Sunday, 28 January 2018

'This won't enhance Cricklewood' Drop-in about aggregate super-hub January 31st

From NW2 Residents' Association

Barnet Council are inviting everyone to come to the Crown on January 31st, to see their plans for a road/rail aggregates+waste superhub and a waste transfer facility. We can even discuss the plans. Here's the invite:

Drop-in event

 Wednesday 31 January 4pm to 8.30pm

Clayton Crown Hotel, Cricklewood, NW2 3ED
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The Brent Cross Cricklewood development is Barnet Council’s most significant growth and regeneration programme.

There will be an opportunity to hear about the scheme in more detail and to view the plans for the replacement waste transfer station and the modernised rail freight facility.

It will be an open drop-in session between 4pm and 8.30pm with opportunities to hear a short presentation with more detail at 5pm and 7pm.

The invite is extended to interested residents who wish to hear more about what the scheme will bring and to discuss issues and concerns they may have with members of the delivery team.

BACKGROUND:

The Brent Cross Cricklewood development is Barnet Council’s most significant growth and regeneration programme.

The £4.5 billion regeneration scheme is one of the biggest in Europe with a vision to create a thriving town centre with attractive, high quality homes and green spaces. It will deliver a modernised and expanded Brent Cross shopping centre, new high street with local shops, restaurants and offices, 7,500 new homes and up to 27,000 jobs.

The Thameslink station quarter will be delivered by Barnet Council in partnership with Network Rail. It will bring a number of major transport infrastructure improvements for the area. The new Brent Cross West station will link to Kings Cross St Pancras in under 15 minutes.

Other infrastructure works will enable the new station’s construction including an enhanced and modernised rail freight facility, a replacement state of the art waste transfer station, new rail sidings and a new bridge for vehicles and pedestrians across the Midland Mainline train line.

 
They call it an “enhanced and modernised rail freight facility” as if they’re just replacing an existing rail freight facility on the site and making it better. They’re not. They’ve evicted about 50 small businesses, which weren’t handling rail freight at all. They want to build a road/rail facility there instead. Most of the freight will be carried away by road and the rest will be brought in by road, totalling 452 HGV movements every weekday. They’ll bring aggregates – gravel, sand, crushed stone and so forth – by rail, stockpile it and load it into trucks and they’ll bring construction waste in by truck, pile it up and load it onto trains. This proposal will not “enhance” Cricklewood.

We're going.
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1 comment:

  1. Alison Hopkins28 January 2018 at 17:29

    I think the word we're looking for is BS. I had someone talk to me on Friday about how she'd heard that the Brent Cross scheme would turn our area into the paradise of milk and honey. Talk about spin. This, and the waste dump are all part of that wreetched scheme.

    That's what the developers spin is. The reality is the rubbish dump on Geron Way, the aggregate terminal behind Lidl, 29000 extra cars a DAY, the demolition of people's homes without proper compensation, an unsustainable car centred development and road layouts that totally screw over Brent. Lovely.

    The waste transfer station is absolutely linked to the Brent Cross redevelopment and always has been. Barnet originally wanted the Bestway site, but were rather taken aback when Bestway fought hard not to have their land bought for peanuts. The owner happens to be a self made billionaire, and a decent local Brent chap. He was rather annoyed at the cavalier way Barnet treated him - Bestway were hugely helpful to the coalition fighting the plans.

    Anyhow, Barnet gave up on that site and shifted along a bit. They need to move the current WTF from the eastern side of the railway line, so that they can build expensive flats and part of the station.

    Outline planning permission was given, somewhat illegally, years ago for the WTF. But, the developers THEN said they didn't need the WTF and wouldn't build it. They lied, just as they have on so many other issues. Barnet and Argent have also told massive fibs.

    Thing is, the WTF does NOT need to be there: even the North London Wadste Authority, who originally objected strongly to the resiting, said that. They then suddenly withdrew all objections at the eleventh hour. I can't get a straight answer from them on that, given ALL their objections are still totally valid.

    I'm absolutely sure Barnet and Brent are in cahoots. Once upon a time Brent stood up against them, but they don't anymore. Neither of the Brent MPs, or the H&K one has objected or spoken, nor even has our GLA member, Navin who was very much against back in the day. There's been speculation that Barnet would have objected to the LDO if Brent objected to Brent Cross, but who knows. Butt has his cosy chats with the Leader of Barnet, but do they get minuted?

    Add in to all this the fact that Barnet wants to mess about horribly with the roads. With Brent's active support. Who, exactly, is standing up for us? I've emails from Brent to Barnet which are utterly horrifying in their impact.

    It's also worth noting that the Brent Cross plans, which have always been about making the shopping centre much bigger, date back to the late 90s. That's before little things like online shopping got so prevalent and before both Westfields were built. It's a car centric plan, with no integrated Tube or rail, unlike Westfield. It's also predicated on an assumption that 70 percent of those who go to Brent Cross by car now will magically move to buses. REALLY?

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