Bridge Park Consultation Newsletter

 Bridge Park Consultation Newsletter

UPDATED: Are things moving at last on the Bridge Park and dormant Unisys site in Stonebridge? Brent Council launches consultation

 

Unisys buildings

 Unisys and Bridge Park from above

 Site ownership

I have prompted Brent Council several times recently over the Unisys/Bridge Park development. The twin Unisys buildings have been empty for decades.     In answer to a series of questions I tabled in September 2024  to Full Council LINK Brent Council said that the immediate priority was to progress scheme plans for a pre-planning resident consultation towards the end of 2024 which would include the latest on the New Bridge Park Centre and target dates for planning submission, determination and on-site delivery.

The resident consultation was launched yesterday on the Brent Council website and although the focus is on Bridge Park Centre  the wider major development that includes 1,000 homes and  a hotel is also important. The consultation closes on January 6th 2025.

From the Brent Council website:

Residents are invited to have their say on the future of Bridge Park Leisure Centre as part of an ambitious plan to invest £600 million into the Hillside Regeneration Corridor in Stonebridge.

Brent Council is working with the owners of the Unisys buildings, Stonebridge Real Estate Development Limited (SRED), to redevelop Bridge Park and the neighbouring land currently occupied by the Unisys buildings which have been derelict for more than 20 years.

The proposals, which will be shown at two exhibitions in November, show the new Bridge Park Leisure Centre will be more than double the size of the current building. Residents are being asked for their views including on a new state-of-the-art swimming pool, a new sports hall, a larger gym, a function hall, meeting rooms and a café.

The proposals include more than 1,000 high-quality homes, including family homes and affordable options; new parks and green spaces; a new 263-room hotel, commercial and affordable workspace. The designs are worked up to maximise the environmental benefits of the new buildings and encourage sustainable and active travel.

The redevelopment is part of a wider plan to invest in a number of sites, including Bridge Park, Morland Gardens, Twybridge Way, and Bernard Shaw House, along Hillside corridor.

The existing Bridge Park Community Leisure Centre has reached the end of its useable life. The current condition of the building demands substantial investment to keep the site open, including major and expensive works to the lifts and other parts of the building, which is not affordable. The proposal is therefore for the building to close next year with a decision expected in early 2025.

Councillor Muhammed Butt, Leader of Brent Council said:

Bridge Park has always been a symbol of community and togetherness. So, as the building comes to the end of its life, it’s important that we do justice to both its history but also to what comes next. We take that responsibility very seriously.

We’ve listened to what residents have told us they want in a new, state-of-the-art centre. Our proposals not only provide a new Bridge Park Leisure Centre but expand and improve it for future generations. Wider plans for investing in the site will create new opportunities for everyone in Stonebridge, as well as desperately needed new homes.

Please take part in the consultation, we want to hear what you think of these proposals. Together, we can make sure that Bridge Park continues to serve and unite our community.

Mr. Mohammed Al-Miqdadi, SRED Director and Senior Director of International Development of GMH General Mediterranean Holding S.A., SPF. said:

Stonebridge Real Estate Development is excited to be working with Brent Council to bring forward a transformative vision for Bridge Park and the Unisys site. These plans focus on creating vibrant green spaces for everyone, with a commitment to inclusivity, ensuring accessibility for people with disabilities, older adults, and neurodiverse individuals. This project underscores our dedication to sustainable, community-centred spaces that enhance quality of life for local residents."

We’re proud to be delivering much-needed new homes, including affordable housing options, as well as creating hundreds of job opportunities across the hotel and leisure sectors. This major investment into Stonebridge will enrich the area and catalyse wider regeneration, whilst building on Bridge Park’s legacy as a place for connection, activity, and opportunity for all.

• Have your say at two exhibitions to find out more in person at Brent Start, Twybridge Way, London NW10 0ST on Thursday 28 November, from 3 to 7pm or Saturday 30 November, from 10am to 2pm
• There will also be an online version, which will be live from Monday 25 November on the website
• Email the team at BridgePark@four.agency

Get involved and have your say by Monday 6 January 2025.

SOME BACKGROUND ON BRIDGE PARK/UNISYS ON WEMBLEY MATTERS

 

November 2024 Unanswered question on viability of Bridge Park/Unisys development

 

September 2024 Question on Brent Council’s Mediterranean relationship with General Mediterranean Holdings

 

January 2024 What is happening with the Bridge Park/Unisys development?

 

October 2017 Controversial Bridge Park consultation + questions over General Mediterranean Holdings Chair, Sir Nadhmi Avichi’s links with the Labour Party

 

July 2015 Cllr Dan Filson warns Brent Council over making deals with a ‘convicted fraudster’

 

 

Brent Council to consider a formal twinning arrangement with Nablus after enabling motion passed

 

 The Labour Group motion to 'consider a formal twinning agreement between Brent and the city of Nablus, which sits under the governance of the Palestinian National Authority, and receive a report considering the proposal at a future council meeting' was passed by a large majority at last night's meeting.

An amendment by the Conservative Group (see video) was defeated and a Liberal Democrat move to get both withdrawn,  because the issue was 'divisive' failed. Legal officers ruled that both the substantive motion and the amendment were in order.

I have asked the Liberal Democrat to confirm how they voted as the Mayor does not summarise the vote and the council video does not pan across the chamber to show the voting. Cllr Neil Nerva removed himself from the council chamber before the vote was taken and returned afterwards.

A large group of Palestine supporters cheered as the motion was passed. 

STOP PRESS: Brent Liberal Democrat Group confirm that they voted against both the Conservative Amendment and the Labour motion.

 

Brent Council is consulting on new Local Flood Risk Management Strategy

Brent has many waterways, some on open ground but others hidden underground in conduits that reveal their presence at times of flooding. Extreme weather, including heavy rainfall, has made the area more susceptible to flooding, exacerbated by an increase in the number of impermeable surfaces in developments and front and back gardens.

Brent Council is consulting on a new Local Flood Management Risk Strategy and invites contributions from local residents, community groups, organisations and businesses. The RAG rated Action Plan on the consultation website reveals the amount of work to be done with a predominance of Red ratings.

 

Extract from Action Plan

 

The Consultation website can be found HERE:

Local Flood Risk Management Strategy Consultation

We want to hear from you.

Residents, community groups, and organisations have a chance to help shape our flood risk strategy.

Periodically we update the strategy which you have the chance to shape. It focuses mainly on where flooding risk areas are, how we will deal with a flood, and putting things in place to reduce the risk of flooding.

You have until 31st December 2024, so please do give your feedback and help shape your local environment.

What are we consulting on?

The Lead Local Flood Authority (LLFA) are consulting community stakeholders, internal council teams and Risk Management Authorities (RMAs) and partner organisations on our Local Flood Risk Management Strategy (LFRMS). This document explains the different sources of flooding and the actions the Council will take to meet its strategic objectives for the management of Borough-wide flood risk for all applicable flood sources.

Why are we consulting?

Section 9 of the Flood and Water Management Act enacted in 2010 (FWMA) stipulates that the LLFA should develop, maintain, apply and monitor a strategy for local flood risk management in its area. The FWMA also requires that the LLFA consult RMAs that may be affected by the Strategy and the public. The LLFA are therefore requesting feedback from community stakeholders and RMAs as well as internally via Brent employees to take any feedback on board and make changes to the LFRMS ahead of finalising in Spring 2025.

For information please contact: highways.management@brent.gov.uk

 

'He's got the whole of Brent in his hands' - Muhammed Butt grabs more power

 

It  had been suggested that Cllr Muhammed Butt has taken on Cllr Shama Tatler's portfolio only temporarily until a new Cabinet member was appointed. However, in an updated Full Council Agenda yesterday it appears that this is permanent arrangement.

Cllr Butt has granted himself direct power over Regeneration, Planning and Growth in addition to Housing which he took over when Cllr Promise Knight went on maternity leave.

Given the number of controversial developments and planning decisions in Brent this might be seen as too much power and influence for one person. Cllr Butt hs been pro-active in early meetings with developers before applications get to Planning Committee but now has a formal role. What price the independence of Brent Planning Commitee?

Other changes were notified on the Agenda following the resignation from Committee positions of ex-Deputy Mayor Cllr Diana Collymore:

 

Full Council – 18 November 2024
 

Agenda Item 5 – Appointments to Committees & Outside Bodies
Standing Order 30(g) states that, if necessary, Full Council is required to agree appointments to committees and outside bodies. In addition to the changes listed Council is being asked to confirm the appointment of an Independent Person.

Such appointments are set out below:

Cabinet Membership
 

Council is asked to note that effective from 8 November 2024 the Leader of the Council has incorporated the role of Cabinet Member for Regeneration, Planning & Growth within his remit following Councillor Shama Tatler having stood down from her role as a Cabinet Member.
 

Committee Appointments:

1. Audit & Standards Advisory Committee and Audit & Standards Committee – Councillor Lesley Smith to replace Councillor Teo Benea as a full member.
 

2. Community & Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee – Councillor Teo Benea to replace Councillor Diana Collymore as a full member
 

3. Corporate Parenting Committee – Councillor Lesley Smith to replace Councillor Diana Collymore as a full member.
 

4. Resources & Public Realm Scrutiny Committee - Councillor Teo Benea to replace Councillor Diana Collymore as a substitute
member

Cllr Ryan Hack set to become Brent's new Deputy Mayor

 Cllr Ryan Hack (Brondesbury Park) is set to become Deputy Mayor of Brent after a narrow victory over Cllr Narinder Singh Bajwa (Northwick Park).  The post became vacant after the resignation of  Cllr Bajwa's ward colleague, Cllr Diane Collymore,  following a finding that she had breached the Councillor Code of Conduct LINK.

Cllr Hack is an energetic activist instantly recognisable from the cap atop his tall figure when he is out campaigning.

 

Cllr Hack will be one of the youngest Mayors of Brent when he takes over from Cllr Tariq Dar next year. His entry on the Brent Labour website stresses his local background and activism:

Ryan Hack was born and bred in Brent, largely in the south of the Borough, and was raised by a wonderful single mother, always living in social housing, as he still does today. He has attended local state schools in Brent from Curzon Crescent Nursery in Roundwood to Claremont High School in Kenton. Ryan became the first person in his family to attend university and holds a master’s degree in American Politics from UCL. His life has been shaped by the impact of austerity on social housing and food banks. After witnessing his father beginning to use food banks last year, he became an official volunteer at the Trussell Trust Food Bank in Church End. As Co-Convenor of the Brent ‘Right to Food’ campaign, he is committed to reducing food and fuel poverty connected to a Cost-of-Living-Crisis by working closely with mutual aid groups and key stakeholders to establish a food justice strategy in our community. 

 

Ryan is also an active member of the Brent Friends of the Earth where he is committed to transforming our local parks and high streets, where he has conducted for the past six years a monthly neighbourhood clean-up by tidying up our underpasses, alleyways and public parks in Brent. As a dedicated local activist, he fundamentally believes that he has the life experience and the passion that one can bring to bear in representing our community.

Cllr Bajwa is an officer of the Sudbury Courts Residents' Association and director of Harrow based Skyspace Homes.

Lib Dems call on Brent Council to promote action to help protect tenants and leaseholders from unsafe and defective new builds

 Wembley Park developments from King's Drive

 

 The Liberal Democrats have tabled the following debate topic for Monday's Full Council Meeting (6pm Brent Civic Centre):

Guaranteeing new builds are safe and free of dangerous defects.

 

The number of new residential buildings in the borough has increased substantially in recent years. New buildings have changed the landscape of our borough, with the vast majority of large towers blocks around Wembley Stadium, Wembley Central and Alperton.

 

Brent’s Labour Cabinet, particularly the Leader and former Cabinet Member for Regeneration, often point to significant building in the borough as their proudest achievement – but they always fail to recognise its negative impact on existing residents in Brent and those who end up living in these buildings.

 

A worrying number of new buildings in Brent have significant defects. The standard of some new builds is shockingly poor – issues include dangerous, faulty lifts in high-rise blocks, water and waste leaks, unsafe balconies and outdoor communal spaces.

 

At the planning stage, developers are keen to highlight how seriously they take building standards and commit to building good quality, safe new homes. Sadly, somefail to do this and very little is done to hold them to account. Brent Council has little involvement after the planning stage and Council Officers are on record as effectively stating it is not the local authority’s responsibility to do anything if there are issues in new buildings once built.

 

All residents deserve to live in safe buildings, free of defects. When issues arise, developers, construction companies and housing management companies must do a better job of resolving these issues quickly to minimise the impact on residents.

 

Brent Council should have a much tougher line on developers who consistently fail residents by building unsafe buildings with significant defects and should be a leading voice in calling for better regulation and accountability from developers who are failing residents in their buildings.

 

This Council therefore resolves to:

*Create a borough-wide log of issues in new builds to get a better picture of the type of problems faced and urge the Labour Government, as part of their planning reforms, to enable decisions about whether to allow developers, who have issues in their existing stock, to continue building in our borough to be treated as a material planning consideration
 
*Urge the Labour Government to make it possible for local authorities to step in and act when issues in new buildings occur. Currently Brent’s Building Control Team are only responsible for ensuring that the construction of any new building is undertaken in line with building regulations. This needs to be extended to when building is completed and when issues present after the construction phase. Additional costs associated with increasing responsibilities for the Council should be permitted to come directly from CIL contributions made by developers.
 
*Create a dedicated helpline for tenants and leaseholders in new blocks across the borough, for them to be able to report issues so that the Council can assist in guaranteeing action from the relevant bodies and when necessary to support residents in raising complaints with the Housing Ombudsman.

 

Cllr Anton Georgiou

Alperton ward

When is complaint not a complaint? – Part 2 Is there a 'cover up culture' at Brent Council

Guest post by Philip Grant in a personal capacity

Opening paragraphs of Kim Wright’s email to me of 27 September 2024.

 

On 2 October, Martin published my guest post “Bobby Moore Bridge advertising lease – When is a complaint not a complaint?” The email of 27 September above from Brent’s Chief Executive had been sent in response to my request for her to conduct a Final Review of the formal complaint I had made on 30 August. I requested that as I was not satisfied with the initial reply of 9 September from a Corporate Director, which did not even mention the word “complaint”.

 

The grounds for my complaint were detailed in a guest post a month earlier, “Bobby Moore Bridge – formal complaint submitted over advertising lease award”. Briefly, they were that the Officer Report to the Cabinet meeting on 28 May, and the recommendation to make the award under Option B, were biased, and that the main author of that report had an undisclosed conflict of interests, which had only come to light months later.

 

 I wanted to understand the reasoning behind the Council’s decision not to treat my “concerns” as a formal complaint, which had apparently made before the first response to that complaint on 9 September, and what evidence it had been based on. I requested some details in an email to Kim Wright on 11 October (the text is in the comments section under the 2 October guest post). The Council decided to treat this as an FoI request, and I received the response to that on 11 November.

 

If the information provided is correct (and you would expect it to be, as the response came from a Senior Brent Council Lawyer), the decision (that my formal complaint was not a complaint) was made between 30 September and 3 October, after the Chief Executive had told me of the decision.

 

In reply to my questions about what information the decision had been based on, that the matter I’d formally complained about ‘had not affected me personally’, and ‘had not caused me an injustice’, the response in both cases was: ‘Please refer to council officer’s emails sent to you dated 27/9 and 3/10.’ In other words, if Brent’s Chief Executive said that I had not suffered any personal injustice as a result of actions by the Council, or one of its Officers, that was sufficient evidence on which to base a decision justifying her claim!

 

Extract from Brent’s FoI response of 11 November 2024.

 

The response had already told me that the (apparently retrospective!) decision had been made by ‘The Complaints and Casework Manager in conjunction with the Corporate Director, Law & Governance.’ My final request had been for ‘any documentary evidence relating to’ the decision, and ‘any communications, and any advice sought or given, in respect of it.’ I was informed that the only documents were Kim Wright’s email to me of 27 September and the Council’s Complaints Policy (a copy of which was attached). ‘No further communication is held.’

 

I have set this out in detail so that any reader who is interested can see how Brent Council operates. If it does not want to deal with a complaint, it says that it is not a complaint, without having to provide any evidence. It hopes that you will give up and go away, rather than admitting that something has been done wrongly, and trying to put it right! 

 

Anyone who knows me will realise that I am not put off by such tactics. This is the full text of an open email which I sent to Brent’s Chief Executive on 12 November:-

 

This is an Open Email

Dear Ms Wright,

 

Further to my email of 25 September, requesting a Stage 2 Final Review of my formal complaint to you of 30 August 2024 (see copy attached), you will have seen my Internal Review request (sent yesterday evening) to the FoI response of 11 November, to the questions I raised in my email to you of 11 October.

 

This is getting complicated, and is taking up quite a lot of Senior Council Officer time. The reason for that is that you and other Council Officers appear to be trying to "give me the run-around", hoping that I will give up, so that you do not have to deal with a perfectly reasonable and genuine complaint that I raised.

 

This latest letter, from Brent's Senior Constitutional & Governance Lawyer, exposes that there is no valid basis in evidence to show why Brent Council should not treat my complaint of 30 August as a complaint within the Council's Complaints Policy.

 

It appears from her FoI response that the "decision", 'that this issue does not fall within the scope of the Council's normal complaints procedure', set out in your email to me of 27 September, was not made until several days after you had sent that email, rather than before Minesh Patel's original email reply, in your absence on leave, of 9 September, which is what you had suggested.

 

And that "decision", for which there is no documentary evidence, appears to have been founded solely on a claim in your email of 27 September that: 'In this particular case you have not suffered a greater degree of personal injustice than anyone else affected by the matter raised.'

 

There was no supporting evidence for that claim. In fact, you already knew that the open tender process for the new advertising lease from 31 August 2024, seeking best value for the Council, with separate bids that would give the opportunity for Cabinet to properly consider the tile murals in the Bobby Moore Bridge subway, had been my suggestion in 2021, which had been accepted by your predecessor, Carolyn Downs.

 

The process was meant to be fair and transparent, and I had put in a great deal of effort to try to ensure that it was. My complaint (there can be no other valid description for it) was that the Report and recommendation, which Cabinet accepted, had been biased, and that its main author had an undisclosed conflict of interests. How could that not affect me personally, or give rise to an injustice, not just to the people who signed the petition which I presented on 28 May, but to me personally?

 

I would ask you again to carry out a Stage 2 Final Review of my formal complaint of 30 August, in the hope that this matter can be satisfactorily resolved without my having to refer it to the Local Government Ombudsman.

 

In answer to another FoI request, which I received on 14 October, I was told that the new advertising lease agreement between the Council and Quintain from 31 August 2024 had not yet been signed. If that is still the case, then my suggested remedy No.1 still applies (as does the second suggested remedy in my open letter of 30 August attached).

 

I look forward to receiving your reply. Best wishes,

 

Philip Grant.

 

The Leader Foreword from the Cabinet Bobby Moore Bridge advertising lease report, 28 May 2024.
(The “supplier” referred to is Quintain Ltd, through its Wembley Park subsidiary)

 

You will notice a reference to some other FoI requests I made, to which I have received some partial responses. Among the information gleaned on the Report to the 28 May Cabinet meeting is that the “Leader Forward” in it was not actually written by Cllr. Muhammed Butt himself (but by the Officer with the alleged undisclosed conflict of interests):

 

‘The foreword for the report was discussed by the Leader and Head of Communications, Conference and Events at a face-to-face meeting and the steer the Leader provided was included in the report and cleared by the Leader.’

 

My request for ‘copies of all email or other documentary contacts between the Contact Officers and the Leader … in the preparation of the Report’, was denied. The reason given was that:

 

‘complying with this request would exceed the cost limit set by the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Under Section 12 of the Act, public authorities are not required to comply with requests if the estimated time to locate, retrieve, and extract the requested information would take more than 18 hours.’

 

I doubt whether it would cost that much to provide the relevant emails etc between two people from 1 April and 14 May 2024, so I have asked for an Internal Review of that response!

 

There was an Appendix to the Report, headed "Advertising Lease Bid Evaluation", and I had also asked for ‘all the information in that Appendix 1 which was not exempt information.’ That request has also been refused:

 

‘The appendix includes commercially sensitive details related to an ongoing procurement process, as well as market-sensitive information. The public interest in keeping this information confidential outweighs the interest in disclosing it, as premature disclosure could harm the commercial interests of the bidders and the council.’

 

But the procurement process is not ongoing (it ended at the Cabinet meeting on 28 May!), and I had only requested the non-exempt information, not any commercially sensitive details. Again, I’ve asked for an Internal Review of this response. What is Brent Council trying to hide?

 

I feel that the treatment I have received in trying to pursue my complaint demonstrates a “cover-up culture” at Brent Council, which appears to go right to the top of the organisation. That is not a healthy state of affairs, especially for a public body paid for at our expense!

 

Philip Grant.

 

318 room 'aparthotel' for Elm Road, Wembley Central at Brent Planning Committee tonight

 

Euro Hotel, Elm Road, Wembley Central

Proposed Aparthotel (I don't remember Elm Road being that wide!)

No it's not!

Apart from the Wembley Edge planning application already descibed on Wembley Matters (LINK) another large development proposal that has been around for a while comes to Planning Committee tonight.

This is for the development of the site of the Euro Hotel (previously Elm Hotel) on Elm Road in Wembley Central and the adjoining Spiritualist Church in St Johns Road.

They would be replaced by an Aparthotel covering 10,090 square metres as against the current 1,258 square metres. 

The proposal:

Demolition of existing hotel building and community centre [church?] and erection of a part 6, part 8 and part 10 storey 318 room aparthotel plus basement accommodation with associated ancillary facilities, community floorspace (Use Class F1/F2),servicing, landscaping and cycle and refuse storage.

So what is an Aparthotel. Officers provide the answer:

Apart-hotels are defined within the London Plan as self-contained accommodation (within Use Class C1), providing for short-term occupancy, with a concierge and room service. the length of stay would be limited to a maximum of 90 days per occupant, and a planning condition would secure that residencies at the hotel accommodation of 90 days or more are to be prevented, to ensure that the use of the hotel accommodation would meet the needs identified within the London Plan and Brent Local Plan for visitor accommodation.

 

Each room would have a double bed, with storage, a shower and toilet en-suite and a kitchenette facility. Inclusive access has been confirmed as integral to the design of the hotel. It has been confirmed that10% (16) of the hotel rooms would be accessible in accordance with London Plan policy E10.

Brent received a 33 person petition in favour of the development which appears to include local businesses and 14 objections.

The impact on neighbouring two storey homes in St Johns Road and Elm Road is considerable and unsurprisingly most of the objections come from them:

 From a legal view point, my main objections are:

1) that the location of this planning proposal does NOT fall under the "Tall Building Zone". This is a residential zone and height restrictions should be observed.

2) I have it on good authority that the hotel group own many proprieties around the area of the existing hotel (I believe they own nearly all the houses on Elms Road, many of the houses on St Johns Road going north right up to the bridge and they also own houses on Acacia Avenue). Consultations have been sent by post to all these properties and there needs to be due diligence in identifying who owns the property when the consultations are returned. I strongly believe that the hotel should only be allowed to vote once.

From a personal view point, my objections are:

The planned building development would block out all light, many houses on St Johns Road would be in the shade all year round, with no sunlight ever hitting the windows or paving; this means it will be mostly wet underfoot - even worse with snow and ice which would stay longer than normal.

Parking would be harder for residents, especially on event days: Hotel coaches would take up 3 or 4 parking spaces and would only need 1 permit per day to stay. The plans show that two resident parking bays would be removed and there is already a shortage of spaces. Please note that on St Johns Road, none of the houses on the west side of the road (right up to bridge) have off-street parking.

I would also add there would be major TV disruption for anyone who uses freeview and has a freeview aerial on their roof, as any house north of the proposed development will have their aerials pointing in exactly that direction. TV channels (especially HD) would be limited, or worse still, freeview may not work at all.

For all the reasons listed above, I strongly object.

View from St Johns Road towards the High Road.

 

Officers comment on the loss of the Spiritualist Church:

The redevelopment of the site would involve the loss of the existing Spiritualist Church. A schedule of areas submitted with the application indicates that the existing church building has a total GIA of 145sqm. The application proposes the reprovision of 220sqm of flexible F1/F2 community space over ground and basement floor level, indicating that the social infrastructure space would be fully re- provided.

They conclude regarding the whole application:

The aparthotel proposed with an ancillary flexible F1/F2 space is considered to make efficient use of the land, which would regenerate the site which would provide a positive contribution to the emerging streetscene and the positive employment and economic benefits associated with the hotel.

 

The building is considered to have an appropriate scale and massing of proposed buildings would relate well to the existing and future site context. As the report acknowledges, there is expected to be some impacts on existing daylight and sunlight light conditions to existing residential dwellinghouses nearby.

 

The impacts would be commensurate with development of this form and such impacts must be balanced against the planning benefits of the proposal. Overall, and on balance, the impacts associated with the development would it is considered be outweighed in this case by the benefits of redeveloping the site, economic benefits and public realm improvements.

 

The Planning Commitee begins at 6pm tonight and  can be viewed HERE

Brent Council event: Help raise awareness of Islamophobia Tuesday 26th November 6pm-8pm Sign -up details.

 From Brent Council

Join Brent Council on Tuesday 26 November for an evening dedicated to raising awareness about Islamophobia. 

 

Over the last year Islamophobic hate crimes increased 365% in the UK, reaching a record high. Brent’s in-person Islamophobia Awareness Month event aims to educate and empower attendees to combat discrimination.

 

More than a fifth of Brent residents identify as Muslim. Councillor Harbi Farah, Cabinet Member for Public Safety and Partnerships, said: “we are proud to celebrate the vast contributions of all of our faith communities, and the unique and positive impact that Muslims have on the life of our borough”.

 

At the event, contributions from community leaders and local artists will bring the theme of this year’s national campaign, “Seeds for change”, to life. It focuses on the power that small actions have in contributing to big change.

 

Cllr Harbi Farah continued: “A truly inclusive community is one where everyone can live without fear or prejudice. This year has brought that truth into even sharper focus.

 

“As a council, we are committed to standing by our Muslim residents and taking meaningful actions to tackle Islamophobia. Together, we can plant the seeds for a future built on understanding, respect, and unity.”

 

Please join us on Tuesday 26th November 2024 from 6pm-8pm in The Conference Hall at Brent Civic Centre. You can sign up for the event via Eventbrite.

 

Labour Group call on Brent Council to consider a formal twinning arrangement with Nablus in the occupied West Bank

 Nablus (Copyright: istock Getty Images)

The Labour Group have tabled a motion for the Full Meeting of Brent Council to consider twinning with the city of Nablus in the Israeli Occupied West Bank.

The meeting is on Monday 18th November at 6pm and the  motion is number 9 on a 19 item agenda so will probably be debated between 7pm and 8pm. You can watch live HERE or attend in-person at Brent Civic Centre.

The Motion:

Brent Twinning with Nablus

 

This Council notes:

 

That Brent currently has a single twinning relationship, that with South Dublin, established in 1997, at a time when Brent had the largest Irish-born population in mainland Britain.

 

That Brent currently has the second highest Arab diaspora in England and Wales, within which there is a significant number of residents of Palestinian heritage.

 

That like Brent, Nablus in Palestine – as one of the oldest cities in the world – has a long and rich history of culture, diversity and dynamism, ranging from historical architecture, a lively economy and a youthful population.

 

That Brent has a long history of internationalism, including conferring on Nelson Mandela the Freedom of the Borough.

 

That a growing number of community and charitable organisations, including Brent Trades Union Council, Brent NEU and Brent Friends of Palestine have developed productive relations with Palestinian organisations and diaspora, further strengthening bonds to the city of Nablus.

 

That through the joint work of Brent Trades Union Council, Brent NEU and of Brent and Harrow PSC, CADFA and the Palestinian Forum in Britain, opportunities have been provided to young Palestinians to meet Brent young people, Councillors and MPs, and share and develop a bond over their experiences in education, sports and culture. Opportunities for visits to Palestine by young Brent residents are being planned.

 

That the establishment of the “Brent-Nablus Twinning Project” organisation provides an opportunity for Brent to explore the potential of a formal twinning arrangement with Nablus through community engagement.

That community organisations and official representatives in Nablus have shown a desire to develop a more formal arrangement of partnership with Brent and have communicated this desire with their partners in Brent, leading to this proposal.

 

This Council believes:

 

Twinning enhances bonds and improves relations between communities, creating friendships through what we have in common, as well as learning from other cultures, traditions and experiences.

 

Twinning allows avenues for growth through togetherness, improving understanding and ability to tackle issues through collaboration, knowledge and skill shares.

 

A successful twinning relationship would promote initiatives like educational collaborations, sports programmes, and heritage preservation workshops, creating long-term connections between residents and institutions and engages with local communities, cultural organisations, and leaders in both twinned regions to support the establishment of the partnership.

 

This Council resolves to:

 

Consider a formal twinning agreement between Brent and the city of Nablus, which sits under the governance of the Palestinian National Authority, and receive a report considering the proposal at a future council meeting.

 

Explore immediate steps to foster connections, such as cultural exchange programmes, student and school collaborations, and shared community projects, to create a foundation for future growth.

 

Engage with the “Brent-Nablus Twinning Project” organisation to develop a framework for the potential twinning, whilst engaging with local communities, cultural organisations and leaders in both Brent and Nablus to support theestablishment of this partnership.

 

Councillor Ihtesham Afzal

Wembley Hill Ward