The consultation on the move of Islamia Primary School from its Queens Park site finished in November 2022 and since then there has been a wall of silence from the Yusif Islam Foundation, the school and Brent Council. The school is due to move in September 2024 after refurbishment and new build on the former Strathcona site in Preston ward.
The result is anger, frustration and rumour from parents and community.
I have lodged an FoI result with Brent Council to try and get some very basic information LINK:
Dear Brent Borough Council,
Please provide:
1. Details of the outcome of the public consultation on the proposed move of
Islamia Primary School that was completed in November 2022.
2. Update on when the school will move and operate on its new site (previously
proposed for September 2024).
3. Update on any statutory consultation.
The Twitter account Dignity Custodians has been very vocal from the beginning of the relocation proposals.
a member of staff told parents that the Foundation planned to use
vacated premises for the independent schools & a feeder primary school. Is
this why you want
This confirms what a member of the governing body told a group of
parents 3 years ago when there were attempts to turn the school into a one Form
Entry and give priority to siblings of pupils attending the independent schools
which was in breach of the #AdmissionsCode.
gave Islamia a "poor" catchment area and suggested Somali
parents open their own school. The school's admissions policy has recently been
found " unlawful and discriminatory " by the #OSA. Parents have reasons to fear
discrimination.
In a letter to parents Yusuf Islam (formerly Cat Stevens) appeals to parents concerned about Islamia's move to a site in Wembley and reminds them of his personal contribution to the founding of the school. He states that 'gratitude is considered part of good Muslim character'.
The letter appears to indicate that the redevelopment of the Salusbury Road site is for educational use and the improvement of Islamia high school facilities. Unlike Islamia Primary School. Islamia Girls School and Brondesbury College are fee paying schools, currently £7,500 per annum LINK.
Yusuf Islam does not respond to any of the parents' specific concerns over the new site including travel difficulties and the potential inability of current less well-off parents to to deliver and collect their children from the site on a daily basis.
He claims that Brent Council has agreed to contribute 'upwards of £10m' for facilities at the new site.
Islamia Primary School parents presented a petition
opposing the move of the school to the Strathcona site in Kingsbury at today's
Cabinet meeting. Public space in the meeting room was limited but 15 or
so parent supporters squeezed in to back up Jamad Guled as she spoke to the
petition:
The Yusuf Islam Foundation has issued Islamia
Primary school with an eviction notice. For the past couple of years Brent
Council and Islamia's governing body have been in talks in regard to
moving the school to South Kenton which is over 6 miles away from Queen's Park.
Last June the Governing body informed parents
that the decision was made to move and it was just being
finalised. No mention of a consultation.
Panicked parents had to write to the council and
were reassured no decision was made yet and the school had a statutory
duty to consult parents.
Unfortunately, this attempt to mislead the parents
created a lot of unnecessary confusion, frustration and mistrust.
This petition was signed by 509 stakeholders,
this undeniably demonstrates that the local community is against such move and
worried about the future.
A change like this requires a serious discussion
around issues like :
1) affordability especially since we are in the
midst of a cost of living crisis ( low income families, single parent
households and those with work and caring responsibilities will be left behind)
2)accessibility ( how will children with mobility
problems, children with sensory difficulties or families with
multiple young children travel safely to a location with no viable
parking facilities nor lifts) they will be left behind as well.
3) higher population density ( how will local
residents cope with increased traffic and people?
4) the environmental impact of increased
number of vehicles driving from different locations and accessing a small area
like the Strathcona site.
5)safety concerns when hundreds of young children
will have to travel to a school located in an industrial area near
a car repair centre,and will also be accessing busy train station platforms
every day at peak times.
Parents demand that an equality and impact
assessment is carried out to protect the most vulnerable families.
We must bear in mind that some families, no matter
the sacrifice required will choose to travel. How is the council going to
protect and support those families?
Others will choose to home-school.
This will make monitoring children's attainment and
safety difficult and put further pressure on services required to monitor
and safeguard children.
This representation is an opportunity to
voice our anguish and worry as parents. It aims to shed a light on the
blatant discrimination this decision will enable.
It is our hope that this will be an opportunity to
rise above the mighty power afforded to some VA schools which make
it extremely hard for parents to be heard, to enforce accountability and
demand transparency.
The truth is, we are where we are because
many opportunities were missed over the years. Should the children be the
scapegoats for those?
We are calling upon the council to finally
listen and act in the best interest of Islamia's children.
We are tired of being permanently in limbo and kept
in the dark.
Everyone here knows that Strathcona is not a
fair nor safe solution and should have never been an option made available to
Islamia's Governing body. If the governing body cannot uphold its duty of
care, then the council must step in, and safeguard children's futures by
withdrawing this inadequate offer and find a local solution.In the second
part of my petition l have discussed the option of the new school being built
in South Kilburn.
I firmly believe this is the best solution.
The council has a duty to use taxpayers where needed most.
Carlton Vale and Kilburn Park have been
struggling with numbers for years and cannot fill the new 2FE school
being built. They currently have respectively 77 and 76 children on roll.
For a capacity of 230 and 240.
2022’s national census predicts a further decline
in birth rates therefore there will be no shortage of primary
schools places in the foreseeable future. So the council cannot invoke pressing
needs.
Government data shows that schools in the
area are all operating well below capacity and can easily accommodate children
from Carlton Vale and Kilburn Park when their school is demolished.
That will be a like for like solution that will not
disrupt their lives.
Islamia's children will not be afforded the
same consideration whether the school moves or shuts down and some
children will have to join neighbouring schools.
Islamia's children will lose the faith element In
their education .And faith matters.
How can the council justify earmarking the
new school for two empty schools when an oversubscribed and popular one
is at risk of shutting down? Who will safeguard Islamia's children
travelling 6 miles for compulsory education?
Let us not forget that Islamia is a Brent
school.
Sofia Moussaoui, Chair of Governors at Islamia,
also spoke. She said that she had seen the petition and the Governing
Board would consider if the proposal for South Kilburn was viable but the
Council had said the site was not available. Anyway it would not have
been available for 4 years and the school had only 2 years in which to
find an alternative site. The school had been under pressure in terms of
space, occupying a split site that was supposed to be temporary, but they had
been there for 14 years.
She said, 'Ideally we will take parents with
us. We will look into how to get them there. The main thing is to get
families behind us.'
Leader of the Council, Muhammed Butt said that the
Council would take on parents' broad concerns over the viability of the
proposal but the South Kilburn site was not an option. It was a long-long term
part of the South Kilburn Development Master Plan.
Cllr Grahl, Cabinet Lead for Schools, said
that she recognised that the Council had invested in other sites but
unfortunately South Kilburn was tied up as part of a development. Eviction had
come at a time when no other sites were available in Queens Park. An
effort had gone into the Strathcona project and the Council will work to ensure
a smooth transition for parents and children. The consultation would enable
parents to contribute and the Council will look at how to facilitate access
particularly for children with special needs.
Cllr Butt added that the petitioners will be able
to have a say through the consultation. The main issue is to secure the futuure
of the school working with the Governing Board and the Trust. He personally had
been out to look for alternative sites and Strathcona was the only one that can
be developed as a permanent site.
Perplexingly no questions were asked about why the
Yusuf Islam Foundation had evicted the voluntary aided primary school while the
private secondary schools remained. No reasons were given in the Cabinet papers
and neither Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens) or the Foundation have replied to the
question, 'Why the eviction notice ?' sent on Twitter, Facebook and email.
Social media reactions:
The report that clears the way for a formal consultation on the move was approved by Cabinet.
Thank you for joining me again for the final part
of this Kilburn local history series.
1. New flats in Cambridge Road, opposite Granville
Road Baths, c.1970. (Brent Archives online image 10127)
In Part 6 we saw the major rebuilding that took place, particularly in South
Kilburn, between the late 1940s and the 1970s. Many of the workers on the
building sites were Irish. The new wave of Irish immigration to Northwest
London, which reached its peak in the 1950s, was quickly transforming the area.
As well as abundant work, Kilburn offered plenty of cheap accommodation, and a
bustling High Road with cultural and eating establishments, many of them
catering for the Irish population, who soon represented a majority in the area.
‘County Kilburn’ was dubbed Ireland’s 33rd county
2. Kilburn's Irish culture – an Irish Festival
poster and Kilburn Gaels hurling team. (From the internet)
The Irish community, close-knit and mutually
supportive, hit the headlines in the negative way in the 1970s, when Kilburn
became a focal point for “the Troubles” in London. On 8 June 1974, an estimated
3,000 came out onto the streets of Kilburn for the funeral procession of
Provisional IRA member Michael Gaughan. An Irishman, who had lived in Kilburn,
Gaughan was imprisoned for an armed bank robbery in 1971 and in 1974 died as
the result a hunger strike. Gaughan’s coffin, accompanied by an IRA guard of honour,
was taken from the Crown at Cricklewood through Kilburn to the Catholic Church
of the Sacred Heart in Quex Road, before being flown to Dublin for another
ceremony and funeral.
3. Michael Gaughan's funeral procession in Quex
Road, June 1974. (Image from the internet)
The maximum publicity stirred by the IRA only
confirmed the general belief that Kilburn was becoming a focal point for the
Irish republicans, and their meeting place was Biddy Mulligan’s pub at 205 High
Road. Dating from about 1862, the pub on the corner of Kilburn High Road and
Willesden Lane was originally called the Victoria Tavern. It became Biddy
Mulligan’s in the 1970s, named after the character of a female Dublin street
seller performed by 1930s Irish comedian Jimmy O’Dea.
4. Sinn Fein's Kilburn Branch, marching through
Cricklewood in the 1970s. (Brent Archives image 317)
As claimed by Ulster loyalists later, Biddy’s
attracted ‘militant Irish extremists, far left activists, revolutionaries and
their sympathisers’. Leaders of Sinn Fein in London said they collected about
£17,000 a year in Kilburn – a lot of it came from the pub collections and went
across the Irish sea to fund IRA activities. On 21 December 1975 the pub was
shaken by an explosion from a holdall left at its doorstep by members of the
Ulster Defence Association, who said they wanted to stop the spread of IRA in
England. It was the first time the UDA struck outside Northern Ireland. Out of
90 people who were in the bar at the time, a small number were hurt, but no one
was killed. The perpetrators were quickly arrested and put in prison.
5. The former Biddy Mulligan's pub in 2009. (From
the internet – picture by Ewan Murray, on Flickr)
The pub remained ‘Biddy’s’ for a few years, then it
traded as an Aussie sports bar called the ‘Southern K’. It closed about 2009
and today the building is a Ladbrokes betting shop.
The look and feel of Kilburn is changing fast –
Woolworths, at 100-104 Kilburn High Road, which was a big feature of the area
since 1920s, closed in 2008 and is now Iceland. The elegant 1930s Art Deco
building at 54-56 Kilburn High Road is Primark – part of the usual mix of shops
found on any major high street in the country.
6. The Lord Palmerston in a
c.1900 postcard, and as Nando's, 2017. (www.images-of-london.co.uk/ Anne Hill)
The Lord Palmerston, 308 Kilburn High Road, is
another example of how Kilburn has changed over time. It originally operated as
the Palmerston Hotel when it opened in 1869, and served as a terminus for
several horse bus services. In 1977 the pub re-opened as the Roman Way, in
deference to the road’s historic roots. Now it is a branch of Nando’s. The Cock
Tavern, The Old Bell, the Sir Colin Campbell, North London Tavern, Earl of Derby
and others continue the area’s tradition of historic pubs, which we saw in Part 2, but now alongside
Italian, Japanese, Thai, Afghani, Persian, Turkish, Indian, Moroccan, Burmese
eateries on the High Road.
7.A collage of some of Kilburn's historic public houses. (Photos and
collage by Irina Porter)
From the 1970s onwards the Irish population started
to move out of the area, and immigrants from the Caribbean, Middle East and
Asia started to come in. The area is now multicultural - in 2017 the vicar of
the Catholic Church of the Sacred Heart in Quex Road said that he regularly welcomed
64 different nationalities to mass. The Maida Vale Picture House at 140 Maida
Vale (1913) is now the Islamic Centre of England.
“The window logs Kilburn’s skyline. Ungentrified,
ungentrifiable. Boom and bust never come here. Here bust is permanent. Empty
State Empire, empty Odeon, graffiti-streaked sidings rising and falling like a
rickety roller coaster. Higgledy-piggledy rooftops and chimneys, some high,
some low, packed tightly, shaken fags in a box. Behind the opposite window,
retreating Willesden. Number 37. In the 1880s or thereabouts the whole thing
went up at once – houses, churches, schools, cemeteries – an optimistic vision
of Metroland. Little terraces, faux-Tudor piles. All the mod cons! Indoor
toilet, hot water. Well-appointed country living for those tired of the city.
Fast-forward. Disappointed city living for those tired of their countries.”
8. Three scenes from Kilburn High Road in 2020,
still with a W.H.Smith connection! (Photos by Irina Porter)
The 1970s was not all doom and gloom, and music
provided one of the bright spots. The band ‘Kilburn and the High Roads’ (local connection unknown!) and its singer Ian
Dury were one of the inspirations for the later punk rock movement. In a
comment on Part 3, Wembley Matters reader Trevor shared with us his
recollections of growing up in Kilburn and taking part in the The Jam’s video for their song
‘When You’re Young’ in 1979. This was filmed in Kilburn Square shopping
precinct and in Kilburn High Road (with Woolworths!). The bandstand is in
Queen’s Park, and the 12-year old Trevor is wearing a red and blue jacket.
Another famous 1970s singer/songwriter who has
lived locally was Cat Stevens. He became a Muslim in 1977, having found his
spiritual home through reading the Qur’an, and changed his name to Yusuf Islam.
His many charitable works in promoting education, peace and mutual respect
between faiths since then have included setting up the Islamia Primary School
in Salusbury Road in 1982, the first full-time Muslim primary school in
England. For more about musicians and
music businesses in Kilburn, visit North-West London Music Maps, by Dick Weindling.
Kilburn had 10 cinemas in the last 110 years, but
today only one remains, and that is part of the cultural focal point of modern
Kilburn, at 269 Kilburn High Road. The building dates from 1928, when it was
opened as the London headquarters of the Foresters’ Friendly Society, which
provided financial help to members in need. In the 1930s it had a music and
dance hall, on occasions hired by Oswald Mosley’s fascist ‘Blackshirts’, who
used to meet in the area. During the World War II it served as an air raid
shelter and a food distribution point.
9. The Foresters’ Hall and Tricycle Theatre, late
20th century. (Images from the internet)
The Foresters’ stayed in the building until 1979,
when they sold it, and moved into a small office nearby. The building was being
used by local community organisations, when it was discovered by Shirley Barrie
and Ken Chubb, who founded their theatre performance Wakefield Tricycle Company
and were looking for permanent premises. In 1980 Tim Foster Architects
re-designed the theatre, but in 1987 the building was destroyed by fire and the
re-building took 2 years. In 1998 a new cinema was opened next to it, which
also offered extra rehearsing space.
10. The opening plaque on what is now the Kiln
Cinema, in Buckley Road. (Photos by Irina Porter, 2020)
The Tricycle Theatre was
successful and acquired a reputation for political and outspoken, diverse and
innovative plays. One of the best known was the Colour of
Justice (1999), based on the Stephen Lawrence inquiry and directed by
Nicholas Kent who became Artistic Director in 1984. In 2018, after another
re-design project, the Tricycle re-opened as The Kiln, with a new café,
rehearsal rooms, improved accessibility, better sightlines, comfortable seats
and flexible stage. The Kiln has a 300-seat cinema and a slightly smaller
theatre complex.
11. The 60s/70s South Kilburn today, with Crone Court
and the OK Club (left) and Dickens House (right). (Photos by John Hill, and from
Facebook on the internet)
Despite the hopes of planners, and like the Chalkhill and Stonebridge estates elsewhere in Brent, the South
Kilburn estate of typical 1960s brutalist style high density housing, in low
rise flats and 11 concrete tower blocks, did not deliver an ideal
neighbourhood. In 1988, unemployment in South Kilburn was 20%. The estate was
plagued by crime, shootings, gun and drug trade. There was ongoing rivalry with
gangs from the nearby Mozart Estate, just across the borough boundary in
Westminster. Several high-profile police raids in 2007 and 2011 and the
shootings of innocent by-standers as the gangs wage their wars against each
other continue to contribute to the adverse reputation of the area.
12. Network Housing's Kilburn Quarter, in a computer
image and 2020 photograph. (Internet / Irina Porter)
In 2004 Brent Council started working on a 15-year
plan of drastic demolition of much of the estate and creating a new living
environment, at a cost of £660 million. The demolition of the old estate
started in 2014 with two of the 18 storey housing blocks, to be replaced with 4
‘smart’ blocks and amenities for the local community. Several different housing
associations and architects are involved in the project, which so far has
resulted in an overall loss of council housing, as many of the flats are for
private sale. Despite the council’s efforts to improve the quality of the area,
it continues to be plagued by problems connected to its history of gang
violence and drug dealing, as well as issues with maintenance of the newly built homes and
cladding for fire safety regulations.
One effort aimed at engaging with young people on
the fringes was the Signal Project in 2004. The mural they sponsored under the
bridges at Kilburn Station brought together graffiti artists and the local
community. The subjects painted reflected Orwell’s ‘Animal Farm’, H.G. Wells’s
‘War of the Worlds’, the Gaumont State and Kilburn’s Irish heritage, and it won
Time Out magazine’s best mural award in 2006.
13. Some views of the street art murals under the
bridges at Kilburn Station. (Irina Porterx3/ John Hill)
In recent years Kilburn has been regarded as on the
way up – as have been many London locations which are within easy transport
links to Central London. The long-suffering South Kilburn estate is not without
its crime problems, and occasionally developers cause an uproar too, as in the
case of the Carlton Tavern, a pub in Carlton Vale on the border of Kilburn and
Westminster. This dated from 1921 and was the only building on this part of the
street to survive the Blitz during the Second World War. In 2015 it was bought
by an Israeli property developer and demolished overnight, without permission,
while being considered for Grade II listing.Westminster Council ordered the developer to rebuild the public house,
recreating the exact facsimile, which has been done, but as of October 2020 it
still has not re-opened.
14. The Carlton Tavern, after its 2015 demolition,
and in 2020 after being rebuilt. (Internet / Irina Porter)
Brent was chosen to be London’s Borough of Culture
for 2020, and one of its highlights was to be a summer festival on Kilburn High
Road, with a mile-long street party. Unfortunately this was cancelled due to
the Covid-19 situation. Kilburn does, however, have two Brent Biennial artworks by
British-Filipino artist Pio Abad, just
off the High Road in Willesden Lane and Burton Road. There is also the premiere
of Zadie Smith’s debut play, ‘The Wife of Willesden’ at The Kiln theatre to
look forward to as part of the delayed LBOC 2020 celebrations.
15. Pio Abad's two Brent2020 Kilburn artworks, and a
Borough of Cultures sign. (Internet / Irina Porter x2)
Whatever Kilburn’s future will bring us, I hope you
have enjoyed discovering its rich and colourful past, which this series will
remain as a record of.
A special thank you to local historian Dick
Weindling, co-author of 'Kilburn and West Hampstead Past' and History of Kilburn and West
Hampstead blog
Thank you, Irina, for what has been a fascinating
series on Kilburn. Where will our local history journey take us next? If we
head west along Kilburn Lane to Kensal Green, then up the Harrow Road for a few
miles, we’ll come to …. Find out next week, when another writer joins our
“local history in lockdown” team, with a one-off article for you.
