Details: https://www.willesdengreensurgery.nhs.uk/new-hub
Letter to The Editor regarding the proposed Health Hub in Gladstone Park, Willesden Green
We are a group of concerned residents living close to Gladstone Park.
In March some (not all) of the residents in the neighbourhood were informed of plans to demolish an existing building and build a new integrated GP practice called the Health Hub inside the boundaries of the park, next to the new children’s playground. The developer’s plans also provide for a community hall, wellbeing studios, a pharmacy, a cafe, toilets, a food truck and even a padel court.
As you can imagine, people jumped at the idea of having these new facilities in the park. The developers got the endorsement of the Friends of Gladstone Park group by promising them a communal space to be included in the scheme.
However… As is often the case with private enterprises, we have not been told the whole story, but rather only what we wanted to hear.
If we remove our rose-tinted glasses and look at the proposal in detail, it becomes abundantly clear that this new complex is in the wrong place, will not serve the people that it claims to serve, and will have devastating consequences for our beautiful park and the quiet character of our neighbourhood.
We were told this new building would be a GP practice built to serve the local community within 10 minutes walk from the site. But in reality the catchment area will be much larger and the scope considerably more ambitious:
- The practice is to meet the needs of major planned developments as far as Church End, Neasden and Staples Corner. Not so local anymore!
- The number of patients is currently planned to be 20,000 but it can grow exponentially (the GP practice which is to be housed there grew from 3,800 patients in 2018 to 15,000 today).
- It will not only be a GP practice, but also 'co-locate GP services with neighbourhood health, mental health, housing, and social care teams'.
Why are they placing all these facilities inside a park?
The park is for recreational activities and quiet enjoyment of nature. This development will increase the footfall tenfold, when the park is already plagued by constant littering, anti-social behaviour and the danger of speeding electric bikes.
And how will people in need of health or social services be able to easily reach it from Church End, Neasden and Staples Corner? The developers propose the 226 bus. Whoever has used that line can attest it is unreliable and highly susceptible to local traffic congestion.
Gladstone Park is designated Metropolitan Open Land, which affords the highest level of protection from development. But the developers have told us there is no other viable site in the surgery’s catchment area to fulfil their needs, therefore an exception is to be made. They say that the site has to be owned, as well as partially funded, by the council and then leased for a peppercorn because of ‘the unaffordable cost of private land’.
If the council makes this concession for one particular GP surgery, why shouldn’t other GP practices also demand more protected land and £2.97m CIL (Community Infrastructure Levy) money for their own ambitions?
It is, surely, a dangerous precedent.
There is a similar project, the GP Super Surgery in Wembley, run by Wembley Park Medical Centre and serving around 25,000 patients. It was recently built by Quintain real estate in their new Repton Gardens building development, placing health services inside the new growth areas.
With the flurry of new developments happening or going to happen in the neighbourhood (10,500 new homes according to the Brent Cabinet Report) and property developers maximising their profits by building new luxurious flats without supplying the minimum amount of social housing, why is the council not securing a more suitable location for the surgery in one of those developments? Or nearer to the patients who need these services most!
Why are Brent Labour cabinet members and the Leader so casually willing to sacrifice a chunk of our beautiful, protected local park?
Brent Council can and should do better.
Yours faithfully,
A group of concerned residents
58 comments:
Great letter which actually underplays all the concerns of local residents.
In one breath it's a low key relocation of a neighbourhood GP. In the next breath it's a comprehensive hub which serves a population from Brent Cross to Church End.
Those behind it have shown incredible disregard to the neighbours who are set to have a hideous eyesore on their doorstep. Served by one suburban bus, with no parking onsite except for a Food Truck(?)
Industry practice sees a viable business case for 80% capacity and there are 12 consultation rooms, operating 10 hours per day over a 6 day week. So not only are we losing park space, we are gaining a health centre without the infrastructure to support it.
Next to a children's playground.
Those behind it referenced mental health services being part of the offer, quickly attempting to backtrack when asked if they had carroed out a community risk assessment.
Brent have sold MoL in a cosy deal with a hostile developer. This isn't a friendly family GP, it's a private business. And to use CIL in the process is shameful dereliction of Brent's duty.
Here's hoping the Mayors office sees this for what it is and refuses permission as they did when the secondary school was attempted on the MoL in the very same park.
What on earth? “Friends of gladstone park” supported this? With ‘friends’ like that who needs enemies. I suspect that is because the local cllrs are involved with it
Friends of Gladstone Park are a Labour front group. Cllr Liz Dixon is admin for the facebook group of the name. Ex labour mayor Lia Colcaccio is an admin and Cllr Tariq Dar attends.
We the real community need the support of Greens and Lib Dem Cllrs to save our park
Dear resident,
Thank you for your letter. I would like to correct a number of factual inaccuracies.
- Parkland: No green parkland is being sacrificed. The proposed facility would be located on the brownfield footprint of the existing pre-war Gladstone Centre, not on open green parkland.
- Catchment: No resident was ever told this would be a "10-minute walk" practice — that figure does not come from us or from any engagement material. A one-mile catchment is a normal catchment for a primary care facility, equating to approximately a 15–20 minute walk. Parts of Neasden, Church End and Staples Corner are within one mile of the Gladstone Centre, so it is not accurate to suggest these communities are unrelated to the local area.
- Funding and precedent: The £2.97 million of Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) funding is for the community element of the scheme, including the new community hall, kitchen, wellbeing studios, toilets and associated community facilities. The latest projected costings show that the CIL funding is not paying for the healthcare space. There is therefore no precedent being set for GP Practices receiving CIL funding.
- Ownership: The freehold will remain entirely owned by Brent Council. The leasehold will not be owned by a private company. The healthcare space lease will sit with the local GP partnership and be subleased to the NHS, while the community space lease will sit with a local charity. In other words, the freehold and leasehold interests will sit with Brent Council, a local charity, the local GP partnership and the NHS — not with a private company.
The GP partnership consists of seven local GP partners, all of whom live in Brent. It is not the commercial, profit-extracting entity implied in the letter. The partnership is contributing over £5 million of capital towards the scheme to secure the long-term future of local NHS general practice and to provide modern healthcare and community facilities for local residents and staff. Based on the current financial model, no financial return is anticipated for over 30 years.
I completely understand that residents will want reassurance about any proposal affecting Gladstone Park. However, it is important that the debate is based on accurate information.
Although this letter has been published anonymously, I would be very happy to meet in person to discuss the plans, funding and costings in detail and answer any questions using the underlying figures.
Muhammad Najim
GP Partner, Willesden Green Surgery | NHS Brent Clinical Director | NHS West and North London ICB Board Member | Lifelong Brent resident
Who are the committee for Friends of Gladstone Park and when is their next meeting? We must call on them to resign
And once the site in the park has been bult on, it will make it a brownfield site with the potential for housing to be built on it - wake up and stop this now!!!
Community space = parties on the weekend
There's no cap on the maximum numbers of patients the hub can have.
So will there be a new planning application submitted in the near future for an extension to the hub, using more park land?
According to google, GP partners receive from the NHS £130.07 per weighted patient per year. That's roughly £130,000 for every 1,000 patients. That's £2,600,000 for the 20,000 patients the surgery is expecting. No financial return anticipated for the next 30 years? With a peppercorn rent?
Najim, it is within the footprint of the park and designated for recreational use. Go build your service nearer the population you want to help in staples corner somewhere. Shame on you. The site should benefit Gladstone park users
The presentation to residents said We serve a hyper-local area. Are Neasden, Church End and Staples Corner hyper- local to the proposed location?
We dont want your busy hub there, or people with substance and mental health problems encouraged to come next to a childrens playground. we want recreation facilities there only.
A one-mile catchment to include Parts of Neasden, Church End and Staples Corner are within one mile of the Gladstone Centre… how will they get there? You are going to increase traffic to a calm area. Where children cross and play. This is bad for the environment. Where are the green councillors
Dear Dr Najim,
That letter is right.
The Gladstone Centre is part of the park. It is not something to just be given away. Indeed, according to the Brent Council Cabinet Report (Nov 2025) it could be repurposed for £410,000, and then we would have a modest community hall, toilets, a cafe and changing rooms for the sports fields. Brent can find £130,000 for a small playground. Is £410,000 really unachievable? Cheaper than Brent contributing £3m of our money to your megahub. Shouldn’t the GP and the NHS be funding our health services anyway?
Your “engagement material” certainly gave the impression the hub would be lovely and local. The WGS Health Hub website “shareable FAQ document” shows a circle with a “10 min” walk radius from the hub. This is next to the words “Residents will have shorter journeys (those words in bold) to their nearest GP”. This was posted out to residents. Your PowerPoint slides for the public meetings said you “serve a hyper-local area”.
But finally, on 30 March, you added the 1.5 mile catchment to FAQ 9 of your website. That was 2 days before the consultation closed. How many people saw that?
People do not know that the Hub is essential infrastructure to meet the needs of a growing local population, including residents in the borough’s most disadvantaged areas and those from the major developments in Church End, Neasden Stations, and Staples Corner “growth areas”. (Brent Cabinet Report Nov 2025). Sorry but this is not local.
It is not a 20 minute walk. Maybe some of your patients will be unwell or simply less mobile? Most of your patients will need to take two buses. Or drive if they can.
WGS has not 7, but 9 GPs, “seven from the Najim family”, according to the WGS website. Whatever the funding for the development’s remaining £5m, the truth is that WGS (which is a business, whether a partnership or a company) gets £3m public money, a long lease on prime land and has no rent to pay. For this WGS has jammed in some wellness sweeties - as if aerobic ladies in their sports bras and skimpy shorts will be mingling with your patients in the GP waiting room/cafe combo?
Once part of the park has been given away, there’s a precedent isn’t there. To repurpose more unmanaged bits of the park. Or turn this bit into flats in afew years time. In the pre-application submission papers it says “Phase 1”. What is Phase 2?
Shouldn’t people have primary healthcare where they live? Shouldn’t the “single point of access” to “neighbourhood health, mental health, housing and social care teams” (Brent Cabinet again) be near to people that need these services? Hasn’t anyone thought that it might be better to have a more modest hub in Neasden/Church End, and a second in Staples Corner/Cricklewood, rather than a huge concrete thing in a park, that takes two buses to get to and two buses to get home again.
Health on the High Street! Or at the bottom of the fancy flats popping up everywhere! Kiddies, oldies, lovers, joggers and dogs in the park! Everyone happy.
Yours,
Another concerned resident
its already built on....another un-informed misleading comment (like most on WM).
I respect Dr Najim, but his claim that I or other living near Staples Corner would find it easy to access the new centre is nonsense. It’s a two or three bus route ride, including the dire 226 which runs when it feels like it. It isn’t àn easy walk especially for older or those with walking issues. And in winter, it would mean walking through the park in the dark, which some are reluctant to do. The parking provision is ludicrous. And bus fares cost money, which is hard for low income families.
If this is to serve deprived communities it needs to be IN the community it serves. So, this isn’t nimby, it’s yimby. Or if you like, you’re putting it in the writ backyard.
As to the park, Brent wanted to build housing on that site. I had meetings with them some years ago. This is scope creep. The building is taller and bulkier than the wartime ones it would be replacing. It’s within the park MOL envelope too. Anyone remember the free school proposal?
I repeat. Let’s have these facilities in the growth areas they’re supposed to serve. Include them in the new builds and tower blocks, such as the cnwl development and make developers pay.
Brent had plans to build housing on the site as part of their estate infill scheme. I met with Brent officers about it.
Maybe they go to that GP and are trying to be nice and helpful (with our park). And/or are card-holding Labour members trying to stay in with Labour
Women (and girls) cannot walk through that park at dusk or dark. Men can; women can’t. Lucky us.
And that’s BEFORE we bring people from out of the area, into the area, for the hub’s “services”
226 bus is a single decker bus that is severly impacted by Wembley Stadium events and always hugely busy - these developers and the Brent Council Leader in their ivory towers have no idea at all what its like to travel on poor local transport, especially if you are ill, elderly or disabled!!!
Developers shoild be providing the space for these surgeries within their developments.
I can understand why the Business Manager of the Willesden Green Surgery, Dr Muhammad Najim, is promoting so hard a project which will allow his surgery to continue the exponential growth it has enjoyed over the last few years. Still, it is hard to resist the temptation to address every point he makes: the new surgery doesn't have to be build on grassland in order to have negative impact on said grassland; yes, the three walking distances mentioned in the consultation documents were all under 14 min and no, you can't walk from ‘parts of Neasden, Church End and Staples Corner’ to the Gladstone Centre in 20 min., not even if you are young and healthy; the funding is so clearly inextricably linked to enabling the development of the land; etc.
More importantly, is building just one GP surgery with a huge capacity really the best way of meeting the health needs of the local community? 'Local' as in living in the vicinity and not as per some bureaucratic definition with a view of targeting a pool of potential new patients. And if the local community really needs what looks like almost a polyclinic with a more that a dozen doctors and as many nurses, is the park, even if it is the brownfield corner of it, the best location for it?
Surprisingly, the only properly developed part of the proposals seems to be the GP surgery. The rest, which can be described as council and community facilities, looks more like a wish list than a solid business plan. Some of the ideas, whilst appealing, have failed in the past. If the pavilion café wasn't a great success, why would it be different for a food truck and another café? All you can learn for certain from the information available, is that the friends of Gladstone Park volunteers would clear the litter left behind those customers who opt to eat and drink on the grassland, rather than on the brownfield.
All in all, I’m left with a general sense that Willesden Green Surgery Business Management have done their homework while Brent council has let the park users as well as some of the most deprived communities by making a compromise which serves neither.
Most of the 'friends of parks' groups are set up to provide acceptable residents 'consultation' to Labour policies.
Outrageous- public investment in health facilities means local people might have a better quality of life - so many reasons can be found not do it. Any positive alternatives?
Dear Alison,
Thank you for taking the time to set out your concerns.
I haven’t suggested that anyone living near Staples Corner should travel to the new site. My point was simply that the normal NHS catchment for a GP practice is around one mile, approximately a 15–20 minute walk.
Residents in the Staples Corner area would generally be expected to remain registered with GP practices serving that area. Those living within around a mile of the proposed site who are able and happy to walk would be welcome to register, just as patients do with our current Willesden Green Surgery site on Anson Road and with GP practices across the country.
Regarding walking through the park and safety in winter, our practice data shows that the majority of our current patients live on the Anson Road side of Gladstone Park and would not need to cross the park to reach the new building. Those living on the opposite side who would prefer not to make that journey have a number of established practices closer to them, including Gladstone Medical Centre, Oxgate Gardens Surgery and St George’s Medical Centre. There is no expectation that those residents would transfer to us. Our expectation is simply to continue serving the communities around our existing practice.
On bus fares, I agree that transport costs matter, particularly during the current cost of living pressures. However, there are currently no GP premises immediately south of Gladstone Park, so this would reduce transport costs for residents in that area. Our existing premises on Anson Road, near Chichele Road, sits close to several other GP practices, so residents in this area would still have NHS GP provision nearby. Overall, the relocation improves the geographical spread of NHS GP services rather than reducing it.
Regarding parking, there are over 50 pay-and-display parking spaces on Kendal Road immediately adjacent to the Gladstone Centre. A full transport assessment forms part of the planning process and will assess accessibility by car, public transport, walking and cycling.
On the suggestion that the practice should instead be incorporated into a future tower block development, I’d genuinely be interested to understand which specific development you have in mind. Our current surgery has the least clinical space per patient of any GP practice in London, and our temporary branch in Queen’s Park has a lease that expires next year. NHS-commissioned estates consultants reviewed potential options and concluded that this was the only viable site capable of delivering a permanent replacement within the required timescale. If there is another specific development capable of accommodating a modern NHS health centre within that timeframe, I would genuinely be happy to explore it with the NHS and the relevant organisations.
Thank you again for engaging. I’m always happy to meet in person if you’d like to discuss the proposals further.
Muhammad Najim
Dr Najim, your reply corrects some wording but avoids the central concerns.
• You haven’t denied this is a large multi-service health hub serving a population far beyond the immediate neighbourhood.
• “Brownfield footprint” doesn’t change the fact that this is development within protected Metropolitan Open Land, where exceptional justification is required.
• You say there is “no precedent”, yet council land and millions in public funds are still being used to enable one GP partnership’s expansion. Why should others not expect the same?
• If nearby regeneration schemes are creating thousands of new homes, why wasn’t a hub secured there instead of inside a park?
Not to mwntion the building design which reminds me of the worst examples of Soviet architecture.
Anyway, complaining here will not solve the problem. This is not the right forum.
It will take most people 25-30 mins to walk a mile especially if ill or need a break.
Hi ho hi ho GPs need to go.
We want our park back
Dr Najim,
The Brent Cabinet report of 17 Nov 2025 makes it clear that your hub is the “flagship” vehicle “ideally suited to deliver the Integrated Neighbourhood Model, serving a catchment area that includes some of the borough’s most deprived neighbourhoods as well as major planned growth areas forecast to deliver over 6,500 new homes”, plus the 4,000 new homes in progress. This is referred to multiple times. So are “Church End, Neasden Stations and Staples Corner Growth areas”. This is the document that got you £2.97m of public CIL money. And your own website refers to 1.5 miles because that’s how far away these growth areas are.
Please don’t gaslight us. This thing will be huge. Together with the “neighbourhood services” or whatever, of housing, social care etc you are trying to put a large public building, partly housing your own business, on parkland. Please put it near your patients!
Your previous charm offensive was full of inaccuracies and you have totally misled the local community. I am confident there will be significant push back and ultimately this gross private enterprise will fail.
A man was arrested by police on Wednesday in Gladstone park, wielding a knife at elderly people and threatening to stab them.
Why on earth would we accept that the psychiatric and clinical phycological mental health services that this hub will provide - according to its own business case - would have any positive impact on our community, when the hub shares its boundary with a children's playground?
The more is known about this proposal, the stronger the smell of suspicion as to how it was passed by Brent Council.
It is very unfortunate how those behind this scheme remain disingenuous with their "consultation" given that all they appear to do is double down with an insistence that they are doing the right thing when the local residents are unanimous in their opposition.
A new health centre is usually welcomed by those who are set to benefit. So clearly the locals have seen through this cheap land grab and loss of a community space (to a profit making private company) for what it is.
No thank you, go work with a developer on one of the massive regenerations that you use as the Need for this ugly bunker and put your clinic there.
The Alternative Site appraisal isn't worth the paper it is written on.
I am absolutely shocked to see such article, being a resident of willesden green for over 20 years, it is absolutely appalling that such things could be said about a service that is so much needed for our community ! how can a health centre be a nuisance? how can a service we rely on for our sick and vulnerable be something anyone would oppose to ?
All I can say is that this would indeed bean amazing and very big addition for the health and wellbeing of our local community !
The pavillion cafe is ugly
Just to add another voice to support - my family all use this surgery and the service is exceptional. The surgery is run very efficiently, all the doctors and nurses we have seen are attentive and responsive (particularly Dr Najim senior!) and a special shout out should be made to the reception staff that always go above and beyond. Willesden Green is so lucky to have this asset and I couldn’t think of a better group to oversee the building and running of a new health centre.
The current facilities are completely underused and don’t really serve more than a handful of the community. This new facility could massively improve the area and make it easier for many people to access (the current surgery in a converted terrace isn’t really suitable for those with disabilities).
I don’t think anyone is objecting to the services. But the park is the wrong place, for all the reasons given above. Most of the 20,000-40,000 people to be served would find it difficult to get to that site
It’s quite simple …build where you need to build .
This is not needed in our area.
what we need is a sports complex for the youths & all .
Physical activities so we don’t have to go to the bloody GP’s .
Hear hear
Can we not arrange a meeting with all the locals asap at the Centre please
Nobody is arguing with need for better healtcare. What is in dispute is the location for something so big, as this is totally inappropriate. The design is hideous. And it's proposed to be in a park - Metropolitan Open Land is London's equivalent of Green Belt.
Not on MOL and Public Open Space. Don't open the floodgates that will destroy the environment and our futures.
So the Vagrancy Act has been repealed, and Gladstone Park gets a housing office in its megahub. And has terrible public transport. Only one result - tent city!
Who needs this? Actually? Knock on any door, nobody is asking for this. Most of us want a lift at Willesden green station and the shops to open. When it comes to gladstone park, we want a lido, splashpad and changing facilities.
Anonymous3 July 2026 at 13:25 👏 👏 👏 👏 👏 👏 👏
Stop spreading lies, it’s a normal GP practice and not a ‘psychiatric and clinical phycological mental health service’. They’ve clearly said there won’t be any mental health facilities. And stop stigmatising those with mental health problems.
When you say put it near their patients - you do know that it’s already a GP practice literally on Anson Road right? It’s a few hundred metres away from their patients, on the same road 🤦♂️
The £130 per weighted patient per year quoted is the core NHS funding that GP practices receive to provide healthcare to their registered patients. It isn’t profit or a financial return.
That funding covers all the costs of running a GP practice, including staff, premises, equipment, medicines management and patient care. The average patient has around six GP appointments a year, so this equates to roughly £22 per consultation before taking into account all of the practice’s overheads.
Those patients are already registered with NHS GP practices, so the NHS is already paying for their care - relocating a practice doesn’t change that.
It's not the distance that's the issue, it's being able to get an appointment easily and quickly when you need one - how will a mega sized surgery guarantee this?
This is typical of the Labour run Friends of Gladstone Park. All they do is rubber stamp Labour decisions and Labour can pretend they have consulted the community. The last thing they did was remove the cycling bylaw in Gladstone Park as a Labour councillor brought a Labour friend who was involved in a Brent Cycling group. This has left the park very dangerous for children.
If the current facilities are under-used then they dont need to move
Alessandra,
I think everyone supports the GP practice. The issue is the land grab of the park. It’s not appropriate for parkland and sets a terrible precedent for carving up more and more of the park. Given that most of these patients are coming from far and wide, in public transport terms, it makes far more sense for the hub to be nearer those patients on the Cricklewood side, with a subsidiary hub on the Church End/Neasden Stations side.
I promise you - if you have small children or an elderly parent, you need transport. The transport rating for this site is “1b” “very poor” so putting a public service for 40,000 people here is ridiculous. What parking there is (on Kendal Rd) is already full today because it’s a nice day. So there will be parking across people’s drives and in the quiet cul de sacs - and there will be confrontation, complaints and fights.
Eventually people who have put their life savings, and their life’s work of children and family, into their homes will move out. The houses are big and will turn into HMOs; and flats or HMOs will also be built in their mature gardens.
The people who granted us this land and built these avenues and the park 100 years ago will turn in their graves. Whether you care or not for the loss of a beautiful British neighbourhood probably says which side of the argument you are on.
Look at this monstrosity
Cllr. Liz Dixon is a Cyclist, she boasts of it
It sounds fantastic, what could be better improved health facilities in an under utilised brownfield site. Really all the Greens and Lib Dem’s do is ferment discontent rather than face up to the challenges of the community.
First off, it’s not brownfield. Secondly, I totally agree it needs to serve our disadvantaged communities. In order to do that, it needs to be IN said communities and accessible easily by them. This isn’t.
https://c.org/gZ5WVKPc57
Please sign and share the petition against the “Health” Hub if you agree
I find this to be a lovely idea the edge of a park is a lovely place to have a health centre. True, there is only one bus that serves it so people are more likely to need to get two busses, or cycle, walk or drive. There is pay for parking along the road beside the park. The spot on the park is currently occupied by a disused building so it seems like a good spot too, not really taking up park space and getting tidied up. The plans for the building look attractive too, so I am not seeing why there is so much vehemence in this campaign to stop it. I failed to be convinced that this campaign is anything other than nimbyism.
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