Hope for Granville Plus Nursery and Granville Kitchen in new Cabinet Report

The Granville Plus purpose built extension - will it survive?

 A new Cabinet report going before the Brent Cabinet on November 15th gives some seeds of hope for those campaigning for the Granville Nursery Plus, Otherwise Club and the Granville Kitchen. LINK

The report admits that there was a negative public reaction to the proposals for the Carlton and Granville Centres:

Key feedback from the consultation and through officer meetings has been that the community has been upset that there has been a lack of consultation prior to the 25 July 2016 report and that they were not presented with options for the site. It should be noted that the 25 July 2016 Cabinet paper was focused on meeting timescales in order to adhere to a tight timescale for the Greater London Authority (GLA) funding (described below). There has been upset that the occupiers were not engaged and that the services which are being delivered were not understood by the Council. There was a large response that would not wish to see the buildings being demolished and for the current facilities to stay within the buildings. The current occupiers, whilst also wishing the building not to be demolished, would be amenable to development as long as they stayed on the site. 



Phase one would be the refurbishment and reconfiguration of the Granville Centre to allow an Enterprise Hub to be established.

Phase 2 would require further consultation and a £1m fee for design and consultancies. Decisions on the plans will be delegated long-term to Richard Barrett, head of South Kilburn Regeneration. The report appears to show that the officers have listened to the concerns of campaigners as put forward on this blog LINK  LINK  LINK but of course there is many a slip 'twixt the cup and lip.

• The work of the design team will also include proactive consultation and engagement with affected stakeholders, service users and residents with protected characteristics such as:  
•  the diverse group of children, the majority of whom are from BAME backgrounds and with English as a second language, attending the Nursery School and Barnardo’s operated Children’s Centre and their parents/families 
• SEND children and service users with disabilities 
 
•   Residents, elderly and economically disadvantaged groups who use the Granville Kitchen and Otherwise Club*

Although is must be remembered that proposals are subject to consultation, discussion with various bodies and a Cabinet decision next year the report outline what they anticipate:

The Council is seeking to review options for Phase2 in light of the consultation provided within this report. The Council would seek to engage with a Design Team to take forward a review of the options for the site and to conduct in-depth engagement with the local community. The Council would envisage that the site would still deliver an Enterprise Hub, Education/Community Space and Housing, with the priorities being: to secure a permanent enterprise hub, to secure the future of the Nursery School, to secure the future of the Barnardo’s operated Children’s Centre (within the South Kilburn area although not necessarily on this site) and to secure the future of the Granville Kitchen and Otherwise Club as being incorporated into the Enterprise Hub space. 


The Council would seek that a Nursery School would remain on site, though the location within the site may change as part of a redevelopment. One important aspect to note in regard to the Nursery School is the importance placed on the external area which, in an urban area such as South Kilburn where a number of the children can be expected to live in flats with no external play area, provides a safe environment for them to explore; it is also an integral part of the educational aspect of the Nursery School therefore the re- provision of suitable external space, if this area is to be utilised in any redevelopment, will be highlighted in the specification provided to the appointed team. 


The Council would anticipate that the Granville Kitchen and the Otherwise Club would integrate within the Enterprise Hub space. The Council would envisage that a Children’s Centre would continue to be operated within the South Kilburn area, but that this may not necessarily be from the Carlton and Granville Centres Site, though the intention at this time is that it would stay on this site until more detailed options are examined. 


Brent Start is due to leave the Carlton Centre in 2017 as they are developing their own property strategy which will see them reduce their permanent physical presence whilst maintaining their offer to residents and a more detailed separate report will be brought to Members in due course to outline this strategy. However for the purposes of this report it is believed reasonable to presume that a future Brent Start function operating within this site is not envisaged beyond mid-2017. As the Concorde Café does appear to be linked with Brent Start, when Brent Start vacates the Carlton Centre, officers would need to consider if the café can continue to operate and it may not be suitable to accommodate this on site. In the longer term the Council would need to consider if a café function is appropriate in this building, especially as a new café is proposed as part of the “Peel” site. Therefore officers will need to enter into discussions with Concorde Café regarding the future of their operation post vacation by Brent Start. 


*The Otherwise Cub is a resource centre for Home Educator families.