Thousands of French Londoners queue to vote for their new president in Wembley

Wembley Park was pretty busy today with fans arriving for the Arsenal v Manchester City match converging with thousands of French Londoners arriving at the Lycee International de  Londres Winston Churchill to vote in the first round of the presidential election.

London has been variously descibed as the 5th or 6th largest French city outside France. One could not help wondering about the future of these families in London post Brexit.

The queue to vote stretched all around the streets surrounding the Lycee, formerly Brent Town Hall, and voters mingled with bemused locals waiting for buses outside the school.

No campaigning is allowed on voting day so it was not possible to gauge levels of support but the queue was calm and quiet, some chatting, others textings and quite a few deep in a book as they shuffled along.  Security appeared to be low key but effective after recent events.

Pupils of the Lycee had a busy trade in cakes at their stall in the school car park.

Sharp surprise in store for bottoms relaxing on a Wembley street

Fed up with people sitting on their boundary wall and dropping litter into the grounds, landlords of Kings Court, Kings Drive, Wembley have turned to nature for a remedy.

Planting of pyracantha shrubs all along the low street wall has now been completed. Pyracantha is known for its sharp thorns so once the shrubs have grown a little more anyone sitting on the wall will get a sharp jab up the backside.

Meanwhile just around the corner, the Winston Churchill Lycee, occupying the old Brent Town Hall, has planted the more benign English privet along its boundary wall with Forty Lane.

Residents to challenge Brent Council on playing field handover to Lycee at Cabinet tonight

Residents from the John Billam, Tenterden Parks and Neighbourhood Group will make representations to the Brent Cabinet tonight on plans to hand the Tenterden Pavilion and playing fields over to the Lycee des Londres Winston Churchill.

They will ask the Cabinet  to:

1. Defer or refuse the officers' recommendation that an agreement be entered into with Wembley Education Charitable Trust, the charity arm of the Lycee.
2. Reserve any decision in respect of the Community Asset Transfer to be made by the Cabinet and not delegated to any other body or person.
3. Confirm the erection of any new building on the site be confined to the footprint of the present building.
4. Agree stipulations for any proposal for an artificial pitch on the site.

This controversy follows others in the borough including the loss of public access to playing fields at the  site now occupied by Ark Academy in Wembley Park; loss of public access to former public space  behind Copland (now Ark Elvin) High School; the proposed move of the London Welsh school to King Edward VII Park, plans to hand over land at Kingsbury High School to Lucozade Power League, and further away in Harrow the public school's plans for new buildings defiling Metropolitan Open Land.

The Tenterden Group claim that the WECT has been unable to conclude negotiations for access to the long-established local Forest United and further that officers are 'well disposed' towards the Lycee. They claim that the Community asset transfer process has not been fair, open and transparent:

The French Lycee are not only a default bidder in what was intended to be a competitive open tender process but the sole funded proposer. In 2014 a comprehensive professionally prepared plan was agreed in principle between Forest united and the then Head of Parks, Ms G Kiefer. The plan provided  an integral; solution to the John Billam and Tenterden Playing fields and enjoyed community support. The critical elements in the plan were the incorporation of the John Billam and Tenterden pitches and a specific restriction on any new building exceeding the Tenterden Pavilion footprint. There was further provision that any pitch on Tenterden Playing Fields should not be enclosed but retained for public access when not in authorised sports use.

The Group claim that the CAT process has been compromised so far as no other accredited sports club can now re-enter the process and that as sole builder the Lycee has been given latitude beyond the prescribed closure date. There is no properly structured agreement on community benefit or participation - the sole benefit cited is polling station provision. (the Lycee has failed to provide this in 2 our of 3 occasions since it took over the former Brent Town Hall). Similarly there are no detailed plans for redevelopment of the Pavilion which raises concerns about the possibility of substantial development on the site.

The campaigners suggest that the officers' claim that the Lycee fufills various equality and diversity requirements is misleading in that less than 20% of its students  reside in Brent and only 20% of these are from ethnic minorities. The average fee is £10,500 and the Lycee is funded by the French Chamber of Commerce and has been described as 'popular with super-rich French business people fleeing to London to escape tax hikes.'

In that context the granting of a 30 year lease at a peppercorn rent  to the Lycee, with potential further development via peripheral clauses, of a site with a land value exceeding £2m raises fundamental questions.

The Cabinet Meeting is at 7pm this evening at Brent Civic Centre.

Sympathy and Solidarity with Lycee Winston Churchill, Wembley

Some of the school's students

The students from Lycee Winston Churchill have become a familiar sight in Wembley since the school opened in the former Brent Town Hall earlier this term.

Principal Mireille Rabate will face a daunting task tomorrow morning when she brings the school community together after the Paris attacks.

Wembley Matters sends sympathy and solidarity to staff, pupils and their families.

Wembley Stadium Today

Brent Town Hall begins its transformation into French School

Brent Town Hall earlier today

 

Wembley Town Hall during the 1948 Olympics

Hoardings, closed access to the famous steps, roadworks, a shifted bus stop and tree surgery have heralded the beginning of Brent Town Hal's transformation into a French School this week.

The Town Hall never really experienced a proper farewell in contrast to the ceremony that greeted the opening of the Civic Centre, for the record is how things looked earlier today.

Shrubs cut back in King's Drive gardens next to the Town Hall Library

Some of the trees have preservation orders attached

The lawned area at the back of the Town Hall is being cleared of vegetation

French parent voices doubts about Wembley Lycée

French parents in Central London have not been too impressed by the possibility of a  Lycée in Wembley.  A  French parent sent me this statement:

We were all surprised by the decision because it does not reconcile with Wembley regeneration plans with the creation of jobs for the Wembley local community nor the creation of school places for the local Wembley kids !! Basically it will be a rich kids school for parents living in Westminster and Chelsea. Although the last Brent Executive meeting suggested that they needed the money for the new Civic Centre (last Brent Executive minutes on the net).

Indeed a French school will provide jobs for builders for a while and a few 'dinner ladies'. The rest of the staff lives in Central London. The French children going to school in Wembley will be transient i.e. go into the borough for school and go back home to their Central London homes. Most French families live in the vicinity of the current schools. 

The French community is not happy with the choice of Wembley because they will be imposed Wembley for their children regardless of their home address in London. 

In France and in the UK, the school for your children is normally decided upon by your home address. This means that for those French parents who have three children at different school  locations (South Kensington, Kentish Town, Wembley) will be expected to do the school run between South Kensington,. Kentish Town and Wembley simultaneously for 09.00am by tube!!! 

When asked about this, the French Embassy dismissed the parents' concerns. with a 'take it or leave it' attitude.

Moreover French parents are very worried at letting their 10-11 years old children commute on their own from Central London to Wembley and back. The timings of the French school day is anything between 08.00 and 18.00 (unlike the UK). Furthermore, it appears that the children might have to walk 15 minutes or so, on their own, from Wembley Park station into a tunnel/motorway to reach Brent Town Hall. Again the Embassy does not seem to be concerned about the safety or welfare of kids nor about the time that these kids will need to spend in commuting  from their home in Central London to go to school and back.. The Embassy is treating children as though they were adults going to a new place of work.

Another problem? What will happen when there are no tubes to get from Central London to Wembley? bus? car? What time of the morning will these kids need to get up if taking a bus from South. Ken or Battersea to go to Wembley for 09.00!? Again the French Embassy did not seem to care too much.

French to storm Brent Town Hall?

Following my earlier posting on the mysterious bidder for Brent Town Hall I have received the following information.  It seems to make as much sense as any of the other rumours and we know that the French population of London is rising and Wembley Park has good communication links:

There are rumours that it might have been purchased by the French to open  a French secondary school just for their French children to carry on with  their French education over here in the UK. 

The French have a few French schools  in Central London but can no longer accommodate the growing demand for the

Certainly Brent Town Hall features in a document from the French Embassy on school places provision issued by the French Embassy in July. It appears to be among several possible sites in the suburbs  with a site in Queens Park also named.  All share the disadvantage that French parents are unlikely to want to see their children commute out of Central London. See section III