Swathes of South Kilburn left to decline in anticipation of regeneration that will barely increase the number of social rent homes

 

The commemorative plaque on a South Kilburn building that needed remediation work a decade after opening

 

South Kilburn resident and local activist Pete Firmin addressed Brent Council this week on the reality of living on this flagship regeneration project,         

 

Survivors of the Grenfell Tower tragedy talk of 2 main lessons – organisations must be accountable and residents must be at the heart of all decisions which affect them.

 

The minutes of the Council’s Community Wellbeing and Scrutiny Committee state “It is essential that tenants are placed at the centre of everything the Council does. Safe, secure and decent homes are a foundation for a fair and thriving borough and are not optional for any responsible housing authority.“

 

New buildings in South Kilburn have won awards from architects and planners. But residents know that pretty much every new block has major problems, such as scaffolding up for years to remove flammable cladding, or mould, heating and hot water issues. New flats are poor quality, often smaller and more expensive than the previous council flats. When a resident who has been living in a new flat for 10 years says she would move back into her old flat like a shot, you know there is a problem.

 

2 blocks have to be completely refurbished. Work has still not started on Granville New Homes, despite the report pointing out that refurbishment was necessary having been published in 2017. Instead, residents suffer repeated problems with utilities and there is a 24-hour fire watch around the buildings. Yet the company that did such a botch job with Granville New Homes has been awarded further contracts by Brent.

 

We have swathes of South Kilburn left to decline in anticipation of regeneration.

 

Time and again, Brent has not foreseen that decanting residents from blocks and not securing empty flats left them open to illegal anti-social behaviour, endangering other residents.

 

When shops in Stafford Road were flooded because of squatters after the Council had not secured the buildings the Council did nothing to assist those who had premises there and have lost their livelihoods.

 

Regeneration isn’t addressing bringing down Brent’s waiting list. At the end of regeneration - another 20 years - there will barely be more social rent homes - i.e. ones which people can actually afford - than before it started. Instead, expensive homes are bought up on a buy-to-let basis. The latest wheeze being to sell them en bloc to a U.S.-based private equity company, because the market for such homes in London is “challenging”. So why are we building homes no-one can afford?  Meanwhile, residents are priced out of the area. Research elsewhere in London shows that such gentrification contributes to falling school rolls and school closures.

 

What else were residents told we would get in addition to new flats? Among other things, 2 new `healthy living centres’ (we have 1 new GPs surgery, delivered years late), a new sports centre, a new community centre. No sign of them.

 

There is a systemic rubbish problem across South Kilburn, which the Council fails to tackle, There is the scandal of the ex job centre in Cambridge Avenue where residents have been asking the Council to take action against the owners over the accumulation of rubbish. For 8 years residents were told this was too difficult,  before the Council finally instigated court action, but still the rubbish accumulates.

 

From the start of regeneration residents urged that there be proper coordination with the many Housing Associations brought into the area, because of potential conflicts over who is responsible for the upkeep of different areas. Those conflicts continue.

 

Then there are the lesser issues - a chairlift broken for years, fire extinguishers not checked for years, broken panes of glass in entry doors which take a year to replace.

 

In my block, contractors told the Council last year that our flat doors are not fire-safety compliant, yet, despite asking, we have no idea whether the Council intends to do anything about this.

 

Having persuaded HS2 to build its vent shaft in South Kilburn, Brent doesn’t engage with residents affected by this. Residents in Alpha House got letters from HS2 earlier this year saying HS2 would monitor the block for movement now they are tunnelling further towards Euston. Attempts to get reassurance from Brent around this meet a brick wall.

 

Residents at the centre of things!? That would explain why residents associations are denied use of communal halls in their buildings for years, why no new blocks have such rooms, why Brent Council talks of residents associations as part of its “team” when it wants anything, but fails to deliver the services it should.

 

You may have heard of the Kilburn Neighbourhood Plan, endorsed by both Brent and Camden Council. But Brent insisted that South Kilburn could not be included in the plan. This excluded South Kilburn residents from having any say - or vote - in what the plan said about the Kilburn High Road and other areas of Kilburn which concern them as much as those who did have a vote.

 

The South Kilburn residents panel, consisting entirely of South Kilburn residents, has been established and is hoping to move to a fully elected body addressing the concerns of South Kilburn residents. It has been given a small say in the next phase of regeneration. Yet Brent Council refuses to assist with its running costs, at the same time as announcing it will pay £5,000 compensation to the chair of a body it appoints in Harlesden.

 

Time and again senior council officers and councillors have visited and told us how concerned they are at the problems of South Kilburn and nothing gets done. Time and again we are told of reorganisation of Council departments and nothing changes.

 

Residents themselves fill the space with no support from Council at all, such as the Carnivale last weekend, attended by 600 people with zero assistance from Council.

 

On Friday a Council officer organised contractors to deal with several issues around our part of South Kilburn which have been outstanding for years. The catch? The officer said they had been taken off dealing with estates but was dealing with these issues off their own bat because they were so embarrassed at repeatedly putting in work orders and nothing happening.

 

London’s affordable housing delivery falls short

 From the London Assembly

The annual London Assembly Affordable Housing Monitor, published today, shows the scale of London's housing need continues to far outstrip supply.

The report, compiled by the London Assembly Research Unit, examines the Mayor’s progress in delivering affordable homes and highlights the continued gap between housing delivery and housing need across the capital.

The Mayor’s Affordable Homes Programme (AHP) 2021-26 delivered 14,335 affordable housing starts by March 2026, which fell short of the revised target of between 17,800 and 19,000 homes. Nearly four in five homes started under the programme were for social rent.² The Government has since agreed to extend the deadline for starts by up to six months on a case-by-case basis.

In 2024-25, London's affordable housing stock increased by a net 8,184 homes. The Greater London Authority’s (GLA) latest assessment estimates the capital needs 45,500 new affordable homes every year over the next decade to meet demand.

More than 43,000 affordable homes that have been started across the Mayor's two affordable homes programmes are still awaiting completion. That includes over 32,000 homes from the 2016-23 programme and almost 12,000 from the 2021-26 programme.

Key findings of the report include:
 

• The revised affordable housing starts target has been missed for 2021-26 (14,335 starts against a target of 17,800-19,000).
• London continues to deliver only a fraction of the affordable homes estimated to be needed each year (8,184 net affordable homes added in 2024-25, compared with estimated annual need of 45,500 homes).
• Thousands of affordable homes remain in the pipeline but are yet to be completed (11,728 homes under the 2021-26 programme and 32,081 homes under the 2016-23 programme).
• Social rent accounted for nearly four in five affordable homes started under the latest programme (79 per cent; 11,383 homes).
• Council home starts increased in 2025-26 after a weak previous year (3,865 starts, up from 1,328 in 2024-25).
• Housing waiting lists remain high, with more than 340,000 households seeking social housing across London (341,421 households on waiting lists in March 2025nOT
• NOTE: Social rent includes London Affordable Rent benchmarked at Social rent values.
  
  

Extracts from London Assembly Affordable Housing Monitor 

 

Healthy Streets Scorecard's verdict on Brent Council

 

 

The 8th Healthy Streets Scorecard for London Boroughs has been published and Brent's position is unchanged at 21st out of 33.

Healthy Streets say:

We want all London Boroughs to implement six key measures

These measures will dramatically improve air quality, reduce road danger, boost active lifestyles and reduce carbon emissions – often literally overnight:

• 1. Borough-wide Low Traffic Neighbourhoods
• 2. A default 20mph speed limit on all borough and Transport for London controlled roads
• 3. Small-area Controlled Parking Zones borough-wide
• 4. Protected cycle lanes on main roads
• 5. Traffic-free streets around all schools and safe walking and cycling routes to school
• 6. Bus priority on all routes 24/7

 

The London Boroughs Healthy Streets Scorecard shows to what extent London Boroughs are putting in place these six key measures – what we call ‘input’ indicators. It also sets out data to show the health of each borough’s streets – what we call ‘outcome’ indicators. By combining the scores for the ten indicators we give each borough a final Healthy Streets score.

   

Healthy Streets Scorecard for Brent released today: 2026 Healthy Streets Scorecard results

 

Brent remains in 21st place overall this year, but its final Healthy Streets Scorecard score rose from 3.49 to 3.61 out of 10, one of the larger increases in London. The largest contribution to this increase came from a decrease in cycling casualty rates, which represents a real improvement in score. The borough’s strongest results are in outcome indicators: Brent now has the highest sustainable modeshare of any Outer London borough at 68.7%, and also the highest proportion of households without a car, at 51.7%. Car ownership is moving in the right direction, with cars per household falling and the polluting-vehicle score improving from 6.39 to 6.20. The proportion of adults walking regularly has also improved, but remains below 30%, and cycling participation has fallen to 7%.

 

There are some encouraging signs on school travel too. Brent has 37 School Streets, covering 37.4% of schools, putting it among the stronger Outer London boroughs on this indicator. Its Travel for Life score also improved from 42.3% to 44.4%.

 

However, other than school streets, Brent’s street-level delivery remains more limited. LTN coverage is unchanged at 12.0%, protected cycle track coverage is still very low at 1.0%, and bus priority is unchanged at 12.1%. CPZ coverage is also unchanged at 35.7%, while 20mph coverage remains static at 61.2%. Brent’s results show that many residents are already travelling sustainably and living with lower car ownership than most Outer London boroughs, but this now needs to be matched by stronger delivery on safer, healthier streets.

 

The organisation counts Brent as Outer London but the borough, south of the North Circular, has many Inner London features. There are more school streets in the south than in the north.

Details on how the indicators re assessed can be found HERE 

 

Clitterhouse Farm Film Festival Friday July 17th - films showing 1pm - 10pm

 

 

 

 

Our Yard at Clitterhouse Farm is at Our Yard at Clitterhouse Farm.

Join us at Clitterhouse Farm, a community project in Northwest London, for a day-long Film Festival celebrating sustainability, community action, and forward-thinking ideas.

 

Taking place on Friday 17 July, the festival runs from the afternoon into the evening and features a curated programme of films including Suffragette, WALL-E, Power Station, and a selection of short films.

 

The event is family-friendly and welcomes all ages.

 

Our on-site café will be open throughout the day, serving drinks, snacks, and food, with alcohol also available. Every ticket includes a free popcorn.

 

We will come together to honour the life, vision, and extraordinary vitality of Barbara Mansi, whose spirit continues to shine through the community mosaic she began with such generosity and care.

 

After her passing, Nima Moridi’s dedication lovingly brought this work to completion, ensuring her creative legacy endures as a shared symbol of connection and resilience. 

 

We also celebrate the wider stories held within this place, including that of suffragette Gladice Keevil, who once lived at the farm and whose courage forms part of the fabric of its history. Together, these lives and works weave a rich tapestry of memory, creativity, and collective heritage that continues to inspire us all.

 

We are offering a three-tier ticket system to keep the event as accessible as possible while covering the real costs of running the festival.

 

This is a solidarity-based pricing model. If you are able to pay more, choosing a higher-tier ticket helps support lower-cost tickets for others and contributes to making this event viable and enabling us to make this an annual event.

 

The costs of hosting a full-day festival — including venue, equipment, licensing, and staffing — are reflected in the ticket prices. Your support directly helps us make this event happen.

 

Ticket Pricing

 

High Wage Ticket – £30

Standard Ticket – £22

Lower Income Ticket – £15

 

We hope to make this an annual Film Festival at Clitterhouse Farm. The success of this first event will play an important role in shaping future festivals, so every ticket purchased helps build something lasting for the community.

LETTER: Gladstone Park Medical Centre - Is there a Phase 2? What is it ?

 Dear Editor,

What is Phase 2?

 

It turns out that the Gladstone Park Health Hub proposals are only “Phase 1”! 

What is Phase 2? How much more park will that take? Why weren’t we told this in the initial “consultation”? Why did it take THREE Freedom of Information requests to discover this? Why do we not know what “Phase 2” is? Is there a Phase 3?

It seems that these proposals are “Phase 1”. A freedom of information request has revealed the letter from Willesden Green Surgery’s consultants, Peacock & Smith, asking for pre-application advice on “Phase 1 - Current Scheme”. It says it is an “interim measure”. The letter refers to a slight tweak of the scheme we have now (with parking spaces and a basement gym), but appears to otherwise be the scheme from the Informal Consultation.  A Phase 2 seems to have been blacked out. 

We have been told by Dr Mo in the consultation that Willesden Green Surgery needs new premises and no one disputes this. But we were not clearly told that the new building would be to serve people from all around, up to 1.5 miles away. And we weren’t told that it would be a single point of access for housing, social care, mental health and neighbourhood health services (whatever all that means). We weren’t told there was no cap on the number of patients. So is it 20,000 or 40,000 patients or what? WGS is expanding so rapidly it could be anything. Now do we find there is a Phase 2?

Gladstone Park is surrounded by new flats going up. Stand in the park and look. And in neighbourhoods like Church End the number of residents is increasing dramatically even without the new builds. All over the borough, houses are converted to flats and more and more people are squashed in. Neighbourhoods become “disadvantaged” and new-build flats go up next door. All these people need healthcare yet some local GP practices have declining patient numbers - probably because patients are being sucked into multi-service mega practices with enormous lists.

So isn’t it blindingly obvious that this thing is going to get bigger and bigger and offer more and more services. Great. And someone had the bright idea that, being in a park, you can just use up more and more of the park as you need? Hey presto!

Guess that’s where Phase 2 comes in. 

Why did Friends of Gladstone Park agree to this? Why are Mapesbury Residents’ Association asleep? Why do the Parkrun get shoutouts in Zoom calls? What do they know that we lowly residents don’t? 

So what is Phase 2? And where does it end for our park? 

Yours,

 
A concerned park user and resident 

 

 

 

Road closures, bus diversions in Wembley Park July 8,10, 11, 18, 19, 22, 24, 25 28 - My Chemical Romance & Bruno Mars

After the record-breaking 12 nights of Harry Styles, more concerts are coming up at Wembley Stadium after Brent Council granted the Stadium more non-sporting events

Drama at Brent Planning Committee as decisions overturned within minutes and allegations of intimidation fly. Kingsbury High MUGA approved,

The recording of Thursday's very unusual Planning Committee appears to have been delayed.

 

Brent Council website today

 

This is unusual but the meeting was extremely unusual. Three decisions were made on the Wembley Hospital, Chaplin Road: FOR, AGAINST, DEFER and serious allegations made about intimidation of residents by the applicant for Thanet Lodge.

One the recording is available I will cover fully but meanwhile the story can be told in my Tweets.

 

Proposed development on Wembley Hospital site

 

DEMOLITION OF WEMBLEY HOSPITAL AND REPLACEMENT BY HOUSING 

 

 Recorded Decision:

RESOLVED to defer the decision for the following reason(s): ·       As the majority of Members on the Committee had indicated that they were minded to refuse the application, it was agreed to defer a final decision to a future Committee meeting in order to enable a further report to be provided addressing the indicative reasons outlined as the basis for refusal, including: i)               insufficient provision of affordable housing; ii)              insufficient parking provision on site and impact of congestion on surrounding streets; iii)            lack of community space; iv)            lack of on-site play space for older children; v)             insufficient provision of family sized housing; vi)            harm to neighbouring amenity including loss of daylight; and vii)           impact on non-designated heritage asset and character to the streetscene.   Voting on the above decision was unanimous and accordingly, the application was deferred to allow for further assessment and consideration of the matters identified by the Committee.

 

THANET LODGE GARAGES, BRONDESBURY

Recorded Decision

 

Decision:

RESOLVED to defer the decision for the following reason(s):

 

·       To allow the ownership certificates relating to the application to be evaluated prior to determination and to clarify whether the scheme would fall within the definition of self-build.

 

 

A positive aspect of the meeting was the incisive questions posed by Cllr Suzanne Gallagher and Cllr Anton Georgiou who had clearly done their homework and showed they would not be fobbed off. This makes a refreshing change. Cllr Gallagher's contribution regarding the applicant's claim that the Thanet Lodge application was self-build was particularly effective.

 

Oh, and despite polite representations made by two Roe Green Village residents, the application by Kingsbury High School for a Multi Use Games Area (MUGA) in the school grounds was finally approved. Changes in where the MUGA was situated, a curtailment of the use of lighting, and assurances about the ecological status of the materials used for the MUGA were the background to the decision.

 

 

 

In at the deep end - a visit to Wembley Arena's former swimming pool.

  

Guest post by Graham Cooksley, with an introduction by Philip Grant

 

Public swimming at the Empire Pool, late 1930s. (Wembley History Society collection)

 

If you read the “Wembley Matters” series about the history of Wembley Arena, written for its 90^th anniversary in 2024, you will know that it originally included a swimming pool. It was known as the Empire Pool, and what an amazing pool it was! When it opened in July 1934, Wembley’s new pool was the largest covered swimming bath in the world, 200 feet (almost 61 metres) long, 16 feet (almost 5 metres) at the deep end, and holding 700,000 gallons of heated water. As well as the main pool, with Europe’s first wave machine, there was a paddling pool for children, a “fountain pool”, 250 changing rooms and 1,250 lockers.

 

Advert for the Empire Pool.
(from the back cover of a 1934 British Empire Games swimming programme)

 

The pool was used for public swimming and international competitions in the summer during the 1930s, but covered over during the winter months for ice hockey matches and skating, among other sports events. It was last used as a pool for the swimming and diving competitions, and the water polo finals, at the 1948 Olympic Games. 

 

The finish of a swimming race at the 1948 Olympic Games. (Image from the internet)

 

But the pool was not filled in, and still kept the original “temporary” wooden floor over it until that was replaced with a stronger concrete covering in 1974. Graham Cooksley, who posts interesting and historic images and stories about the Stadium and Arena on “X” (formerly Twitter) and Instagram @wembleyarchive1923, recently had a tour of the former pool, and kindly offered to share the experience with “Wembley Matters” readers. If you want to know “what lies beneath” the arena floor (not that horror story), please read on! Graham writes:

 

Since starting my Wembley Stadium and OVO Arena Wembley collection many years ago it has, since learning that the old Empire Pool still remained underneath the floor of the arena, been a long-held desire to view it one day.

 

In an email correspondence with the Arena team (I write a monthly heritage blog for their Social Media pages) a cheeky ‘would it be possible to view the old pool’ request developed over a few weeks into a calendar date for May 2026 when we would be visiting for a day’s play in the World Table Tennis World Championships.  This Arena visit was my first since a David Bowie gig back in 2003 so that was good enough, but to get to see the old pool would be “Christmas day for an eight year-old” levels of excitement, but for a 57 year-old. 

 

Meeting my contact at the OVO Arena at mid-day, while France v Romania Ladies was still ongoing, we made our way into the open plan offices where we met our guide from the estates team.  Hard hats were issued, and a service elevator took us down to the basement.  The underworld of the Arena is a strange mix of storage including old vending machines, standing as if waiting to be filled and used, cabling that would rival any underground station, and runs the entire length of the arena, and horizontal and vertical pipes and beams which criss-cross each other thus making those hard hats essential.

 

1. The holes for the wave making machine. (All numbered photos by Graham Cooksley)

 

First stop on this underworld tour were four cavernous holes in the floor, these were where the wave making machinery, the first in Britain, were located.  Ladders still take maintenance teams down to occasionally pump out water that still gathers in areas, probably due London’s soft clay.  Then we approach the actual swimming tank.  

 

2. Looking towards the deep end, with the ‘A’ frames and their black sheets.

 

Bathers 90 years ago would have stepped down into the waters from poolside changing lockers, whereas we walked into it through various breeches in the surrounding tank ‘wall’ and given the change of orientation that took place during the arena’s refurbishment twenty years ago, we are straight into the deep end.  Mezzanine walkways in the tank are surrounded by strange large ‘A’ frames with stretched black sheets, these we are told are for sound proofing the underworld during music acts, the vibrations from which can cause damage to the structure of the building.

 

3. One of the lamp holes in the side of the swimming pool.

 

4. The overflow channel (in black) near the top of the pool’s tank.

 

Lamp holes line the sides of the tank, some are used as cabling through points while some still retain their ‘glass’ which would have shone so brightly in those illuminated prewar days.  Around the rim of the tank the water overflow channel remains, just waiting for someone to grab hold and kick the water once again.  On the floor of the deep end is a dust covered ‘Public Toilets’ sign. How many years has that laid there? I offer it a good home, but the request is unanswered.   

 

5. The ‘Public Toilets’ sign at the bottom of the pool’s deep end

 

6. A ‘plug hole’ in one of the concrete floor beams.

 

Directly above us France and Romania continue their game but we are directed to view some small round holes in the 1974 concrete floor, our guide tells us that these are literally plug holes. At the end of an ice season the machinery would be switched off and the melting water would drain through these holes and into the swimming tank to be pumped out.  One ingenious feature in the existing concrete floor is / was a network of pipes embedded to freeze water and to form the rink.  

 

7. Some of the embedded pipes, exposed in a section of the original floor.

 

One end of the newly-built Empire Pool in 1934, with a corner water tower arrowed.

 

The underworld space gets more limited as the concrete floor above us gradually meets the pool floor as it shallows out over the length of the building, but as we leave the underworld there is one last stop to look up into the interior of one of the four iconic corner towers of the OVO Arena.  These are water towers and still have the pipework inside them and could still work if ever needed.  Sadly, our tour ends, it’s been fantastic and now eight weeks later it was such a privilege, and we are so grateful to the Arena team for making it happen. 

 

Graham Cooksley.