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
32 comments:
Why do the new houses proposed not match the existing brick building? Why do they look like boxes?
Totally agree, cheap a nasty looking new buildings - why can't they match the style of the existing buildings??? There is no class anymore and these new builds will surely not last as long as the existing buildings.
The proposed buildings look bad because they are, they are cheap and nasty little boxes.
Permanent development is the risk here. Another job for Higgins perhaps? Our Labour Lords would no doubt love to tower it all and have done.
Agree, the original does look great quality brickwork and amenity spaces look way more cared about than even the newest blocks in SK.
I looked into buying a flat there last year. The management fees are high compared to what is offered.
The original wall belonging to Kings Court all along Forty Lane looks disgusting as it’s broken with large loose bits of bricks & concrete regularly falling onto the pavement where people have to pass. This is extremely dangerous, why haven’t the owners of the land addressed this? Trying to save money I assume & having no regard for public safety. It’s a disgrace & an eyesore.
Just buiild it and get on with it. modernity awakens !
New feudalism more like
So, the modern way of living to you is: To live in a shoebox in the sky, with high levels of air pollution, excessive road and rail noise levels, and flooding around the building. Of course that ignores the fact that the waterway around the building is polluted with human effluent. Who are you YIMBY fools?
To "Anonymous13 November 2025 at 16:30" who said "Just buiild it and get on with it. modernity awakens!" perhaps you'd like to clarify exactly where you live? Bet it's not in a flat like this or a tower block?
Modernity was how old South Kilburn Estate was planned 50's to 70's with so much new welfare state infrastructure investment including a 2ha new neighbourhood central park. Why this neighbourhood was then defunded to become permanent development zone/ brownfield land from 1979 to 2025 is a political decision.
Towers only is not modernity, it is very much post and at animal rights level in these population growth zones of precarity/ the worse the better by political design. Remains astonishing that Labour is so post, so inequalities and zoned city driven in its actual policies. No change.
The directors of 'Wisestates Ltd, a small family trust' are in fact directors of over a 100 plus property companies, with links to the one of the largest residential property groups in the country.
We, a mixture of residents and leaseholders have been discussing these issues for so long and I personally have had enough, do not want these works to go ahead until the design concepts fit those of the other buildings onsite and other demands are met.
We, a mixture of residents and leaseholders have been discussing these issues for so long and I personally have had enough, do not want these works to go ahead until the design concepts fit those of the other buildings onsite and other demands are met.
The site has been underfunded for years all because one leaseholder owns the majority of the flats and has not paid his service charges, and we are forking out to cover this and face raised service charges because of this; it's a disgrace.
We have homeless people breaking into the garages; we have drug dealers hanging about in the buildings; the police turn up in their highly noticeable vehicles, and now a security team that turns up every now and then, and now schoolchildren trashing the site after they finish school, as what was once a stunning estate has been let go.
We have parking control companies coming around and ticketing vehicles for obstruction but leaving their own vehicles blocking driveways and parking in the middle of the roadways on-site, and they've been told that the management has said that this is fine.
We have very noticeable brickwork faults around the site around windows and very large cracks going up the brickwork, which is a strong sign of subsidence. We told the caretaker about the cracks in the walls, and he has said this has already been reported to the management, and yet nothing has still been done about this.
Every time we speak to the caretaker about things needing to be prepared, he always tells us that its already been reported and that the management are aware and yet nothing seems to be getting sorted, unless its to do with the intercoms... even the pavement slab that is a serious health and safety issue on the kings court side car park has been broken now for over a year and not replaced, again its already been reported and I know this is true as I saw contractors looking at this once and asked them if there fixing it and they said they are just here to quote, as it requires extensive works due to how and why it keeps constantly breaking and that there are a number of repairs they need to quote for, but don't think they will get them as the management is favouring low costing and cheap quick repairs over permeant ones, wasting our money twice or more.
My friend lives in the block next door to me also, and the window on the communal lobby has been broken for many years, and rather than replace the window for a brand new PVC one, all they did was cut out a piece of glass and splodged silicone all around it to cover it up.
I looked inside the room for this once as the door was open, and it was just filled with black mould and shredded ceiling paper because of the window allowing damp.
As others have said, the front brick walls are in terrible condition to this day and still not been repaired; however, I don't think they should be repaired and think that if the owners care about their new development, first the site should be properly fenced off.
Currently Carmel Court does not have a fire alarm system in any of the buildings; I just wanted to point that out there as another basic life support system not in place. If the fire brigade came and inspected these buildings, I'm afraid we would all be moved out, and honestly, I don't know how the building's insurance covers this site.
on one of the buildings, and this is where I first met our new caretaker, as I was really impressed with the equipment he was using but questioned why it was needing to be done in the first place, but the entire basement of that building was flooded, and he was pumping out the water, and I asked him what had happened here, thinking something had just happened, but the water absolutely stunk and had clearly been left for some time, and he said that repairs will probably need to be done here, as this is most likely a mixture of groundwater and faulty pipes, but you can clearly see down there that this room is unfit for whatever it is and needs major work, but
again, no fences or construction works have gone up other than some new railings and a replaced box thing.
The caretaker even replaced a section of bricks around the door of the basement roof as the water was leaking straight through the cracks and back in the basement due to it not flowing into the drain correctly and mentioned he done this free of charge as someone else was meant to do this, but done it in the wrong location and was fed up of waiting, he even painted it to match the base of the building out of his own pocket and I offered to pay him for it again and he said its fine, it should come out of the service charge, not just yours and said I would even complain to the management about this so hes paid for it and he said honestly please don't worry about it, but was polite and thanked me for this.
Its a shame that he is not used more as we think the site could look amazing, as when we have spoke to the gardeners who I talk to when walking past, apparently he does a lot of works privately and for some large entertainment venues also and does a lot of multi-trade works including gardening himself.
The paths are terrible and have only just been cleaned again, thanks to the caretaker. Granted, this is being done at extra cost by him privately, but I'd rather have someone that cares and takes pride than what we are getting at the moment.
I've lived here for so long, and it's really upsetting how this site has literally sunk from poor management or just one poor director that has taken this property with him and underinvestment from the property owners who claim they are a small family trust, but I seriously doubt that. Soon, if they don't spend money fixing the site, then they will most likely spend that money on claims and then have no money to repair anything at all.
Even when we speak to the gardeners, they have amazing ideas on how the garden spaces can progress, but they can't afford to raise their costs to reflect this, as they are scared they will lose the contract to someone who "can do it cheaper", and that is what is destroying a lot of our estate and probably others also. I would rather have quality and something that will last longer than the cheapest quote available.
I have written this out of anger, as even tonight and the early hours of this morning we have had people who don't live here run through our building shouting and smoking weed downstairs. I fell over the pathway at the front door because I couldn't see the step because our front entrance light was not working, and there was also a homeless man urinating at the entrance on my way out, and I am fairly certain I am covered in it when falling over.
If anyone from the management company or freeholders is reading this, please get your act together.
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