Whose Wembley? Is Quintain delivering for local people?

The PR and the actuality of the regeneration of the area around Wembley by Quintain Estates (taken over by a US private finance company in July sometimes seem at odds.

On the ground as the video shows the new developments seem cluttered and clashing and the amount of high rise more than originally expected.

Quintain could argue that you cannot judge the development until all phases are completed. Certainly true regarding the open space but I had a look today at the 'Alto' housing development.

I was shown a 2 bedroomed flat price £515,000 for a lease of 299 years (apparently the last one sold for £485,000) . The small print showed that in addition to this there is a ground rent of £500. A 'Reservation' deposit of £2000 is required and then 10% deposit payable within 21 days of exchange of contracts, a further 10% deposit from the initial exchange and, and the 80% balance due on completion.  The service charge will include  24 hr concierge and security, building insurance, garden maintenenace and use of the resdients' gym. It is estimated at £3.65 per sq feet per annum which works out at about £2,858 per annum for a 783 sq foot 2 bedroomed apartment.

The apartment itself seemed nothing special. The rooms were small and there was little storage built in. I was unable to find out what happened to waste disposal.

But really it isn't the apartment itself that is being sold but its location and life style:

Wembley Park is home to the iconic Wembley Stadium the SSE Arena Wembley and the Hilton London Wembley.

Savvy shoppers will find retail heaven in the super smart London designer Outlet where there are 50 fashion brands of generously discounted prcies, 20 restaurants and coffee shops and a 9 screen 1800 seat cinema comple. The new Wembley Theatre, an innovative revolving auditorium with 1300 seats, opens in May 2016.

There were only a few apartments left unsold from this phase of the development. This is a plan for one of the two-bedroomed apartments:

 Clearly the question of affordability comes up even for those in full-time work. The median gross weekly pay in Brent in 2013 was £537.50 compared with the London average of £613.50. Zoopla issued the following housing statistics last week. House price rises and rent increases in Brent are amongst the highest in London.

When it comes to future plans the Quintain Wembley Masterplan is rather vague on what type of housing is envisaged LINK

We are committed to building homes that meet the lifetime homes standard and follow the GLA’s housing design guidance. Discussions are underway with Brent Council regarding priorities around borough-wide infrastructure and affordable housing.

 ■ Around 4,000 much-needed new high-quality homes for Brent

You can provide feedback on Quintain's plans here: info@wembleypark.com

Up-market Wembley ditches Wembley Market

 The Wembley and Willesden Observer LINK reports that Quintain have given the Wembley Sunday Market notice to quit the site is has occupied for more than 40 years. The popular market, often in the news for raids on traders in bogus and counterfeit goods, does not seem to match the developers' plans for the area.

The hotels, multi-screen cinema and 'life style' apartments planned will be served by the Wembley Designer Outlet which is nearing completion. Instead of the cheap and cheerful Wembley Market Quintain envisage a:

To complement the outlet, Quintain plan to introduce a new and contemporary programme of artisan markets and events across the site, replacing the existing Sunday market with a more diverse and varied offering

Wendy Fair Markets who run the Sunday market say they are looking for alternative sites but Quintain who own most of the land surrounding the stadium have made it clear that their land will not be available to them.

More Wembley history takes a knock on eve of anniversary

The Planning Committee this week discussed two Wembley issues which local people have expressed concern about:

Agenda item 7, for 4 blocks of flats (3 x 8-storey and 1 x 5-storey with total of 109 flats) and one pair of 3-storey semi-detached family houses on the former station car park at Brook Avenue, Wembley, was brought forward. It was explained that during the site visit on 9 March it had been pointed out that several people who had commented on the application within the time limit had not been notified of the visit or committee date. 

Investigations had shown that those not notified included two Ward Councillors and the Chairperson of the Barn Hill Residents Association. The committee’s Legal Advisor had recommended that, in these circumstances, consideration of the application should be deferred to the next meeting of Planning Committee. The proposal to defer was put to the committee, and accepted unanimously.

The Chairman, Cllr. Ketan Sheth, told the members of the public present, including around half-a-dozen local residents who had come for this application (two of whom had been given speaking “slots” at the meeting as objectors) that the item 7 application would not now be heard at the meeting. He thanked those who had come for that item for attending, and said that he hoped they would come again to the meeting when it would be considered.

Plan with part retention of Palace of Industry walls

 Agenda item 4, for 1,350 temporary car parking spaces on the former Palace of Arts and Palace of Industry site at Engineers Way, Wembley, was the first application actually considered. Planning Officer Neil McLennan gave some further information on points from the Supplementary Report handed out at the start of the meeting, and said that the recommendation was now to give consent for temporary car parking for five years, rather than three, but with a reduction from 1,350 to a maximum of 510 spaces after three years, unless otherwise agreed by the Council. This would save the applicant from having to make a further application at the end of three years.

Philip Grant, a member of Wembley History Society, was invited to speak by the Chairman. He handed over some illustrations for the committee, and told them that since the application was made at the end of 2012 he had been trying to persuade the applicant, Quintain Estates, to retain at least some of the external walls of the Palace of Industry building until at least the end of 2014. 

That year would see the 90^th anniversary of the British Empire Exhibition, an event which would be of far more than local interest. The Palace of Industry was the last remaining building from the Exhibition, and it was important that visitors for celebration events in 2014 should be able to see the scale and architectural style of one of the original 1924 buildings, and the innovative construction method used for the Exhibition, which was also known as the World’s First City of Concrete.

Mr Grant said that he had been told by Quintain that none of the walls could be left free-standing for reasons of safety. He said that he had asked several times since 18 January for sight of any report showing this to be the case. He had made clear that he would withdraw his objection to the demolition of the walls if he could be satisfied on this point, but had been given no evidence to back up Quintain’s claim. He said that he had recently written to Quintain’s Chief Executive with proposals for just a small section of the walls to be retained, rather than all of the northern and eastern external walls, and referred members to the illustrations he had given them which showed details, and that his proposals would not interfere with the planned parking spaces. 

He asked the committee, if it could not make keeping part of the walls a condition of granting consent, to make a strong request to Quintain to retain the small section of the external walls now suggested.

Anne Clements, Quintain’s Senior Planning Manager, addressed the committee next. She said that temporary car parking on the site was essential to her company’s Wembley City regeneration project, which had been approved by Brent in 2000. The extra parking was needed to meet its commitments to Wembley Stadium, and had to be available before they demolished an existing multi-storey car park as part of the next phase of the project. The latest phase, the London Designer Outlet, would be ready later in 2013, and was already over 50% pre-let, with Marks & Spencer as the lead tenant. This would provide 1,500 new jobs, and steps were being taken to try to ensure that most of these went to local people. The Wembley City regeneration was of major economic importance to Brent, and the Council should continue to give it their full support.

Ms Clements said that Quintain were mindful of the site’s British Empire Exhibition heritage. Several mosaics had been carefully removed when they demolished the last section of the Palace of Arts some years ago, and the lion’s head corbels from the building currently under demolition would be preserved, with some given to Brent. She said that they needed to clear the whole site for car parking, and that, for safety reasons, they were not prepared to accept the risk of leaving any of the walls standing. When asked by one of the members whether there was any survey or report which showed that it would be unsafe to leave the walls standing, Ms Clements said that Quintain’s demolition contractor had said that the concrete was deteriorating and that the whole building should be knocked down.

Several members of Planning Committee then gave their views. Cllr. Ann John said that she must start by saying that, although she had no personal interest in the application, she had known and had many discussions with Ms Clements and other members of the Quintain team about the Wembley City regeneration during her years as Leader of the Council. She stressed the importance of the scheme, and said that she fully supported the application. While she did not blame Mr Grant for trying to keep a part of Wembley’s history, it was a similar situation to when some people wanted to retain the twin towers of the old Wembley Stadium. That would have cost £30-40 million, and would have meant that Brent did not have the new Wembley Stadium.

Cllr. Mark Cummins said that what Mr Grant was now suggesting looked very reasonable, and he hoped that Quintain would try to accommodate his suggestion to retain a small section of the Palace of Industry walls. The British Empire Exhibition was an important part of Wembley’s history, and it should be possible to allow part of its last surviving building to remain standing for the anniversary in 2014. Cllr. Mary Daly, Vice-Chair of the committee, supported this view, and asked Ms Clements to take the feelings of members, on retaining the small section of the walls now proposed, back to her company. Cllr. Sami Hashmi said that he agreed with the comments of Cllrs. Cummins and Daly. 

Making final comments from the Planning Officers, Stephen Weeks said that there was no legal bar to Quintain demolishing the Palace of Industry building, and no condition over keeping part of the walls could be imposed as part of this planning consent. Neil McLennan clarified the wording of the amended conditions to the consent which the Officers recommended. The committee voted unanimously to grant consent, as amended.

The amended recommendations to the conditions on which consent would be granted for temporary car parking spaces on the Palace of Industry / Palace of Arts site, which were approved by Planning Committee were:

Condition 1: Period for which consent given: 5 years (rather than 3 years in original recommendation);

 

Condition 7: Maximum number of parking spaces: 1,350 spaces for the first three years from first use, and 510 spaces for the following two years unless otherwise agreed by the Council (rather than 1,350 spaces in the original recommendation).

Brent's relationship with Quintain under strain over the Wembley Plan

An Officers' Report going to the Executive on March 11th reveals some areas of strain in Brent's relationship with Quintain Estates, the major developer of the Wembley Regeneration Area.

The Council accept Quintain's claim that parts of the current Wembley Retail Park are shown as suitable for tall buildings but state that this is subject to an assessment of the impact of the buildings on views. On site W18 at the Wembley Retail Park,  Quintain  argue for higher density of development but Brent responds that "the indicative residential development capacity reflects the high proportion of family housing sought on this site (thus affecting the number of habitable rooms per unit), the domestic character (resulting in an 'urban' character rather than 'central') and the incorporation of the public space within this site."

Quintain object to the policy requirement that the development of the car park at York House (Site W9) should be relatively low rise and should include a substantial area of open space. Brent Council respond that there is still a deficit of open space in the area and the site provides scope for publicly accessible open space between buildings. 'Relatively low rise' reflects the high rise nature of York House and the need to provide good levels of sunlight in existing and new open spaces.

In line with apparent reservations on surrendering building land for open space, Quintain consider there is too much detail on the proposed park north of Engineers Way and particularly object to its East-West orientation.  Brent respond that this is fundamental to achieve an open aspect to 'what will be a densely developed area' and that the space would connect the proposed new primary school at Fulton Road,on the west side, to its catchment area in the residences to the east.

It appears that  Quintain's approach can be summarised as: build tall, build densely, and with limited open space.  Presumably this would extract more profit from their land acquisition. They go further in this statement which seems to threaten section 106 planning gains:

WEM36 and WEM38 set out requirements that major new development provides new open space and food growing facilities. Such exceptional provision, which also includes the provision of play space in WEM40 and wildlife enhancements inWEM41, will have an impact on viability and thus will have an impact on Section 106 obligations, after CIL.

Brent Council deal firmly with Quintain's objection to the provision of large food stores (over 2,000 sq m) being directed to Wembley High Road. The Council argue that this is essential to benefit the whole area and in order not to let the regeneration of the stadium area lead to a decline in the High Road. The argument is that new shops on the High Road between the junction with  Park Lane and Wembley Triangle will establish continuity between the older area and the new development.

Quintain certainly seem to be on a loser with their objection to policy limiting the proportion of frontage in the town centre that can be occupied by hot food take-aways. The Council's robust response is that there is widespread support for such a policy, including from the GLA, and 'there can be adverse impacts on the health of the population from fast foods.'

There is much more in the Wembley Area Action Plan so I will return to other aspects later. You can access the documents by following this LINK to Item 8 of the Executive Agenda.

If you want to comment on the plan and some of the issues above, Consultation will start from 25th March 2013 and last for 6 weeks. It will be agreed by Full Council in June and planning inspectorate examination hearings will be held in October 2013 with adoption the following February.

Never mind your heritage - get excited by the shops!

Guest blog by local historian Philip Grant

It seems that we are likely to see the last remaining relic of the British Empire Exhibition, the Palace of Industry building in Olympic Way and Fulton Road, demolished within the next couple of weeks.

Quintain Estates advised me on 14 February that they intend to go ahead with the demolition before their planning application for 1350 temporary car parking spaces on the site goes before Brent's Planning Committee on 13 March. They can do this, as Brent gave them permission as part of the overall scheme for Wembley City some years ago. 

I had asked them to allow the east and north external walls to remain standing until the main redevelopment of the site for a shopping centre goes ahead in several years time. This would not stop them from having all of the car parking spaces they require to fulfil their commitments to Wembley Stadium, and would allow visitors coming to Wembley Park for the 90th anniversary of the British Empire Exhibition in 2014 to see the scale and style of the last of these iconic buildings. They claim it would be unsafe to do this, but have ignored my request (four weeks ago) to have sight of their evidence.

It was intended to ask for the retention of the walls to be made a condition of granting planning permission for the temporary car park. It appears that Quintain Estates have decided not to take that risk, so that the demolition will already be a "fait accompli" when the Planning meeting takes place. As a concession to the proposed BEE 90th anniversary exhibition, which it is hoped will be held in the new Civic Centre in the summer of 2014, Quintain have said that they will give Brent the lion's head corbels from the building.

When I suggested to the Quintain representative yesterday that it might be better to co-operate with local people and Brent Museum and Archives on this matter before sending in the demolition team, I was told they 'hope that the excitement about a new cinema for Wembley, with shops and restaurants accessible for all plus 1500 new jobs will outweigh any "bad publicity".'

Quintain still in the red

Quintain Estates and Development, developers of Wembley City, reported this week that it was still in the red in the year up to March 2010.

Although it has reduced its losses to £10.1m, from the high of £129.1m in 2009, its shares still slid by 6% in initial trading. Its net asset value fell back by 1.5%. The company was forced to sell off some of its assets for a total of £82.5m and cut administrative costs by 12.4%.

The value of its Wembley City properties, ear-marked for development of shops restaurants, bars, offices, entertainment and homes, continue to flat-line and have not bounced back following the property slump in line with other London property prices. Last year Quintain was in talks in the Middle East to off-load some of its Wembley properties.

The newly elected Brent council will need to monitor Quintain's activities closely and pay particular regard to infrastructure improvements that were part of the initial deal including new schools and health facilities. They need to ensure that these are costed and included in Quintain's plans, rather than placed on the back burner or quietly shelved on grounds of affordability.