Some creative and practical ideas on the Staples Corner Masterplan consultation. Contribute your thoughts.

 

Staples Corner from above (Brent Council)

It is all too common for Wembley Matters to hear from residents they were not aware of development proposals or consultations. Here, in a guest blog, a resident shares their message to Brent Council on the consultation over the preparation of a Master Plan Supplementary Planning Document (SPD) on the future of the Staples Corner Area.

In TRANSPORT terms, it is currently horrible for pedestrians and cyclists around Staples Corner. Even for motorists.

Brent needs either to take on in battle the London Mayor's 'Transport for London Streets' planners and reduce the amount of ugly and hostile 'severance' that his main roads create in the area, or you need to divide up your Brent plan and turn AWAY from the main roads to treat each area entirely separately.

 

 

Area Map (Brent Council)

 

Given the 'excellent' 24-hour main road access for goods, you should intensify industrial development, perhaps with flatted factories to encourage small businesses. Industrial and commercial areas need a great deal of greening as well though. Thirty years ago you attempted it in Park Royal with 'pocket parks'. Planning guidance must insist on setback and maintainable green borders around all industrial sites. Fencing design is important as well, with no ugly, cheap, bog-standard 'bayonet' galvanised-steel fencing (for a change).

Given the soon-to-open Thameslink station there and the potential 'West London Orbital' London Overground line to Neasden station, Harlesden station, HS2 Old Oak Common and into south-west London, you have high enough 'Public Transport Accessibility Level' values to build new housing at high density (which does not have to mean high buildings). 

Please clarify in your documents what is zoned as 'Strategic Industrial Land' and what is not. Are you planning to change its boundaries? Would there be mitigation (such as higher-density industry in what is retained)?

Pedestrian and cycling crossings across the A5 need to increase in number and quality, and at all side road junctions, with NO 'slip road geometry' on the road corners from the A5, so that LINKED road junction traffic lights / pedestrian crossing lights can keep speeds down to 30mph or below - which would be a novelty.

The main A5 slip roads from the A5 flyover should be reduced in length and width - not intended to reduce capacity but to reduce speeds. They are currently of a scale for 70mph traffic.

Current traffic speeds on the main roads are either near zero when there is congestion, and very high when traffic is light. 

The North Circular Road was going to be a motorway, the 'M15', but the A5 technically was NOT, and that road can be re-urbanised and humanised without much opposition, if you use planning gain money to finance the changes. 

Ex-London Mayor 'Boris-the-Now-Disgraced' had a London-wide 'Roads Taskforce'. That declared that roads should have a MOVEMENT function but also a SENSE OF PLACE function. Brent's task is create the latter on the Staples Corner main roads for the first time since the 1975 'improvements', particularly on the A5 main road.

 

This Brent Council's description of the consultation:

 

Brent’s Local Plan designates Staples Corner for housing and industrial growth, with the ambition to transform the area into a new mixed-use community with at least 2,200 new homes and new business premises fit for modern day occupiers, with an improved environment and supporting infrastructure.

 

To achieve this ambition, the Council is developing a Masterplan that will provide the detailed vision and planning policy framework for regeneration and growth in Staples Corner for the next twenty years.

Brent Council is also preparing a Design Code to set out the design requirements for new developments coming forward in Staples Corner. The design Code would provide greater certainty for communities about the design of new developments to the start of the planning process.

 

Brent will work with local communities and stakeholders to ensure the Masterplan and the Design Code for Staples Corner reflects local aspirations.

 

The Residents' Survey opened on December 1st with little response so far. It closes on 30th April 2023.

LINK TO SURVEY

Anger as developer lobs in an extra storey on Dollis Hill proposal pleading viability

Less than a month after Alice Lester, Brent Council Head of Planning, sent formal permission for the development at  4-9 Gladstone Parade, the developer has come in with a new application to add an additional storey and an additional 16 units to the proposal. LINK

Their knowledge of the local area is a little suspect when they can't spell the name of the road correctly!:

In comparison with the previous scheme, the proposal introduces an additional storey to the Edgeware Road frontage as well as a partial additional storey at both the Dollis Hill Avenue and Gladstone Park frontages. The raising of the height of the building by 712mm is minimal in the context of the overall development and will barely be perceptible in the wider street scene. The proposal is of a similar, albeit smaller, height to the Fellows Square development on the opposite side of Edgeware Road and therefore the increase in height is considered accepting  (sic) in terms of the emerging local context.

The increase in the number of units is based on a viability assessment:

The Development Appraisal, prepared by James R Brown and Company Ltd, assess the financial viability of the proposed scheme and the residential market in London. 


 Since the viability review of the previous scheme, dated March 2017, the new homes market in London has increasingly and significantly weakened. Residual land values are therefore reducing due to weaker new homes values and increased build costs. Subsequently, the viability of the 38-residential unit scheme is now substantially challenged (due to the weaker market conditions) and therefore in order to improve the viability and efficiency of the site a larger scheme of 54 units its proposed. 


The residential content of the new proposed scheme contains a 34.4% affordable housing provision by habitable room, detail in paragraph 9.2 of the viability report. The appraisal demonstrates that the proposed scheme drives a negative residual deficit and falls marginally short of being viable with 16 affordable housing units in comparison to the consented scheme which is significantly unviable with 10 affordable housing units. 


The revised proposal is already garnering opposition on social media:

Huge opposition to aggregate superhub expected at Barnet Planning Committee tomorrow

Barnet Planning Committee will be making a decision tomorrow on the aggregate superhub at 400 Edgware Road. The meeting is at 7pm at Barnet Town Hall, The Boroughs, NW4 4BG. There have been a huge number of objections to the planning application from Brent residents who will experience traffic and air pollution from the site and a big turnout of objectors is expected tomorrow.

DOCUMENTS 

PLANNING COMMITTEE AGENDA

PUBLIC EXHIBITION (Jan 2018)

Cricklewood Railway Terraces Residents Community Association have made a powerful case against the application. Click on bottom right corner to enlarge.

Infant school objects to Barnet siting waste facility close by

From The View from Dollis Hill facebook

On behalf of Our Lady of Grace Infant School, we write to formally register our strong objection to the proposed siting of a Waste Transfer Station (WTS) on the Edgware Road within very close proximity to our school. Our children range from 3-7 years and our playground backs onto the Edgware Road. We are gravely concerned about the inevitable impact on air quality which our children will be exposed to. We are also concerned about the impact on the local infrastructure, traffic and adjacent land uses, including other environmental stressors that might already exist.

We believe that the very close proximity of this WTS to an Infant School of very young children is of grave concern. Its proposed site will undoubtedly have an adverse effect on the health and well being of the children. We are under an obligation to provide a safe environment for our children and strongly believe that the WTS would jeopardise this. It is our understanding that the pollution levels on this stretch of the Edgware Road already exceed European guidelines, any further contributing factor to the local area would be unacceptable.

We believe that a decision to site the WTS in its proposed site will impose a disproportionate burden upon low-income and minority communities who live in this local area and attend our school. The overburden on this community will have a negative impact on this community creating health, environmental and quality of living concerns.

As we have not been consulted in any way, which is not in keeping with the regulations for proposed new sites, we question whether the consequences of siting this WTS on the local community and local infant school have been weighed.

Patricia Geraghty - Acting Headtreacher
And
Lee-Ann Frampton-Anderson, Chair of Governors
Our Lady of Grace Catholic Infant School
Dolls Hill Avenue, London NW2 6EU

Ditch the Dump! Dollis Hill protests at being made a 'rubbish sandwich' by Barnet Council

148 residents have objected to the locating of a waste transfer facility on the Edgware Road near residential properties and a school. The 'dump' is just within the Barnet boundary but will affect Brent residents. There are no comments support the proposal on the Barnet Council planning portal. LINK

Alison Hopkins has submitted the following comment:

I object in the strongest possible terms to this damaging and wholly unnecessary planning application. This is on the grounds of proximity to housing and schools, vastly increased traffic and congestion, air pollution and noise and environmental damage. 

Over the decades, we in Dollis Hill and Brent have been ignore and side-lined by Barnet Council. Our objections to the disastrous changes to road layouts, the massive increase in traffic, both cars and lorries on our roads, and to the destruction of our community by Barnet Council have been ignored.
There is no benefit to anyone living in Brent of ANY of your plans. Using the word regeneration to describe them is laughable if it were not so tragic. 

Barnet and its Brent Cross development partners have carried out a few so-called consultation exercise here. These have not only been meaningless, but have also resulted in the production of documentation which has gone from misleading to outright lies. 

The dump – and let’s not call it a waste transfer facility, that’s camouflage – is not needed. The only reason that the current WTF is being moved from the eastern side of the railway line is so that Barnet and the Brent Cross partners can build expensive housing with a high return to overseas and other investors. The current WTF is in a non-residential area and waste is moved out to landfill by train. Barnet claim that it’s not as bad as the original plans, as it’s “smaller”. Well, it’s far worse than the current dump, which at least makes some pretence to environmental care by using rail. However, the current dump also emits pollution and is a source of considerable stink to residents. 

These plans call for a WTF – dump, let’s use the word again! – on the doorstep s of thousands of homes in Brent, and across from an infant’s school. These are less than fifty metres away. And of course, the dump is also directly next door to the Fellows Place development, a major housing development recently given consent by Barnet. 

There will be thousands of heavy refuse trucks entering, and thousands leaving. The processing and compaction will cause noise and dust and dirt. Nano particulate pollution has been proven to cause the most damage to small children - those small children who will be forced be neighbours of the dump. 

The Edgware Road is already at the highest pollution levels in London. The refuse trucks and lorries will add to this.

Barnet propose to site this dump as far as possible from their residents as they can and as close to Brent as they can. It will not be their voters who suffer, it will be us. 

And, given that this waste goes to landfill and recycling plants well outside London, why on earth does it need to be so close in? The answer is that it doesn’t. it is sited to suit the Brent Cross development – that regeneration that means we get messed up roads and ruined neighbourhoods. 

The current WTF already causes a stink in warm weather which can be smelled from some distance away – moving it to close proximity to homes and schools is utterly unacceptable. 

What is also horrifying is the fire risk: I quote from the Chief Fire Officers Association: “Waste fires are a consistent issue for the waste and recycling industry, with the Chief Fire Officers Association (CFOA) estimating that there have been around 250 incidents of waste fires per year for the last decade, with an estimated cost to fire and rescue services of around £16 million a year.” The proposed dump is directly opposite two petrol stations. 

The North London Waste Authority themselves originally opposed this site on the grounds of proximity of schools and houses. Those houses and schools haven’t moved, so why the sudden withdrawal of those objections? 

Between this dump and the massive aggregate crushing plant proposed for a few hundred yards further south, we in Brent are a rubbish sandwich. Barnet need to LISTEN to us, not ignore us!

 Another resident comments:

Yet another senseless proposal by Barnet Council for the creation of a rubbish dump, coincidentally located at the very edge of the council limits. The location of the planned waste dump is also just outside the Low Emission Bus Zones announced by the Mayor of London LINK. Just in time, improvements in air quality introduced by this low emission zone will be immediately counteracted by a step increase in the number of HGV coming in and out of the proposed dump. Good job Barnet Council, you are continuing to actively work against the best interest of your tax payers and those from neighbouring councils.

For these reasons, I object to this application. Hopefully the committee will have some common sense and will put the health of tax payers ahead of other interests.

To comment go to LINK

October 18th deadline for comments on huge Cricklewood rail freight super hub

Reposted from  the NW2 Residents Association website LINK with their permission. Thank you.

Artist's impression of the proposed hub

Barnet Council plan to have a huge rail yard on the land behind Lidl, opposite the Cricklewood Bus Depot, at 400 Edgware Road. Planning permission has been applied for, and the public consultation ends on 18th October.

The land is owned by National Rail, and the freight company DB Cargo has a 125-year lease, due to expire in 2121. Their ambition is to make Cricklewood one of just three rail freight super-hubs in London, according to evidence given to a House of Lords transport select committee.

Freight trains will bring aggregate and other building materials to the yard at night. This will be offloaded and moved to storage areas. During the day lorries will deliver it to building sites all over London. The spoil from building sites will also be brought in by lorry and taken away by train.

The site footprint is approximately four times the size of Donoghues, and the application refers to an average of 452, rising to 800 HGVs per day. The site would operate Monday-Friday 7am to 7pm and on Saturday 7am to 2pm.

Local residents have raised enough environmental objections for the planning committee to delay a decision on a smaller temporary operation on the site; but the council posted the application for the permanent site the very next morning.

The main worries are:

• volume of traffic in an already congested and highly polluted area. Barnet has designated the A5 from Staples Corner to Cricklewood Lane as a focus area in need of air quality improvement. This will make it worse!
• effect of more HGVs on narrow roads such as Cricklewood Lane and Walm Lane, side roads and bus routes
• proximity of dirty industry to a conservation area, schools, the bus depot, supermarket, new flats at Fellows Square, housing in Brent
• pollution from irritant dust from the aggregate (aggregate is sand, gravel, crushed stone and rubble from demolitions, and so forth)
• noise of the operation and operating hours
• history of poor enforcement when regulations are broken
• possible effect on houses of vibration from heavy trains and lorries (the nearest houses are 19th-century, many others in the area are also 100 years old or more)
• possible effect on local water table
• general blight on residential areas.

The planning application is here; its reference number is 17/5761/EIA. You can add your comments and objections online there, or email the case officer Chloe.Thomson@barnet.gov.uk. The full site name is “Cricklewood Railway Yard, the land at rear of 400 Edgware Road NW2 6ND”. The deadline is 18 October 2017.

You could also copy local councillors in. Council elections are in May.
Barnet – Childs Hill ward
cllr.p.zinkin@barnet.gov.uk
cllr.j.cohen@barnet.gov.uk
cllr.c.ryde@barnet.gov.uk
Barnet – Golders Green ward
cllr.m.cohen@barnet.gov.uk
cllr.d.cohen@barnet.gov.uk
cllr.r.thompstone@barnet.gov.uk
Brent – Dollis Hill ward
cllr.parvez.ahmed@brent.gov.uk
cllr.liz.dixon@brent.gov.uk
cllr.arshad.mahmood@brent.gov.uk
Brent – Mapesbury ward
cllr.helen.carr@brent.gov.uk
cllr.lia.colacicco@brent.gov.uk
cllr.ahmad.shahzad@brent.gov.uk
Camden – Fortune Green ward
richard.olszewski@camden.gov.uk
flick.rea@camden.gov.uk
lorna.russell@camden.gov.uk