Fortress Cranfield

The Cranfield Bunker from its best angle, facing on to Harefield Mews

The Cranfield Road panic room is nearing completion. The building will house six flats facing on to Harefield Mews in an impregnable cube, once the courtyard between the new building and the shops is complete.

Work began earlier this year and a condition of the development was that improvements should be made to the two shop fronts included in the property - Essence of India and the former Holistic Centre, which is now a junk shop.

We'll leave it to the market to decide whether it looks like a nice place to live - and from the mews side, the large windows make it more appealing, in an office-unity sort of way - but from Brockley and Cranfield Roads it appears to turn its back on you in an act of defiance to the neighbourhood. They're going to need some very impressive doorknobs to make it look like anything other than a bunker from these vantage points.

The developers have also scrimped on their duty to the shop fronts. The junk shop's doorway and roof line have been poorly finished. The Essence of India still has the shutters which the developer was asked to remove. Together with bodge-job done on La Lanterna and the two-tone pavements we're left with after their widening, this looks like another missed opportunity to improve this stretch of Brockley Road.