31 and 18 storey blocks application for site of CNWL college on Olympic Way

The view across Bridge Road yesterday. The 8 storey CNWL buidling is obscured by a tree

As the proposed buildings will look if approved 

Plans have been published for the development of the site of the College of North West London's Wembley Park site. The development is part of a three phase project which will see Wembley Park and Dudden Hill campuses moving into a new college building further down Olympic Way on the site of the building that was previously the head office of Network Housing. The extensive Dudden Hill (College Green) site will be redeveloped for housing some of which will also be highrise. See those proposals HERE.

The land is owned by United Colleges Group, the result of a merger between CNWL and City Westminster College and property rationalisation has been a strategy from the start. The decision on the Wembley Park and College Green development swill be made by Brent Council Planning Committee. In 2019 Brent Council granted a £50m bridging loan to United Colleges to facilitate the move to a new Wembley Park campus. LINK

 The Hill Group who are managing both applications calim that the Wembley Park site will provide 307 homes in two towers (18 storey and 31 storey) and College Green 1,627 homes. Together comprising 84% of the London Plan requirement of Brent Council. LINK

On the Wembley Park site they state 30% of the 'habitable rooms' will be at social rent and 100% affordable. However, the habitable room measure is a slippery concept and not the same as affordable homes as a percentage of the total. I have asked for clarification as elsewhere there is a reference to shared ownership as affordable - which we know it is not.

As the illustration shows there is a big impact on the view along Olympic Way although the proposal claims it does not interrupt the view of the stadium arch. It is certainly the first thing that will hit you looking from Wembley Park station towards the stadium and much more signicant  than the 8 storey CNWL building.

The Wealdstone Brook flows through the site. The present building is raised from ground level (as is Michaela on the other side of Olympic Way) as flood protection, so it is surprising to find that basements are planned for the new buildings. Retail, cafe or community uses are planned at ground level.

The present college building and Wealdstone Brook

The Wealdstone Brook flows through the site and beneath Olympic Way

The one storey temporary Black Sheep Coffee shop on Olympic Way  has recently been granted an extension to 2026 but the plans retain flexibility with the possibility of opening up the site where it faces Olympic Way if the Black Sheep goes.

The Black Sheep  now and after

 

Vehicle access to the site will be via Wembley Park Drive as at present but the development itself will be car free given its proximity to the station. Readers will note the Wembley Stadium Retail Park buildings on the right of the picture. The Retail Park, McDonalds and Troubadour Theatre (Fountain Studios) are another development site which will comprise 995 housing units in several towers.

On the image, below taken from the 2019 planning application, the CNWL building is bottom left corner. Now substitute an eighteen storey and a 31 storey block to see the scope of that development and the overall context on Bridge Road/Wembley Hill Road.

Finally it is good to see that the application includes a Whole Life Cycle  Carbon Assessment (albeit incomplete) and includes some mitigations to reduce carbon impact. LINK.

So far there have been no public comments on the proposal on the Brent Council Planning Portal Reference 24/1841 LINK

1 Morland Gardens – Is Brent Council “busy doing nothing”?

 Guest post by local historian Philip Grant in a personal capacity

 

The Victorian villa, “Altamira”, at Hillside, Stonebridge, in October 2023.

 

When I was growing up in the 1950s, there was a song by Bing Crosby that I often heard on the BBC Light Programme (now Radio 2). It was fun to listen to, and the words have stuck in my brain: ‘We’re busy doing nothing, working the whole day through, trying to find lots of things not to do ….’

 

I’m beginning to wonder whether the Council are singing that tune over 1 Morland Gardens. It is now more than four months since I wrote that Brent was reviewing its plans for this site in Stonebridge, after the 2020 planning consent for its proposed development there had expired. A report was supposed to be prepared, for submission to Brent’s Cabinet, with new proposals for the site. No report has yet emerged, and there is nothing on the Council’s Forward Plan for such a report to go to Cabinet in April or May 2024.

 

Although the original plans were flawed, including as they did the demolition of a locally listed heritage building and the construction of flats over a community garden, causing air quality problems, the site could still be used for a sensible development. This could include an updated college facility for Brent Start (currently stuck in a temporary home that the Council moved it out to, at a cost of £1.5m), or other community use, and some much needed affordable housing, while retaining and re-using the 150-year old Victorian villa, which was, until recently, in excellent condition.

 

Doing nothing with the now vacant Council-owned building would be worse than doing something. And damage caused to the building, while it was in the hands of contractors last year, is in urgent need of repair. So, what is Brent Council planning to do? 

 

In order to find out, I sent this open email to Brent’s Chief Executive and Head of Capital Projects on 25 March, headed: 1 Morland Gardens, NW10 - its future, and the protection of this Victorian heritage building.

 

This is an Open Email

 

Dear Ms Wright and Mr Martin,

 

1. I was told last November that, following the expiry of the Council's planning consent for its proposed 1 Morland Gardens development, a review of future plans for the property was being carried out, headed by Mr Martin, and that this would report back with proposals to Brent's Cabinet for a decision.

 

I submitted a paper to that review on 20 November 2023, but four months later, the report of that review has not yet been published or submitted to Cabinet, and it is not shown as an item for decision during the next two months on the Forward Plan.

 

Please let me know whether the review has been completed. If it has, when will the report be submitted to Cabinet, and made publicly available? If the review has not yet been finalised, please let me know the reason for the delay, and the date by which the report and recommendations on the future of 1 Morland Gardens are expected to be ready.

 

2. In my open letter of 30 October to you, Ms Wright, I finished by including a photograph of damage to the slates on the roof of the Victorian villa (which had been carefully restored by Brent Council in the mid-1990s, to provide a permanent home for its adult education college). I wrote: 'please ensure that urgent action is taken to replace the missing slates on the roof of 1 Morland Gardens, so that the condition of the empty property is not allowed to deteriorate further.'

 

Following the unsatisfactory reply to that point by Mr Ghani, on your behalf, I wrote again on 20 November, saying: 'There have been further strong winds and heavy rain since I saw the heritage building three weeks ago, so that point is even more urgent now, if expensive damage to the fabric of the property is to be avoided.'

 

It appears that nothing has been done to address this damage to the property, and it has got worse during the winter weather. Here are three photographs, taken yesterday (24 March) by a fellow "Friend of Altamira", with arrows indicating the damaged areas:-

 

Front view of 1 Morland Gardens, showing missing slates, 24 March 2024.

 

 

1 Morland Gardens from corner of Hillside, showing missing slates on south wing of Victorian villa.

 

 

1 Morland Gardens, showing serious damage to slate roof on north wing of Victorian villa.

 

The initial damage was not present when the building was occupied by "Live-in Guardians" up until January 2023, so was probably caused by contractors during the time that 1 Morland Gardens was under the control of the Hill Group (possibly during asbestos survey work). I realise that those removing slates at the edge of the roof thought at the time that the building would be demolished, so that failing to put them back in place did not matter. 

 

However, this locally listed heritage asset (one of only two in Stonebridge Ward) is not currently due for demolition. It would be a travesty if its condition was allowed to deteriorate further, particularly if this was deliberate neglect by Brent Council, to use as an excuse for further proposals to demolish this much-loved, beautiful and still eminently usable Victorian building. 

 

As a reminder, if any were needed, Brent's own adopted Historic Environment policy on "Valuing Brent's Heritage" states:

 

'The effective preservation of historic buildings, places and landscapes and their stewardship is therefore fundamental to the Council's role.'

 

I am copying this email to the Lead Member for Customers, Community and Culture, and to the councillors for Stonebridge Ward, for their information.

 

I look forward to receiving an update on the situation over the review of the future of 1 Morland Gardens, and to hearing that the necessary repairs to the roof of the Victorian building are being carried out. Thank you. Best wishes,

 

Philip Grant.

 

Plans for 1,500 homes on College of North West London's Dudden Hill site revealed - it's early days get your feedback in

 

The College Entrance

The Hill Group held an on-line consultation and an in-person consultation this week in the first stage of their engagement with the public over plans for the  extensive Dudden Hill campus.  I attended both.

The College will be demolished in phases with the eventual move of both the Dudden Hill and Wembley Park students to a new building in Wembley Park on the site of Network House.

The plans are for c1,500 new homes, work spaces, retail, nursery and community facilities. They are at an early stage and little detail is available. This gives residents a possible opportunity to influence the development.

Some buildings were demolished some time ago but there are also comparatively new buildings that will be demolished when redevelopment gets underway:

 

 

 

The plans include a central green open space as well as the retention of the green at the junction of Dudden Hill and Denzil Road.

A tree survey of the site is to be completed but a tour of the site yesterday demonstrated that there are some attractive specimens which I hope will be retained.

 

The size of the plot can be seen from this satellite image. Note the green corridor along the railway line and the area near Dudden Hill Lane and the green where buildings have already been demolished.

 

Among the issues I raised was the heights of the buildings. The highest blocks will be along the railway line and complement the tall buildings on the other side of the line on the former garden centre site. Lower blocks will front Denzil Road and  Selbie Avenue.

I was told that tenure for the homes had not yet been decided and there were ongoing discussions with Brent Council. I stressed the importance of the provision of genuinely affordable housing and the findings of the Brent Poverty Commission that social housing was the only housing type that was affordable for Brent residents on the housing list. It was cleared that despite the issues involved shared housing would be part of the mix as well as private sale and built to rent. We discussed the current conditions regarding cost inflation.

You will see from the boards below that there is quite a lot of retail planned within the development. When I raised doubts about that given how many such units remain unlet in Wembley Park I was told that this was a different sort of development and the retail would serve the residents rather than visitors. It was not envisaged that it would compete with other nearby retail outlets.

Community spaces are planned and the public are invited to share ideas for what they should be. A nursery is already planned. An earlier visitor had suggested a swimming pool. I was interested that there shddould be an accessible and affordable space in which the new residents and other locals could get together with perhaps a cafe along the lines of the Chalkhill Community Centre model.

Further questions were raised about 'child yield' the number of chidlren expected to live in the 1,500 homes and the capacity of local schools as well as the impact of increased commuter traffic on Dollis Hill Jubilee line station.

The on-line webinar had a small section on the separate but connected WembleyPark  campus redevelopment also to be be built by the Hill Group. This is separate from Quintain's development of the 'Fulton Quarter' which includes the curren retail park, McDonalds and the former TV studios, now a temporary theatre,

The Wembey site has the  Wealdstone Brook running by and there are plans to see if this can be naturalised. I of course spoke about the extreme climate change flooding dangers as covered elsewhere on Wembley Matters.  A very tall building will be the cornerstone of this development but there will be a separate consultation on this. 

Concerns that came up earlier when plans were first publicised was whether the new integrated College site in Wembley Park would be able to house the space hungry engineering and building faculties that exist in Dudden Hill and whether Willesden area students would be happy travelling to Wembley Park for their courses.

Have a look at the Exhibition Boards below kindly supplied by Hill Group and submit any questions or feedback to collegegreen@fourcommunications.com .

Click on bottom right corner for full page view.

First consultation on massive redevelopment of the Dudden Hill College of North West London site on zoom tonight and tomorrow at the college 3pm-7.30pm

 

 

The Hill Group will be holding public consultation events for the proposed College Green scheme on Thursday 20 October from 3pm to 7.30pm and Saturday 22 October from 11am to 2pm. These will take place at College of North West London Willesden Campus, Denzil Road, London NW10 2XD. They will also be holding a public consultation webinar event on Wednesday 19 October at 7pm. The link to register for the webinar is:
https://fourcommunications.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_tBBYKv8mS2KTKHQMIQs1jg 

 

 Wembley Matters has covered these plans since 2019 and the college's merger with Westminster College came rise to speculation over selling off of some property. Current plans are for CNWL to move to a new site in Wembley Park, with the Dudden Hill site and the current Wembley Park site redeveloped. The site is part of the Neasden Stations Growth Area Draft Masterplan LINK.

 

An old view of the college and College Green

 

The development is site 3 of the Neasden Growth Area Masterplan

 Artist's image (right) of the development from Masterplan

 From the Draft Masterplan - contrast with Hill Group's description for the consultation (top of page) including increase in homes from 1,100 to 1,500 and dropping of 'affordable' description.

 

Artist's impression of the development