1 Morland Gardens – Presenting petition to Full Council on Monday 15th September.

 Guest post by Philip Grant in a personal capacity

“Altamira”, the landmark Victorian villa in Stonebridge, and subject of the petition.

 

On Monday evening (15 September) I will be presenting Willesden Local History Society’s petition, calling on Brent to retain the heritage Victorian villa as part of its redevelopment of the Morland Gardens site, at the Full Council meeting. As the petition was active a few months ago, I will include a copy of what it said at the end of this article, should you wish to read it.

 

I won’t go into the detailed reasons why Brent should not demolish this beautiful and historic building here, as you can read those in an open letter to two Cabinet members in May, when it seemed likely that the petition might need to be presented at a meeting in June. That didn’t happen because Council Officers had still not decided whether or not to recommend retaining this locally listed heritage asset, even though they were supposed to have been reviewing that since November 2023!

 

Ahead of the Full Council meeting, I had written to the Mayor, who will be chairing it, last Monday, with two requests. The email was copied to the Council’s Governance Manager, who organises arrangements for the meeting and had notified the Society that it would be allowed up to five minutes to present its petition.

 

The first request was that the photograph of “Altamira”, shown above, should be shown on the small screens around the meeting hall during the presentation (with the countdown clock in a window at one corner), so that councillors and members of the public not familiar with the building could understand what the petition was about.

 

When the Governance Manager responded last Thursday (‘after discussions with the Mayor’), I was told: ‘I’m afraid that won’t be possible to arrange alongside the speech timer.’ My reply to that was:

 

‘I find it hard to believe that this would not be possible technically. It may be that the Officers controlling the screens at the meeting do not know how to do that, but if they were to ask a member of the Council's IT staff to show them how it can be done, that would improve their skill set and allow them to provide a better service to councillors at future meetings.’

 

My second request to the Mayor was for him to agree that if I gave up some of the five minutes allowed for my presentation, he would use the "spare" time to invite any councillors who wished to speak briefly on the petition, to do so. Such an arrangement would be within the Mayor’s discretion, as Standing Order 6 in Brent’s Constitution allows him to decide on how the proceedings at Full Council meetings are applied (subject to a majority of councillors not objecting to his decision).

 

Standing Order 6, from Part 2 of Brent Council’s Constitution (May 2025 edition).

 

The response I received from the Governance Manager was: ‘Whilst your request has been considered, I can confirm that the mayor intends to follow the same procedure as at previous meetings.  This will mean you having up to 5 minutes to present the petition with the Lead Member then having the opportunity to provide a brief response.’

 

There is actually nothing, in Brent’s Standing Orders regarding petitions, saying that the response to a petition will come from a Cabinet member, or excluding any other councillors from responding to one! It appears to have just developed that way [probably because the Leadership wants to keep control of the Council’s business, and to exclude the majority of the borough’s elected councillors from having a say].

 

I have to admit that the reason I was willing to give up some of the five minutes I would be allowed is that I know there are eight individual councillors, from across all three political groups on the Council, who have told me privately that they want to see the Stonebridge heritage villa retained. I had written to each of them to say that there might be an opportunity to say a sentence or two in support of the petition. [There may still be, if the Mayor changes his mind.]

 

Although I’ve heard it rumoured that the Labour Group/Council Leader enforces strict control over his backbench councillors, I was still surprised by the first reply I received from one I had written to: 

 

‘It will be difficult for me to go against the party as part of the collective responsibility that I am subject to. The decisions are made in Cabinet and so, as a back bencher I have no input. Sorry I can't be of any more help.’

 

I did reply, saying that, as far as I was aware, it was not Brent Labour policy to demolish this locally listed heritage building, and the councillor should not be afraid to express their genuine personal belief that ‘this iconic building should be saved.’

 

Another Labour councillor replied: ‘Ordinary Councillors like me are not permitted to issue independent responses unless they are explicitly supporting the Cabinet Lead Member’s position.’

 

[These replies do not reflect well on democracy in Brent, where there are 57 councillors elected to represent the views of residents in their wards!]

 

So, I will present Willesden Local History Society’s petition on Monday evening, and hope that the Cabinet Lead Member’s position (probably written for her by a Council Officer) is that they will retain Altamira, when the Council finally gets round to regenerating the 1 Morland Gardens site.

Philip Grant.

The Willesden Local History Society petition:

 

Title: Retain the heritage Victorian villa, Altamira, as part of redeveloping 1 Morland Gardens

 

Petition: We the undersigned petition the Council and its Cabinet, when considering the regeneration of 1 Morland Gardens, as part of the Bridge Park / Hillside Corridor proposals, to retain the beautiful and historic locally listed Victorian villa, Altamira, as part of the redevelopment of that site for affordable housing and youth facilities. The 150-year-old landmark building is part of the original estate which gave Stonebridge Park its name, and its sense of place can be an inspiration to local young people who would use it, while there is plenty of space behind the Victorian villa to build a good number of genuinely affordable homes.

 

Background Information: Between 1872 and 1876, the noted Victorian architect, Henry Kendall Jnr, developed an estate of middle-class homes on a field beside the Harrow Road, just to the west of Harlesden. He called the estate Stonebridge Park, and that was the origin of the name for the area which grew up near it.

 

Although there are other late 19th century houses in Brent which are described as being of Italianate style, numbers 1 and 2 Morland Gardens, originally “Altamira” and “Hurworth”, are the only surviving examples with distinctive belvedere towers. Seen from the crossroads at the top of Hillside, and with the trees of the community garden in front, they provide one of the best streetscape views in the area.

 

“Altamira” remained as a private house until around the time of the First World War, then became a members’ club for many decades. In the 1990s, this beautiful Victorian villa was chosen by Brent Council, and sympathetically restored and extended, with funding from Harlesden City Challenge, to become the home of the Brent Adult and Community Education Service, in an inspirational Stonebridge setting.

 

In 2018, it was decided to upgrade the facilities for what is now the Brent Start college, and an architect was chosen, through a competition, with experience of combining heritage and modern buildings. Sadly, at an early stage, a planning officer wrongly advised that the locally listed building could be demolished, without taking into account Brent’s adopted heritage planning policies or the heritage significance of the Victorian villa.

 

As a result, the scheme which was given the go-ahead by Brent’s Cabinet in January 2020, and received planning consent later that year, despite numerous valid objections, would have seen the heritage asset demolished and a new concrete building of up to ten storeys constructed over the site and the adjacent community garden, providing a new college facility and 65 homes.

 

That scheme saw a number of problems, because of mistakes that had been, and continued to be made by the Council and its Officers, and even though an award was made for the first stage of a two-stage design and construct contract in the summer of 2022, no actual construction had begun on the site when the planning consent expired at the end of October 2023.

 

A review of what to recommend for the future of the 1 Morland Gardens site was begun in November 2023, and a year later the outline of “affordable homes and community facilities” was included as part of a large consultation exercise on Bridge Park and the Hillside Corridor. The second consultation in March 2025 has refined this further to “affordable homes and youth facilities” for 1 Morland Gardens, but without giving any indication over whether Council Officers will recommend retaining the heritage building, “Altamira”, as part of their proposals.

 

This locally listed Victorian villa is a much loved and much valued part of the Stonebridge streetscape, and this petition has been set up by Willesden Local History Society so that people who live, work or study in Brent can express their support for it to be retained as part of the Council’s latest proposals for redeveloping 1 Morland Gardens.