Bon Jovi Concert road closures and bus diversions Sunday 6th and Wednesday 9th September

 

Wembley Park residents' Open Letter expressing growing concerns over increased disruption associated with Wembley events

 

 Upcoming events - note number of bus diversions and timing of road closures

 

This summer has been marked by an extraordinary number of concerts at Wembley Stadium following the decision of Brent Council to allow more sporting events at the stadium. A concert even supplanted a major football match earlier this month.

Since June, until today, there have been 30 concert days. 

The disruption of road closures, bus diversions and route curtailments has hit the newer residents of Wembley Park as much as the longer term residents of the wider Wembley area.

Now Wembley Park Residents Association is taking up the matter with a letter to the appropriate  authorities setting out the issues and potential mitigations shared in their community which they think may be of interest to the wider Wembley community.:

If you would like to sign the letter write to:   Wembley Park Residents Association Committee  Email: wembleypark.ra@gmail.com with your name, road or area (optional) and the date. Respond by 5pm on Monday September 7th. 

In addition to transport, Event Days also impinge on Wembley Park residents in another way  impacting on mobile phone signals and WiFi connections that plummet, making it difficult to communicate with friends and family 

   

Open Letter from Wembley Residents

 

Request for a Review of Event-Day Transport Arrangements and Their Impact on Local Residents

 

Dear Sir/Madam,

 

We, the undersigned residents of Wembley, are writing to express our growing concern regarding the increasing disruption caused by event-day road closures and bus diversions associated with Wembley Stadium and the surrounding entertainment venues.

 

We are proud to live in an area that hosts world-renowned sporting, cultural and entertainment events, and we recognise the importance these events bring to the local economy and London's international reputation. We also appreciate that public safety must remain the highest priority when managing large crowds.

 

However, as the number and frequency of events continue to increase—particularly on weekdays—the impact on the daily lives of residents has become increasingly difficult to manage.

 

For many of us, these disruptions are no longer occasional inconveniences but have become a regular part of everyday life. Public transport is our primary means of travelling to and from work, attending medical appointments, taking children to and from school or childcare, caring for relatives, shopping for essential groceries, and accessing local services. On event days, bus services are frequently diverted or suspended for extended periods, resulting in significantly longer journeys, uncertainty, and lengthy walks to temporary bus stops.

 

The effects extend beyond commuting. Friends and family are often discouraged from visiting because parking restrictions are extensive and public transport journeys become considerably longer during events. This has a direct impact on residents' social and family lives. Working parents frequently experience delays collecting children from childcare after work, whilst older residents and those with disabilities or reduced mobility face additional barriers to accessing healthcare and other essential services.

 

As residents, we contribute to our community through council tax and support local businesses throughout the year. Whilst we accept that some disruption is unavoidable, we believe residents should also have a reasonable expectation of being able to travel, work and enjoy family life with minimal disruption.

 

Wembley is no longer simply an events destination—it is home to a large and growing residential community. We believe that transport planning should reflect both of these important roles equally.

 

Immediate Improvements

 

We respectfully ask Brent Council, Transport for London and Wembley Stadium to review the current arrangements and consider practical measures that could significantly reduce disruption while maintaining public safety, including:

 

• Maintaining at least one dedicated bus corridor during event days wherever it is safe to do so.
• Limiting road closures to the shortest period operationally necessary before and after events.
• Introducing resident shuttle buses connecting residential areas with Wembley Park, Wembley Central and other key transport hubs.
• Improving advance communication regarding road closures, bus diversions and alternative travel arrangements.
• Considering the impact of weekday events on commuters, school collections, healthcare appointments and other essential journeys.
• Regularly reviewing diversion routes to ensure they minimise disruption to residents while maintaining effective crowd management.

 

Long-Term Strategic Solutions

 

As Wembley continues to expand as both a residential neighbourhood and an international events destination, we believe it is timely to undertake a comprehensive review of the area's transport infrastructure.

 

We ask Brent Council, Transport for London and relevant partners to explore long-term solutions that better separate event-related traffic from residential traffic. Options for consideration could include:

 

• Assessing the feasibility of a dedicated access route, flyover or highway connection between Wembley Stadium and the A406 North Circular Road, allowing event traffic and coaches to access the stadium without travelling through residential streets.
• Reviewing the surrounding road network to identify opportunities to reduce the volume of event traffic using local roads.
• Improving traffic management systems and navigation routing so that event traffic is directed via appropriate strategic routes rather than residential streets wherever possible.
• Ensuring that future regeneration and transport planning gives equal consideration to the needs of Wembley residents alongside those of the stadium and entertainment venues.

 

We recognise that these options would require detailed technical studies, consultation and investment. However, with Wembley continuing to grow, now is the appropriate time to begin planning transport infrastructure that is fit for both its residents and its role as an international events destination.

 

Our Request

 

We respectfully request that Brent Council, Transport for London and Wembley Stadium:

 

• Undertake a comprehensive review of event-day transport arrangements.
• Consult with local residents on the impact of current road closures and bus diversions.
• Publish the findings of that review together with proposed improvements.
• Develop both short-term operational changes and a long-term transport strategy that better balances the needs of residents with those of major events.

 

We firmly believe it is possible to maintain Wembley as one of the world's leading sporting and entertainment destinations whilst also ensuring that those who call Wembley home are able to live, work and travel with minimal disruption.

 

We appreciate your consideration of these concerns and look forward to your response.

 

 

Road closures & parking restrictions Wembley Park - Tuesday July 28th, Saturday August 1st, Sunday August 2nd

 From Brent Council

Bruno Mars, The Romantic Tour on following date this week:

 

- Tuesday 28 July 

 

Luke Combs, My Kinda Saturday Night Tour on following dates  this week:

 

-  Saturday 1 August

-  Sunday 2 August

 

Please read below to see how this might affect you.

 

Timings

 

      - Bruno Mars, The Romantic Tour concert doors will open 7.00pm and road closures will be in place at 3.00 pm for all above events.

 

      -  Luke Combs, My Kinda Saturday Night Tour concert doors will open 7.00pm and road closures will be in place at 3.00 pm for all above events.

 

We expect the area around Wembley Stadium to be very busy before and after this event so please avoid the area if you can, unless you have a ticket for the event.

Event day parking

 

Event day parking restrictions will be in place from 8am to midnight on main roads and from 10am to midnight on residential roads on Tuesday 28 July, Saturday 1 August and Sunday 2 August 2026.

 

If you have a paper permit, please make sure you clearly display it in your vehicle. If you have an electronic permit, you do not need to display this.

 

Drink-free zone

 

Road closures, bus diversions in Wembley Park July 8,10, 11, 18, 19, 22, 24, 25 28 - My Chemical Romance & Bruno Mars

After the record-breaking 12 nights of Harry Styles, more concerts are coming up at Wembley Stadium after Brent Council granted the Stadium more non-sporting events

Wembley just wild about Harry! Road closures & bus diversions for 12 Harry Styles concerts - 8 on weekdays

 

There will be 12 Harry Styles concert dates at Wembley Stadium  over the rest of this month starting on Friday June 12th and through to July 4th, 

Eight of these dates are on weekdays with road closures starting at 1pm with associated bus diversions. This will impact school children travelling home from school, particularly those using the 206 bus route which will be not run south between Wembley Park and Brent Park. This also affects workers travelling to Brent Park and the industrial estates south of the stadium, including the Amazon warehouse and the Tesco and Ikea stores.

Brent Council approved the increased number of concerts at Wembley Stadium in January 2025 with 8 more major concerts a year. A major event is defined as an attendance of more that 60,000. Decision notice:

The number of major events held at the stadium in any one calendar year shall be restricted to no more than 54 (to exclude European Cup and World Cup events where England/UK is the host nation). This shall be described as the cap. Within the event cap, the number of major events involving UK based domestic association football teams shall be restricted to no more than 25. LINK

A Wembley Hill resident contacted Wembley Matters:

Does this mean that on all these days road closures and bus diversions will be active from 1pm?  Doors open 5pm. Not only that I have appointment at my doctors at Wembley Park Humphry Repton Lane which is also closed on event days, my appointment is for 4.00 p.m.on Friday.

 

Does this mean all locals using bus services 206,92,182 and 83 are again inconvenienced with either no service or diversions.

 

 

Wembley Park road closures & bus diversions from 11am tomorrow for League 2 Play Off Finals

 

Next weekend's Event Day closures from12.30pm on Saturday and 9am on Sunday

 

Road closures and bus diversions from 11am tomororow for Promotion Final at Wembley Stadium. Kick Off 3pm

 

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.

England v Japan tomorrow (Tuesday) at Wembley Stadium - road closures and bus diversions from 3.45pm

 

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.