It looks like the Planning Inspectorate may have to open an office in Brent! Fairview Homes have lodged an appeal against Brent Council planning committee's refusal of their plans for the Queensbury pub site at 110 Walm Lane. Fairview want to demolish the Asset of Community Value and replace it with a block of flats.
The hearing is expected to last three days. The Planning Inspector's letter can be found HERE
Brent has two ACVs. This one's facing demolition and the other, Kensal Rise Library, change of use to unaffordable residential - should planning permission be granted.
ReplyDeleteHere today, gone tomorrow, and neither planning application benefitting local residents.
Nice to see so many children in the photo NOT!
ReplyDeleteIt's not OK to take your kids to the PUB!
If you look back through Wembley Matters you will see that out of hours a room in the pub is let to Busy Rascals, a children's playgroup. It is more than a pub.
DeleteWhich is the whole point. Take your upper case directives elsewhere. 1950 s Wales or present day Saudi maybe.
DeleteI agree with 17.26. Having kids in a pub or in a room in a pub is not acceptable. Would you get it in America or Europe? I don't think so. It might be more than a pub but it is not suitable for running children groups from. Wake up people please. No wonder kids running around a bar, eating rubbish and getting no exercise is the norm. Brent is rich in kids facilities that are not in a Pub,
DeleteWhats more harmful - taking a child to a pub (where they can't drink alcohol but can enjoy healthy food) or taking them to macdonalds or chicken cottage?
DeleteWillesden Green is greatly lacking in community spaces for these type of activities. The Busy Rascals playgroup searched for a venue for about 18 months and were in danger of folding if The Queensbury hadn't come to their rescue. In the current economic climate pubs need to to diversify in order to survive and it's to the owners credit that they allowed their space to be used in this way. The space works ideally for the playgroup, parents get a semi separate space to socialise and mingle before and after classes, and the pub profits by selling coffee and snacks during the classes (no alcohol is served while the playgroups take place). It's win-win.
DeleteAnon at 11.50 - how can they be running around a bar but still not getting any exercise? Shurely shome mishtake?
DeleteLOL at 20.58. Well shpotted!
Delete11.50 errrr we are in Europe!? And "Europe" is full of kids in pubs, bars, restaurants... And besides the toddler activities take place when the pubs shit - 9.30am usually.
DeleteThe use of Asset of Community Value needs to be challenged.
ReplyDeleteWe can't have meaningless laws brought in to protect community assets, but planning committees ignoring such a listing.
Read the legislation.
Deleteit is not planning legislation it is legislation that allows the locality to bid for the asset.
Have they bid or do they even have the money, doubt it...
Why so rude, Anonymous at 11.51? Why not supply a link to the relevant legislation - with which you seem familiar - for the poster at 23.15 to read?
DeleteWell done. You've made 23.15's point for her. Of course the local community can't outbid the property-developer-flogging-property-to-the-international-rich-for-an-investment community. So in practice the law becomes, just as she says, meaningless.
DeleteMike Hine
Anonymous at 11.51am: I have read the legislation and although it is not primarily planning legislation there is guidance from central govt that it can be used as a material planning consideration when considering an application. The fact is that Brent planning dept gave this little or no consideration when they made the recomendation to demolish the Queensbury, thus considerably weakening their ability to defend their ultimate refusal at the forthcoming appeal.
DeleteWell-said, 20.49.
DeleteFairview know what they are doing.
ReplyDeleteThe appeal will be successful.
Keeping a pub like this and saying it is a community facility wont wash.
Brent is flushing money down the toilet.
LOL! This is surely the same commentator as at 11.51 above - peremptory, rude, sneering, and smearing of a community campaign with which Brent planners agreed. I wonder why?
DeleteBrent have no choice but to defend their decision... It's the developer who's flushing Brent' money but don't fret, they'll recover their costs when they win!!
DeleteThose attacking the Queensbury campaign appear to be a puritanical 'no kids in pubs' plus a haughty cerebral version of the same. What a rum mix - pun unintentional. And nice comment, 3 July 21.35 - we are indeed in Europe - tho' I think you meant 'shut' not 'shit'...
ReplyDeleteEvery ACV going to appeal.
ReplyDeleteFairview are big company that know what they are at.
I would not like to be in Brent writing the check for this ordeal.
A pub an asset of community value.... next thing Tesco's will be listed as an ACV!
What a waste of council tax payers money.
Thus speaks a 'big company' developer's friend - doubtless we'll be told the commentator is simply being 'realistic'? Your view of Brent's only other ACV - Kensal Rise Library?
DeleteA venue to collect a veg order, a venue that sponsors local garden competitions, a venue that provides a haven for new mothers to meet and discuss their worries, a venue for children to do arts and crafts, a venue for children to sing nursery rhymes, a venue for a pub quiz, to watch the football, hold a wake or Christening celebration..... I'm not sure what other venue would be classed as an ACV if this one doesn't.
DeleteBesides, planning is totally different to ACV. The plans were thrown out because a 10 storey eyesore of rabbit hutches was to be slammed into a conservation area. ACV wasn't even mentioned (bizarrely).
Just humour him. He's confusing no-nonsense, insensitive crassness with the possession of balls.
DeleteHow d'you know the pro-developer, anti-Queensbury commentator is a he...!?
DeleteLOL! I like it...
DeleteI reckon this attack on the excellent Queensbury campaign is a proxy war by a couple of somebodies who've eaten too many sour grapes. It's not about the Queensbury at all, I suspect.
ReplyDeleteThose increasingly shrill one-liners read like stage directions.
DeleteSeems to me like there are a couple of anonymous commenters on here who have a real problem with Assets of Community Value being protected. I suspect it's the same people sniping here as on the Kensal Rise Library blog. What's their agenda?
ReplyDelete