WEMBLEY MATTERS News and views on local politics, the environment, climate change, culture and local history
Brent Planning Committee has unanimously approved the part 27 storey/part 30 storey replacement for the 2 storey Argenta House on ex-railway land opposite Stonebridge Park station.
It will form part of an urban 'island' of tall buildings next to the North Circular road and opposite the proposed development of Unisys and Bridge Park. The development, in the elbow of Wembley Brook and the River Brent, includes a 32 storey building just behind Argenta House.
See LINK
Gardens at the front of Kings Court in Kings Drive, Wembley Park
Many readers will be familiar with the flats in King's Drive, WembleyPark, next to the old Brent Town Hall, now the Lycee Winston Churchill.
I am not sure of the exact age of the flats but Kings Court and Carmel Court were there in the late 1930s when the Town Hall was built.
Now the flats and the mature gardens that surround them are due for a change. Wisestates Ltd, a small family trust, who have owned the freehold since the 1980s, are putting forward plans for 28 additional homes on the estate including extensions, homes on the garage sites and one new block.
The grounds have been better maintained recently and there are some beautiful mature trees and lawns. Wisestates say that improvements to the exisitng flats and grounds will be paid for by the new homes.
Gardens at the back - a tribute to the foresight of the original architects
The garages are shrouded in black
The disused bomb shelter appears to be on the proposed site for the new block
The extensions will be built at the back of existing blocks
The consultation with residents has only just begun. Details: www.keimprovementprogram.com
The people's Gardiner going in on Keir Starmer is👌🏼pic.twitter.com/cseRyMYGBU
— Cllr Martin Abrams 🕊️🍉 (@Martin_Abrams) November 12, 2025
My redevelopment proposal, submitted during the December 2024 consultation.
It is two years since Brent Council began an “urgent review” of its plans for the former Brent Start college site at 1 Morland Gardens in Stonebridge, after its ill-conceived and ill-fated 2020 project for the site failed, because its planning consent expired without construction having commenced. I was led to believe at the time, by the Council Officer leading the review, that new recommendations for the site’s development would be put to Brent’s Cabinet for approval by the early summer of 2024 at the latest.
Monday 10 November 2025 was the second anniversary of the letter sent to me by Brent’s Director of Property and Assets, telling me about the review. As there is still no sign of any definite proposals for the site, and its landmark heritage Victorian villa, I thought it time to send him a reminder. This is the text of my open email (with the personal names of Council Officers removed):
‘Dear [Director of Property and Assts]
Proposed Morland Gardens Development
Two years ago, on 10 November 2023, you wrote to me in response to an open letter on this subject which I had sent to Brent's Chief Executive on 31 October 2023. Brent Council's original scheme for the redevelopment of the Brent Start college on this site, which had been given the go ahead (as subsequently shown, without proper consideration) by Brent's Cabinet in January 2020, had failed when its planning consent expired at the end of October 2023, without construction having commenced.
Paragraph 2 of your letter, headed "An urgent rethink on original proposals", stated:
'We are always reviewing and updating schemes across the board as part of our usual governance arrangements, and we are doing that with even more rigour given the underlying economic conditions. Following the expiration of the planning permission, the Council is reviewing its options for the Morland Gardens site, including the Altamira building.'
[The Head of Capital Delivery] began that urgent review in November 2023. A year later, as part of the Bridge Park consultation, it had concluded that the site should be used for "affordable housing and community facilities". After further consultation, this had been refined to "affordable housing and youth facilities", an outline for the future redevelopment which Cabinet approved in June 2025.
Despite two years of review, there is still nothing in the Forward Plan to say when detailed recommendations for the Morland Gardens site will be put to Brent's Cabinet for a decision. During all that time, an architecturally and historically important local heritage building has been sitting empty, and the land behind it which could provide 25-30 much needed affordable Council homes is being left unused. That is a waste of two valuable Council-owned property assets!
Please let me know the date by which Council Officers intend to make their detailed recommendations to Cabinet for the redevelopment of 1 Morland Gardens.
Please also let me know (as some decision on this point must surely have been reached after two years of review) whether those recommendations will include retaining the heritage Victorian villa building, Altamira, as requested in the Willesden Local History Society petition which was presented to September's Full Council meeting, and supported then by councillors from across all three political parties.
I look forward to receiving your clear replies on both of those points. Thank you.’
I can’t help wondering why it should take Council Officers so long to come up with detailed proposals. Are they deliberately allowing the empty heritage building (which the Council restored in the 1990s to provide an inspiring home for the borough’s adult education students) to deteriorate, so they can claim that it can’t be saved, and must be demolished? Or could it be that they plan to recommend demolition, but their political masters don't want to make that unpopular decision in the run up to the local elections?
Whatever the reason, the delay is costing Brent Council (and therefore Council taxpayers) further money (on top of an estimated £4m for the failed 2020 project!), as well as further delaying the much needed affordable homes and youth facilities which they say they want to provide at Morland Gardens.
I’ve received an automated response to my “Service Request”, and a short email from an unidentified Officer signing themselves as “Brent Council”, advising that they hope to provide a reply by 21 November, so I will let you know what they say!
Philip Grant.
In September London saw the largest far right demonstration in the UK that attracted around 150 thousand people. This was organised by Stephen Yaxley-Lennon - aka Tommy Robinson - along with a core of hardline fascists. Violent right-wing protests against the use of dilapidated hotels and barracks to house refugees and asylum seekers have continued since. Islamophobic and racist attacks are increasing.
The right have been emboldened by Starmer and Home Secretary Shabana Mahmoud attempting to chase the tails of Reform as more draconian entry requirements are imposed that will have a major impact on all migrant communities no matter how long they have been in the UK.
Chris Bambery, author, historian and committed activist, will lead the discussion on how we can organise effective strategies to combat the right.
Join the discussion.
Book a free ticket now. HERE
Guest post by local historian Philip Grant in a personal capacity
Pete Firmin’s recent letter, Regeneration has made no difference to deprivation index in South Kilburn, reminded me that regeneration efforts for this most deprived part of Brent have been going on for more than the past 20 years, and that things could have been so much different!
A few years ago, knowing my interest in local history, my daughter gave me a copy of “The Willesden Survey 1949” (which she’d noticed in the window of a second-hand bookshop) as a birthday present. The quotations, and most of the images, in this article are taken from that book. There is also a copy of it at Brent Archives if you would like to know what the southern half of our London Borough was like then.
Despite the austerity of the years immediately after the Second World War, there was a feeling of optimism for the future. The 1947 Town and Country Planning Act gave local councils much broader powers to design better places for their residents to live, and Willesden Borough Council decided to grasp the opportunity. They commissioned their Officers to carry out a detailed survey of the borough, as it currently was, and to use that to plan for improvements.
Two maps from The Willesden Survey, showing levels of overcrowding and the condition of homes.
The Survey showed that the worst area of the Borough for both overcrowding and poor housing conditions was in Carlton Ward, part of South Kilburn. In its chapter on “Population and Housing” it reported that Carlton (South Kilburn):
‘contains the highest average density in Willesden, but in view of the vast overcrowding (in some cases as many as 15 persons in a small two-storey dwelling) this is not surprising. When this area was originally developed about 1850-60, the large four-storey houses were built and occupied by fairly wealthy tenants with large families. However, with the passage of time, the status of Carlton has declined and now the complete area irrespective of the size of the individual houses is let off as tenements, and very few houses have been structurally converted into self-contained flats.’
New Council flats at Canterbury Terrace in 1950.
Work had already begun by the time the Survey was published in 1950, and the report continued:
‘A complete redevelopment scheme has been drawn up for the majority of South Kilburn, and the redevelopment which has recently taken place on cleared war damage sites in Canterbury Terrace and Chichester Road areas forms the first stage of this Scheme. The second stage will be the general rebuilding of blighted and derelict areas. The final stage will show the complete neighbourhood replanned and rebuilt.’
One of the “blighted” areas was Albert Road, and this remarkable pair of photographs, taken on the same day in the early 1950s, shows the difference between the side which was awaiting redevelopment and the opposite side, where blocks of new Council flats had just been built.
Two sides of Albert Road, early 1950s. (From Len Snow’s 1990 book “Brent – a pictorial history”)
The “final stage” redevelopment plan by Willesden’s Borough Engineer and Surveyor was set out in this coloured map (although the eastern end had still to be agreed by Paddington Borough Council at that date):
Map showing the proposed South Kilburn Redevelopment Scheme (1949).
As part of the government’s wartime plans for post-war reconstruction, Professor Abercrombie of UCL (a leading architect and urban designer) had been asked to prepare a “Master Plan for Greater London”, which was published in 1944. His guidelines were followed in drawing up the proposals for the Scheme:
‘In the Greater London Plan standards for the allocation of land use have been determined according to the four population density zones. The area covered by the South Kilburn Redevelopment Scheme is situated within the Inner Urban Zone, for which a net density of 100 persons per acre with four acres of open space per 1,000 population is proposed.
As Paddington Recreation Ground is within easy reach of the area, the standard of 40 acres [per 10,000 people] for open space can be reduced to 30 acres and, as few main roads affect the area, the figure of 17 [acres per 10,000 people] for “main roads and parking” can be reduced to 12. This would give a total requirement of 165 acres for 10,000 population and a gross density of 60 persons per acre. As the area within the Borough proposed for redevelopment totals 67 acres, the ultimate population will be 67 x 60 = 4,020, and land use will be approximately divided as follows:-‘
Table showing the proposed land use for the South Kilburn Redevelopment Scheme (1949).
You will see on the proposals map above that there is plenty of green (with around 12 of the 67 acres allocated for open space and school playing fields). But as already mentioned, South Kilburn was the most overcrowded district in Willesden. How would the proposed Scheme house everyone already living in the area? This was what the Survey suggested:
‘In the Scheme as envisaged, flats are predominant and no allowance has been made for flats over four storeys high. The area zoned for residential purposes, including dwellings over shops and offices, amounts to 41.78 acres with a population of 4,100. These figures compare favourably with the required 40 acres for housing, 2½ acres for shops and offices, etc. and the population estimate of 4,020. The present population is estimated at 6,364 which leaves 2,264 persons to be accommodated elsewhere in the Borough, or to be decentralised to one of the New Towns.’
Map showing the “Willingness to move to a New Town” of Willesden residents in 1949.
The post-war policy of moving willing residents from Willesden to Hemel Hempstead New Town was looked at in a 2020 “local history in lockdown” article: Uncovering the history of Church End and Chapel End, Willesden – Part 3. As the map above shows, more than half of the families surveyed in South Kilburn said that they would be willing to move (as long as there were decent affordable homes and employment for them in the new town).
Employment in Hemel Hempstead for people from South Kilburn was not seen as a problem in the Survey, as many small industrial firms from the area were likely to move as well. The proposed Scheme only included one small area for light industry near Queen’s Park station, and the Survey reported:
‘The highest proportion of firms willing to move is at Carlton Vale where 50 per cent of the total number of firms, involving about 33 per cent of the employees, wish to change their location. In many cases conditions in Carlton Vale are so bad that no specific location for a new site is expressed, the sentiments of the employer being “anywhere but Carlton Vale!” Much of the area is scheduled for early redevelopment, but the area designated for absorbing present industries cannot possibly accommodate them all, and it is, therefore, from Carlton Vale that a large proportion of industrial migration will occur.’
Many firms and residents from Willesden did move to New Towns, but although the vision set out in the 1949 South Kilburn Redevelopment Scheme started well, circumstances changed, and the plans changed with them. The proposed three or four storey brick-built blocks of Council flats had been replaced, by the early 1960s, with much taller concrete-framed blocks.
Two photos showing Craik Court in Carlton Vale, under construction and
completed in the 1960s.
(Photos courtesy of John Hill)
You can read and see more about the regeneration of South Kilburn in the 1960s in another “local history in lockdown” article from 2020: Uncovering Kilburn’s History – Part 6. For the past twenty years, there has been a further regeneration programme for South Kilburn. Some of the 1949 Redevelopment Scheme buildings have so far been replaced, and some of the 1960s Brent Council blocks are still waiting to be demolished. They will make way for “new homes”, less than half of which are now likely to be for Council tenants (almost all of them existing tenants “decanted” from other blocks due for demolition).
In the late 1940s, Willesden’s Borough Surveyor and Planning Officers, working closely with elected councillors on its Town Planning and Redevelopment Committee, and using detailed survey data collected from the local community, came up with a plan for South Kilburn which may now seem like a dream. They managed to implement some of it during the 1950s, but it was never finished as they had planned it to be.
Though I don’t live in South Kilburn myself, I suspect life might have been much better there now if their Scheme had been completed!
Philip Grant.
Independents did comparatively well in the 2024 General Election, often as a result of publlic revulsion againt Labour's support for Israel's actions in Gaza. Could that be followed through in the May 2026 Council election in Brent?
Azif Zamir and James Rossi last week launched their campaign as Independents for Stonebridge with a challenge to Labour: 'Vote for Your Neighbour, Don't Vote Labour'. The campaign is based in the St Raph's Estate where Asif Zamir is a community activist. However, another estate, Stonebridge, on the other side of the North Circulart, is also part of the ward and has seen the controversy around the future of the Bridge Park Complex. Can the pair build support there, too?
There have been Independent candidates in Brent in the past, some with a particular campaign theme such as support for motorists, others with a more personal following. None have succeeded in breaking through the three party monopoly.
But the times are different, the Labour Party has never been so unpopular nationally and its local candidates were chosen by outsiders, depressing the rank and file. Brent Tories are engaged in open internal warfare and the Green Party with burgeoning numbers is preparing for its most serious campaign yet in Brent. Reform has been lurking in the shadows of our tube stations and Your Party is trying to get organised. Lib Dems have adopted a 'steady as it goes' approach concentrating on failing local services.
There have been Independents sitting on the Council previously, but these have always been as a result of suspension or expulsion from their party. John Duffy, acted as an Independent, even when a Labour councillor! However, recently, in several parts of the country, councillors have resigned from Labour to form their own Independent Group while others have crossed the floor to the Greens.
Elsewhere Residents' Associations have stood candidates but this is unusual in London, although with matters so fluid it is a possibility - the council is not popular with many such bodies.
In Brent it is likely that parties to the left of Labour (everyone but Conservatives and Reform) will be speaking to each other so as not to split the vote against Labour and unwittingly allow Reform in.
There is much to play for and interesting times ahead.
The proposed building - it will not stand alone, look carefully to the right and you will see the grey shape of another planned development
This is a better view of the densification
A reminder of the Argenta House the block replaces
A revised plan for Argenta House, opposite Stonebridge Park Station, comes to Brent Planning Committee next week. Readers may remember the floods that resuted from the blocking of the Wembley Brook that runs through the site when groundworks took place. The pilings remain but there was pause.
The new application replaces a 26 storey 141 housing unit block with a part 27 storey, part 30 storey block 180 housing units plus commercial space.
The new application qualifies for fast-tracking as it claims to be 100% affordable. 88 social rent and 92 shared ownership. The latter's qualification as affordable is debated with the Brent Poverty Commission suggesting that it is not affordable for the people of Brent in need of housing.
The site outlined in red. The River Brent continues culverted alongside the North Circular
From the Flood Risk Assessment
The overall aim of a Flood Response Plan will be to ensure that the development will not place an additional burden on the emergency services. It is envisaged that the facilities management company for the development will be required to train and ensure that Flood Wardens are available when the buildings are occupied. Flood Wardens will be responsible for implementing the requirements of the Flood Response Plans.
The objective of the Flood Response Plan would be to assist people to leave the building before the onset of flooding but if timings did not allow, safe refuge can be found in the residential homes (starting at an elevation of 41.375 mAOD, over 15m above the design flood level). The operation is summarised below:
• On receipt of a Flood Warning all occupants are warned of the risk of flooding.
• On receipt of a Flood Warning all vulnerable occupants are identified and their needs assessed.
• Vulnerable occupants are assisted to leave the building first, within two hours, followed by all other occupants.
• A register of occupants in the building is compiled following the receipt of a Severe Flood Warning.
• At the onset of flooding all members of the community are asked to remain in the building.
• No return to the building will be permitted unless it is safe to do so.
Hmm.
The Wembley Brook will be re-routed but the information is confusing. Some illustrations show the brook beside the building and others beneath.
Another confusing aspect is the 'Play Nest':
Julie Hughes, Brent's Primcipal Tree Officer makes some pithy comments in her report:
I would like to see some new tree planting as part of the proposals to ensure that equivalent tree cover is provided to the trees and vegetation that has been removed to accommodate the development.
Proposed landscaping shows some indicative tree planting in the Landscape Proposal General Arrangement Plan, seems to show indicatively around 20 trees to be planted. This does not really seem to be much for such a large building and I would expect to see more details as to species etc... I would expect to see plans which show more of a strategic approach to soft landscaping.
In the DAS the ‘Play Nest’ appears to be very green in its approach, however I am not sure exactly what is intended here. Details need to be provided to demonstrate that it would work, noting that much of the planting (including the nest and brook terraces) would be predominantly in shade. It is also not clear which of these areas has public access. It looks like ‘The Nest’ does, but not the terraces? This needs to be very carefully considered as will potentially impact quite significantly on the visual amenity of the whole scheme.
The tree strategy at 5.16 of the DAS (22) appears to be poorly thought out. We need to be sure that the trees proposed will thrive at the site. I am not sure that Beech will thrive and I am not sure that multi-stemmed Beech or Hornbeam are readily available. Given the rather sparse numbers of proposed trees, I would rather see large-canopied trees planted wherever they can be accommodated, supplemented by other trees which will establish well in the urban environment.
Two illustrations to show Argenta House in the context of the overall Wembley Point Master Plan, reemembering of course that a tall development is due on the other side of the North Circular on the Uniys site and further into the future possible tall buildings on Conduit Way LINK :
Brent Civic Centre
Guest post by The SupervoteProject. Most voting reform campaigns concentrate on Westminster. The Supervote Project works on how the voting system distorts representation at the local borough level and had some interesting findings about Brent ahead of the May 2026 local election:
The last time Brent council elections were held in 2022:-
Not much of a democracy is it?
...and it’s our dodgy voting system that is to blame!
To elect the Borough’s Councillors in 2022, residents were obliged to use an inefficient Victorian voting system known as First-past-the-post, which wasted many of the votes cast and produced a distorted result with the remainder. These are the party percentages in the Borough of Brent for 2022:-
There is something very wrong with a voting system that has the ability to award over 8 out of 10 seats to a party that has won just over 5 out of 10 votes. While Labour won a majority of votes and so should rightly take a majority of the seats, those who voted for other parties should have fair representation as well.
Moreover, drilling down to ward level reveals poor levels of representation. Brent has 22 wards each returning 2 or 3 councillors but, the way our outdated voting system works, 19 wards were monopolised by one party, no matter how people had voted. In 2 of these wards, the dominant party took all the seats on a minority of the vote, resulting in the ridiculous situation such as in Kenton Ward for example, where a minority of voters (48%) enjoyed 3 councillors of their political persuasion, while the majority of ward voters (52%) had none.
And then there is the abysmal turnout, just 31%, with Wembley Park Ward taking the wooden spoon with just 21%. Evidently, nearly 7 out of 10 Brent voters felt so disconnected with the democratic process that they chose not to vote. It doesn’t bode well for the forthcoming Borough elections in 2026; declining public interest and participation in local elections spell disaster for our democracy unless something is done.
The extent of the disparities between votes won and seats taken in English local government can be seen by visiting the 2024 edition of the “Awful A-Z of Local Election Disasters”, accessible on the home page of www.supervote.org.uk, where it is estimated that, thanks to the First-past-the-post voting system, over 4 out of 10 councils have disparities between votes won and seats taken of over 20%. On the same page, a “Top 10” of the most undemocratic local election results in May 2025 shows that there was no Reform UK landslide as the media claimed, with that party taking a majority of seats, but with a minority of the vote in all cases.
First-past-the-post is past it and continued use of this Victorian museum piece makes about as much sense as using Stephenson’s Rocket to haul trains on the HS2. The London Boroughs need to have their voting system brought up to date so that results reflect votes cast, transforming the Boroughs’ elections into a vibrant, diverse and inclusive event where there is everything for everyone everywhere to play for, whether they be voters, local party organisations or candidates.
To achieve this, the Borough needs to conduct its elections using a system of proportional representation, a type of voting system which shares out seats in proportion to votes cast. So, if Labour were to poll 6 out of 10 votes, they would be awarded 6 out of 10 seats. Our current outdated Victorian voting system does not do this.
The Supervote: the most powerful and democratic vote on Earth.
The Single Transferable Vote (STV) is the British system of proportional representation. While Continental list systems of PR are designed simply to deliver proportionality of parties, STV allows voters to cast preferences for candidates in multi-member wards, which gives them more choice of candidates and an ability to vote according to what is important to them, whether it be according to party affiliation, independence of thought, gender, culture or position on an issue. Wasted votes are minimised because in the counting, the votes are distributed among the candidates according to the expressed preferences of each individual voter, allowing votes for a no-hoper or those surplus to a candidate’s requirements to be recycled. The way the votes are counted ensures that the corporate will of the voters in the ward is reflected in the result and that seats are awarded in proportion to votes cast. STV is the most powerful vote you can bequeath to an electorate and has justifiably been described as “the Supervote”.
The Irish Republic has used STV since the 1920s. In the UK, Conservative and Labour Governments have supported STV’s use in Northern Ireland for local council, Assembly and European elections over a 50 year period. In 2007, STV was successfully introduced for local elections in Scotland, and the Welsh Senedd has passed legislation that allows local councils in Wales to use it if they so resolve. English Councils need to catch up.
Introducing STV should be straightforward even though English local governance is currently a hotchpotch of single and multi-member representation. While STV operates best in 4-6 member wards, the system can still function at a reduced level of efficiency in 1,2 and 3 member situations. This would allow for the system to be introduced immediately for all local elections pending boundary reviews for each council by the Local Government Boundary Commission for England. It would also enable all local elections to be held in one hit on the same day every 4 years, thereby saving considerable amounts of money.A new dawn for UK democracy and an end to “King of the Castle” Politics.
According to a YouGov poll last July, only 19% of respondents believed the British political system was working, while 74% believed the system to be wholly or partly broken. Maybe the problem is that all the adversarial party political punch-ups alienate most voters whose adult lives are spent trying to get along with family, neighbours and work colleagues, even those they don’t particularly like. Ordinary folk look askance at ”King of the Castle” politics, all the hate, all the posturing and the name-calling. Our politics seems to have degenerated into a round-the-clock combative sport rather than a means of considered decision-making and so we need to reform the way we go about the governance of our country. The introduction of STV should help by increasing voter participation, by breathing new life into local party politics and thereby strengthen our democracy at the grassroots. Hopefully this will in turn open the door to a new dawn for our representative democracy, leading to more consensual and less adversarial “King of the Castle” politics, with more input from people with different ideas and a better quality of decision-making as a result.
Last night 60 or so Conservative Party members attended the third stage of selections for 2026 candidates for the May 2026 Kenton ward. The move followed allegations that Harrow East MP, Bob Blackman, had intervened to secure the nomination of current councillor Michael Maurice at an earlier stage.
Last night's procedure was described as very professional and well run. In the event neither veteran Conservative Leader Suresh Kansagra nor Michael Maurice were selected, although Maurice did try and come back for another go after being voted down. 'He just didn't get the message,' a participant commented.
Cllr Sunita Hirani was re-selected and the new candidates are Sai Karthik Madabhushi, campaign head of Conservative Friends of India, and local company director Anup Patel. Madabhuhsi previously fought elections in Barnhill and Wembley Central wards.
Cllr Kansagra has many years of service, first being elected in 1998. Cllr Maurice was first elected in 2015.
An observer remarked, 'At least Conservative Party members had a say in their candidate selection.'
Credit: Imperial War Museum
The November meeting of Willesden Local History Society
Volunteer for the International Brigade. Talk by Dave Chapple.
Wednesday 12th November, 7.30 pm. Willesden Local History Society, St. Mary’s Church Hall, bottom of Neasden Lane (around corner from the Magistrates’ Court) London, NW10 2DZ.
Volunteer for the International
Brigade. Talk by Dave Chapple. The story of young Howard Andrews of
Kilburn who joined the International Brigade in July 1936 to volunteer
to fight in the Spanish Civil War against Fascism. Please visit www.willesden-local-history.co.uk for further details.
A good time to remember those who risked their lives in the fight against fascism.
Dave Chapple is a bit of a legend in his own right. He was a postman for 38 years and a trade union activist for 46 years, He has published his own library of books about socialism and socialists under the imprint Somerset Socialist Library.
BACKGROUND
