Urine-stained bank had 180 maintenance calls in a year
People have thrown meat and shoes on the anti-bird spikes, according to bank
Wednesday, 4th November — By Geoffrey Sawyer
The top of the HSBC branch in Camden Town next to the underground station
HSBC’S Camden Town branch has needed more than 180 maintenance call-outs in a single year, amid a barrage of vandalism, according to plans lodged with the Town Hall.
The bank wants to strip years of paint and graffiti from the Portland stone of its corner building at Britannia Junction, next to Camden Town tube station. It also plans to replace the white tiles at street level and put up new illuminated signs.
In a planning statement, HSBC’s agents list what the building has suffered. These include “Urination within the recessed areas adjacent to the entrance”, “objects, including meat and footwear, being thrown onto the bird spikes above the entrance” and “repeated incidents of red paint being thrown at the building.” Tiles have even been stolen from the walls.
“These incidents occur with exceptional frequency,” the dossier says, adding: “It is understood that the branch has generated in excess of 180 maintenance requests over the past year alone”.
Pressure washing and patch-painting have “become increasingly ineffective”, HSBC agents said, and the documents say the stone has been “repeatedly overpainted following graffiti removal, resulting in numerous mismatched paint finishes that detract from the architectural quality of the building”.
The building is not listed, but Camden’s conservation area appraisal calls it “a good example of post-war architecture dating from c1950” with “a curved stone facade, incorporating high-quality friezes depicting scientific and medical themes”.
The bank is now asking for permission to go ahead with “the careful removal of all paint and graffiti from the Portland stone using specialist conservation cleaning techniques to restore the original stone finish wherever possible”. The tiles, which are about 20 years old, will be replaced like for like, and the bird spikes over the door will go.
HSBC said the work will, “help discourage further acts of vandalism through the creation of a well-maintained and actively managed frontage”.
