Boundary changes mean a fond farewell to Mapesbury and Dollis Hill

The proposals for redrawn wards in Brent have now been published and have already caused controversy. The aim is to even out the population:councillor ratio and in doing so 9 2 member wards have been created and 13 3 member wards. There will be 57 councillors instead of the present 63.

The two member wards will be Barnhill, Brondesbury Park, Cricklewood, Kingsbury, Northwick Park, Preston North, Sudbury, Tokyngton and Wembley Central.

The new Wembley Park ward basically covers the Quintain development around Wembley Stadium and perhaps should have been named Quintain ward. We may well see Brent  council leader Muhammed Butt moving to represent that ward rather than Tokyngton, which previously covered Quintain's tower blocks, given that he is an exceptionally keen supporter of Quintain. The voting population of Wembley Park is expected to rise from 4477 to 8674 with new developments in the pipeline but given that Tokyngton had the lowest turnout at the local election at 29% it is unclear how many of the new 'lifestyle' residents will actually vote.

To many of its residents chagrin Mapesbury, which has a strong self identity, aided by an active Residents' Association, will be split between Dudden Hill and Cricklewood. Dollis Hill which also has a strong local identity backed up by an active Facebook group (The View from Dollis Hill) and former Liberal Democrat councillor Alison Hopkins will disappear, succeeded by Gladstone and Cricklewood.  The change will mean that the confusion between Dollis Hill and Dudden Hill wards will disappear - Dollis Hill tube station is in Dudden Hill.

The consultation will consider proposals for changing the names of the proposed wards as well as the actual boundaries, Preston South and Wembley Hill feels clumsy although historians may enjoy the revival of the name Wembley Hill which was associated with a secondary school of that name which was bombed out during the second world war.

The document below summarises the proposals (click bottom left corner for full size version) and an interactive map and consultation details can be found HERE.  The consultation closes on April 19th 2019.

'Give us space to cycle' demand Brent Cyclists ahead of the election

Brent Cyclists, the local group of the London Cycling Campaign  launches its Space for Cycling campaign this Sunday (23 March) with a short ride round the borough, meeting at 10:30am at Gladstone Park railway bridge (at the foot of Parkside), and at 11:00am at the café in Roundwood Park, then riding through Willesden and Harlesden to the Grand Union Canal in Park Royal, and back again. Anyone with a working bike is welcome to join in.

The Space for Cycling campaign is timed to coincide with the run-up to the local elections in May, to bring home to local politicians the changes that need to be made to Brent’s roads to make them cycle-friendly. It is part of a London-wide Space for Cycling Campaign being run by the London Cycling Campaign.

Brent Cyclists coordinator David Arditti said: 

Brent has great potential as a cycling borough but is held back by the poor routes and infrastructure for cycling compared with other parts of London. We need a network of safe routes on minor roads and protected cycle tracks on bigger roads, which would allow everybody to make daily journeys by bike and especially allow children to cycle to school, but these can only come about if there are more restrictions placed on where motor traffic can go. 

We’ll be cycling along Park Avenue North, which is a road which, if it ceased to be a through-route for cars, would make an excellent way to access Gladstone Park by bike. In other places, to get a safe network, we need bikes to be excepted from one-way systems. This is what we would like built into the new design for Harlesden Town Centre, but Brent doesn’t seem to have considered this need. 

Our ride will draw attention to these measures that would make cycling in Brent so much better, in advance of the local elections, and we will be asking the candidates to pledge support for our specific demands, ward by ward.

Declaration of Interest: I am a member of the London Cycling Campaign.