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WEMBLEY MATTERS News and views on local politics, the environment, climate change, culture and local history
Sunday, 26 July 2026
Brent Summer Fun Festival - Library Events for All Ages - from July 28th
Saturday, 25 July 2026
Save Samovar Space & Market Square open spaces in front Of Wembley Stadium - submit objections by Friday July 31st
The campaign against the building of a 17 storey hotel in the current Samovar Space and Market square in front of Wembley Stadium and adjacent to Brent Civic Centre is gaining moment with the formation of a WhatsApp Wembley Park Community Action Group JOIN HERE
Current (from application document)
The campaign is asking for supporters to send in their Objections to Brent Council by Friday 31st July, the Neighbourhood Consultation Expiry Date. SUBMIT HERE
The campaign informs supporters that objection should focus on planning issues and makes some suggestions:
You may wish to mention:
1. Loss of community space: Market Square and Samovar Space provide valuable public space for residents, markets, events and local businesses. Wembley Park needs more community infrastructure, not less.
2. Poor consultation and community engagement: Many residents were unaware of the proposal, and consultation failed to meaningfully engage the local community most affected.
3. Impact on the local area: The proposal would further intensify development in Wembley Park, increasing pressure on public spaces and changing the character of the neighbourhood.
4. Design and public realm: Consider whether replacing an active public square with a 17-storey hotel creates an attractive, welcoming and accessible place for residents.
Samovar Space and Market Square from above
Remember: Planning decisions must be based on planning considerations. Explain how this proposal will affect you, your neighbourhood or the wider community. Personal experiences and local knowledge can be very persuasive.
Friday, 24 July 2026
Brent Council belatedly publishes its Infrastructure Funding Statement for 2024-25 - Receipts at end of year £157m SCIL and £21m NCIL
The Infrastructure Funding Statement (IFS) is a vital document providing transparency and accountability and is required by law. The Brent IFS for 2024-25 failed to appear when other local authorities' statements were published. When I asked Brent Council why it had not been published they responded, 'because it's not ready.'
In Monday's Cabinet report they now state:
The requirement to produce an annual Infrastructure Funding Statement is set out in the amended CIL regulations (2019). The Council must prepare an IFS for 2024/25 and publish it online. The IFS should have been published on the Brent Council website before 31st December 2025 per the CIL regulations but was delayed. For these reasons it is advised the IFS 2024/25 is published as soon as practical, and no alternative options have been considered.
Still no explanation for the delay of 7 months for an annual report but I publish extracts below. The next IFS is due before December 31st 2026 and will contain information relevant to the pre-election spending bonanza.
A further query was over an update of the borough's Infrastructure Development Plan (IDP). The last IDP was published seven years ago in 2019 and a lot has changed since then.
Brent Council says:
The Council will continue to focus the spending of CIL and S106 receipts on essential infrastructure to support the level of growth outlined in the Local Plan and the projects identified in the IDP. It will do this jointly with partners through effective and ongoing engagement, ensuring key infrastructure is delivered at the right time and in the right place to support growth and development. As reported to Cabinet in May 2025, Brent’s current IDP was published in 2019 and is due to be reviewed and updated over 2026-27.
SCIL funds have matured over several years; prudent financial practice and good future infrastructure planning demands that the fund is judiciously allocated over time. This allows for important infrastructure coming forward in the future to be funded. In view of this, the Council is due to update its IDP to help with the future planning of infrastructure across the borough, ensuring it aligns with the growth anticipated to come forward in the Local Plan and Borough Plan priorities. This provides transparency to residents, members, infrastructure providers and the wider development industry on the type of infrastructure required to support long-term growth and development of the borough.
Transparency and accountability over SCIL was demanded by opposition parties at the July 6th Full Council.
First the sums of Strategic and Neighourhood CIL at the end of 2024-25:
The amount of SCIL and NCIL collected in 2024-25:
So what was Strategic CIL spent on in 2024-25?
The NCIL bidding process was paused during 2024/25 due to a review of the NCIL application and bidding process and no further funds were awarded.
This cleared the way for the mainly centrally directed pre-election spending earlier this year.
Two projects of over £100,000 each required Cabinet approval in 2024-25 and that was granted:
Step Up Hub: Community Safety Community Leadership Programme
The aim of this social infrastructure project is to improve the quality of life for disadvantaged people impacted by development by providing support to further equality, social justice, social mobility, and community cohesion.
The programme combines academic learning, with practical tasks, helping learners address real-world problems. The structured course will be supplemented by mentoring and coaching support. Course content will focus on community cohesion and crime reduction and include delivering interventions to address anti-social behaviour which has increased with the increase in development.
Tenterden Pavilion
This project will provide funding for a new football pavilion at Tenterden Sports
Ground in Kenton, suitable for a grassroots level football club (Forest United (1973) Youth Football Club Limited). The project is required to obtain match funding, and no NCIL funds will be released without evidence of the additional funding, as agreed by Cabinet.
SECTION 106 AGREEMENTS
Brent Council explains:
The Council enters into Section 106 (S106) obligations with developers - a mechanism which makes a development proposal acceptable in planning terms. S106 obligations are focused on site-specific mitigation of the impact of development such as securing affordable housing or requiring improvements to an access road. CIL, on the other hand, is designed to raise funds for infrastructure needed generally as a result of an increase in development in an area and is spent on community infrastructure projects across the borough.
This has increasingly been used to provide affordable housing where a developer is unable to do so on their development:
Other S106 allocations:
I recommend reading the full Infrastructure Funding Statement 202-25 with accounts of projects and their funding. READ IT HERE
Thursday, 23 July 2026
Amidst over-development, a place to breathe and grow - South Kilburnites say 'SAVE OUR REC!'
We hosted councillors from across the political spectrum, bringing together representatives from both Camden and Brent at the Granville Rec to amplify the #SaveTheRec campaign.Leslie Barson met with Cllr Amer Agha (the Mayor of Brent), Cllr Matt Kelcher (Cabinet Member for Regeneration), and several Labour, Conservative, Lib Dem, and Green councillors.Leslie highlighted why plans to demolish the Rec as part of the Hereford & Exeter regeneration project in South Kilburn must be urgently reconsidered.*Loss of Public Space & Essential Amenities:*Regeneration continues to erode crucial public and open spaces, leaving the Kilburn community with fewer vital local amenities.*A History of Broken Trust:*Decades of Brent Council failings in South Kilburn have severely damaged community trust, making transparent and genuinely accountable decision-making essential.*Inadequate Replacement Site:*The proposed replacement site is simply not an equivalent alternative for a whole host of reasons.*Lack of Community Participation:*Meaningful consultation and true community participation have been consistently sidelined throughout this process.Environmental & Wellbeing Impact:🌱 *Community & Food Sovereignty*: It is an active community garden run by Granville Community Kitchen, providing local food growing, City & Guilds horticultural training, and educational workshops.*🧠 Mental Health & Wellbeing:* It offers a calm, essential green sanctuary for local school pupils, young people, and residents.🐝 *Vital Biodiversity:* It is a mature, irreplaceable urban ecosystem, not a space that can simply be replaced by concrete or artificial landscaping.⚠️ WHAT YOU CAN DO
There is a Brent Councillors’ Members Briefing tomorrow.We are calling on *all* local residents concerned about the loss and overdevelopment of our green spaces to take action NOW:1️⃣ Email your Ward Councillors: Ask them directly to attend tomorrow’s briefing and stand up for South Kilburn’s green infrastructure.2️⃣ Send an Email / Message: If you believe in saving the Rec, contact:Cllr Rubin (Cabinet Member for Action on Climate)Cllr Kelcher (Cabinet Member for Regeneration)
Useful Links & Petitions:
📌 Sign the Petition & Read More: https://granvillecommunitykitchen.org.uk/community/save-the-rec/📌 Brent Green Party Campaigns: https://brent.greenparty.org.uk/campaigns/Please share this message with your local Kilburn and Brent networks, street groups, and neighbours! 💚✊
Wednesday, 22 July 2026
Stop Waymo from taking our jobs and livelihoods.
James Rossi sets out concerns over the impact of automated vehicles
Reflecting concerns over the potential impact of autonomous (driverless) vehicles in terms of safety and drivers' jobs, a peaceful demonstration will be held at the Waymo office, Willen Field Road, Park Royal on Tuesday 4th August from 9.30am until 6pm.
The organisers say:
We’re asking important questions about the future of automated vehicles, concerns about safety and the potential impact on jobs and livelihoods. This event is an opportunity for people to come together, hear different viewpoints and take part in a respectful discussion. Speakers will include James Rossi, Green Party Trade Union Liaison Officer for Brent and possibly others in the community. If you share these concerns, join us, bring your questions and make your voice heard. We look forward to seeing you there.
Tuesday, 21 July 2026
Proposed Frogmore Data Centre represents all that is wrong with the priorities of Brent and Ealing Labour controlled Councils
Campaigning against the Frogmore Industrial Estate Data Centre
Guest Post by Cllr Suzanne Gallagher (Brent Green Party, Kilburn Ward)
As local representatives, our primary duty is to protect the health, wellbeing, and living standards of our communities. That is why I, alongside my Green colleagues across Brent and Ealing, have submitted a formal, rigorous objection to the Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation (OPDC) planning committee regarding the reserved matters application (ref: 26/0107/PAOPDC) for a massive new data centre at Frogmore Industrial Estate on Acton Lane.
While outline permission for a data centre was granted back in 2022, the specific layout, scale, and environmental strategy currently being proposed are fundamentally unacceptable. Standing in solidarity with the residents of the nearby Wesley Estate, we cannot allow this development to move forward in its current form.
Living in the Shadow of Tech Expansion
The immediate physical impacts on the Wesley Estate are severe. The applicant is proposing massive structures reaching up to 37 metres in height, positioned just 19 metres from people’s front doors on Wesley Avenue, Harold Road, and Newark Crescent.
At this extreme proximity, residents will suffer a devastating loss of daylight, privacy, and visual amenity. To make matters worse, the landscaping plans offer only "token planting" rather than the substantial, mature green buffering our communities deserve. Add to this the threat of heavy traffic on Acton Lane, a vital lifeline for emergency vehicles accessing Central Middlesex Hospital, and a local water grid that Thames Water explicitly warns cannot support this demand, and it becomes clear that local residents are being expected to absorb all the disruption.
The Microclimate Crisis: Park Royal’s Extreme Heat Island Effect
While the loss of daylight and traffic pressures are reason enough to object, as a Green councillor, I am deeply alarmed by the severe climate consequences of cramming yet another data centre into our corner of West London.
We have all felt the brutal reality of the climate crisis right on our doorsteps. London has been hammered by extreme, record-breaking heatwaves, smashing temperature records and pushing public health services and infrastructure to the absolute limit. This isn't a distant threat; it is our lived reality.
Looking ahead, the Met Office’s climate modeling shows a terrifying trajectory: sustained heatwave scenarios in the coming decades could push peak temperatures in England to an astonishing 45°C.
Against this backdrop of extreme warming, approving this proposal would mark approximately the twelfth data centre operating in the Park Royal and North Acton area. We are not looking at an isolated building; we are looking at an overwhelming, compounding heat engine.
Data centres generate immense industrial heat. Empirical research from Cambridge University reveals that concentrated clusters of data centres generate a distinct, artificially elevated local "heat island effect," raising surrounding neighborhood temperatures by average levels of 2 degrees. We’ve already seen ground temperatures at a parking lot adjacent to the Slough data centre cluster hit 45 degrees during severe weather, 6 degrees higher than nearby Windsor.
As summer heatwaves grow longer and more punishing, turning Park Royal into a localised heat engine is a direct threat to urban climate resilience. Forcing families on the Wesley Estate to live inside an artificially intensified microclimate, where cooling down during tropical nights becomes virtually impossible, is an unacceptable environmental injustice.
Local Failures: A Complete Lack of Extreme Heat Preparedness
What makes this proposal even harder to swallow is our glaring failure at a council and regional level to prepare our local area for the extreme heat ahead. We are simply not ready.
Just recently, Kilburn Library had to shut its doors during extreme heat, a tragic irony given that it recently received £1.1 million in funding for a major renovation, yet remained completely vulnerable to rising temperatures.
Across our ward and the wider borough of Brent, there is a severe shortage of designated "cool spaces", public, accessible buildings where vulnerable residents can seek refuge and experience lower temperatures during dangerous heat spikes. Our community gardens, which are a respite from extreme heat with their cool shade and soft breeze, are under threat. For example, the Granville Rec in South Kilburn is reaping its final harvest this year before the volunteers tending to its garden hand the keys over to Regeneration.
Because the UK does not yet have embedded climate adaptation and resilience build standards, the Rec will likely be replaced by homes with inadequate design and control measures in place to ensure they are built to be truly climate-resilient against extreme heat as predicted by the Met. Approving a heat-generating data centre while our residential and public infrastructure buckles under extreme temperatures is ironic beyond measure.
The "Green" Promises
The applicant attempts to frame the development as environmentally friendly by linking it to future waste-heat reuse networks and backup generator fuel promises. But when you look closely at the details, these claims fall apart. The applicant points to the HEMIKO/OPEN district heat network, but this system is non-operational and won't be fully delivered until between 2028 and 2040. In the interim, vast amounts of waste heat will simply be dumped straight into our local atmosphere. Furthermore, industry analysis (including from Kao Data) confirms that AI workloads create extreme volatility in heat output, making colocation data centres an unpredictable, unreliable source for district heating.
Residents Must Come First
We cannot allow the compounding, cumulative impacts of North Acton and Park Royal’s industrial tech expansion to erode the basic living standards of Brent and Ealing residents.
The OPDC planning committee must put the climate resilience and wellbeing of our community ahead of corporate convenience. We are calling on the committee to reject this layout, enforce substantial setback distances, demand iron-clad environmental monitoring, and ensure our local microclimate is protected.
The formal objection was submitted on behalf of the Brent Green Group (Cllrs Suzanne Gallagher, Stephen Malonga, Paul Ryan, Mary Mitchell, Amandine Alexandre, Keith Perrin, Nisha Vakani, Iman Ahmadi Moghaddam, and Najib Warsame) and the Ealing Green Group (Cllrs Clare Welsby, Natalia Kubica, Andrew Walkley, Marijn van de Geer, and Husam Alharahsheh).
Hover over foot of page 1 to find magnifier.