New Wembley Plan sets out future development

The new Wembley Action Plan will be discussed at the Brent Executive on Monday July 16th. The document is large and highly detailed and the key policies have been modified in the light of consultation to which Brent Green Party contributed.

The plan covers new housing, education and health facilities as well as open space. The definition of 'affordable housing' as being 80% of market rents, still puts such housing out of reach of many local people on low incomes, particularly in the light of the housing benefit cap.  The plans include a new primary school and a new community swimming pool in the area and there is a cap of 20% of total housing on the provision of student accommodation.

There is a welcome section on climate change and  open spaces. A possible pedestrian bridge over the railway line that would link Chalkhill with the Wembley regeneration area is an interesting proposal.

The full report is available on the Brent Council website but the preferred options are summarised below:

The following are a summary of the key policies in the Plan by topic. There are also a

number of major site proposals which provide further detailed guidance for developers on individual sites.

Urban Design & Placemaking

• Character & Urban Form - Development should seek to reinforce and emphasise the distinctive character of each locality

• A Legible Wembley - The council will continue to focus of the three stations as the principle gateways into the Wembley area, whilst the enhancement of nodes around key junctions will be sought

• Public Art - Contributions towards public art will be sought from development within the area, particularly at key gateways or where new open spaces are proposed

• Tall Buildings - will be acceptable only in a limited number of locations within the Wembley area. These are shown in the Plan. A number of views to the stadium will be protected

• Olympic Way - Development must be carefully designed and scaled to respect the predominance of Wembley Stadium and its arch.

Business, Industry & Waste

• Strategic Industrial Locations (SIL) - de-designation of relatively small areas of land including on South Way (temp. Stadium car park) and the Euro Car

• Wembley Stadium Business Park - area reduced in size with waste management limited to east of the area

• Offices - Purpose-built offices promoted in area close to Wembley Park station Town Centres, Shopping, Leisure And Tourism

• Town centre boundary - defined for area extending from Forty Lane to Ealing Road

• Sequential approach to development - is emphasised, with large foodstore directed to High Road location, preferably Brent House site.

• Large-scale leisure/tourism/cultural development – is appropriate east of Olympic Way

• Hot-food takeaways - No more within 400m of a school entrance and no morethan 7% in any stretch of primary or secondary frontage (currently 7% in Wembley as a whole).

• Vacant sites or buildings - promoted for occupation by temporary, creative uses.

Transport

• Improved access - for public transport, pedestrians and cyclists, particularly along the Wembley Hill Road / Forty Lane corridor.

• Improved highway access - for car travel from the North Circular by improving the Stadium Access Corridor (via Great Central Way / South Way) and the Western Access Corridor (via Fifth Way / Fulton Way). Land take required for a number of improvements.

• Buses - incrementally provide improved penetration of the masterplan area by buses as development is built out.

• Car parking - encourage car parking in locations on the edge of the town centre. Parking standards to be tighter to facilitate level of development proposed.

• Through traffic - package of measures to discourage through traffic on Wembley High Road.

• Pedestrian access – to be improved between the Masterplan area and High Road.

• Coach parking for stadium- criteria based approach for locations including within 960 metres. 

Housing

• Affordable Rent at up to 80% of market rent, including service charges and determined with regard to local incomes and house prices.

• Family Housing – at least 25% of new homes in Wembley should be family sized.

• Supported Housing – Existing supported housing protected. Extra care housing sought on sites where development is primarily residential, where residential amenity is good and where it is near to open space.

• Private Rented Sector – high quality, purpose-built, private sector rented accommodation will be encouraged through a flexible approach to the proportion of affordable housing and unit size mix.

• Student Accommodation – will form part of major mixed use development but will be capped at 20% of the projected increase in population 

Social Infrastructure

• Primary Schools - Provision of school land on the Wembley Industrial Park site

- identified in Site Specific Allocation. A further (minimum) two form entry school in the vicinity of the town centre.

• Secondary Schools - Contributions towards secondary provision will also be sought through CIL

• GP/Dentists provision - where other local capacity (e.g. Chalkhill Health Centre) is used up-long term provision as population grows

• Community Halls - provision as provided in the NW Lands (i.e. smaller areas at no rent) and use this as a basis of achieving space across the masterplan area

• Creative workspace - Cross reference to the created in NW Lands application & intention to provide more low cost creative workspace in mixed used developments across the area

• Sports and play infrastructure - Cross reference to that may sit in open space and housing chapters

• Temporary uses - reference to provision of meanwhile and temporary uses that will provide opportunities for social interaction

Climate Change

• Decentralised Energy - major developments will be expected to connect to, or contribute to, the Decentralised Energy System where feasible. Developments completed before the energy centre should be designed for future connection

• Energy from Waste - major energy from waste facilities will be allowed only east of Fourth Way. Smaller scale proposals to recover energy from waste generated locally will be supported subject to impact assessments

• Greening Wembley - development proposals must incorporate urban greening including green roofs, green walls, trees and soft landscaping

• Flooding – proposals within Flood Risk Zones must not reduce floodplain storage or increase maximum flood levels. All major proposals will be required to apply Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems

Open Space, Sports and Wildlife

• Open Space Provision - require a new park of 1.2ha adjacent to Engineers Way, orientated E-W and 3 parks of 0.4 ha. Support enhancement and improvements e.g. a new pedestrian bridge link across Met. /Jubilee lines to Chalkhill Open Space

• Food Growing - require major new residential development to provide space for food growing and encourage the use of vacant spaces for temporary food growing

• Sports Facilities - use development contributions to improve the provision of sports facilities and the council will make new or upgraded sports facilities available for community use out of school hours

• River Brent and Wealdstone Brook – adj. development sites to undertake opportunities to provide amenity space, biodiversity improvements and semi-naturalisation of Wealdstone Brook