Year 5 & 6 girls needed for Harlesden Chasers FC trials during half-term

Sweets Way evictor Guy Hands prepares bid for Quintain's private rental properties

Guy Hands

 The financial press reported over the weekend that private equity investor and tax exile Guy Hands is contemplating a £2.5bn bid for Quintain in a move to get into the privately rented sector.

Quintain's owner, Lone Star, is said to want to sell by early next month and other bids are expected. Hands' acquisition would be through his Terra Firma (registered in Guernsey) property arm Annington formed in 1996 to buy up 57,000 Ministry of Defence Homes.

Of interest to Quintain's Tipi privare rental clients is that recently the National Audit Office (NAO) LINK criticised the deal stating that the MOD had lost out on billions of pounds through the sale and will face further costs through substantial rent increases imposed by Hands' company when a rent freeze ends in 2021.

Nearer to home Hands' company Terra Firma was involved in evicting social tenants from Sweets Way, West Hendon. LINK   LINK

Hands made a big loss on EMI  LINK and his Four Seasons care homes  LINK is in difficulty.

Brent Council is now faced with establishing new partnerships with new owners of both Quintain and Wembley Stadium. It has a lot of eggs in one Wembley basket. They will certainly have to be sharp to keep up with Guy Hands and Shahid Kan!

Celebrating Brent's Conservation Areas

I am please to publish this guest post by local historian Philip Grant
 

Conservation Areas were introduced in England by the Civic Amenities Act 1967, as a way of preserving the character of areas in towns or villages which had special architectural or historic interest. They are meant to provide a level of protection for those areas when planning decisions are made.

The Victorian commercial character of the Willesden Green Conservation Area helped campaigners in 2012 to save the remaining Victorian section of the Willesden Green Library building, despite the plans of Brent Council and their development partner, Galliford Try, to demolish it. The façade of the 1893 library now forms the High Road frontage of the modern Willesden Green Library.

The distinctive late-Victorian and Edwardian suburban villas which characterise the residential Mapesbury Conservation Area have, so far, managed to save “The Queensbury” in that area from demolition, and from an inappropriate development of flats on its site.

The inter-war planned garden suburb of the Sudbury Court Conservation Area, has relatively narrow tree-lined streets with grass verges, which form an essential part of its character. However, this did not prevent Brent Council pushing through its plans in 2016 to expand Byron Court Primary School, built in the early 1930’s as a two-form entry school for the children of this Comben & Wakeling estate, to five-form entry, generating traffic that the areas roads will not be able to cope with.

Anyone interested in Conservation Areas and their history will be very welcome at a Wembley History Society talk on this subject, on the evening of Friday 8^th June:-

Brent’s first Conservation Area, designated in 1968, was the Roe Green Village Conservation Area in Kingsbury (whose proud sign is shown on the poster above). As well as marking 50 years as a Conservation Area, the village is also celebrating its centenary this year. It was specially planned by the Government’s Office of Works during the First World War, as housing for workers at an aircraft factory (“AIRCO”) on the opposite side of Stag Lane.

The Roe Green Village Residents’ Association is holding a number of events during June 2018 as part of the village’s centenary celebrations:-

If you don’t know Roe Green Village, why not treat yourself, and come along to the Village Day on Saturday 30^th June! As well as lots of other attractions on offer that afternoon, on the Village Green in Roe Lane (yes, the WW1 plans included a village green, although the village pub that was meant to stand beside it was not built!) Wembley History Society will be putting on a display of pictures, telling the story of AIRCO and how the village came about. I look forward to seeing you there.

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Neighbourhood CIL awards published at last

Following pressure from Wembley Matters, the outcome of applications for Round 2 Neighbourhood CIL has been published. The largest single award is £268,000 for fitting out Preston Community Library and Cricklewood Library gets an additional £30,000 folloing the £64,000 awarded in Round 1. Some amounts seem high such as the £45,000 for community wifi claimed by the South Kilburn Trust which also gets £9,000 for street signage.

The Young Brent Foundation which was set up to fund raise for youth projects after the Council closed youth clubs gets £30,000 for a 'Brent Young Peoples Hub'.  It would be useful for the Council to publish the applications in full along with business plans where applicable for the sake of transparency and accountability.

A significant number of the grants awarded are actually to Brent Council rather than community groups including grants to Regeneration, Landscaping and Town Centres as well as for electric car charging points. The Neighbourhood CIL guidelines (1.17) state budgets can't be spent on 'anything that the council or its partners should be doing.'

The majority of the fund goes to projects in Wembley in line with the distribution priorties agreed by the Council which in January 2017 (Round 1) were:

CIL Neighbourhood Fund                                       (nearest £) - as at January 2017
                                                                                               
Harlesden                                                                   78,000
Kilburn and Kensal                                                      574,000
Kingsbury and Kenton                                                 402,000
Wembley                                                                     1,796,000
Willesden                                                                    190,000
Sudbury Town                                                             15,000
(Neighbourhood Forum with adopted Plan)  

Total                                                                          £3,000,000 (Rounding)

Fuller information on each area HERE

Click bottom left corner for full size PDF.

The Council's consultation on the Neighbourhood CIL now closes on May 30th. Readers may wish to comment on some of these issues. LINK

'Radical action needed to protect Brent's children from air pollution,' says Clean Air for Brent

Poster from Green Action Centre

From Clean Air for Brent

The Mayor of London has published his long-awaited School Air Quality Audits, and they include two Brent primary schools which are situated next to busy roads, where the pupils are routinely exposed to illegal levels of air pollution. (1)

Clean Air for Brent is calling for urgent action from Brent Council and Transport for London which will deliver an immediate and positive impact on the air being breathed by children at John Keble, Ark Franklin and other Brent schools. 

We strongly urge that all such heavily trafficked roads in Brent become Low Emission Bus Zones – where only the cleanest buses are permitted during school travel times - and emission levels are monitored and acted upon where found to be consistently in breach of legal limits deemed fit for humans.

We also want to see other big polluters such as construction lorries banned from these routes during the start and end of school days.

And the number of children currently transported to and from schools by car must be halved. We have to call time on the ‘school run’.

While we welcome all schools having travel plans and joining TfL’s STARS scheme, we call on Brent Council to end its bizarre and perverse policy of giving teachers more car parking permits if the school has a ‘greener’ travel plan.

Finally we wish to see the Kensal Corridor traffic scheme - which is partly intended to tackle pollution - suspended until it can be fully and successfully integrated with the Ark Franklin Primary air quality improvement proposals. Both schemes need drastic strengthening before being taken forward.

“It is time to stop playing God with children’s lives” said Fiona Mulaisho, Chair of Clean Air for Brent. 

1. The Mayor’s School Air Quality Audit for Ark Franklin Primary Academy in Kensal Rise can be found here: https://bit.ly/2knrMY1 and the equivalent report for John Keble C of E Primary School in Harlesden can be found here: https://bit.ly/2x8CN8R

Editor's note:  Parents may be interested in joining the Clean Air Parents' Network HERE

Tulip Siddiq's parliamentary assistant chosen to fight Willesden Green for Labour

Elliot Chappell, a parliamentary assistant to Tulip Siddiq MP (Hampstead and Kilburn) has been selected to be the third candidate on the Labour slate for the Willesden Green council election, following the death of Lesley Jones, whose funeral is on Tuesday next week.

Chappell, aged 26, who, despite appearances is not in a boy band, defeated Nyela Reid, Rajan Sellan, Iftekhar Ahmed, Conchita Varicak and James Powney who were also short-listed. He has previously worked on campaigns for David Lammy and Keir Starmer. His MSc (Democracy and Comparative Politics) thesis was on the 'European Union and the promotion of good governance'.

The election will be held on June 21st. Green candidates are Shaka Lish, who IS a singer, William Relton and Peter Murry.

Half-term outdoor activities for children at Welsh Harp Centre next week

Quintain announce new theatre on site of Fountain Studios

Press release from Quintain (Wembley Park)
 

Quintain (Wembley Park) has  announced an exciting new theatre venture. The flexible 1,000-2,000 seat capacity Troubadour Wembley Park Theatre is being created inside the former Fountain Studios by award-winning Troubadour Theatres. 

Troubadour Theatres will run the brand-new theatre in Wembley Park, and will work with well-known and emerging production companies and artists to stage world-class entertainment within a flexible space unmatched by other London theatres.

In addition to a flexible performance space, Troubadour Wembley Park Theatre will also house a modern state of the art restaurant and a fun, sociable bar space.

Located within the former Fountain Studios, which are best known for being the venue of live televised shows including The X Factor, Britain’s Got Talent and Pop Idol, the new theatre will be in the heart of Wembley Park, an area which is fast becoming one of London’s most exciting destinations. As a new cultural hub for London, the 85 acre redevelopment will benefit from the new theatre, 27 affordable artist studios, 7,000 new homes, London Designer Outlet, new retail districts and offices, as well as the largest Boxpark to date, Boxpark Wembley (set to open later this year) and the SSE Arena, Wembley.

Troubadour Wembley Park Theatre will be a fully flexible theatre; a space that can be transformed to suit the requirements for every show - traditional proscenium arch theatre, in-the-round theatrical experiences, or immersive shows. It will encourage theatrical producers to think big, offering them an affordable alternative space to present bold and ambitious shows.

The Troubadour team has extensive experience of running spectacular theatres including the King’s Cross Theatre which consisted of two 1,000 seat theatres and one 450 seat studio housing the Olivier Award-winning production of The Railway Children, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s In The Heights, David Bowie’s Lazarus and the Donmar’s Shakespeare Trilogy.  This will be the first theatre to open in Wembley Park and first venture between Quintain, the developers behind the transformation of Wembley Park, and Troubadour Theatres, providing a new cultural offering for those living, working and visiting Wembley Park.

Speaking about the announcement Tristan Baker and Oliver Royds of Troubadour Theatres said:

We are delighted to be creating a state-of-the-art theatre in Wembley Park, in the heart of one of Europe’s largest regeneration areas. Troubadour Wembley Park Theatre will be a modern venue for modern audiences: comfortable seating, increased leg room, a spacious and welcoming bar, a seasonal and innovative restaurant. And for theatre makers, we offer a flexible, dynamic and exciting performance space which can be designed around the shows. 
 

We see theatre audiences increasing year on year and we are excited, once again, to break the mould of traditional theatres and bring new innovative spaces to audiences and producers alike.

Speaking about the deal, James Saunders, Chief Operating Officer of Quintain (delivering Wembley Park), said:

We are thrilled to welcome Troubadour Theatres to Wembley Park and can’t wait to see the iconic Fountain Studios given a new lease of life, as it’s transformed into a brand-new theatre for those living, working and visiting Wembley Park. This new theatre opens as London is seeing a decline in live venues across the capital and is a further example of how Wembley Park is growing in stature as a cultural destination.

Troubadour Theatre Wembley Park is set to open in the Autumn of 2018. Details of the first production will be announced in the coming months alongside information on ticket sales.

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