Two interesting talks at your Local History Societies in May

    Guest blog by local historian Philip Grant in a personal capacity.

Jeremy Waxman’s book about the letters.

 

Although the London Borough of Brent was created more than sixty years ago, there are still two Local History Societies in the borough, covering the areas of covered by the previous local councils of Wembley and Willesden. Many residents do not even know that they exist, but as they both have illustrated talks this month which may appeal to a wider audience, I’m taking this opportunity to let you know about them.

 

Wembley History Society’s meeting next Friday, 15 May at 7.30pm, welcomes Kingsbury High School’s former Head Teacher, Jeremy Waxman, who will share stories from his book “Letters to Miss Baker”:-

 

 

Daisy Baker was a teacher at Kingsbury County School from 1927 (before it moved to Princes Avenue!) until 1954. During the Second World War, she kept in touch with several hundred former students who were serving in the forces, and received more than 500 letters from them. These letters were rediscovered by Kingsbury High’s Head Teacher in 2017, when he was searching for archive material to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the school becoming a comprehensive (combining the former Kingsbury County Grammar and Tylers Croft Boys and Girls Secondaries). The first-hand wartime feelings and experiences included in the letters were an important piece of history, which Jeremy has brought together in his recently-published book.

 

Whether or not you are a former KHS student, this will be a very interesting talk. It is taking place in the church hall just behind St. Andrew’s New Church in Church Lane, Kingsbury. Wembley History Society welcomes anyone to its talks, and invites adult visitors to make a £3 donation, to help meet the cost of hiring the hall. Jeremy will also have copies of his book available to purchase at the meeting, which begins at 7.30pm on Friday. There are very good bus routes to this venue (including the 83, 182 or 297 from Wembley Park station – see details on poster above), and there is a small car park in front of the church if you can’t use public transport.

 

Willesden Local History Society’s monthly meeting, on Wednesday 20 May at 7.30pm, brings the past and future together with Irina Porter’s talk “Brave New World – Step into the past with AI”. She writes: ‘AI opens up a new historical world – are you brave enough to step into it? Watch the streets of Willesden come alive on screen!’

 

 

A postcard of Chapter Road from c.1900, transformed into colour using AI.

 

Irina continues: ‘Artificial intelligence is transforming historic photographs into colourised moving films, bringing hundred-year-old local streets and people into motion. Seeing the past move can be powerful, emotional, but at times unsettling. This presentation explores the promise of this new technology, as well as the moral issues associated with it and the risks it poses to historical accuracy and interpretation.’

 

Location map for Willesden Local History Society meetings. (Based on Google Maps)

 

The meeting is taking place at St. Mary’s Parish Church Hall, next door to Willesden’s historic St. Mary’s Church in Neasden Lane, London NW10 2TS. Again, this venue is easily reached by public transport, with the 297 bus stops at Wharton Close very close to the hall, and the 260 and 266 buses to Willesden Magistrates’ Court just round the corner. It is only a five-minute walk from Neasden Station on the Jubilee Line (or one stop from the station on the 297).

 

Like its Wembley counterpart, Willesden LHS also welcomes visitors to its meetings, in return for a small donation, so if this subject is of interest to you, please come along by 7.30pm on Wednesday 20^th.

Philip Grant.

Proposed Stopping-up Order near Olympic Steps – the outcome of Brent’s application to the Court on 16 April

 Guest post by Philip Grant in a personal capacity

 

Willesden Magistrates’ Court. (Image from the Courts Service website)

 

At the end of my previous guest post about Brent’s application to stop-up two areas of highway, just to the south of Engineers Way near the Olympic Steps, I said that I would see the Council in Court on Thursday 16 April – and I did! Brent was represented by a barrister from Landmark Chambers, supported by the Council’s top Transport Officer and a Senior Engineer, and by Quintain’s Head of Planning (it was Quintain who had asked Brent to apply for the Section 116 Highways Act 1980 Order). I was represented by – me!

 

I arrived early for the 2pm hearing, and had an amiable discussion with the Brent team and their barrister, who had sent me, late that morning, a four page “Applicant’s submission” document and a fifteen-page copy of a decided Highways Act court case (R. v Leeds City Council, ex parte Spice) which they would be quoting from in support of the application. I don’t know whether they thought this would intimidate me, but I assured them that I had plenty of experience in dealing with Statute and Case Law from my working life.

Heading from the front page of the “Spice” High Court Judgment document.

 

The Magistrate hearing the cases listed for Court 4 did not appear until around 2.30pm, but it was not because he was having a long lunch. It turned out that he had also only received the latest documents from Brent Council that morning! When we got to “our” Case 6, around 3pm, he asked me whether, in the circumstances, I would like an adjournment, so that I could consider these extra documents, and a one centimetre thick “Application Statement” (“AS”) which Brent had submitted to the Court on 7 April. I was only passed a copy of this by the barrister at the start of the hearing. I thanked him for the offer, but said that I was happy to proceed, as it was in everyone’s interests for the matter to be resolved without further delay.

 

Brent Council’s “Application Statement” document.

 

The barrister presented Brent’s application, setting out that the Council had complied with all of the procedural requirements for giving notice, and stating that the Section 116 Order was needed so that responsibility for maintaining the old areas of unnecessary highway could pass to Quintain, who had since developed the land. She referred to photographs in the AS showing the locations of the highway, including those for the eastern hatched area pictured here:

 

The “eastern area” photos from Brent’s Application Statement.

 

The barrister’s presentation went on for around twenty minutes, and then the Magistrate asked several questions. One was about the assurance which Quintain had entered into with Brent, which was claimed to reinforce the Section 106 planning condition which allowed public access to the land which was the subject of the application. He was particularly concerned with the wording in the final sentence of Quintain’s letter of 30 March 2023, a copy of which was at tab 11 in Brent’s AS. That sentence said:

 

‘Although the land will be stopped up, Quintain can confirm that it will remain open to the public and remain free for people to pass and repass over but for the avoidance of doubt there is no intention by Quintain to re-dedicate the land as highway and public access would be on a permissive basis only.’

 

Quintain’s 30 March 2023 letter (with personal names deleted for privacy).

 

The Magistrate felt that ‘on a permissive basis only’ suggested that the public would only have a “licence” to cross the land, not a firm legal right. Quintain’s Head of Planning said that was not what they intended – the company simply wished to ensure that parts of the public space could be closed off for maintenance on the occasional day when this might be necessary. There was a short break while a revised final sentence was drafted, which satisfied the Magistrate’s concerns.

 

I was then invited to present my case objecting to the application. I asked whether the Magistrate had a copy of the photographs evidence document, which I had sent to the Council in January, and had emailed a copy to the Court Office the previous week. He looked in his online case file and said that he had a copy, which he felt would be very useful. I then set out my arguments, that the application was wrong in law. 

 

Extract from the application Plan, showing the hatched areas.

 

Although I agreed with the Council that it was sensible to resolve the residual problem of who was responsible for maintaining the hatched areas of land, they did not need a Section 116 Order to do that. The proposed Order dealt with the land as it is now, and it was necessary for the public to continue to have ‘a right to pass and repass, either on foot or dependent on suitability in a vehicle’ over this land. The draft Order sought the Magistrate’s authorisation to stop-up this highway ‘for the purpose of all traffic and all public rights of way [to be] extinguished.’ But he could only sign the Order if the area of highway was unnecessary.

 

Two ‘key principles’ from Brent’s “Applicant’s Submission” to the Court.

 

I took the Magistrate through the photos I’d taken in January, one by one, and referring to the “Applicable Test” section of Brent’s submission, asked whether highway, such as Olympic Way East, was ‘unnecessary for the sort of purpose for which Justices would reasonably expect the public to use that particular way’?

 

One of my evidence photographs, showing a car crossing the hatched area into Olympic Way East.

 

I also made the point that if the Magistrate did sign the Order which Brent had prepared, it would create two completely contradictory situations for the hatched areas. Under the planning condition and the Quintain letter of assurance the public had the right to cross that land. Under the proposed Order the public’s legal right to cross those small areas of land would be extinguished. Although the public would see no practical change in their use of the land for now, it could create a legal nightmare in future. Public use of the hatched highway areas was necessary, and it was the Section 116 Order which was unnecessary.

 

The Magistrate asked me whether I was aware of Section 142 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984. I admitted that I had not read or considered it. He said that it was possible for a road not to be a “highway”, and from looking at my photos it appeared to him that Olympic Way East was not a highway, but a ‘road to which the public has access’. Similarly, the footway areas, such as that in front of the Olympic Steps, were not highway, but public space to which people had access.

 

The Magistrate said that he would retire to consider his decision, but would come back and give it verbally when he had done so. We waited in Court 4 for at least half an hour until we rose as he returned at around 4.30pm. In summary, he agreed with Brent that the legal status of highway was not necessary for the two hatched areas, so he would sign a copy of the Plan. However, he commended me for my public spiritedness in standing up for the legal right of the public to cross and recross those areas, and said that he would not sign the Order authorising the stopping-up of those unnecessary areas until its wording had been changed, to remove the reference to extinguishing all public rights of way.

 

Both sides left the Court satisfied with the outcome, and Council Officers emailed me a revised draft of the Order the following morning, inviting my comments or agreement. I recommended tidying up the wording over ‘highway maintainable at the public expense’, and suggested that to avoid any confusion over the previous and present uses of the hatched areas they should be described as ‘disused’ and ‘now being part of .…’ I’m pleased to say that my suggestions were accepted, and you can see the difference between the original and final versions of the Magistrate’s Order here:

 

Opening paragraph of the Section 116 Order document.

Closing section of the Section 116 Order document.

 

If the Notice last December about Brent’s application for a Stopping-up Order had included the final wording, I would not have objected to it. So much time and effort, over the past few months, for myself and Council Officers, could have been avoided. I think this underlines the point I made in my March 2026 guest post, that if Brent had (as it used to) a General Purposes Committee consisting mainly of experienced back-bench councillors, who could take the time to question Officers and get things right, rather than Cabinet members rushing through an agenda at 9.30am ahead of a 10am Cabinet meeting, the Council could avoid making some of its bad decisions.

 

There have been too many bad decisions made by Brent Council over the past decade or more, some of them wasting millions of pounds. I hope that the elections on 7 May will see a change in the balance of power, and bring in a majority of councillors willing to work together, across party lines where necessary, to improve scrutiny and decision-making. Scrutiny at Brent Council has been ineffective for too long, mainly because too much power has been in the hands of the same Leader. 

 

 

I have done what I can, on a variety of issues, to try to hold Brent Council to account, including as an honorary member of Martin’s unofficial “Committee” for around a dozen years, but it is time for official and effective scrutiny to pass back to elected councillors, where it belongs. I hope that readers will consider that when they decide who to vote for in May’s local elections.

Philip Grant.

Some local and social history events for you to enjoy this Spring.

          Guest post by local historian Philip Grant 

 

Extract from a letter written on 27 September 1940.

 

I’m writing to let “Wembley Matters” readers know about some forthcoming events in local libraries, when I will sharing some local and social history which I hope may be of interest. They are all free to attend, although for the first one, at Preston Community Library on Sunday 19 April from 3 to 4pm, we hope that you will make a donation to the volunteer-run library funds if you enjoy the presentation.

 

Poster for the event at Preston Community Library on Sunday 19 April.

 

“Wartime letters from Preston Park” tells the story of the Second World War in Wembley, as experienced by two local housewives, and told in letters sent between 1940 and 1945 to their friend, and former neighbour, Muriel Hall. Extracts from those letters will be read by two of the Preston Library ladies, as “Nancie” and “Doris”, and I will be providing the accompanying slide show. 

 

The letters were saved by Muriel, and donated to Wembley History Society by her daughter in 2020, as a valuable first-hand account of civilian life in the Preston Park area during this important period in our history. We are excited to be able to share their words with people living in the area now. The event will be suitable for all ages from around 10 years upwards (Nancie and Doris both had children at Peston Park Primary School), and you can find further details on the Preston Community Library website.

 

Title slide for “Memoir from Mugsborough”.

 

2026 is the “National Year of Reading” (although reading books and articles is something we can all enjoy every year!), and my first Brent Libraries “coffee morning” talk of the year comes under that banner. Rather than local Wembley history, it takes me back to my home town of Mugsborough (not its real name), and a novel written in and about it in the first decade of the 20^th century. Because of its political content, this illustrated talk had to be scheduled for after the local Council elections (!), and will take place at Kingsbury Library on Tuesday 12 May from 11am to 12noon (but arrive around 10.45am for free tea/coffee and a biscuit).

 

“Tressell” in 1908

 

“Memoir from Mugsborough” not only shares stories from the book “The Ragged Trousered Philantropists” (using images from printed pages, the original manuscript and a modern graphic novel version), but also looks at the fascinating story of the author Robert Tressell (not his real surname), and how the book he had put so much effort into writing, despite poor health and hardship, came to be published after his death. You can get more details and reserve your free place on the Brent Libraries Eventbrite website.

 

Title slide for “Arthur Elvin” talk at Wembley Library.

 

My second “coffee morning” talk this year, “Arthur Elvin – Mister Wembley”, will be at Wembley Library on Tuesday 9 June from 11am to 12noon. The story of the man who used to be called “Mister Wembley” is not as well-known now as it deserves to be. Without him, Wembley Stadium would not have become famous around the world, and Wembley Arena (originally called the Empire Pool) would not have existed at all. 

 

Arthur Elvin looking down the newly completed Olympic Way in 1948.

 

His early life, before he first came to Wembley as a young unemployed ex-serviceman, to work in a cigarette kiosk in 1924, is equally fascinating - so come along and discover more about this important local character if you are free on the morning of 9 June. You can find further details and reserve your free seat at this illustrated talk here.

 

Philip Grant.

Northwick Park Golf: Brent Council's historical responsibility to ensure it continues as open space available for public use

 Philip Grant posted a copy of his objection to Brent Cuncil's disposal of the  Northwick Park Gold open space as a comment on the recent article about the Northwick Community Garden's appeal. I asked that he allow me to share more prominently.  Here it is as a Guest Blog Post. Philip writes in a personal capacity.

 

 

From 'Middlesex' by C.W. Radcliffe (Published1939) 

     

'Dear Brent Property and Asset Management,

Further to your Notice dated 17 March 2026 in the "Brent & Kilburn Times", I am writing to object to the proposed disposal of open space land known as Northwick Park Golf at 280 Watford Road.

This land was acquired jointly by Middlesex County Council and Wembley Urban District Council (from October 1937 the Borough of Wembley) around 1936/37, under policies designed to ensure sufficient public open space in the rapidly expanding London suburban areas. The money borrowed from the Treasury for such purchases in the 1930s had to be approved by the then Ministry of Health, and one of the conditions for their consent was that the land should always remain as public open space.

The book "Middlesex", published by Middlesex County Council in 1939 to celebrate the Council's Golden Jubilee, and written by C.W. Radcliffe, Clerk and Solicitor to the County Council, records that the County Council's resolution to acquire the open space at Watford Road in Wembley was approved in 1936. Such acquisitions were usually funded 75% by the County Council and 25% by the local Council, and the book states:

'In June 1935 it was definitely decided that, in all future cases in which the County Council agreed to make a contribution of 50 per cent or more of the cost involved, the freehold of the land should be conveyed to the County Council. In such cases the general practice is for the land to be leased to the borough or district council in whose area it is situated, on a 999 years' lease at a nominal rent. The procedure has the advantage of enabling the County Council to exercise greater control of the open spaces than would otherwise be the case and the County Council is in a stronger position in preventing any unauthorized dealing with the land.'

Such 'unauthorized dealing' would include the use of the land for any purpose other than open space available for the public to use for recreational purposes. Under the local government reorganisation in 1965, Middlesex County Council ceased to exist, and the freehold interest in the land, as well as the leasehold interest held by the Borough of Wembley, passed to the new London Borough of Brent.

But as well as the freehold passing, so did the responsibility for ensuring that the successor to Middlesex County Council retained the freehold in that land, to ensure that it could only be used, for the rest of the 999 years, as open space available for public use. That is why Brent Council should not dispose of the freehold.

New urban developments now are much denser than they were in the 1930s, so maintaining existing open space is even more important. That is particularly so on this site, because of the high density housing development currently taking place next door to it in the grounds of Northwick Park Hospital. I trust that my objection, and those of others which I am aware of, will be upheld, and that Brent Council will not dispose of the freehold of this open space land. 

Yours faithfully,

Philip Grant

Proposed Stopping-up Order near Olympic Steps – here we go again, and why this reflects what is wrong with Brent Council decision-making.

  Guest post by Philip Grant in a personal capacity 

Legal Notice from the “Brent & Kilburn Times”, 19 March 2026.

 

My guest post on 1 January opened with an image like this one, giving notice of a Magistrates’ Court hearing on 22 January at which Brent Council would be applying to stop-up (that is, to extinguish the right of pedestrians and vehicles to pass across) two areas of highway near Engineers Way, and close to the Olympic Steps at Wembley Park. An update to a subsequent article, Does Brent Council really want to embarrass itself in Court?, reported that the Council had asked for that hearing to be adjourned. 

 

Hopes that common sense would prevail were dashed when a Council Officer informed me, a couple of weeks ago, of a new hearing date on 16 April. I waited until the formal notice (above) had appeared in our local newspaper, before responding to it:

 

‘I have seen the Notice in yesterday's "Brent & Kilburn Times" about the new hearing date of 16 April at 2pm for the Council's Section 116 application. As requested in the Notice, I am writing to formally advise you that I intend to appear at this Willesden Magistrates' Court hearing, to object to the application for a stopping-up Order.

 

The grounds for my objection are that the application under Section 116 is wrong in law, because the two areas of highway shown on the Plan are not "unnecessary".

 

I will use the illustrations in the document "Brent Council’s proposed Engineers Way S.116 Stopping-up Order areas in pictures", which I supplied you with a copy of on 12 January 2026, as evidence that it is necessary for pedestrians and vehicles to pass across the areas of highway which the Council seeks to stop-up. You should ensure that whoever will be representing Brent Council at the hearing has a copy of that document.

 

Even at this late stage, it would be possible for the Council to withdraw its application, as you must realise that it has little hope of success, on the basis of the facts and law. Please let me know, as soon as possible, if the application is withdrawn. Thank you.’

 

I received two brief responses from Council Officers:

 

‘Thank you for letting me know of your intention to attend the stopping up order court hearing. I can confirm, as explained in our previous correspondences, the Council is intending to request the magistrate to approve this order under section 116 of the Highways Act 1980.’

 

‘I can confirm that we have a copy of your submission from 12th January "Brent Council’s proposed Engineers Way S.116 Stopping-up Order areas in pictures" and will ensure our barrister has sight of the document prior to the hearing.’

 

So not only are the Council going ahead with the application, they will be represented in Court by a barrister (I will be representing myself!). Hopefully, Quintain Ltd will be paying the barrister’s fee, as apparently, they were the ones who asked Brent to make the application in the first place. 

 

View from the Olympic Steps, showing that one of the areas Brent seeks to stop-up (in red)  would block the entrance to Olympic Way East, and impede pedestrians from using the Engineers Way crossing between Olympic Way and the Olympic Steps.

 

You only need to look at the areas the proposed stopping-up order would apply to, as shown by even one of the images (above) in the evidence document I supplied in January, to see that it is necessary for pedestrians and/or vehicles to pass across them. Yet Council Officers and an important Council committee are supposed to have considered the details before agreeing that an application for a Section 116 Order should be made to the Court.

 

The committee involved was Brent’s General Purposes Committee, at a meeting as long ago as 7 March 2022. This is one example, of many possibles, which illustrates how the decision-making processes at Brent Council have deteriorated over the past decade or so. This can lead to ill-considered decisions, which often end up wasting money (sometimes £millions) and to poor services. In this case, it was obvious to me as soon as I saw the plan showing the areas involved that they were not “unnecessary”, so why was it not obvious to the decision-makers?

 

I wrote in October 2016 about the way in which Brent’s General Purposes Committee, which used to be a strong group of senior “backbench” councillors, had been “hijacked”. The title of that article was: Does Councillor Butt have too much power?. Here is an extract from it:

 

‘[Brent’s] Constitution (in its own words) ‘…sets out how the Council operates, how decisions are made and the procedures which are followed to ensure that decision making is efficient, transparent and accountable to local people. Some of the procedures are required by law, while others are a matter for the Council.’

 

“Responsibility for Functions” is an important area, which should mean that there are “checks and balances” to ensure that power is shared across the Council, so that no single person or group within it has too much (to guard against that power being abused). The Constitution gives the Leader, or the Leader together with the Cabinet, considerable powers, but there are also ‘functions which cannot be exercised by the Cabinet’, ‘functions not to be the sole responsibility of the Cabinet’ and ‘functions that may only be exercised by Full Council’.

 

One area of particular concern is the General Purposes Committee, which ‘carries out a number of functions on which the Cabinet cannot take decisions, including public rights of way, setting the Council Tax base and approving staffing matters’.  The committee has eight members, and the Constitution used to say that at least one of these must be a member of the Executive (the previous title for the Cabinet). That proviso, which gave a very strong hint that most of the committee should be made up of back-bench councillors, has been removed, and for the past few years seven of the eight members have been Cabinet members, with the official Opposition Leader as the eighth.

 

Cllr. Butt is Chair of the General Purposes Committee, and of its Senior Staff Appointments Sub-Committee. This has given him considerable influence over the Council’s senior staffing structure, who is appointed to the Senior Officer posts, and the terms on which they are appointed.’

 

Whereas the General Purposes Committee used to hold “full length” meetings, when councillors would discus and decide matters publicly and transparently, they now start just half an hour before the Monday morning Cabinet meetings.  There were six substantive items on its agenda for the meeting on 22 March 2022. The minutes show that it began at 9.30am, and record that ‘the meeting closed at 9.49am’! 

 

 

I did follow-up my October 2016 guest post with an email to Brent’s then Chief Executive, who chaired the Council’s Constitutional Working Group (of which the Council Leader is also a member), suggesting that it:

 

‘should consider ways to ensure that the functions of the General Purposes Committee and its sub-committees are carried out independently of the Council Leader and the Cabinet. This is not just something which affects the present personnel, or situation on Brent Council, but a question of good governance.

 

The Leader and Cabinet already have considerable powers in those roles, and yet there are more than fifty other elected councillors whose knowledge and experience could contribute to the functions carried out by General Purposes Committee, if the majority of seats on that committee, and its Chair, were to be reserved under the Constitution for members who are not in the Cabinet. I believe that this would also ensure a better balance of power within the Council as a whole.’

 

The reply I received to my detailed email was short:

 

'Dear Mr Grant

 

Thank you for your email. The Chief Executive notes your concerns about the constitution of the General Purposes Committee. The Chief Executive and I consider that the composition of the Committee is satisfactory from both a legal and operational perspective.

 

Best wishes,

 

Chief Legal Officer'

 

Both the Chief Executive and Chief Legal Officer at that time had been chosen by the Senior Staff Appointments Sub-Committee, chaired by ………. you’ve guessed who.

 

Would a properly (in my view) constituted General Purposes Committee, which could spend more time considering reports presented to them by Officers, and would have had time to look at the plan which was one of the appendices to the Stopping-up Order Report, have agreed the recommendation ‘to approve the submission of an application to the Magistrate Court’? I can’t be sure, but I believe it was an avoidable error, which has wasted a lot of Council Officer time.

 

Willesden Magistrates’ Court. (Image from the Courts Service website)

 

We will find out whether it really was a bad decision when I see Brent Council in Court, on the afternoon of Thursday 16 April!

 

Philip Grant.