Tower blocks replacing CNWL Wembley Park building
Medium rise and high rise blocks on CNWL Dudden Hill site
Despite having doubts regarding the amount of affordable housing, lack of amenity space and fears of flooding (Wembley Park) and shared ownership and shading nearby 2 storey homes (Dudden Hill) members of Brent Planning Committee unanimously voted for the redevelopment of the College of North West London (CNWL) sites at Wembley Park and Dudden Hill.
They were told that plans for a new college building in a prime site off Olympic Way could not go ahead without approval of both applications because the developments held fund the college building. Promises of viability reviews at various stages of the process of development looked promising for increasing the number of affordable homes at first (just 69 social rent homes out of 1,000 at Dudden Hill) but later looked very unlikely when they were told the costs for the college new build could rise.
No one asked if a less expensive option than prime site Olympic Way had been considered for the college. Brent Council arranged a loan for United Colleges (merged CNWL and City of Westminster College) to enable the redevelopment project at Wembley Park to go ahead.
A review of intermediate tenures other than shared ownership, generally considered not affordable, was agreed along with a £149,500 contribution to bus service enhancement at Wembley Park. Again at Wembley Park, the developer will pay £100,000 towards improvement of nearby open spaces as little amenity space is offered on a constrained site. There will be road layout changes and crossing enhancements and possibly a CPZ at Dudden Hill and Denzil Road.
The Planning Committee waas chaired by Cllr Saqib Butt in the absence of Cllr Matt Kelcher while his brother Cllr Muhammed Butt (Deputy Leader and lead member for housing, regneration, planning and growth) looked on from the public gallery.
New CNWL campus on the corner of Olympic Way and Fulton Road
The twin developments will add many homes to Brent Council's target and there will be a new state of the art FE college, but there will be nagging doubts, not least in some councillor's minds, about whether a better deal could have been possible in terms of homes affordable for the many on Brent's housing list.
12 comments:
Brent meets the new home building policy target, while Richmond needs to build 13 times what it currently builds- this the government's policy hope. Yet a policy hope still totally undermined by there being no definition in English law of what brownfield land or greyfield land is? So, Brent will continue to policy exceed, while Richmond will continue to contibute nothing until lawmakers finally legal define what brown and grey land is for developers.
Leasehold and Planning Act, loopholes removed and then enacted by Labour so that these future homes can each be owned, including by council and housing associations.
https://glaplanningapps.commonplace.is/planningapps/24-1841
https://glaplanningapps.commonplace.is/planningapps/24-1804
London needs to steer well clear of serf borough and citizen borough segregationism. Good Growth only 2025 onwards.....
There is a Brent Councillor called Anton Georgiou who is actually concerned about the amount of tower blocks being built within this borough.
All Brent councilors should be concerned about the 6 borough West London Tower Hundreds City that is to be car-free flats rather than houses and few in Brent can have 'ownership' of towers such as these. With the countryside brigade in full swing now, maybe its high time for Labour in power to talk tower 'sky houses' packed in and their priority need for welfare state infrastructure baked in? Growth Brent can easily win this civil equity/human rights issue but its councillors and MPs need to wake up and start to represent.
Population growth is the national economic plan/ population as global wealth and global reach, but how does that growth live car-free tower housed in a high quality well planned for way?
It was very pleasing to hear councillors on the Planning Committee talking about Social Housing numbers at last.
Can see the new family houses greyfield estates being full welfare state infrastructured by Labour as the deal, but the Great West London Sky Houses Tower City? Its still being undeclared as happening is the big clue.
1/3rd of councils don't have Local Plans, by July 2025 they must have.No West City Plan, yet Regional and National Planning Policy maps proritise de-population conservation areas which are all fully mapped in already Local Plan or no Local Plan. Population Growth zones mapping being very patchy with many ghostings, omissions and obfiscations.
Towers of houses or vertical suburbs for Labour brownfield first policy. Lets get all of that infrastructure needed started!
https://www.brent.gov.uk/planning-and-building-control/listed-buildings-and-conservation-areas
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