“Brent, don’t take
our gold and only give us sand.
You state you offer
our Community a friendly hand...
then don’t sell our
Land”
 |
| The meeting where the BPCC campaign was launched |
Statement from Bridge Park Community Council February 4th 2019 about Brent Council's sale of the land at the Bridge Park Leisure Complex
The Restriction
We
successfully lodged an RX1 application in September 2017 with the Land
Registry, as a declaration of interest in the land on the South West Side of
Brentfield Road, Stonebridge, Willesden (“Bridge Park”) Title No: NGL426015.
Brent
insisted that unless we withdrew the application, they would escalate matters
to the courts. They have continued to reject all our offers of cost-effective
resolution, which included negotiation, ADR and HMLR Tribunal.
The Covenant
Bridge
Park Community Leisure Centre (BPCLC) is a former 3.5 acres bus depot that was
converted into a Leisure Centre in the 1980s using GLA funding. It has been
managed by the Council for at least the last 12 years and offers 37 business
units, multi-faith centre, nursery, dryside multi court sports hall, 2x Gyms,
professional music studio, bar with restaurants, function hall, conferencing
and meeting rooms. The Bridge Park site had a protective covenant on it, to
keep it in the hands of the community. Brent Council worked with the LB Bromley
(as successor body to the GLC) to have this removed.
Proposed Redevelopment of Bridge Park Community
Leisure Centre
See the
Brent Council Report from the Strategic Director, Regeneration and Growth and
the Strategic Director of Environment and Neighbourhoods 17th February 2014
Planning
Brent
Council have hidden the exchanges and correspondence with GMH and Brent
Council’s Planning department – Bridge Park is community used, owned and of
huge community interest. Brent council’s dealings should be made public and
particularly all related planning and pre-planning exchanges. Bridge Park
currently has more facilities than that offered by Brent in their latest
revised plan announced 1st February 2019.
Conditional Sale Agreement (CLSA)
We now
have possession of the CLSA ‘sale’ document. Brent are supposed to be Publicly
accountable – yet, Brent Council are not operating open-handedly. All key
information as to the Land sale has been removed and some 95% of pertinent
details have been redacted.
The Community have said overwhelmingly that:
•
they
do not wish for Bridge Park land to be sold to private developers
•
they
support BPCCs community vision
•
Brent
should observe the protective covenant schedule titled The Community
Project that was entered onto the original HM Land Registry Title
NLG426015 of 1982.
Brent refers to consultations held
in October/November 2017 in Harlesden and Stonebridge. Both meetings were
attended by BPCC members, the public and the press was present. The meetings
did not cover public consultation on the areas that Brent now states as the
reasons for recent changes in their latest plan. The above meetings were in
fact Brent Council officers, the Leaders and senior executives, in apparent
partnership with the developers GMH, both presenting the Vision for the future
use of the land. One contentious area was that 5% affordable housing would be
made available to the community 30 of 600 homes. The consultation session and
documents presented simply provided the community with options on how they
wanted the gym surfaces and facilities arranged, similarly same with the
planned swimming pool. The exercise was explained by Brent’s architect with the
aid of drawings laying out their proposed redevelopment of the site.
The community overwhelmingly disengaged with the consultation exercise
and demanded that Brent Council not sell Bridge Park.
The community’s restriction on the land sale
places Brent Council under extreme pressure to complete the deal with GMH
within deadline. We feel Brent Council have adopted a number of tactics to try
to get past the court process and speed up the usual court timetable. The
latest of which was an unexpected revised acceptance of our longstanding offer
of mediation, in that Brent agreed to look at mediation within the month of
February but on the terms that they would alongside, and at the same time apply
for Summary/ Strike Out hearing of our restriction. This is set for 11am 27th February 2019, at the Rolls
Building, High Court EC4. The Strike Out is a technicality to get the case
thrown out before it can be heard at a full trial, thereby rendering any
mediation before 27th February 2019, non- binding and
ineffective. We see this as Brent’s attempt to get around our accusation that
they have not made real or reasonable efforts to seek settlement ADR with us.
The
Conditional Land Sale Agreement (CLSA) puts Brent Council in some difficulty
with settlement talks, as they will likely face huge issues if they do not go
through with this commercial deal.
In
summary, Brent knew prior to the sale that the community objected to it. We
were not happy with the level and lack of consultation also there was no real
community involvement in the process. Brent pushed through with the sale of the
land and have now realised that the community effort to block any sale and our
wish to be fully involved with the process is to be taken seriously.
Their
recent plans do not address the fact that:
•
The
community does not want Brent to Sell the land.
•
Brent
should halt the sale and now fully involve the community on the use of the
land.
Brent’s
latest plan to sell would leave the community with significantly less
facilities
than that which Bridge Park currently offers.
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