Nearly two weeks ago I took the above photograph at the entrance to PROW (Public Right of Way) Number 87 on High Road Wembley. It goes between Elizabeth House and Wembley Place and around the former Copland Fields (now the grounds of Ark Elvin Academy) and joins footpaths to the south to Tokyngton Way (also a safe cycle route from close to Stonebridge Park Station) and north to London Road and Lyon Park Avenue.
The footpath was the source of controversy as it had previously allowed Wembley residents to use the Copland Fields as open space but now has 6 ft fencing either side of the tarmacx path. An enclosure of former public land according to some campaigners.
Follow the right of way as it is now on video LINK.
Local resident Jaine Lunn got on to Brent Council when I contacted her about the blocking up. I said that I could see absolutely no work in progress and wondered what work could be taking place.
Yesterday Jaine received this somewhat surprising reply from Brent Highways Management:
Dear Jaine Lunn,
Thank you for bringing this to my attention, unfortunately we have found no records on our system of any contractor applying for a works permit or Temporary Traffic Order to close footpath PROW 87 leading from High Road to London Road, which is what should have been done legally.
However since we have no information regarding the closure or whom to contact, what we can do in the meantime is to get someone from our Enforcement Department to go to site and re-open the path to the public.
I will also suggest that the footpath in question is monitored for any unforeseen works activity, furthermore just in case whomever is responsible decides to return again.
You will be updated as soon as it gets done.
This was followed up by a further message this morning:
IRC-16547-Q0N6D2 Closed Public Footpath between Elizabeth House and Wembley Place around Coplands Fields
Thank you for your enquiry regarding the closure of the above foot path.
I requested that our Public Rights of Way officer attend the location recorded as PROW 87 regarding your enquiry.
The foot path leading from High Road to London Road was found to be closed at both ends with Heras Fencing. It has been closed for over 2 weeks without public notice, permit or Temporary Traffic Order and currently we have no idea who is responsible as there are no signage attached to the fencing.
As this is an unauthorised closure, we have passed this onto our Highways Enforcement Team to investigate further and take any action they deem as necessary.
Our urban public rights of way are as important as those jealously guarded by the Ramblers Association in more rural areas. As we move towards prioritising walking and cycling as part of much needed reduction in car journeys, and for the sake of clean air and healthy exercise, we need to protect these routes which are often of ancient origin. A map of of Brent's 16km of public rights of way is available here:
https://legacy.brent.gov.uk/gis-maps/prow-map/
9 comments:
Costa Coffee have a CCTV camera pointing in the right direction, perhaps the Council could get a look at it. To reveal the culprits.
I remember walking this footpath several years ago, when I was researching the history of Wembley House.
I hope that this Public Right of Way is opened up without delay, and action taken against the person or business which closed it off, if they can be identified.
The article mentions Copland Fields, which used to be open land the local community could use for recreation. The Wembley Area Action Plan ("WAAP"), which Brent Council adopted in 2015, included regaining public access to this land in its policy WEM 35:
'Open Space Improvements:
The council will support the enhancement and improvements of open space in the Wembley area including:
- Creation of public access to Copland playing fields;
- Creation of a new woodland walk along Chiltern Embankments;
- Semi-naturalisation of the Wealdstone Brook and the creation of a linear open space for informal recreation;
- A new pedestrian bridge across the Metropolitan, Jubilee and Chiltern railway lines to link to Chalkhill Open Space at St David's Close.'
WAAP was revoked in February 2022, when Brent adopted its new Local Plan at the Full Council meeting (which should have dealt only with its budget and setting Council Tax). The new planning policies for Wembley are included in a wide-ranging Policy BP1 Central, and this is now the "watered down" section of that policy for open space (in full!):
'Open Space and Biodiversity:
n) Supporting the re-naturalisation of the River Brent and Wealdstone Brook and its setting with increased amenity access where possible;
o) Creating a new 7-acre public park plus other pocket parks/ quality areas of public realm, as part of the Wembley Park redevelopment scheme to serve new and existing communities.'
So nothing on Copland Fields! Jaine and other local residents could rightly feel that Brent Council has let them down.
What's the betting it is the council or one of their developer friends, perhaps Tower Block knows who it is?
That map of public rights of way in the borough is several years out of date.
That was the only one I could find on the Council website. Do you have access to amore recent one?
New Brent Colonial closed it off.
Legal deterrents to colonisers are clearly weakening. In Somerset using public footpaths even in the 1990's my Dad used to always take wire cutters with him such was the hostility of landowners to keeping public footpaths public open even back then. Now denial of footpath rights is happening even in Wembley Metropolitan Centre???
South Kilburn special operation public rights denial examples……..
Higgins Developer took the entire Brent owned public square green space at Chippenham Gardens Local Centre early pandemic to use instead as their private works site for an adjacent new modern block build. So, local lack of public space access was escalated during Covid 'stay local' rules. Hoardings are finally being removed as of yesterday but locals have zero idea what the improved local public green landowner compensation now will be in this high surface water flood risk spot where several rivers meet underneath?
The same with the become pocket sized remains of former Granville Road Public Open Space, a pocket heavily invested in 2010, yet subsequently kept locked-up for over a year by Brent landowner( local protests re-opened it). In the new Brent Local Plan this re-newed green pocket becomes a housing site allocation with zero mitigation Brent planning required.
No, though even Google maps is more accurate on South Kilburn
The power of pretty not planning required illustrations, the power of revoke and move on with 'other ideas'.
We know this Brent operation style well in South Kilburn re-develop year 21.
They (Brent) were resurfacing part of the path at the London Road end where it leads to Cecil Avenue Allotments. I'm a tenant at said allotments and we received no notification of any sort about the work. Other tenants were told we couldn't use the allotments for two weeks, which there is no legal basis for in our tenancy agreements. In any case, everyone ignored it and moved the herras fence out of the way. They're finished their work now and the fences have been removed.
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