The Welsh Harp Environmental Centre has been thrown a lifeline after its closure last summer. Brent Council has allocated £30,000 to repair the classrooms that are in very poor condition and were flooded during the winter.
The Council has reached an agreement with Thames 21 to run classes at the Centre from April, ahead of the May local election, Thames 21 gave up running the Centre in Summer 2025 because of the high running costs but have now agreed to return. No details have been released on the financial arrangements that would ensure viability in the future and the charges that will be made to schools. At the time of closure the charge was £5 per pupil. Primary schools across the borough are facing budgetary problems, including those caused by falling pupil numbers, so the charge will be an important factor.
A petition was launched after the closure announcement that reached 401 signatures LINK despite the fact that schools were on holiday when the campaign got underway.
The petition urged the Council:
We residents and people who work or study in Brent call on Brent Council to undertake a full scoping exercise to enable the work of the Welsh Harp Environmental Education Centre (WHEEC) with primary age children to continue. This work, which has been going on for more than half a century is even more important at a time of a climate and ecological emergency. It is imperative that the generation that will be dealing with this emergency in the future are enabled to experience and appreciate the natural world that is now under threat.
Brent Council in today's Press Release hints at a possible return to the original idea that space would be provided in the 16-25 Skills Centre planned for the site:
Brent Council is also working on longer-term plans for a larger, permanent home for environmental education at Welsh Harp where, among other things, young people with special educational needs and disabilities will be able to access a range of training opportunities, including horticulture. ·
14 comments:
Excellent news and congratulations to all those who helped campaign for this vital resouce to be kept open and yes, it needs some urgent repairs.
This is excellent news and most welcome. We need to ensure the long term sustainabilty of this vital educational centre with its indoor and outdoor facilities. Repairs are essential and we need community involvement.
This is excellent and most welcome news. A big thank you for everybody that campaigned to keep this vital educational facility open.
Wonderful news :)
Great news. Towers with direct access to nature at scale for known high levels of use. Good co-operation with Barnet needed on this.
Main problem has for too long been that the tower growth zones are not 'in the room' yet where green-blue investment decisions for bad growth/ exclusion/ anti-resilience, no-neighbourhood, placelessness, planlessness zoned are being made by Right-thinking decision makers.
£30K won't go far - £17.8 million given to a multibillion pound developer for steps outside Wembley Stadium while our vital community buildings and projects struggle!
Dont know if it helped but I sent a letter to Sir David Attenborough regarding this last year. He is always reaching out to others to teach the youth about the green natural world. This was a prime example why we should preserve this school
Another pre-election gimmick by Labour Councillors - where is the long term plan and commitment? Will all other run down Centres get £30,000 before the election in May?
? ...in the Paddington Recreation Ground which has a state of the art wetland learning centre, with its pond looking like a puddle in size compared to Welsh Harp 'we don't need no education facilities'.
Can fund/ can't fund- two London's one greenfield, one brownfield.
How true
Make Thames 21 aware of the car-free housing tower hundreds (6 borough) Great West City. Access to nature needs at mega scale for this new city, if its not to be bleak, excluded, "the worse the better."
If zonal planning became law, (the Tories tried but eventually opted for continued growth zones denial ambiguity instead). Assisted living resources would be massively concentrated to where population grow, grow, grow is being UK zoned. Welsh Harp Environmental Education Centre would be top of the funding priorities list, instead of being removed from it.
After Scotland's rejection. Starmer is minded to ditch the assisted dying bill for England.
Assisted living is what the Brent tower lord new feudal population grow, grow, grow zones certainly need. End un-care and fund a highest quality WHEEC. What's good enough for City of Westminster (already in place with future funding secured), is good enough for Brent.
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