Dear Wembley Matters Editor
You have previously published reports of the long-running saga of Brent’s “Infill” housing expansion scheme on the Kilburn Square Co-op estate. I’m a near-neighbour, and have friends who live on the estate itself.
Despite good words from the Cabinet Housing Lead and various Officers, the project team is now preparing for Planning Application a design that our combined local community still considers as much larger than what the site can reasonably support without transforming its character and damaging the health and wellbeing of current and incoming residents.
I find bitterly ironic the contrast between this scheme and a mirror-image story about a current project in Barnet: https://www.times-series.co.uk/news/19937298.residents-lose-latest-fight-save-east-finchley-green-spaces/ . A Council facing acute housing shortages seeks to build houses on green space next to existing homes, in an area deprived of green space, against the protests of residents. Sound familiar? The twist is that this is a Conservative Council; and the Labour group are defending the interests of the current residents…
Kilburn Square was a major topic at a Kilburn Ward Zoom Hustings hosted last week by Kilburn Village Residents’ Association and two neighbouring RAs. As the election is almost upon us, I’d like to share with your readers the following Letter which the Brent and Kilburn Times Editor is about to publish
Yours sincerely
Nicky Lovick
“Dear BKT Editor
In the heart of Kilburn, just off the busy and polluted High Road, Brent plans to impose a major housing expansion scheme – currently 144 extra units - on a well-balanced and mature estate that a Brent Housing Officer has described to our MP as “brilliant”. Our local community is incensed. Here’s the story:
· On its Kilburn Square estate, Brent Council has been seeking for over 18 months to design a scheme for further housing expansion, that “can work for everyone” and “balances” the acute need for new social housing with protecting the health and wellbeing of existing residents
· Engagement last Summer produced near-unanimous rejection of the scale of the original scheme by estate residents and neighbours
· In agreeing to design a smaller scheme, Brent acknowledged three major objections: a new tower, the loss of Trees and Green Space, and the much-increased density of residents.
· It is now preparing a Planning Application for a scheme (its “Approach A”) https://legacy.brent.gov.uk/media/16420113/kilburn-square-newsletter-issue-2-2022.pdf that addresses only one of these (the tower)…
· …and retains two new blocks that would remove green space and mature trees, aggravate an existing deficit of Amenity Space and increase the resident population by 67% vs 2019
· Kilburn Ward is in the most deprived category for green space in the whole Borough – and the Climate Strategy is supposed to INCREASE green space, not remove it
· A three-month Council engagement effort, with tightly constrained options and the exclusion of trusted Independent Advisors Source Partnership, identified only 10% of estate residents willing to express any support for Approach A
· Brent has sought to exclude the local community from debate before fixing the project scale, despite representations from the Kilburn Square Stakeholder Group (KSSG) and over 50 recent emails from concerned neighbours seeking a smaller scheme
· Lack of any serious communication going to ALL neighbouring streets means many close neighbours are still in total ignorance of the expansion plan
For more details, see https://wembleymatters.blogspot.com/2022/03/letter-response-to-cllr-southwoods.html
Brent’s Housing Director has said publicly they “would not want to force homes on anyone, so where they had built had been with the support and encouragement of local residents and Ward Councillors”. Empty words in relation to Kilburn Square!
Estate residents and neighbours alike acknowledge the social housing crisis and will accept SOME further development – but this scheme is still too big, and unfair to current estate residents.
Wouldn’t it be great if all candidates standing in Kilburn (Brent) Ward would promise that, if elected, they will NOT support a Planning Application for the scheme in its current shape, and will work closely with the KSSG and all their electors to propose a more balanced and fairer scheme…?
At a Ward Hustings last week, hosted by three Residents’ Associations, three Party speakers agreed with that sentiment… and one did not. I’ll leave your readers to guess which one.
Nicky Lovick
Brondesbury Road resident (name and address supplied)”
