The four houses proposed for Barham Park
A petition to safeguard Barham Park from development ends on April 15th 2025. The text below is self explanatory. If you wish to sign the petition got to the Brent Council website HERE.
We the undersigned petition the council to listen to local residents, users and supporters of Barham Park and for the Barham Park Trust and Brent Council to respect the wishes of Titus Barham who gifted his home and gardens for our recreation, by upholding the Covenant which prevents the building of extra houses on the site of 776/778 Harrow Road and to continue to refuse any attempts to modify or discharge the restrictive covenants to increase the numbers of homes on the site of 776/778 Harrow Road. The two cottages were built for the purpose of housing park keepers (gardeners and other staff) working in the Park and not to provide general housing. As the existing houses have not been used for that purpose for years we the undersigned feel there is a valid argument for their removal and for the park land to be reinstated with no valid justification to expand the number of houses from 2 to 4.
The original Covenant was put in place by the Barham Park Trust Committee in 2011 (when the two cottages were being sold with the aim of generating match funding for a National Lottery Heritage Grant) with the clear intention of protecting Barham by NOT allowing the building of more houses or extensions on the existing site. The buyer of the two houses was fully aware of this and willingly signed and entered into the Restrictive Covenant. Any attempts by the appointed Trustees to modify or discharge the restrictive covenant will go against the original aim in seeking to protect the site for the benefit of local people as opposed to the enrichment of a selected individual/family.
4 comments:
Brent Council need to know how much protecting Barham Park means to the Wembley community.
There are already over 250 signatures on the petition, and I hope that the number will be at least double by the time of the Scrutiny Committee call-in meeting on 3 April.
If you agree with the petition, but have not signed it yet, please use the "link" above to go to the petition page and add your name. It will only take a couple of minutes.
If you have family or friends in Brent who may also feel that this historic Wembley park should be protected, please share the "link" to this blog with them. Thank you.
Thank You to everyone for YOUR support for Barham Park if you have already signed. It is already the Petition with the highest number of supporters on the Council Petition site.
BUT as Philip Grant correctly says we need more - so please email the link to all your friends to make them aware of the need to protect the Titus Barham gift to the people of Wembley and urge them to sign and share on.
If Brent Council were trying to get a match funding lottery grant in 2011 to match the funds received from the sale of the two houses why were the two houses sold off at an auction that none of us local residents knew anything about??? Surely the council could have got more than £620K for both houses if they had been sold on the open market???
Did Brent get the match funding lottery grant??? What has all the money been spent on???
To answer your questions:
1. Because of the restriction on expanding the building on the site there was not much interest at the asking price at the time. The two cottages needed money spent on them to make them useable as homes again. George Irvin claimed that he bought them to protect his Fun Fair arrangement with Brent Council.
2. The Council messed about for too long and the opportunity to get Heritage Lottery Funding was lost as the rules had changed.
3. Far too much of the money was wasted on surveys and consultants with ideas - such as a pond and viewing platform being ditched. More recently £20,000 was wasted on the latest ideas for shops and hotel rooms currently occupied by existing charity users. No one bothered to check if they could get vacant possession - which they cannot until 2031 - so another pointless exercise.
Sadly the affairs of the Barham Park Trust have been badly mis-managed for years and large amounts of money wasted by Council appointed Trustees who are out of their depth and have no understanding or much interest in Barham Park and its history and importance to the people of Wembley.
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