Showing posts with label wembley. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wembley. Show all posts

Monday 29 January 2024

UPDATE: 20 Fire Engines called to blaze in block of flats in Elm Road, Wembley (parallel with Wembley High Road). Shelter at St John the Evangelist Crawford Avenue

 

 Credit BBC, EmmaL

From BBC and London Fire Brigade,

About 125 firefighters are tackling a blaze at a block of flats in north-west London.

Twenty fire engines were called out to Elm Road, Wembley, on Monday evening.

Video from the scene showed fire spreading between flats, while a firefighter on an aerial ladder sprayed water over the building.

Firefighters from Wembley, Park Royal, Northolt and surrounding fire stations were called to the scene, London Fire Brigade (LFB) said.

It said there were no reports of any injuries but part of the building's roof was alight, and urged people to avoid the area.

The block and surrounding buildings were evacuated as a precautionary measure, and a 105ft (32m) turntable ladder is being used as a water tower to help extinguish the fire.

LFB initially sent 10 engines and 70 firefighters just after 16:40 GMT. 

The fire was under control by 10pm.

It said the cause of the blaze was not yet known.

 

Brent Council this evening said via X:

 

The building and surrounding buildings have been evacuated as a precautionary measure. Shelter is being provided at St John the Evangelist Church, 3 Crawford Avenue, Wembley HA0 2HX.

 

The building and surrounding buildings have been evacuated as a precautionary measure. Shelter is being provided at St John the Evangelist Church, 3 Crawford Avenue, Wembley HA0 2HX.

 

On Next Door a local resident said re the church, 'Yeh, Yeh not good, Been there. Done that. Not great.' 

She went on, 'Most of us are at Weatherspoons having food and drink paid for by Octavia, and the block affected have gone to Travel Lodge to stay over for the night.'


Nevertheless, all credit to the church for acting quickly to give a safe space to those caught up in the event.

 

Meanwhile Chandresh Varsani tweeted this to Wembley Matters and others:


 



 

 

Wednesday 17 January 2024

Katharine Birbalsingh statement on current Michaela School Prayer Room High Court case

 The case reported yesterday on Wembley Matters continues today. Katharine Birbalsingh has issued the statement below:



Tuesday 16 January 2024

Judge rules that Michaela School can be named at High Court hearing on alleged prayer ban

 Schools Week LINK reports today the Michaela Free School's request that the school not be named was reject edby Judge Linden in today's High Court hearing regarding a Judicial Review requested on behalf of a pupil.

The Judicial Review is over the alleged banning of Muslim pupils from taking part in prayer rituals at the school that resulted in a public petition with more than 4,000 signatories in March 2023. LINK

Judge Linden said:

I do not accept the that the evidence in this case shows a risk to the lives or safety of members of the school staff or its wider community which would justify holding this hearing in private.

The petition is no longer on the Change.org website but said in part regarding the alleged ban:

A school that prides itself on being “multi cultural” and “multi faith” is treating their Muslim students in this way?? What’s worse is that this school is majority Muslim students and there is no prayer room designated for them. Students have requested for a prayer room which has  been refused by the school and so they have to pray on the floor outside.

 Judge Linden accepted the application for the claimant, a pupil, to be referred to as “TTT”  and another person involved in the litigation, to be referred to as “UUU”.

 

As the hearing is in progress I will not publish any comments until the case is over.

Thursday 4 January 2024

What is happening with the Bridge Park/Unisys redevelopment? Apparently, nothing.

 

Unisys House, Stonebridge

The death of Bridge Park fighter Leonard Johnson in November 2023 made me wonder where we were with redevelopment of the Bridge Park Leisure Centre and Unisys House. Unisys has been empty for decades and Brent Council made a deal with General Mediterranean Holdings to sell off its land as part of a scheme to redevelop the leisure centre and build housing and a hotel.

The community in Stonebridge waged a court battle over ownership of the Bridge Park Centre which had been set up by local black activists. The council won and seemed ready to go ahead. 

Questions were asked by Dan Filson, then chair of the Scrutiny Committee, about the wisom of dealing with GMH in the light of concerns over its owner and the companies Luxembourg registration. There was a concern about the effectivess of due diligence carried out by the Council and even Cllr Mike Pavey, then Deputy Leader of the Council,  had his doubts.

In an email in response to Philip Grant he said:

'I take your point on ethics and I for one am not comfortable dealing with companies registered in tax havens. Realistically though this is a much wider issue than this development. When you have companies like Starbucks, Amazon and Next routinely avoiding tax, it becomes difficult to hold this against any single company. We need national Government to lead a crackdown on legal tax avoidance and to insist on clearer transparency requirements. I don’t like dealing with companies registered in tax havens, but considering the size of the problem, I think the solution must come from the Government.’

 In September 2020 Ian Lunt, then the newly appointed Director of Regneration, signed off a Deed of Variation with Stonebridge Real Estate Development. LINK The Decision Form states that Shama Tatler. Cabinet Member for  Property, Planning and Regeneration was consulted

 Agreement to exchange a Deed of Variation to the Bridge Park Conditional Land Sale Agreement with “Stonebridge Real Estate Development” a UK-registered subsidiary company that has General Mediterranean Holdings SA as the parent company and Harborough InvestInc as the second guarantor.

The Decision Form states that Shama Tatler, Cabinet Member for  Property, Planning and Regeneration was consulted. However no details of the variation were released to the public:


Stonebridge Real Estate Development 2021 accounts have an interesting reference to its parent company GMH and its second guarantor Harborough Invest Inc LINK:

So it appears the Brent Council is in partnership with a subsidiary company that has doubts over its relationship with its guarantors: 'there can be no certainty that the support will continue to be available for the forseeable future.

This is GMH's account of the development and the agreement with Brent Council (undated) on its website LINK under the heading 'Land Development - UK':

Bridge Park Development

Known as Bridge Park, the 6.7 acre site area is located in easy walking distance from Stonebridge Park Station, in North West London. The development will have a Gross Development Value of circa £500 Million and will include more than 800 residential units, retail and a 198 room hotel, allied to a new leisure and community complex.

The development’s title ownership is divided between two parties, GMH Group, with the other being the London Borough of Brent (‘Council’). The GMH owned land includes a pair of imposing curvilinear office towers, one of which is ideally suited to conversion into a hotel and the other to residential, perhaps multi-family.

The Council ownership has an existing leisure and community centre and other commercial office buildings that are proposed to be demolished and replaced by a state of the art sports hall, swimming pool and other new community facilities, all of which are to be delivered by the Council at its expense.

GMH has exchanged contracts with the Council, subject to planning, to purchase the majority of the Council Land and develop both its ownership and the balance of the Bridge Park site into a new urban location with a range of much needed housing (including affordable), retail, a prominent hotel, as well a leisure and community facilities complex.

This important regeneration will bring jobs, homes and new community facilities, fully exploiting the great public transport links and general accessibility and prominence of the site.

The development seems a long way away now in 2024.

I asked Brent Council where the development was at present and they responded:

We don't any current planning applications. If that changes there will of course be public consultation.

Also there aren't any reports planned for Cabinet on the Forward Plan.

 




Wednesday 20 December 2023

Wembley History Society Christmas Picture Quiz 2023 - the answers!

 Guest post by local historian Philip Grant

Season’s Greetings! I hope that everyone who had a go at last weekend’s Wembley History Society Christmas Picture Quiz enjoyed the challenge. Now it’s time for the answers (attached below), to see how well (or not?) you did! 

 


 
Were there a few of the questions that you didn’t know the answers to? If that’s the case, you’ll know them now, and you have the chance over the Christmas / New Year break to discover more about Wembley’s past. I’ve included “links” (underlined) with most of the answers, which will take you to illustrated articles giving more information, if you want to take advantage of them.

 

If this was the first time that you’ve taken part in one of these Christmas Picture Quizzes, and you feel like having a go at some of the others over the holiday period, they are still available on the “Wembley Matters” blog (with the answers published a few days later). The “Who’s Who Quiz” (above) in 2020 was the first, then the “Winter Photos” quiz in 2021, and a more general Wembley pictures quiz in 2022.

 

And finally, as a “Christmas present” from the Society, I will ask Martin to attach a copy of our programme for the first half of 2024. We have a variety of meetings arranged, including one in February that follows on from a letter to “Wembley Matters” in June, which prompted many comments! Visitors are always welcome at our meetings, so if you see one (or more) of interest, please come along. 


Philip Grant
for Wembley History Society

 

 


Winter Spring 2024 Programme 

 

 

 

Saturday 16 December 2023

Have a go at this Wembley Christmas Picture Quiz!

 Guest post by Philip Grant


It began during lockdown in 2020, and since then Wembley History Society’s Christmas Picture Quiz has become a bit of tradition, which has been shared with “Wembley Matters” readers. If you fancy testing yourself with this year’s quiz, the “question paper” is attached below.

 

There are ten photographs again this year, each with two questions. All of the pictures come from the area covered by the former Borough of Wembley (which from 1934 included the previous Urban District of Kingsbury), which the Society was set up to promote the history of in 1952. That is the part of the London Borough of Brent north and west of the River Brent.

 

The Borough of Wembley coat of arms.

 

See how many questions you know the answers to. Please feel free to share the quiz with friends and family living locally, if you think they’ll enjoy it too.

 

The quiz is just for fun (no prizes!), and you’ll get the answers on this blog site in a few days’ time. And as before, the more questions you don’t know the answers to, the more you’ll discover then about Wembley. Good luck!

 

Philip Grant

 

 

Sunday 26 November 2023

Lyon Park Primary management coming to the table with new proposals tomorrow (Monday). Petition launched in support of strikers,

 

Lyon Park Primary School strikers appeared to be in good spirits and showing strong solidarity on the fifth day of their strike over worsening conditions of service as a result of a staff restructuring.

The school management is expected to come to the negotiating table with fresh proposals on Monday morning in an effort to reach a settlement.  

If these don't succeed I understand there will be an approach to ACAS on Wednesday.

When I spoke to parents outside the school last week during a leafleting session aimed at informing them of the impact of the restructure, they were keen to say how much they appreciated the work of support staff.  Many talked about the good relationship between staff and pupils, and between parents and the support staff. They told me about the support their children received and how important it was to children with special educational needs or those new to the country at an early stage of leaning English.  They acknowledged the impact of the strike on them and their children but also saw that short-term hurt was better than the long-term damage that would follow if the staff did not stand up against the changes.  Support staff were an important part of the local community.

Lyon Park staff took their struggle to Westminster on Wednesday, Autumn Statement day, when they spoke to an NEU Rally calling for an increase in school funding. Inadequate school funding in the face of rising costs is at the heart of the budget crisis in many London schools, including Lyon Park.

 


A petition has been launched calling on governors to not cut pay and change working conditions:


Dear Governors, 


We are signing this petition to ask you to value our experienced support staff at Lyon Park and to ask you NOT to cut their pay and not to force teaching assistants to cover  [teacher absence] if they are not paid as a higher level teaching assistan
t.

 

 SIGN HERE



Thursday 26 October 2023

Council housing – does Brent know what it is doing?

 Guest post by Philip Grant in a personal capacity

 


An aerial view of the Newland Court estate. (From Google Maps satellite view)

 

Although much of the attention at the 15 November Planning Committee meeting will be on the deferred Kilburn Square application, there is another Council infill housing application which may well be on the agenda. 

 

Brent New Council Homes Programme’s Newland Court garages proposals (22/3124) were first submitted on 7 September 2022. Many residents, both on the estate and whose homes backed onto the very narrow site, objected to the plans. My own objection was mainly because the established trees along the boundary, protected as part of the Barn Hill Conservation Area, grow both over and under the site, making it impractical for the proposed development.

 

Brent’s April 2023 revised five homes plan for the Newland Court infill scheme.

 

Although Planning Officers should have refused the application, they instead allowed the Council’s architects and planning agent to submit revised plans in April, which reduced the number of homes from seven to five (so extra cost, reduced viability). Surely this scheme could not go ahead? I’m grateful to Marc, and other Newland Court residents, for their permission to quote from correspondence they have received from Brent Council over recent months, which has inspired the title of this guest post.

 

As this threat of a detrimental development had been hanging over her head for a year, one resident wrote to Brent Council’s Head of Housing and Neighbourhoods in September 2023, to ask what was going on. This was the reply she received, from Brent’s Tenancy and Neighbourhoods Service Manager on 18 September:

 

‘Thank you for your e-mail dated 5 September, which is addressed to Kate Dian, Head of Housing and Neighbourhoods.

 

Newland Road is not a Private Road, as the site is own by the Council and based on a public land.

 

Due to current financial pressure the proposed infill will not go ahead. This has now been confirmed by our housing supply and partnership services.

 

Your site is included in the next round of consultation for ‘Off street-controlled parking’. We expect the consultation to take place before the end of this calendar year. As the proposed infill will not go ahead, the associated cost and its implications are now not relevant issues, which requires further clarity.’

 

The reply was shared with her neighbours, to great relief, although there was some puzzlement over the reference that “Newland Road” ‘is not a Private Road’, as the Council’s signs at either end of it say the opposite.

 

Signs at the gated entrance to one end of the Newland Court estate road.
(Courtesy of Michelle Hart)

 

Marc, one of the Newland Court residents who has been leading the battle against the plans, and the way in which he and his neighbours have been treated by the Council over them, was not convinced by this “good news”. He’d been told that Brent’s application would be going to Planning Committee on 18 October. He wrote to the Lead Member for Housing, seeking clarification, and this was the response he received on 4 October:

 

‘Dear Marc,

 

Firstly, I would like to apologise for the delay in responding to your enquiry. I have now had an opportunity to review this matter and liaised with the development team; my findings are as follows.

 

As you will appreciate there is a chronic housing shortage in Brent, which the Council is committed to addressing, by utilising available resources to increase the supply of affordable homes.

 

Although building costs have increased due to the current economic climate, the Council are reviewing the pipeline and will continue to pursue planning permission for schemes within the New Council Homes Programme, including the Newland Court development site: should planning approval be secured, then an extensive financial review to assess the financial viability of each development going forward will be undertaken.

 

At this stage, no formal decision about the Newland Court development proposal has been made and on behalf of the Council I would like to sincerely apologise for any confusion caused because of recent communication which has been circulated.

 

I recognise this may not be the response you hoped for and note your comments, but I trust the above clarifies the Council’s position in respect of this matter.

 

Cllr Promise Knight
Stonebridge Ward
Lead Member for Housing, Homelessness, and Renters’ Security

 

So, Brent Council’s housing team is spending time and money, pressing on with seeking planning consent for schemes (often small ones) which it doesn’t know whether it will ever be able to afford to build.

 

I have to say, yet again, that if they had got on and built the 250 homes on the vacant Council-owned brownfield site at Cecil Avenue (the former Copland School), which they obtained full planning consent for in February 2021, and built them all as Council homes, they would have done much better in ‘utilising available resources to increase the supply of affordable homes.’ Instead, those homes won’t be available until  2026, 152 of them will be sold privately by Brent’s “developer partner”, and only 59 will be for Council tenants at London Affordable Rent.

 

The Rokesby Place car park on 3 October 2023.

 

They received planning consent for at least two small infill schemes last year. The August 2022 Planning Committee meeting approved Brent’s application to build two four-bedroom houses on the car park at Rokesby Place. These were supposed to be homes at Social Rent level, for Brent families in housing need, although Planning Officers changed that to London Affordable Rent (which would be £772 a year more, at 2022/23 levels).

 

By November 2022, Brent’s Cabinet were told that Rokesby Place would not be viable as genuinely affordable housing, so that one of the two houses might have to be sold privately. Even then, no action seems to have been taken to build the two houses, as shown by the recent photograph of the car park “site” above.

 

In December 2022, Planning Committee approved another Brent two houses infill application, for the garage site behind homes at Broadview (a late 1950s Wembley Council estate in Kingsbury, now with many houses privately-owned through “right to buy”). They did so despite misleading information from Planning Officers, which had been brought to their attention by objectors!

 

Has any progress been made on building those “much needed Council homes”? None that I can see, and I suspect that they will never be built. The houses on this tiny unsuitable site would cost more than usual to build because they would need extensive soundproofing (because they would be just 20 metres from the Jubilee Line tracks), and will need a special water tank constructed under the front forecourt (as fire engines could not get close enough to them, because of a long access drive only 2 metres wide).

 

Cllrs Butt, Tatler and Knight at the Watling Gardens “groundbreaking” event, October 2023.
(Brent Council publicity photograph)

 

Brent Council does claim that it is having some success in “Delivering New Council Homes”, as shown by this staged photograph taken at Watling Gardens. Their planning application was submitted in 2021, and received full consent in April 2022. Eighteen months later, they are just starting work on the project, and it will be ‘winter 2025’ before the homes are finally “delivered”.

 

That is not all. The Council’s June 2022 press release, headed “Another 125 new council homes for local families”, was rather misleading, as a blog by Martin at the time pointed out. 42 Council homes are being demolished to make way for the redevelopment, and 34 of the new homes will be used to house displaced tenants. 45 will be 1-bedroom “independent living” flats for elderly people (not for families). The Cabinet decided that 24 of the remainder should be “converted” from London Affordable Rent to shared ownership. That leaves only 22 of these “New Council Homes” available for local people waiting for a genuinely affordable home to rent.

 

The Cabinet Member for Housing, Homelessness, and Renters’ Security,
in a July 2022 Brent PR video promoting its Clement Close infill proposals.

 

There is no dispute that Brent needs thousands more genuinely affordable homes to rent, and the borough’s Labour leadership promised to build 1,000 of these in the five years up to March 2024, and a further 700 (part-funded by a promise of over £100m from the GLA) by 2028.

 

I agree with the Council that the steep rise in the cost of building materials, and in interest rates, has made their task more difficult. But poor decision making, and poor advice from some Council Officers, have played a big part in delaying some schemes, and seeing others put on hold.

 

Why has so much time and effort (and money) gone into small infill schemes which common sense should have told them would never work, either practically or financially?

 

Why have they wasted two years trying to push through an unacceptable proposal for Kilburn Square (missing out on the chunk of GLA 2016-2023 Affordable Homes Programme funding which would have been available), when if they had worked with the local community on a smaller scheme, construction could already be underway?

 

And to go back to my original question on Council housing: ‘does Brent know what it is doing?’

Philip Grant


'NEWLAND COURT - POSTSCRIPT:


A number of Newland Court residents have copied me into emails they have sent in the past ten days to Brent's Council Leader, Chief Executive, Planning Committee members and others at the Civic Centre.

These emails have listed what is wrong with the plans for their estate, the lack of any meaningful consultation with them over the proposals, the ignoring of their objections by Planning Officers, the Council's off-hand responses to correspondence over the proposals (one example: email responses 'seem like the respondent is reading of a script like a cold fish. We are not stupid, please get to the facts and stop insulting our intelligence.'), and they have called for the Planning Committee to visit the estate and see for themselves how ridiculous the plans are.

Councillor Muhammed Butt, or his Complaints and Casework Officer on his behalf (it's interesting that the Council Leader needs his own Complaints Officer!), has sent a letter to one of the residents, copied to others who have drawn these important issues to his attention. It says:

'Your enquiry has been forwarded to the respective department, who will look into the issue and make every effort to resolve it.'

I will ask Martin to add a copy of the "Office of the Leader" letter below my article above, as evidence of his apparent indifference to the views of local residents, who are also Council housing estate tenants and leaseholders.

 



 

 

Thursday 19 October 2023

Do you have views on the provision of student accommodation in Wembley/Brent? Contribute to the London Mayor's consultation.

 

 At a recent Planning Committee meeting where an application for new student accommodation in Wembley Park was made, existing residents spoke against on the grounds that it created would imbalance and undermine community cohesion because students were short-term residents not committed to the area. There were also concerns about anti-social behaviour. Countering this officers argued that students contributed to the local financial and cultural economy.

Now the London Mayor is undertaking a consultation on provision of student accommodation to which residents might want to conribute. Details below:

The Mayor of London is consulting on new London Plan Guidance (LPG) relating to student housing, otherwise known as purpose-built student accommodation or PBSA.

The guidance supports London Plan policy H15 to best meet student housing needs as part of a wider approach to housing delivery and regeneration. It aims to unlock PBSA delivery and also address imbalances to help achieve a more mixed and inclusive London.

This event is a Q&A session for stakeholders to bring any queries they have about the document or the consultation. It assumes that attendees have watched the two minute introductory video or read the draft document, both available on our consultation site.

Questions can be submitted in advance by email to studenthousingLPG@london.gov.uk or you are welcome to just turn up on the day and ask them and listen to our responses to other people's questions.

[Images courtesy of Unite and Affordable Accommodation for Students Ltd]

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the event free? Yes.

Who is this event for? The event is open to all and is suitable for interest groups, public campaign groups, developers, landowners, agents and Londoners to ask questions and find out more.

How will the session take place and how can I join? The session will take place online. Once you have registered via Eventbrite, you will be emailed a link to join the event 24 hours before the event takes place.

Will I be able to ask questions during the event? Yes the whole event is structured around Q&As.

Do I have to submit questions in advance? You are welcome to send questions through in advance by email to studenthousingLPG@london.gov.uk which will help us prepare, but you can also just turn up and ask them and we will do our best to answer them on the spot.

Is this a repeat of the event on the 3rd November? Yes, there is no need to attend both events.

What if I have accessibility requirements? Please let us know when booking your ticket on Eventbrite. Please let us know as soon as possible. We will endeavour to meet any requests made within two weeks of the event, however these cannot be guaranteed.

Where can I find out more and share my views? To watch the introductory video, read the guidance and share your views, visit the consultation page. Consultation on the LPG closes on 11 January 2024

How can I find out more about this event? Please contact studenthousinglpg@london.gov.uk if you have any further questions about the event.

We hope you can join us. RESERVE PLACE HERE

 

The consultation, including the survey (below) will be open until 11th January 2024.

We have 2 open-to-all Q&A events in October and November, and further engagement events are also planned with specific stakeholder groups, notably the cross-sectoral Mayor’s Academic Forum and boroughs. More information on the public events can be found on the 'events' section on this page.

All feedback will be reviewed and a consultation summary document will be published alongside the final guidance.

Register to be notified of planning policy consultations(External link) or sign up for GLA Planning News(External link).

You can email the team on: studenthousinglpg@london.gov.uk(External link)(External link).

 

SURVEY