Guest post by local historian, Philip Grant, in a personal capacity
Altamira, the beautiful Victorian villa at 1 Morland Gardens in Stonebridge.
Last month, I wrote a guest post asking you to sign the Willesden Local History Society petition, calling on Brent Council and its Cabinet to retain Altamira, the 150-year old Italianate-style Victorian villa in Stonebridge, as part of its forthcoming plans for redevelopment of the former Brent Start college site at 1 Morland Gardens. That petition is still open, until 26 May, and if you haven’t signed it yet I would encourage you to do so, please. You can do that HERE.
The Local Democracy Reporter for our area wrote an article about the petition, which was published online on MyLondon, but for some reason has not been published by the Brent & Kilburn Times (nor was a letter sent in by the Society’s Secretary published – strange when that is the local newspaper for Brent!). As part of his research, he asked Brent Council whether they still planned to demolish the locally-listed heritage building, as they originally proposed in 2020. The answer he received was ‘we don’t know yet.’
That seems very odd, as Brent has been carrying out a review of its future plans for the Morland Gardens site since November 2023! Were they just covering themselves, as no formal decision has yet been made by Brent’s Cabinet? Or do they think that it should be retained, but are not sure whether those in power at the Civic Centre will still insist that it should be demolished, as that would allow more homes to be built on the site?
I’ve been told that the Cabinet’s decision will be made on 16 June, although there is no mention of this in the Council’s Forward Plan. It will apparently be part of the report on “The Future of the Bridge Park Community Leisure Centre” (which comes under Public Health and Leisure). The history society should be able to present its petition to the Cabinet meeting, but my experience from May last year, on another heritage matter, suggests that decisions are taken before petitioners have a chance to have their say!
I wanted to make sure that two key Cabinet members had the facts about the heritage building, and Brent’s official heritage policies, before that decision is made, so I sent them the open letter below (the email sending it was also copied to the Cabinet member for Public Health and Leisure, and the three Stonebridge Ward councillors). I hope that good sense prevails, but unfortunately that is not always the case in Brent!
Philip Grant
2 comments:
FOR INFORMATION:
I received an automatic acknowledgement from Cllr. Benea, but Cllr. Donnelly-Jackson did send me a brief email, in response to mine sending her the open letter:
'Dear Philip
I acknowledge receipt of your email. Thankyou for writing in. I will ensure you are provided with a response to the concerns you raise.
Kind regards
Fleur
Cllr Fleur Donnelly-Jackson
Roundwood Ward
Lead Member for Housing & Resident Support'
I sent her the following reply on 9 May, with a copy to Cllr. Benea:
'Dear Councillor Donnelly-Jackson,
Thank you for your prompt reply to my email and open letter.
Council Officers are fully aware of my "concerns", and I hope they will respond by recommending a redevelopment scheme for 1 Morland Gardens which includes retaining the locally-listed heritage building. I am sure that whoever presents the Willesden Local History Society petition to Cabinet will happily support such a recommendation!
My main reason for making you and Councillor Benea aware of the background facts about the Victorian villa is that Officer reports rarely contain that much relevant detail, which can give a false impression and lead to bad decision-making.
That is what happened with the Report to the January 2020 Cabinet meeting, when the original Morland Gardens scheme was approved. It was presented as an Education project, for a new state-of-the-art Brent Start college and Council housing. It concentrated on what a wonderful job Brent Start was doing, with only a brief reference to issues which it seemed to treat as minor technicalities, but which proved to be fatal flaws that meant the project would fail.
Those potential problem areas were ill-considered, and because the then Cabinet members were not given the full picture, they did not question Officers about them. They were presented with a recommended scheme that seemed really good, so they approved it, but it turned out to be too good to be true.
Unfortunately, it was not just the Morland Gardens plans that failed. Because the scheme also involved transferring Brent Start to a "temporary" home at Twybridge Way (which cost at least £1.2m to prepare, rather than the 500k quoted in the Report) it blocked a 70 home Council housing project at that site, which received full planning consent in May 2020. Without the flawed January 2020 Morland Gardens decision, that Stonebridge Phase 2 "New Council Homes" scheme could have been completed and occupied by now.
It is important that Brent Council gets its Morland Gardens plans right this time. As the two Cabinet members with the closest responsibility for it, I hope you will take on board the information set out in my open letter to you. Thank you. Best wishes,
Philip Grant.'
It's a side issue, but sadly the so-called Letters page of the Kilburn Times is one of the most hopeless bits of what is now a generally hopeless paper. Perhaps we should petition the Camden New Journal (a very good newspaper) to start a Brent edition. (They already seem to have Westminster and Islington editions.)
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