No-name alleys off West End Lane finally make it onto the map
Move will help police record crime
Published: 18 March 2010
by CHARLOTTE CHAMBERS
IT took over a year to decide what to call them, but it all paid off last week after a series of unnamed West Hampstead paths were finally given new nameplates.
Three alleyways off West End Lane had spent years unofficially known by the colloquial names used by locals, but it was not until police pointed out they couldn’t record crimes in them that any action was taken.
It took the interven-tion of Liberal Democrat councillor John Bryant to launch a campaign to name them, and a flurry of emails and texts from inspired residents to come up with official titles for the three pathways.
Signs for the alleyways were put up, including one in honour of celebrated singer.
Billy Fury Way was first choice over option two, Decca Way, for the alley leading from West End Lane to Finchley Road.
The suggestion came from fans who pointed out that he recorded a string of his hits, including Halfway to Paradise and Jealousy, from the Decca Records studio in nearby Broadhurst Gardens in the 1950s and 1960s.
Speaking to the New Journal last year, his former partner Lisa Voice said she was “excited and overwhelmed” at the idea, while fan websites for the singer, who died from heart problems in the 1980s, went wild about the notion.
Other paths named include the route behind the Thameslink railway that links with Beckford School, which was called the Black Path, while an alley that runs behind the Lithos Road estate to Lymington Road was anointed Potteries Path.
Cllr Bryant said: “While this was a bit of fun there is a serious side to the exercise. These paths needed to be named so that they become listed on maps used by the police so that crime and anti-social behaviour can be more closely monitored.”