Will these plans put the 'park' back into Wembley Park? Comments close Thursday 5th August

 Wembley Park 1895

Artist's impression of the hoped for Wembley Park from the station
 

If you are a Wembley  Park resident you may have been stopped by a visitor asking for directions to the park. One Wembley resident got so fed up with such requests and what appeared to be the vanishing prospects of a new park in the quintain development that she took to calling it Wembley-No Park.

Now a pair of planning applications (21/2517 Plot NE02) and 21/2424 (Plot NE03) give some clues to the future shape of the park on the former Yellow car park (North East Lands).

The relatively new Chalkhill Park is a testimony to how parks can help transform an area: aesthetically, environmentally and socially. Chalkhill is open to the railway on one side and bordered mainly 2-4 storey homes on the other sides.  The 'Northern Park' will be surrounded by  tower blocks of various sizes. These applications include for NE02 two block of 10-27 storeys comprising 487 residential uits, and for NE03 two blocks of 10-21 storeys comrising 282 units. There are more blocks in the surrounding developments.

This image gives a view of the proposed park between the blocks:

The proposed park from above Wembley Park station

It is interesting in the above image to see the green space around Danes Court and Empire Court between the Jubilee and Metropolitan line and North End Road - the architects of the time knew their stuff.  These residents are now concerned about their loss of light from the nearby towers and one concern will be how much shadow will be cast over the Northern Park by  tower blocks.

Some of the artist's impressions make the tower blocks look like a mirage rather than the pretty hefty buildings that they are:

The Park will be divided into 2 sections - separated by Engineers Way and there will be a fairly narrow entrance between blocks on Rutherford Way:

 This image gives some context but show the blocks  only on one side of the park (well you can catch a glimpse of balconies on the far right).

 

 The entrance to the park from Rutherford Way:

 

 

 

Rutherford Way/Engineers Way where the two parts of the park are separated:
 

It is clear that a great deal of work has gone into the planning of the park and I embed the relevant document below. It must be a wonderful relief to design a beautiful park with pleasure people's pleasure in mind rather than yet another human rabbit hutch!

Attention has been given to bio-diversity and different habitats as well as play areas for children.  Clearly maintenenace of the park is a key issue and lack of clarity h over this has been the downfall of many a similar project elsewhere.

 

Users would include residents of the surrounding flats as well as visitors although again there has been local concern about what was advertised as accessible public space becoming private. The plans envisage that the park could be used for outdoor concerts, firework displays and New Year celebrations.  After the recent Euro2020 disturbances and earlier problems on the green at Wembley Hill Road near Wembley Stadium  Station, consideration will need to be given to how the park will be used on event days.

The Neighbourhood Consultation on the building and park plans for these 2 Reserved Matters Applications closes on Thursday 5th August 2021.

To comment got to LINK and search for references 21/2517 and 21/2424

DETAILS OF THE PARK PLANS ARE MAINLY IN THIS DOCUMENT (CLICK BOTTOM RIGHT SQUARE FOR FULL SIZE)

 THIS DOCUMENT GIVES FURTHER DETAILS LINK

 

Quintain's revision to Wembley Park's North East Lands consent approved by Brent Planning Committee

 

Despite the large number of residents' objections to Quintain's revisions to its consented plans for the North East Lands section of the huge Wembley Park development, there were no questions for a resident of Marathon House after he had spoken about its impact on the daylight and skylines of residents' flats. He claimed that the application demonstrated no benefits compared with the original consent. Furthermore, he suggested that by breaking down applications into small bite size chunks  developers masked the larger impact on the area.

The revisions increase the height and density of the development but move some boundary lines.

Having no questions the Committee moved on to the developer's agent who basically came out with rather a lot of what appeared to me to be greenwash.  He claimed that the loss of light to residents of Marathon House was neglible and their balconies already reduced light and gave the impression of a larger loss of light than was otherwise the case.

An officer said that the benefits of the scheme was more open space, a larger capacity park (they haven't increased the size but ditched the lake and replaced with a couple of ponds), an attractive public realm with trees along Rutherford Way and making it a car free development.

 

 Cross section of Rutherford Way

Officers argued that changes to the scheme would break up a potential 'canyon' on Rutherford Way between Marathon House (tower on right) and Unite Students on one side, and the lower Quintain development on the other.  The officers' report repeated the claim that loss of light did not matter in student accommodation as it was transitory. They argued that BRE guidelines allow for special situations in urban environments and did not have to be strictly applied. They spoke about 'mirror massing' when buildings on one side of the road mirror that of the other side. The implication was that this was avoided here.

Officers echoed the agent's view that the Marathon House balconies meant more loss of light than would be the case if they were not there. They said that the Quintain blocks were set back and thus further from the middle of the road than Marathon House.

Cllr Maurice pressed on the loss of light,   due to Covid more people would be working from home and there most of the time and loss of light could affect their mental health. An officer responded that the impact would be negligible on Marathon House and Unite Students.

Cllr Kennelly asked about the use of rooftop space and was told that although there was no detail yet it would be provided for amenity and bio-diversity to provide recreational and ecological benefit.  The officer recognised that that the area was 'somewhat of a concrete jungle' and has been so for almost 100 years since the British Empire Exhibition and it would be nice to reintroduce the biodiversity that had been there before the BEE (watch out for cows on the roof!)

Cllr Saqib Butt said that he could not see any additional benefit compared with the oriiginally consented scheme, there were no additional housing units and he could only see loss to  residents in the neighbouring blocks.  Officers again pointed to trees on Rutherford Way and more space in the park due to the reduction in the size of the lake.

Cllr Kennelly said that keyworkers needed housing and often needed a car for work.  Making this a car free development would exclude them. Lead officer David Glover said that there was a recent reduction in demand for parking and that people were unwilling to buy parking spaces. The development may not be suitable for such keyworkers and the Council recognised that there was a need for a range of different housing to cater for differing needs that would be open to keyworkers. Wembley Park was an ideal site for car free development being so close to Wembley Park station and other public transport with a very high PTAL rating. Kennelly expressed concern that increasingly key workers have to move out of the area and  travel in to work. They needed access to centrally located housing. An officer said that Quintain recognised the need to provide some central parking for those in car free developments such as Rutherford Way.

Lead officer David Glover, discussing the impact on Marathon House residents said that there could not be a 'who comes first has the final say.' system/  Merely because their development went up first occupants could not then decide what was built opposite them - such a polcy would tie the hands of developers and planners.  The revisions had an 'acceptable' impact on surrounding properties.