe Close estate has a children’s play ground, which local residents say is plagued with youths doing drugs, and antisocial behaviour, which has blighted there life’s. They said they did not want another.

All of the houses in Kingsthorpe Close are relatively new, about 25 years old, and are fitted with storage heaters, which the residents tell me, are very expensive to run. They constantly have high electricity bills as a result.

So they were all intrigued to find out what new heating system would be installed in the new houses, and whether it would allow them to be upgraded to Gas central heating, once the new development was complete.