Cabinet poised to approve consultation plans for Islamia Primary to move to Strathcona site with additional build and land transfer agreed with the Yusuf Islam Foundation

Monday's Cabinet meeting will be discussing proposals to move the Islamia Primary School (IPS) from its Queens Park site to the Strathcona site in Kingsbury.  The Yusuf Islam Foundation had give the school and Brent Council notice to quit the site. Strathcona had become available following Brent Council's decision to close the Roe Green primary provision there despite a spirited fight by staff and parents. It was earmarked for  post-16 SEND provision but if the Islamia move is approved another site will have to be found for that provision.

Islamia parents launched a petition opposing the move to Queens Park (see this Wembley Matters article) on the grounds that it would be to the detriment of local parents and pupils in terms of travel and instead suggested the South Kilburn regeneration site earmarked for Kilburn Park Junior School and Carlton Vale Infants be allocated to Islamia Primary.

The officers' report responds:

A parent of children who attend IPS put a petition on the Council’s e-petition portal between 13 July and 18 August 2022 that called for the new school in South Kilburn that will be built as part of the South Kilburn Regeneration Scheme to be allocated to IPS. The petition had 509 signatories. The new South Kilburn School is a key part of the infrastructure of the South Kilburn Regeneration Scheme and will provide a community school that will provide primary provision for families of all faiths within the area. The school is replacing Carlton Vale Infant School and Kilburn Park Junior School and the sites of these schools will be used to provide new housing and green space, respectively. The schools have been working with a design team over the past two years to develop the project to meet the school and local community’s needs. The new South Kilburn School will not be available until September 2026, whereas the Foundation is requiring IPS to vacate its current site by the end of July 2024.

No reason is given for the Foundation's decision to issue an eviction order on the council and school and its website still boasts about the school and its achievements. However officers report that they did not engage in proposals to improve the Salusbury Road site:

The Council has undertaken significant and extensive efforts since 2015 to build a new primary school building on the existing Salusbury Road site. The Council identified capital funding to the sum of £10.01m, including ring fenced funding secured from the Education Skills and Funding Agency (ESFA) of £2.8m, to meet the then demand for primary school places. Design development for the new-build school was completed in 2015, funded from the ESFA contribution. The Foundation decided not to proceed with these plans and for the past seven years has not responded positively to the Council’s attempts to revisit the build proposals.

The report states:

The Council has resisted the validity of the [Eviction] notices since receiving them and has repeatedly asked the Foundation to withdraw them so that the Council, the Foundation and IPS can concentrate their efforts on reaching an accommodation which suits all involved. The Foundation has agreed to withdraw the notices on the condition that the Council, the Yusuf Islam Foundation and IPS entered into an agreement to surrender and deed of surrender (sic) from the Salusbury Road site. These agreements, which are subject to final negotiations, are based on the premise that:

a) the Foundation withdraws and/or does not seek to enforce the eviction notices;

b)  Providing the statutory procedures (as required by SSFA 1998) once concluded confirm it is feasible to do so, the School will be relocated to a new site;c)  IPS will be able to remain in situ whilst the identified site, the Strathcona site, is prepared for the relocation;   

d)  IPS will vacate the Foundation’s Salusbury Road premises by 31 July 2024 

e)  A long-stop date of 1 January 2025 is in place should there be any unforeseen delay (for example a delay in any building works);

f)  Any new site will be transferred to trustees prior to the School taking up occupation in the new site. Officers will need to negotiate and agree Heads of Terms setting out the main terms the parties agree in respect of the proposed transfer of Council owned land for any new site earmarked for the School to occupy 

 

The Foundation has now agreed to delay the eviction until July 2024 and the council will agree a lease on the Strathcona site with the Foundation's trustees.  Although voluntary religious organisations are expected  by the DfE to make a contribution the officers' report notes:

The DfE expects Voluntary Aided bodies to contribute towards capital works that improve their school buildings at a rate of 10% of total costs. Conversations would need to be held with the Yusuf Islam Foundation and IPS about a contribution towards new facilities. No assumptions about a contribution have been included in the costs above.

The parents' concerns about travel to the Strathcona site are not directly addressed but officers' report:

Officers met on 5 April 2022 with Preston Ward members and the Lead Member for Schools, Employment and Skills to discuss transport options for the Strathcona site with the intention of making school related journeys (i.e. school drop off and pick up) car free. Officers met with Queens Park Ward members and the Lead Member for Children, Young People and Schools on 15 July 2022 to brief them on the proposed relocation of IPS.

After considering the options officers recommend  a proposal to retain and refurbish all buildings on the Strathcona site and build a new block to meet the requirements for a 2 form entry (60 children per year group) school.  

They recommend that this would meet the Council's statutory duty to provide a diversity of school places, provide a new site to enable Islamia to retain its 'Good' Ofsted rating and ensure chidren have a high quality learning environment.

£10.01m was allocated 7 years ago for a new build school and costs have of course gone up since then. The part refurbish existing buildings and part new build proposal is costed at £9.11m:

 

 

To these costs must be added the cost of the post-16 SEND provision in terms of the overall Brent Council budget. It would have been on Council owned land and may now need the purchase of a site on the open market.

The building finances are far from simple:

There is currently £2m of unallocated funding available in the Basic Need grant following Cabinet approval of the SEND Capital Programme Business Case in January 2022. Therefore, assuming project funding includes the £2.6m Targeted Capital Fund -TCF [carried over from previous proposal] from DfE and £2m basic need grant, £4.51m is required from alternative funds to deliver the preferred option. Council borrowing has been identified and subject to Cabinet approval could be used for this project. Borrowing £4.51m would result in an additional revenue cost of circa £0.3m per annum. This would need to be reflected through the budget setting process for revenue.

 If the DfE do not allow the council to use the TCF funding for this project, then £7.11m would be required through Council borrowing. The additional revenue cost of borrowing £7.11m would be circa £0.45m per annum. This would need to be reflected through the budget setting process for revenue.

If Cabinet approve the Governing Board will need to manage the statutory consultation process about the move which may not be an easy task given that 509 people signed the parents' petition. There may well be representations about the issues involved at Monday's Cabinet.

Islamia Primary parents petition for the school to be allocated the planned 2 form entry South Kilburn school site

Following the unsuccessful but hard fought campaign to keep the Roe Green Strathcona site open LINK, including suggestions for additional educational use, there was speculation about the future use of the site.  Recently Islamia Primary parents were told  it would be offered to Islamia, a voluntary aided school which is due to leave its present Queen's Park site and requires larger accommodation to meet a strong demand for places.

Islamia parents have launched a petition to have the new two form entry primary school planned for South Kilburn to them, citing low pupils numbers at Carlton Vale Infants and Kilburn Park Juniors as not justifying their occupation of the site.   They argue that Strathcona in Kingsbury is too far away from Islamia's present site in Queen's Park and the move and travel involved will impact on less well-off families.

Brent Council will point to an anticipated increase in pupil numbers in the future as the redevelopment of the South Kilburn estate continues. as justifying allocation to Carlton Vale and Kilburn Park. It would be an estate school serving the whole local community and minimise the need to travel, thus addressing climate emergency goals.

This is the petition LINK:

We the undersigned petition the council to Allocate the brand new 2FE school (that will be built as part of South Kilburn's regeneration area) to Islamia Primary School. There is no shortage of mainstream primary school places in the area, most primary schools in the area are operating well below capacity. However, Islamia is oversubscribed and needs a permanent new building to house its 420 children.

Islamia Primary School (established in 1983) is a two form entry faith based voluntary-aided school situated in Queen's Park, North West London.

Islamia Primary school's children have been served with an eviction notice from the Yusuf Islam Foundation. The school is at risk of closing down if a new site is not found soon.

Islamia's parents feel extremely anxious and have already outlined how the current proposal to use the former Roe Green Strathcona school site (which is over 6 miles away from the school's current location) to house Islamia's children is highly unsuitable, unaffordable, unsafe and impractical for current families. It will sadly leave behind the most disadvantaged and vulnerable families.

Brent Council has informed Islamia families that there are no options at the moment due to the shortage of land in the area.

Nevertheless, the council is in the process of delivering a brand new 2 Form Entry school as part of the current regeneration scheme in South Kilburn.

The future school is currently earmarked for Carlton Vale infants school and Kilburn Park school.Government data shows that these split site 2FE schools are currently operating well below their full capacity:

Kilburn Park ( NW6) currently has 110 pupils enrolled although it can accommodate 240 and Carlton Vale (NW6) has a capacity of 230 spaces, currently only 78 of those are filled.

Moreover, most neighbouring Brent schools are also operating well below their full capacity and can easily accommodate children from the demolished schools.

On the other hand, Islamia is a heavily oversubscribed and popular faith school and the hardest primary school to get into in Brent. There are currently 420 pupils enrolled and the school also has to manage a long waiting list.

Islamia is the only state funded Muslim denomination school in the area therefore, if the school closes down, this will have a detrimental impact on the lives of the Muslim children currently attending.

For these reasons, it is utterly incomprehensible why Islamia, an oversubscribed Brent school is not being considered for the new school.

Please secure the future of Islamia

Started by: Jamad Guled

This ePetition runs from 07/07/2022 to 18/08/2022.

395 people have signed this ePetition.

 

The Preston Story – Part 4

We left Part 3 of the Preston Story in the early 60s – just before two major political changes in the area. Firstly, Preston, along with the rest of Wembley, merged with Willesden in 1965 to form the new London Borough of Brent; followed in 1974 with the creation of a new Brent North constituency which has had just two MPs since its creation in 1974: the Conservative Rhodes Boyson until his defeat in the 1997 landslide by Labour’s Barry Gardiner.

1. Preston Road, from the Carlton Avenue East junction, early 1960s. (Brent Archives online image 8620)

Preston’s population in 2001 was 12,844 – scarcely changing from the 1951 figure of 12,408 – but by 2011 it had risen by 20.48% to 15,474. The growth mainly came with the building of the Hirst Crescent estate on a brownfield site (the former GEC Research Centre) on East Lane, plus the new flats around Strathcona Road, bringing much-needed housing into the area. The Council’s analysis of changes between the two censuses can be found here.  There is continuing pressure on housing and consequent concerns over the possible exploitation of tenants in houses of multiple occupation.

2. Hirst Crescent, from East Lane. (Image from Google Maps street view)

To help me look back at the last 50 years and to bring Preston’s history up to date, I decide to canvass my neighbours and ask them what positive things had happened locally and what they saw as the changes to the look or feel of the area since they arrived.

One of the things that everyone mentioned was the increased diversity of the local population - though as we have seen, people have been moving into Preston looking for work since the early 19th century and in the 20^th to find new homes in pleasant suburban surroundings. Brent Council’s 2014 Diversity Profile for Preston is slightly dated  but shows in 2011 that Preston had a 70.1% black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) population. Each of these communities needs a history of its own experience and, as only an outline can be shown here, I hope someone will come forward to do that.

3. A Preston Park Primary School class c.1992, showing the diversity of families in the area.

Many people arriving in Preston from 1970 were of Asian heritage, expelled from East Africa, first Kenya and, after the 1971 Amin coup, from Uganda. Many were middle class families – engineers, officials and shop-owners – starting new lives and businesses, and establishing religious, social and cultural communities in the most difficult of circumstances.

In the late 1980s, Preston had a substantial Japanese population, large enough to warrant a Japanese estate agent on Preston Road. Many worked for Japanese companies in the City. During the 1990s Japanese recession, most were recalled and disappeared quickly over the school holidays, leaving children wondering where their school friends had gone. In more recent years EU citizens, particularly from Poland and Romania, have moved into the area, mainly to find work.

4. Wembley United Synagogue (rebuilt 1956), Forty Lane.  (Image from Brent Council’s heritage Local List)

The Jewish Community was perhaps the first to settle as a distinct group in the 1920s, moving from poor housing in East London to modern homes and green surroundings. A United Synagogue was established in Forty Avenue in the 1930s, followed by the Harrow and Wembley Progressive Synagogue [1948] at 326 Preston Road, on the site of what was then the Preston Lawn Tennis Club. In recent years they moved to Harrow and the site is now Blackberry Court and a Pentecostal Church. A second United Synagogue was opened in Shaftesbury Avenue in 1958. 

In the 1950s, political change in the Middle East decided many Jews in Arab countries to move to the UK. Members of this Sephardi tradition moved to Edinburgh House on Forty Avenue in 1970, while another Sephardi group, the Neveh Shalom Community with members from North Africa, India and the Middle East, moved to 27 Windermere Avenue in 1970 and then to 352 -354 Preston Road in 1983. There is still a strong Jewish presence in Preston today, though the number of active synagogue members is in decline. The Jewish Free School [est. 1732] one of Europe’s largest Jewish secondary schools, moved to new premises in The Mall in 2002.

5. The Grade II listed Church of the Ascension, The Avenue, c.1960. (Brent Archives online image 8641)

Other places of worship in Preston include the Catholic parish hall, built in Carlton Avenue East on land originally belonging to South Forty Farm in 1932. The present church dedicated to St Erconwald, a 7^th century Bishop of London, opened in 1970.  There are also three Anglican churches. St Augustine in Forty Avenue was built as a wooden church in 1913 but suffered damage during the Second World War and was re-built 1953. The 1957 Church of the Ascension [see Part 3] in The Avenue is notable for its stained glass by Carter Shapland. The Church of the Annunciation in Windermere Ave was built in 1938. There are also three more recent Christian Fellowship or Pentecostal Churches.

One of the more dynamic projects to come out of Preston was the Strathcona Theatre Company. Strathcona was set up in the late 1970s as a social education centre for young adults with learning difficulties, with an ethos radically different from the old adult training centres which focussed on preparing people for unskilled industrial work. The young, enthusiastic staff offered courses in drama, art, music, pottery, sports and training for independent living - uncovering talents and discovering skills in a different way.

6. Poster for Strathcona Theatre Company's 1999 production, "Hood".

Its Theatre Company, formed in 1982 and running for over 20 years, staged productions at the Tricycle Theatre in Kilburn, at many other venues in the UK and at international festivals in Europe. In 1983, the Guardian described it as “The UK’s leading disabled theatre company”. The poster above was for their retelling of the Robin Hood legend, where a disparate group of eco-warriors band together to fight for their right to live in a better world. The play was devised and scripted by Ann Cleary and Ian McCurrach (Artistic Directors).

The Strathcona Centre was closed around 2012, and the adults who attended were sent to other services. The building re-opened in 2014 as Roe Green Strathcona School, an offshoot of an existing Junior school in Kingsbury. Despite protests, in October 2019 Brent Council voted to close Strathcona School in 2022 – the future of the building is unknown.

7. Original 1930s decorative tilework, still visible beside a shop between the railway and Elmstead Avenue.

A negative change noticed by my Preston ‘focus group’ was a perceived growing lack of variety in shops on Preston Road since the 1960s – and the untidy frontages, almost destroying the 1930s faience work between each shop. They had nostalgic memories of a specialist cheese shop, Buttons & Bows haberdashers, a drapers’, a [vinyl] record store – and the exciting new technology of Variety Videos which allowed films to be watched in your own home! A few older shops remain: All Seasons greengrocers, Gledhill hardware – and Parkway bakery, the lone survivor of a parade of Jewish shops. The introduction of the 223 bus route has eased access to both Preston and Harrow shops.

8. A parade of shops on Preston Road (east side), between Elmstead Avenue and Carlton Avenue East.

Everybody regretted the loss of the Woolworth store not just as a source of “bits and pieces”, but as a social centre where people bumped into each other. “Woolworths made it a real shopping centre”. But many welcome the new availability of Mediterranean, Indian and Middle Eastern foods in “shops that smelt like holidays” and “cafes with pavement seating - who would have thought!” In a spirit of investigative journalism, I walked the ‘mean street’ that is Preston Road and my main conclusions were that we locals must be very vain – I counted 16 hair / grooming salons [9 specifically for men] AND there must still be a healthy demand to live in Preston as there are nine estate agents. 

9. The Century Tavern, Forty Avenue, demolished for Century House. (From the Closed Pubs website)

Other losses noted were the Century Tavern [1928] named after the Century Sports Ground and built on the site of South Forty Farmhouse on Forty Avenue - and the Wembley Observer, the last really local newspaper. However, there have been some ‘cultural’ gains – The Windermere, The Fleadh and the Music Room offer live music, and the Preston Community Library has author events, a weekly film club and occasional special film seasons.

10. Preston Community Library, 2020.

The campaign to save Preston’s Library was a remarkable display of community solidarity. The area had been served by a fondly remembered mobile library until 1964, when the current library opened in Carlton Avenue East. After the Council’s decision in 2011 to close 6 of its 12 libraries, campaigners in each of the affected areas came together under the banner of Brent S.O.S. [Save our Six] Libraries to fight to save the service.  Public meetings were held, councillors, MPs and the Department of Culture Media & Sport lobbied – over 6,000 people in Preston alone signed a petition opposing the closure. 

11. Poster for the Brent S.O.S. Libraries campaign, 2011.

Brent SOS Libraries took the country’s first legal action to challenge library closures in July 2011. The High Court verdict in October 2011 went against us and the libraries were immediately boarded up. An Appeal against the decision was also rejected in December and the application to take the case to the Supreme Court was denied. A full account of the judicial review and the Appeal can be found here. The boarding around Preston Library became known as the “Wall of Shame” which, with its popular support from local artists and schoolchildren, become a major embarrassment to the Council over the next few weeks, and in January 2012 contractors pulled it down.

12. Two scenes of the Wall of Shame at Preston Library, late 2011.

The building was then restructured internally and used for 4 years as additional classrooms for local schools, who allowed some access for library activities. In 2015, the Council formalised this access with a licence and in 2016 the building was opened fully as a volunteer-run community library. The Library is the only local non-commercial and secular space that is open to all, and it now offers a wide range of classes, events and activities as well as core library services. It was “Highly Commended” in The Bookseller‘s 2019 Library of the Year shortlist. The Library is currently closed due to the pandemic – but will hopefully re-open in the autumn. The Council has plans to re-develop the site, but space for a new library is included.

13. Geraldine Cooke introduces Kamila Shamsie (seated right) at Preston Community Library, June 2018.

In June 2018, at the first public event since she won the prestigious Women’s Prize for Fiction, author Kamila Shamsie visited Preston Community Library to discuss her new book Home Fire. The event was a full house, and the windows were wide open so people could stand outside and hear her. The novel is set in Preston, and features the library campaign. Ms Shamsie told the Kilburn Times “It feels right to do it here. I want the people of the neighbourhood to feel I’ve done right by them”. 

14. A scene from the 1959 film Too Many Crooks. (Image from the internet)

Allegedly, the Preston area has been used many times for film and TV locations. I have found evidence for Preston being shown in the 1959 film Too Many Crooks – in which incompetent villains use a hearse in a kidnapping. It was filmed in Carlton Avenue East, Forty Avenue and various places on Barn Hill. The photo above shows the junction of Carlton Avenue East and Preston Road. The film starred Terry-Thomas, George Cole, Sid James and Bernard Bresslaw.  

Preston also ‘stars’ in Gourmet Nights, an episode of Fawlty Towers where Basil collects a takeaway meal from ‘André’s Restaurant’, actually the Wings Restaurant on Preston Road, and then (famously) attacks his car when it breaks down [Mentmore Gardens]. Readers may know of other films? We have had at least one celebrity - the British, Commonwealth and European heavyweight boxing champion Sir Henry Cooper lived in Ledway Drive, and had a greengrocer’s shop in Ealing Road, Wembley, in the 1960s.

15. Wrigleys chewing gum factory, now Wembley Commercial Centre, East Lane. (From Brent’s Local List)

Only a few architecturally important buildings have survived in Preston Ward and I have covered them all in these articles. Three buildings have national Grade 2 listing: The Windermere, the Church of the Ascension and the Wembley Park Lodge on Wembley Hill Road, which was severely damaged by fire some years ago. In addition, there are three on Brent’s local list: the Edwardian style houses at 299-313 Preston Road, the 1926 Wrigleys factory and the 1956 Wembley United Synagogue. For some reason, the Victorian villas, now 356-358 Preston Road – the oldest surviving houses in Preston - have not been listed. 

16. ‘The Pearl of Metroland', Forty Avenue, in 2018.

We also have one popular Open House property, the ‘Pearl of Metroland’, a 1924 house in Forty Avenue decorated in the original style, but with a ‘Mondrian’ kitchen in 3 colours. And we have great open spaces – Barn Hill, Preston Park and Tenterden playing fields – secured for public use by Wembley Council and Middlesex County Council.

Go look at all these places – and be ready to protect them if necessary. Even local listing does not ensure survival, as we have seen in the recent decision on 1 Morland Gardens. Not everything can or should be protected – and housing needs, in particular, are pressing - but some buildings do add beauty to our environment, and help to tell the story of where we live.

I hope this series of articles has encouraged people to look about them, at the shops and streets they see every day in this very ordinary suburb, and think about the 1000s of people who were here before them – how they lived and worked and where they came from.

My thanks go to Philip Grant of Wembley History Society, who helped with sourcing images for these articles and making the articles ‘online ready’, to Brent Archives for help with images, and to the PCL volunteers who gave me ideas on what should go into this final Part.

Chris Coates, Preston Community Library

This is the end of one local history series, but there will be another beginning next weekend. Will it be about an area in the north of the borough or in the south, or perhaps somewhere in the middle?

Brent Council sets up Task Group on avoiding Strathcona redundancies after successful strike ballot

From Brent National Education Union

Following many days of strike action in the Autumn term at Roe Green Infants to try to save their Strathcona site, the NEU has announced a successful ballot result for further strike action to fight redundancies.

In the wake of this successful ballot, Brent Council have set up a task group to work on avoiding redundancies at the school.

Jenny Cooper, District Secretary of Brent NEU, said, “This shows what can happen when staff stand together, united, to protect each other. The council did not engage with the school or its union members until this further ballot was announced.”

Brent Council is to close the successful Roe Green Strathcona school site in a phased closure beginning in September 2020. 

Meanwhile the NEU has had sight of a letter sent to Brent primary governors inviting primary schools to open additional sites for alternative provision due to a shortage of school places for children with EHCPs. Roe Green Infants were presumably included in this mailing.

Cllr Jumbo Chan has once again offered his “complete solidarity” with the NEU members at the school.

Roe Green Strathcona strike again to save jobs

When talks with Brent's Strategic Director of Children and Families on Tuesday evening failed to win a guarantee of no compulsory redundancies, NEU members at Roe Green Strathcona decided to take a sixth day of strike action today.

Jobs are threatened following Brent Council's decision to implement a phased closure of the Strathcona Site.

The NEU is asking for funding to enhance voluntary redundancy, retrain staff and to pay the existing staff who will be deployed at the main site in the expectation they will gradually leave for new jobs.

Public urged to support the Roe Green Strathcona staff on strike today

NEU staff at Roe Green Strathcona School will be on strike today following the failure of attempts to negotiate an arrangement with Brent Council that would avoid compulsory redundancies and facilitate redeployment from the Strathcona site to the main Roe Green Infants site.

Striking staff will be demonstrating outside Brent Civic Centre from 8am to 9am this morning. This will be the sixth strike in a campaign that initially started to stop the closure of Strathcona but following confirmation of the Labour Council's decision has now moved to protecting jobs.

Battles over school closures were last prominent in the 1970s when the number of pupils in schools fell.The strike is significant because it will set a precedent for how closures are handled by local authorities. It is thought that closures are likely in some of Brent's neighbouring boroughs. Falling pupil numbers are likely to be affected by movement out of the UK by some European families in the event of Brexit.