Guest post by Pete Firmin
On the afternoon of Friday 17th, much of South Kilburn was in gridlock. Buses were backed up in Cambridge Avenue, without either passengers or drivers, and pedestrians were wandering around trying to work out how they could get anywhere. Kilburn High Road was blocked off from both Cambridge Avenue and Coventry Close by vehicle or foot.
The cause? A massive fire in the ex-Job centre on Cambridge Avenue (rear entrance Coventry Close). According to the Kilburn Times LINK 10 fire engines and 70 firefighters attended. Eye witnesses report seeing people jumping from windows to escape the fire (with one person seriously injured), and the police officer guarding the site (still, on Sunday,) telling me that there had been arrests.
This was not the first time the fire brigade has had to turn out to fires in that building, this was at least the 3rd time in a few months."
The ex-Job Centre has been closed and empty since March 2018. There have been rumours of it being taken over by a religious organisation and a failed planning application to turn it into housing, but locals haven’t seen any sign of development. A Kilburn Councillor was told that the owners ripped out all toilets when it closed to prevent occupation. Owner is Rossmore Properties, based in the City of London.
The building has been squatted many times since it closed, with some evicted as early as July 2018 LINK.
But in the last few years the owners seem to have done little to prevent squatting – while access points have occasionally been blocked off, others have been created, to the extent that now a large part of a wall at the side of the building has been removed to create a new entrance.
The squatting has escalated in the last year or so, alongside a serious increase in squatting across South Kilburn, much of it in blocks that Brent Council has left semi-derelict as its regeneration stalls. It is thought that much of that is organised by criminal gangs, who then offer homes (at what price?) to the homeless. It is not just unoccupied flats with have been subject to this, and not just in blocks of flats which are part of Brent’s regeneration.
This writer has no objection to people squatting (truly) empty buildings at a time when homelessness is increasing and London rents are beyond many peoples reasonable scope. The problem in South Kilburn is that much of the squatting has been associated with theft and terrorising residents.
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Rubbish accumulation
Neither Brent Council nor the Department for Works and Pensions (DWP) (the previous occupants of the building) have any responsibility for the ex-Job Centre. However, Brent has known about the problems there for many years, and not just the squatting. For years residents have repeatedly reported the accumulation of rubbish next to the rear entrance. While Brent -rightly – says it is not responsible for clearing that rubbish since it is on private land, it has also refused to take action to force the owners to act. We have been told that “it is too difficult”. Yet now we see where Brent’s refusal to act has led – a massive use of resources by the London Fire Brigade and disruption to local residents.
Brent, under pressure from residents and quite probably the Fire Brigade, must now force the owners to act.
Editor's Note
A little digging reveals two companies under the Rossmore Properties title. Rossmore Properties Ltd with net total assets of £3.4m and Rossmore Properties (Kilburn) Ltd with rather less!
Dilip Amin is the sole director of both with a resigned officer at Rossmore Properties (Kilburn) Ltd and a total of 5 resignations at the main company.
Things get more complicated with NSS Trustees acting as a Lender to the main company, the owner of the Job Centre, 3 Cambridge Avenue, NW6 5AH
The owner continues to have obligations including keeping the property in good condition (5.5):
Perhaps now that lives have been put in danger in the property, Brent Council will bite the bullet and take action.
