Thursday 7 November 2024

Northwick Park's development into a small town begins

 

 The development with Proyers Path at foot of image

 

The plan with  Proyers Path on the right and hospital on the left

 

The development taking shape beyond the Proyers Path hedgerow and tree belt in the park. A seasonal ditch/stream runs along the tree line.

 

The first phase of the Northwick Park development is taking shape and greeting visitors to Northwick Park Hospital using the Northwick Park Metropolitan Line station.

The development by Countryside Homes and Sovereign Network Group  housing association lies between Proyers Path in the park (line of trees at the bottom of the image) and the hospital ring road.

It is part of a much bigger one public estate project that is a collaboration between the Sovereign Network, Brent Council, NHS and Westminster University that will see the area transformed into a small town.

This post provides a photographic update for local residents on what is being marketed as Northwick Parkside.

Site entrance


There is not a lot of information on the Countryside website:

COMING SPRING 2025!

Northwick Parkside is a brand new development coming to Northwick Park!

A Joint Venture with Countryside Homes & SNG , consisting of 654 new homes and commercial facilities. This is the first stage of a major regeneration project for Brent Council.

The development will deliver a collection of 1,2 & 3 bedroom apartments and 3 bedroom houses & maisonettes.

To be kept up to date or to register your interest please email northwickparkside@countrysidehomes.com

 Construction News LINK reported at the end of October 2024:

Countryside Partnerships, a division of Vistry Group, in collaboration with Sovereign Network Group (SNG), has launched the first phase of a major regeneration project in Northwick Park, Brent.

This initial phase, part of a broader scheme, will bring 654 new homes to the area, with over half of them designated as affordable housing.

Named Northwick Parkside, the development marks the start of an extensive Northwick Park regeneration initiative, which will ultimately include 1,600 homes alongside a variety of community facilities aimed at enhancing local services and amenities.

The first phase will provide 323 affordable homes, funded in part by the Mayor of London through the Greater London Authority's (GLA) Affordable Homes Programme. These homes will be available across a range of tenures, including Social Rent, London Affordable Rent, London Living Rent, Intermediate Rent for key workers, and Shared Ownership, ensuring a broad spectrum of affordable options for Brent residents. The remaining homes in this phase will be available for private sale or rent, with revenue reinvested to support further affordable housing initiatives.

Prospective buyers can register interest in the private sale and Shared Ownership properties, which are expected to launch in Spring 2025, with construction completion anticipated between 2026 and 2028.

 There appears to be a discrepancy, in terms of the number of affordable homes, between the above and the Officers' Report at the December 2020 Planning Committee:

Affordable housing and housing mix The proposal would provide 245 new affordable homes (comprising 70 units for London Affordable Rent, 38 intermediate rent units, 26 units at London Living Rent and 111 shared ownership units). This represents 39% affordable housing by habitable room, and the London Affordable Rent units in particular would be weighted towards family-sized homes.
The applicant's Financial Viability Appraisal has been robustly reviewed on behalf of the Council and is considered to demonstrate that the proposal delivers beyond the maximum reasonable amount of affordable housing that the scheme can support.
While the overall proportion of London Affordable Rented homes is not in line with the percentage specified in DMP15, it has been demonstrated that the scheme would deliver the maximum reasonable number of London Affordable Homes, but with additional Affordable Homes delivered, lowering the levels of profit associated with the scheme. These would be delivered as intermediate rented homes, London Living Rent homes and shared ownership homes.
Whilst the overall proportion of family-sized homes do not comply with Brent's adopted or emerging policies in this respect, officers acknowledge that these requirements would further undermine the viability of the scheme and compromise its deliverability in this particular instance.

 





16 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yet another misrepresented housing project in Brent. Many of us on the Sudbury Court Estate supported the scheme that was supposedly providing hundreds of truly affordable homes.

The current offering is a travesty and offers no social rented homes at all., just a few at perhaps 60% and a few at 80% of local private landlord rents. Just have a look at the rents in the area: 1 bedroom circa £1,500pm, 2 bedroom circa £1,900pm 3 bedroom circa £2,700pm. So, even the cheapest are £900-£1,140-£1,620, the second level at 80% £1,200, £1,520, £2,160. Not exactly affordable are they. Can our nurses etc afford even £900 a month in rent, plus rates and other add ons? No!!!

Anonymous said...

Terrible, no urban space, just high rises, if it was houses, it wouldn't be so bad with gardens.no wonder the world is dying g it's just thd greed of tge developers.

Anonymous said...

I dread to think how many lives will be lost queueing for A & E when all the hundreds/thousands of new residents are accommodated.

Anonymous said...

Its called Parkside, but how strong protected from neo colonial greed is the park that this town sides?

In South Kilburn Countryside's Peel Plus car-free housing mega town development also sides a park which by Brent is not registered at the Land Registry as being the 2 ha park that it in reality is. Instead, its Land Registry registered as being 46 (separate plans/ titles for each one) Victorian house that were demolished 60 years ago to build what is Brent Kilburn's only remaining park in year 2024.

Neo colonial is car-free towers with no green, social, health, community or movement infrastructure to grow the life expectancy gap with protected hyper welfare state de-populating conservation areas- its 10 years gap now but that gap can be grown by accelerated bad growth decision-making.

"A common future based on equity" is empty Labour words at present time rather than London Population Growth Zoned Plan.

Andrew Daws said...

Why are you shocked? It’s all round the back of the hospital, so it’s not in anyone’s way

Anonymous said...

Yet another emerging White Elephant, along with all the thousands of student accommodation being built in Wembley Park and Northwick Parkview, that all rely on the over capacity Metropolitan Line and the dysfunctional Bakerloo Line. Do these thousands of student units pay council tax?

One could laugh, the persons managing and making decisions about this regeneration project because the later phases of this project will be demolishing several blocks of student accommodation with shared facilities. These units with shared facilities are from the time when nurses spent 3-5 years as low paid student nurses on site. Now we have a nursing shortage that the old system was the answer too.

Hopefully now that Towerblock Tatler has gone, this sort of mistake might stop. It is unlikely as the developers still need to make their 30% profit and the Housing Associations have to pay the Directors even higher salaries.

Anonymous said...

Didn't someone suggest that these properties were for Brent residents on the housing waiting list. What a joke, residents of Brent on the housing waiting list can't afford these properties. As we have probably realised, these properties are mainly for city workers on high salaries. They will be ideal to live in for 4 nights and then go back to their country piles at the weekend. As for the development being a Small Town, maybe in size, but it will no doubt be dead in the evening and weekends.

We warned you.

Anonymous said...

At the presentations some years ago we were told that we wouldn't see the development from the Sudbury Court Estate. Well, that was a .......... wasn't it?

Anonymous said...

High rises overlooking vital green space - typical collaboration between Brent Council and their Developer mates.

Anonymous said...

Do you think city workers on high salaries would choose to love here when they can live in much nicer areas with thriving high streets and facilities?

Anonymous said...

Did you object to the planning application?

Anonymous said...

Andrew Daws8 November 2024 at 16:05

Don’t you get it? New housing is bad and according to Anonymous8 November 2024 at 00:09 in Northwick Park will cost many lives. Stop polluting this blog with rationale common sense comments.

Anonymous said...

Policy evolves, policy is fluid, the final plan is known by only the corporatist few...
No definition of what brownfield land is in English law is pivotal to this leadership in ambiguity method, as is owner not registering plan/ title its social housing blocks at the Land Registry.

Anonymous said...

Talking of 'common sense' wonder how much of the CIL/NCIL money from this development will actually go to improving the capacity and facilties at our crumbling Northwork Park Hospital?

Or will it again be wasted on a stupid things like Quintain's vanity project steps outside Wembley Stadium - Brent Council gave multi-billion pound developer Quintain £17.8 million of our CIL/NCIL money for those steps - so money received from developers towards local infrastructure projects which are meant to help mitigate the impact of major developments was given back to the developers - even though Quintain already had the money for the steps budgeted after putting in their planning application to build the steps in 2007 - not a project that helps us residents as we either can't afford to attend events at Wembley Stadium or we just can't get tickets even though permission has now been granted for more events.

Anonymous said...

Good point about the existing hospital. Likely left to rot like St Mary's Hospital Paddington Basin Regeneration. Basin is re-developed now since year 2000, but the new hospital pledged on day one is NOT. Even in the recent budget no capital funds to get its re-build started and that's a hospital in Westminster..... What hope for massive population growth zones Brent which doesn't even strategic planning know that Britain's biggest station transport superhub (HS2/ Elizabeth Line and Great Western) is being built 500m south in need of a direct foot tunnel capital spend from Harlesden Old Town.

Population growth zones with to scale and to needs welfare state facilities and new integrated transport access infrastructure built in appropriate to car-free towering new towns.

Anonymous said...

Most of 30's Metroland suburban Brent is site-by-site, new policies plan-by-new policies plan toast, to become car-free packed in towers re-developed, but why is there no resilience planning now for how this car-free packed towers Docklands 2 will survive in a rail/ tube strike, in a pandemic, in a years rainfall happening in eight hours, in a war..... Conservation areas are so far ahead and the focus of government resilience planning.