Brent Council gives reasons for Licensing Sub-Committee's refusal of Arcadia's application for 1 Walm Lane Adult Gaming Centre

 From Brent Council

  

An application for a new adult gaming centre in Willesden Green has been rejected by Brent Council’s Alcohol and Entertainment Licensing Sub-Committee.

 

The application by Arcadia Casino Limited was refused because it was not considered consistent with two licensing objectives under the Gambling Act 2005:

 

* Preventing gambling from being a source of crime and disorder, being associated with crime and disorder, or being used to support crime.

* Protecting children and other vulnerable people from being harmed or exploited by gambling.

 

 

The Sub-Committee considered evidence about crime and anti-social behaviour, the number of gambling premises already in Willesden Green, local deprivation, and the potential impact on vulnerable residents.

 

It also heard from Brent Public Health and five objectors, including three councillors, who raised concerns about crime and disorder linked to the number of gambling premises in the area. They noted that gambling-related harm in Brent is significantly above the national average.

 

More than 200 objections were submitted by residents, ward councillors and community representatives. Local concerns in Willesden Green were central to the decision.

 

The decision comes as Brent continues to call for councils to have stronger powers to refuse gambling premises where there is evidence of local harm. Earlier this year, Brent brought together more than 40 councils and mayors to call for reform of the Gambling Act 2005, including changes to the “aim to permit” duty, which limits councils’ ability to refuse applications.

 

A separate application for a new gambling premises licence on Kilburn High Road, due to be heard on 8 July 2026, has also been withdrawn.

 

The Leader of Brent Council & Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care,  Cllr Muhammed Butt, said: 

 

This is an important decision for Willesden Green and for every resident who has said enough is enough.

 

The Licensing Sub-Committee considered the evidence carefully and independently, including concerns about crime, anti-social behaviour, deprivation, the concentration of gambling premises and the risk of harm to vulnerable people. On that basis, it was right that this application was refused.

BREAKING: Withdrawal of gambling application for former Kilburn bank a victory for community power

 

 

Greens demonstrate outside the former Santander Bank in Kilburn High Road 

Hard on the heels of the Brent Licensing Committee turning down an Adult Gaming Casino application for the former Lloyds Bank in Willesden Green, Macau Casino Slots has withdrawn their application for 131-135 Kilburn High Road, the former Santander Bank.

 

Cllr Suzanne Gallagher (Green councillor for Kilburn Ward) hailed the news:

  

Huge news! 

 

Following our community campaign against the proposed Bingo Hall, Macau Casino Slots have officially withdrawn their application for 131-135 Kilburn High Road. The hearing scheduled for July 8th is now cancelled.

 

The old Santander building was never an appropriate location. Kilburn High Road already suffers from a high concentration of gambling establishments. Crucially, this site sits within a community ranking among the top 2% most deprived neighbourhoods in England.

 

Brent has a duty to protect our most vulnerable residents from predatory industries.

 

Furthermore, we must protect former banking premises that now lie empty across our borough; casinos are not a suitable substitute for what was once an important community service.

 

This is a massive win for community power! Coupled with last week's refusal decision for the Adult Gaming Centre in Willesden Green, this withdrawal sends a powerful message of hope to boroughs across London and beyond.

 

These businesses should not be setting up shop in our most deprived areas. This victory goes beyond Brent, it is a blueprint for community resistance everywhere. We want to help those communities who are fighting for the heart and soul of their high street.

 

Let this serve as a crystal-clear message to other gambling operators: look elsewhere. You are not welcome in the most deprived corners of Brent.

 

Thank you to everyone who stood with us! We promise to continue standing with you in the fight against gambling harms

The Chalkhill Estate that never was!

Guest post by local historian Philip Grant

1. Cover of the January 1963 Wembley Borough Council booklet.

 

When I wrote an illustrated article, “Chalkhill – 1,000 years of history”, in 2012, I was aware of three versions of the Chalkhill Estate, dating from the 1920s, late 1960s and early 2000s. I recently became aware of plans for a different renewal of the Chalkhill Estate, drawn up by Wembley Borough Council and published in January 1963. Although these plans for the Chalkhill and Barnhill Roads Redevelopment Area were overtaken following the creation of the London Borough of Brent in 1965, I think that readers may be interested to see what might have been!

 

Why was Wembley’s Borough Engineer and Surveyor considering the redevelopment of a private housing estate which had been laid out just over forty years earlier? He was responding to guidance issued by the then Conservative Government’s Minister of Housing and Local Government, Henry Brooke, in 1960:-

 

2. The “National Policy” paragraphs from the opening section of the January 1963 booklet.

 

Planning permissions for most of the suburban housing developments in Wembley and Kingsbury from the late 1920s and 1930s had specified housing densities of eight or ten homes per acre. The “Metroland” Chalkhill Estate was probably chosen as the area for Wembley’s first response to this call for ‘redevelopment at higher densities’ because its individual building plots had been sold off at sizes from a quarter of an acre upwards (with many homes there on half acre or one-acre plots). The grounds of “The Shalimar” at 43 Chalkhill Road were large enough for garden parties to be held there, as I’d discovered when I shared the remarkable story of “Ram Singh Nehra - a Wembley Indian in the 1930s” in 2021! By the 1960s, different builders had already started buying up properties there with large gardens for possible redevelopment. 

 

3. An early 1920s advert for building plots on the Metropolitan Railway’s Chalk Hill Estate.

 

From the mid-1920s onwards the Government had required local Councils to draw up a Development Plan for their area, which had to be approved by a Minister. Wembley’s outline amended proposals for the Chalkhill area had already been agreed by Whitehall:

 

4. An extract from the Redevelopment Area booklet, and 5. ‘the plan attached’ to it.

 

Under the proposed plan, the area would remain residential, with mainly low-rise homes, although with the possibility for up to three “tall” blocks of flats (no more than 11 storeys – compare that to Wembley Park today!) close to the station. Existing trees would be ‘preserved wherever possible’, and there would be good ‘pedestrian access through the area affording safe, convenient and attractive footways towards shops, transport and other public facilities.’ As more families then had cars, each development would ‘be provided with adequate parking spaces for motor vehicles.’

 

6. Paragraph about the types of homes from the Redevelopment Area booklet.

 

 

7. The key to the Redevelopment Area map.

 

Traffic problems in the Chalkhill neighbourhood were also addressed in the Redevelopment Area proposals. One of the most radical ideas was to make a short section of Chalkhill Road, nearest to Wembley Park station, a cul-de-sac, and to include a multi-storey car park there for station users and the shops in Bridge Road, with some new shops opposite.

 

8. Paragraph about fixing the through-traffic problem from the Redevelopment Area booklet.

 

 

9. Extract from the Redevelopment Area map with proposals for the western end of Chalkhill Road.

 

What had been the next section of Chalkhill Road would have become green open space under the proposals, with footpaths across it leading to Barnhill Road and the remaining part of Chalkhill Road. Having blocked the through-traffic “rat run”, the new main entrance to the estate would be from Forty Lane, opposite the Town Hall steps, running straight down to curve into Barnhill Road. New housing along the Forty Lane frontage would be set back from the main road, and accessed from service roads.

 

10. Extract from the Redevelopment Area map showing the new access from Forty Lane,

 

The Redevelopment Area proposals recognised that the higher density of homes on the estate would lead to a larger local population, with the Borough Surveyor writing: ‘A residential neighbourhood, if it is to include the means of satisfying the needs of its inhabitants, should contain adequate religious, education and social activities.’ One of the needs identified was for a new Primary School, and another was for a park. Although the exact locations for these could not be settled, the proposals recommended reserving land for these facilities between Barnhill Road and the Metropolitan railway lines.

 

11. Possible sites for a school and park on the Redevelopment Area map.

 

Chalkhill Primary School was built on part of this “reserved land” in Barnhill Road, with the infants’ section finished by the end of 1970, and the primary school fully open by 1972. However, residents had to wait until 2013 for the opening of Chalkhill Park!

 

Another of the proposals by which ‘the tendency for traffic to use residential roads for through travel will be stopped, and the obstruction of Blackbird Hill [and Bridge Road] by right-turning traffic will be avoided’, was ‘the connection of Chalkhill Road and Barnhill Road near the site of the proposed Catholic Church.’ How this was originally proposed, compared with what was actually constructed, can be seen on these maps:

 

12. Extract from the Redevelopment Area map and the modern Google Maps satellite view.

 

The two roads were connected via Ken Way, and Chalkhill Road was diverted round what became the site for the church, closing off a junction which was too close to the Blackbird Cross intersection. When the new English Martyrs’ Roman Catholic Church was built in 1969/70, to replace a temporary wooden church in Chalkhill Road which had opened in 1930, it was not the traditional rectangular shape shown on the 1963 map, but a beautiful modern round design.

 

13. English Martyrs’ R.C. Church under construction in 1969, and seen from Blackbird Hill
across the former Chalkhill Road junction in 2013.

 

Wembley Borough Council did not envisage building this new Chalkhill Estate itself. Instead, it set out its Redevelopment Area proposals as an overall guide for private developers of the principles it wanted to see applied by them in putting forward individual plans, which would work together over time to form a cohesive well-designed estate. This was explained in the booklet’s final section:

 

14. The final “Summary” paragraph from the Redevelopment Area booklet.

 

“Speculators” had already been buying up properties with large gardens, suitable for the what the Council proposals suggested as ‘satisfactory redevelopment units of not less than four acres’. One such planned development was already in the pipeline, and in the same month that the booklet was published this was the local newspaper’s front page story:

 

15. Headline about the start of Chalkhill’s “New Town”, 18 January 1963.

 

I’m not sure which development on the site of six houses the “Wembley News” article was referring to (possibly Windsor Crescent?), and if you know please share that information as a comment below. Clearly a start was made on the Wembley Borough Council Redevelopment Area scheme, but it did not get very far before Brent Council came into being in April 1965, and decided to build its own Chalkhill Estate!

 

16. An aerial view of Brent’s newly completed Chalkhill Estate, 1970. (Courtesy of Barbara Phillips)

 

Looking at the area now, you could believe that this late-1960s development was “the Chalkhill Estate that never was”, as the concrete “Bison” blocks of flats were demolished from 1997 onwards, to make way for another version of Chalkhill. But I hope this look at an alternative 1960s vision of the estate has provided an interesting piece of local history for you.

 

Philip Grant.

 

Acknowledgement: The late Geoff Hoggett worked in the Chalkhill area in the 1960s, and at some point acquired a slightly muddy copy of the Redevelopment Area booklet and plan. His interest in local history caused him to save them, and they were found by his daughter, Julia, rolled up in a cardboard tube, after his death. I’m grateful to her for sending them to me, so that I could share this story with you.

Together Towards Zero relaunches with up to £5,000 available for community climate action projects

 

Sally Scooters

 From Brent Council

 

Residents and community groups are being invited to help create a greener, cleaner Brent as the council relaunches its popular Together Towards Zero (TTZ) community climate action fund.

 

The 15 June relaunch comes as the council celebrates awarding its 100th Together Towards Zero grant, marking four years of community-led climate action across the borough.

 

The scheme offers grants of up to £5,000 for one-off projects that help tackle the climate and ecological emergency while improving local neighbourhoods.

Since launching in 2022, Together Towards Zero has funded 105 community-led projects worth more than £295,000, including:

• Absolute Beginners Factory CIC – helping young people turn discarded nitrous oxide canisters into decorative vases through sustainable manufacturing techniques.
• Sally Scooters – running repair workshops to refurbish discarded scooters and reuse parts.
• StepwithSerg – delivering trainer repair and reuse workshops to reduce waste.
• Sufra NW London – transforming a community garden pond into a thriving wildlife habitat.
• St Mark's Church – creating a biodiverse community growing space by replacing artificial turf with raised vegetable beds.
• Sunahs Crisis Team CIC – hosting plant-based cookery workshops focused on sustainable food choices.
• Friends of Woodcock Park – carrying out a beaver viability study alongside community wildflower planting.
• The Enchanted Forest of Welsh Harp – leading mindfulness and nature-connection walks exploring urban ecology and biodiversity.

 

The fifth round of funding opens on 15 June and will remain available until spring 2027, or until all funding has been allocated.

 

Councillor Jake Rubin, Cabinet Member for Children’s Services, Employment and Climate Action, said:

 Communities are at the heart of Brent's response to the climate and ecological emergency. Together Towards Zero has shown how local people can make a real difference by delivering practical projects that bring environmental benefits to their neighbourhoods while strengthening community connections.

South Kilburn Regeneration – building what is needed or building what provides profit for developers? Brent Council to sell 143 units to U.S. private equity company

 

Guest post by South Kilburn resident Pete Firmin

South Kilburn Regeneration – building what is needed or building what provides profit for developers?

An acquaintance with more patience than me who closely follows Brent Council documents on the regeneration of South Kilburn recently unearthed the fact that the Council proposes to bulk sell the non-social housing in the current phase of regeneration to a U.S. private equity company, Principal Asset Management. A glance at their website shows Principal Asset Management has no interest in housing as such, but in maximising returns on investment.

This involves 143 `private market units’ in the current phase. Whether a similar deal would be used in the next phase of regeneration (for which a £1 billion contract is due to be awarded shortly) isn’t known, but clearly can’t be ruled out.

The justification for this deal given in Council papers is that the London sales market is "challenging.".

This is a clear indication that these flats are to be sold as `buy to let’. From the earliest stages of the regeneration of South Kilburn, many of the new flats have been sold on the Far Eastern market, this appears to be the first time flats are sold to a foreign owner as a job lot.

All this begs the question “why are flats being built for which there is no market?”.

We have been told from the start of South Kilburn regeneration 20 years ago that social housing to replace that being demolished could only be built if developers could also be built at market rates. This latest venture takes that one step further.

Britain’s, and especially London’s, housing crisis is a crisis of lack of housing which people can pay for while leaving them sufficient to live on. What is desperately needed is housing at social (or preferably Council) rents, not more housing they can’t afford. Terms such as “affordable” which developers and Councils love to use to show how much they care are a smokescreen. The legal definition of `affordable’ is up to 80% of market rent, i.e. unaffordable to anyone on average pay or below.

Principal Asset Management is believed to charge around £2,500 a month for flats in London, not something any of the tens of thousands on Council waiting lists can take on. This bulk sell off just feels like another way of helping the developers make a profit at little risk.

Developers frequently say part way through construction (as happened recently in Camden) that the percentage of social housing they committed to when they were given planning permission is no longer profitable and push for - and usually get - a lowering of that figure. They have Councils over a barrel in negotiations.

Such projects not only fail to deal in the slightest with the housing crisis, but also lead to gentrification of the areas under development, changing the nature of an area without necessarily improving the lot of the original residents at all. On top of which the social housing which is built is, more often that not, of poor quality and smaller and more expensive than that which has been demolished. Social engineering at its worst.

Brent Council needs to recognise that its current approach does nothing to deal with the housing crisis (if anything, it exacerbates it). It needs to not only stand up to developers and their demands, but also fight for a change to national policy. Shelter recently called on the government to “remove the historic debt local authorities owe to the government” for council housing. They say that £29 billion in “historic housing debt” is based on an outdated financial settlement from 2012; that it “sucks away money that could be invested in building new social homes”. Shelter calls for the government to “remove this debt from councils and put it on its own books without affecting the overall national balance sheet”. 

Working with other Councils to push for such a change could go much further to provide decent housing for all, rather than cosy deals only helping developers and private equity.

 

 

Strike Day 18: Why NEU members at Woodfield School are on strike

 

Wembley just wild about Harry! Road closures & bus diversions for 12 Harry Styles concerts - 8 on weekdays

 

There will be 12 Harry Styles concert dates at Wembley Stadium  over the rest of this month starting on Friday June 12th and through to July 4th, 

Eight of these dates are on weekdays with road closures starting at 1pm with associated bus diversions. This will impact school children travelling home from school, particularly those using the 206 bus route which will be not run south between Wembley Park and Brent Park. This also affects workers travelling to Brent Park and the industrial estates south of the stadium, including the Amazon warehouse and the Tesco and Ikea stores.

Brent Council approved the increased number of concerts at Wembley Stadium in January 2025 with 8 more major concerts a year. A major event is defined as an attendance of more that 60,000. Decision notice:

The number of major events held at the stadium in any one calendar year shall be restricted to no more than 54 (to exclude European Cup and World Cup events where England/UK is the host nation). This shall be described as the cap. Within the event cap, the number of major events involving UK based domestic association football teams shall be restricted to no more than 25. LINK

A Wembley Hill resident contacted Wembley Matters:

Does this mean that on all these days road closures and bus diversions will be active from 1pm?  Doors open 5pm. Not only that I have appointment at my doctors at Wembley Park Humphry Repton Lane which is also closed on event days, my appointment is for 4.00 p.m.on Friday.

 

Does this mean all locals using bus services 206,92,182 and 83 are again inconvenienced with either no service or diversions.

 

 

London Assembly report on heat networks where some suffer from inescapable bad deals

 Heating networks are becoming more common in Brent with concerns over reliability and accounts of excessive bills.  This London Assembly report is timely and should be considered by the new administration in Brent:      

Britain’s energy regulator, Ofgem, must urgently consider implementing price protections for heat network customers, with continued energy price increases due to the conflict in the Middle East

Ofgem was appointed as the regulator for heat networks in January 2026.

The London Assembly Environment Committee has today published its report - Zoning: The Heat Networks Puzzle – calling for stronger price protections for Londoners on heat networks.

The Committee investigation found that due to planning rules in new developments, a significant number of Londoners on heat networks in these new builds are in social housing.

Heating homes currently accounts for around 18 per cent of the UK’s climate emissions.

London Plan policy has promoted heat networks, which feature significantly in the Mayor’s strategy for achieving net zero emissions of greenhouse gases by 2030. The Mayor’s preferred ‘pathway’ is based on 460,000 heat network connections by 2030,  and so the Committee looked in detail at how to get things right.

The Committee heard that heat network customers have often struggled to understand what they are paying for, how prices are calculated, and whether charges are fair.

The Committee is now calling for:

·       The Greater London Authority (GLA) to take the lead in ensuring price protection for Londoners and establish a set of Fair Pricing Principles for all heat networks in London.

·       Where existing under-performing legacy heat networks in social housing are being upgraded, there should be price protection for leaseholders in terms of capital costs.

·       The GLA should work with Ofgem and the Department of Energy Security & Net Zero (DESNZ) to develop a best practice guide, similar to an EPC rating that gives a short, clear introduction to heat networks, their efficiency levels, and explains heat network charges.

Leonie Cooper AM, Chair of the London Assembly Environment Committee while the investigation took place said:

We are deeply concerned that some Londoners have experienced considerable harms as a result of higher heating prices.

For too many in London, their experience of heat networks has not been satisfactory. They are getting a bad deal, and one from which they cannot escape.

For some, this is a very steep personal price to pay for a lower carbon heating network.

Tackling climate change is something we support, but we must ensure customers are protected from volatile price increases, particularly with the ongoing crisis in the Middle East.

Defending Kilburn High Road: Billionaire-Backed Media Slurs Won’t Hide the Real Pressures Destroying Our High Streets

 

Fresh Poms, 227 Kilburn High Road

       

Guest post from the five newly elected Green Party councillors for the Kilburn wards on both sides of the Kilburn High Road: Cllr Ash Atkinson, Cllr Andr Lopez Turner, (Kilburn ward Camden)  Cllr Suzanne Gallagher, Cllr Paul Ryan, and Cllr Stephen Malonga (Kilburn ward Brent).

 

GB News presenter Patrick Christys recently targeted an independent pomegranate juice shop on Kilburn High Road. In a video clip circulated online, Christys used dog-whistle rhetoric to baselessly imply that this small business was "dodgy" or operating as an illicit front.

This is a complete fabrication. We have been on the ground, met the operators, and tasted the juice (which is excellent, rich in vitamins, and highly anti-inflammatory!). They are pleasant, hard-working people who have invested heavily in a beautiful storefront. They deserve our community's support, not xenophobic tropes masquerading as current affairs journalism.

We have written a formal letter of complaint (please see below) directly to Ofcom and the editorial board of GB News. While it remains unclear whether this segment was broadcast on traditional linear TV or exclusively via podcasts and YouTube shorts, we wish to call out this behaviour. Although this may fall outside Ofcom’s linear broadcasting code, we have placed this on record to highlight the severe, real-world economic harm that irresponsible media commentary inflicts on independent traders.

The Real Threat: Corporate Greed, Not Independent Shops

The right-wing media wants to manufacture a culture war out of thin air because they want to blind people to the structural economic pressures destroying our high streets. If these journalists actually cared about Kilburn, they would look at the real damage being done by landlord greed and corporate extraction.

Across Kilburn, we are losing much-loved, family-run independent food businesses. These heartbreaking closures are not caused by right-wing conspiracy theories; they are caused by the brutal, unchecked realities of the modern economy:

Commercial Rent Squeezes: Landlords are placing an impossible burden on small traders by demanding aggressive, two-yearly rent reviews. These frequent and steep hikes offer local businesses zero long-term security, forcing viable shops to the brink or driving them out of our community entirely when the financial damage becomes too much to bear.

Silicon Valley Wealth Extraction: Independent food businesses are being squeezed to breaking point by tech intermediaries like Uber Eats, which extracts an extortionate 35% commission on local deliveries. This model bleeds wealth directly out of Kilburn and sends it straight to California. Local business owners have told us they often feel like they are working primarily to line the pockets of Uber Eats, rather than building their own livelihoods.

Hyper-Inflation: Skyrocketing utility bills, particularly punitive commercial electricity rates, have made running independent commercial kitchens completely unsustainable for small operators.

While independent shops face these immense struggles, corporate entities, including predatory gambling shops owned by offshore billionaires with zero connection to our community, are thriving. They extract profit from our neighbourhoods while contributing nothing to our social fabric.

It is the peak of hypocrisy that these factless attacks on Kilburn’s diverse traders are broadcast by a network owned by a tax-exiled, Reform UK-donating billionaire living in Dubai. Wealthy media moguls have no right to dictate what is "viable" or "legitimate" on a working-class London high street.

Building a Fairer, Circular Economy

In the Green Party, we passionately support independent businesses. Unlike multi-national corporations, independent traders keep wealth circulating within our local economy. They buy from local suppliers, employ local people, and build genuine community wealth rather than extracting it to offshore tax havens.

We support collaborative initiatives like One Kilburn, where our community is working incredibly hard to bring residents, independent businesses, and local partners together to build a resilient, supportive, and sustainable high street economy.

We will not sit idly by while so-called journalists working for billionaire-backed media outlets attempt to trash the reputation of small traders to feed a divisive political agenda. We stand with our high street, we stand with our independent businesses, and we will keep fighting for an economy that puts people and planet ahead of corporate profit.