All day road closures round Wembley Stadium on Sunday

From Brent Council

Sunday 8 July 2018, 11am to 7pm, Wembley Park, 5 Exhibition Way, Wembley HA9 0FA

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The Color Run – billed as the “craziest, most colourful 5k race” – is coming back to Wembley Park on Sunday 8 July.

It is a five-kilometre, un-timed race in which thousands of participants are doused from head to toe in different colours at each kilometre point – and on the finish line too.

There will be several road closures and diversions in the Wembley area from 6am to 11pm. The following roads will be closed: 

• Fulton Road
• Fifth Way
• Fourth Way
• Atlas Road
• Hannah Close
• Great Central Way
• South Way
• First Way
• Engineers Way (Access to Civic Centre still available).
•  

A suitable signed diversion will be in place, however, there will be increased traffic in the Wembley area. View map of the road closures

Invitation to comment on HUB's plans for Chiltern Rail/High Road site

Following yesterdays post on the new blocks planned for the site alongside the  Chiltern railway behind Wembley High Road and the Chesterfield House development LINK I have received this email from Kaizan Partnership who are handling the Hub's public engagement:

Dear Wembley Matters

I am contacting you as part of the community engagement for a new proposed development called Wembley Link.

Very often community members feel that they are not consulted about development in their area and so we are making an extra effort to reach out to the wider community and are hoping that you will share this email and the attached flyer with your network, so they can see the emerging designs and give their feedback on them.

The Wembley Link site is a piece of land, alongside the railway line behind Wembley High St, close to the junction with Park Lane. It is next to the former Chesterfield House where HUB are currently constructing a new building. This part of Wembley is within a Housing Zone identified by the Mayor as suitable for ‘higher density’ housing. The buildings would provide about 250 new homes as well opening up the area around them which would  be a new public green space for the whole local community.

HUB are committed to working with the local community to ensure that the ‘Wembley Link’ scheme reflects local ambitions and contributes to positive development for the area. HUB have had a relationship with this area and the local community over many years through the process of designing and now building Chesterfield House and now look forward to continuing this relationship with Wembley Link.

The design team for Wembley Link have been working up plans for the 2 new buildings with public space and you can see the emerging designs here.

HUB are really keen to hear your feedback on the emerging designs – to understand what you like and don’t like so that this can be taken on board to improve the designs before they submit them to planning. The consultation will close on July 16th so please do have a look and tell us what you think.

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me.

Very best wishes

Jonny

Jonny Zander​ Director Kaizen Partnership

Love Chalkhill Festival returns on Saturday July 14th 2pm-7pm

Always a great community event in Chalkhill Park (behind Wembley Asda).

Heart of Wembley Festival Saturday July 7th 1pm-6pm

From  Wembley Futures

On Saturday, 7 July 2018 Wembley Futures will be hosting the third annual Heart of Wembley Festival. This vibrant community event will take place from 1pm-6pm on St Johns Road, off Wembley High Road by Primark. St Johns Road will be closed to traffic for the day, allowing the community to reclaim a street in the town centre for the festivities. The theme of this year’s festival is ‘Celebrating Family’, and the festival will truly have something for everyone in families both big and small.

The Festival is one of the activities by Wembley Futures, one of 150 recipient groups across the UK to be awarded funding by The Big Local. A long-term innovative programme that aims to achieve lasting change, The Big Local provides a mixture of funding, finance and support.

The Heart of Wembley Festival will celebrate the diversity and community in Wembley Central through a mix of both local and professional music, talented dance performances, fragrant food, bright colours and vivid fabrics of the performers’ costumes.

The atmosphere will be charged with much vitality and vivaciousness!  Stage will feature music spanning the genres including vintage music hailing from the 1940s and beyond, the sounds of acoustic guitar, and Afro-Brazilian harmonies that recall the band members’ far flung homelands.
Drumming workshops will run all day, their rhythmic beats inviting all festival goers to come and have a try on African drums and the Dhol drums, while dancers will conjure a voyage to countries from Ireland to Nepal and from India to Cuba with intricate, traditional dance performances. For a contrast, contemporary dancers specialising in street dance will also be showing their skills to the festival crowd.

Come and taste the flavours of cooking from around the world, with vendors offering authentic Nigerian, Caribbean, and Hungarian street food as well as a range of both sweet and savoury treats from Portugal, artisan brownies, and delicious cakes. Don’t forget a refreshing drink of fresh coconut as well.

Family activities will abound, with creative craft tables, an artwork display by Elsley School, and fantastic performances from children from Brent Music, Ark Elvin School, Elsely School, and the 360 Theatre group. Become a character, an animal or simply enjoy a gorgeous design with a visit to the Festival face-painters.  With a story area, including books and a storyteller, there will be plenty to carry away the imaginations of all members of the family. Let street theatre artists and magician woo you!

Be sure to cycle up a smoothie and repair your bike, courtesy of Brent Cycling; have a chat with the always-welcoming community stalls, try some aloe products from Forever Living, and stop by the Wembley Futures stall for more details about current activities and upcoming plans for the year ahead. Wembley Central Safer Neighbourhood Police will be on hand to hear any concerns you may have.

Francis Henry, Chair of Wembley Futures, said:

I hope to see both new and familiar faces at the Festival in July. We are building on the success of the previous two years’ Festivals and look forward to a great day out with friends, family and neighbours. Heart of Wembley Festival 2018 promises to be a fun-packed day.

Alperton Summer Festival Saturday July 7th

Alperton Summer Festival 2018
Saturday on 7th July 2018
12–6pm
Heather Park 
(Entry free)

There will be live music, a petting zoo, cricket simulator, face painting and more! (All free of charge, and of course we will be showing the England game live!) We will also be announcing the winners of the My Alperton Postcard Competition and raising money for local Charity and food bank Sufra NW.

Sufra adds:
 
Sufra NW London will be all over the Alperton Summer Festival this Saturday 7 July at Heather Park. As well as our information stall, we will be flipping delicious sweet and savoury pancakes on our new stall - Oh Crepe!

Consultation on more blocks behind Chesterfield House 'Twin Towers' closes on July 16th

Consultation is taking place on the building of two blocks, one of 16 storeys and another 18 storeys, behind the 'Twin Towers' (26 and 21 storey) replacement for Chesterfield House at the junction of Park Lane and Wembley High Road.

The consultation closes on July 16th. The buildings will be behind the shops on the High Road and bordered by the Chiltern railway line.  The designers make great play of a green 'Wemba Forest' corridor  around the blocks, name after Wemba who cleared a space (lea) in the forest in the area. Forest is perhaps a rather grand name for what is planned behind the shops but the artist's impression is extremely imaginative to say the least. Across the railway line there is a wooded embankment and the 2 storey houses of Park Court that will now be overlooked by four tower blocks.

I have published the design brochure below and the consultation  survey can be found HERE
Click lower right corner for full size version

New buildings proposed at White Horse Bridge, Wembley Stadium Station

The proposed 6-18 storey buildings

The proposed new build

Ariel view of the site

Brent Planning Committee will this evening consider plans for new buildings on either side of the White Horse Bridge and the Chiltern Wembley Stadium Station.

The proposed blocks range from 6 to 18 storeys and claim a mix of  156 'affordable' and shared ownership properties. 'Affordable' as usual is not defined.

At ground floor level a mix of retail, commercial and community uses is proposed but the overall aim is to have retail connecting the retail and restaurants of Wembley High Road with Wembley Park Boulevard.  One of the buildings will host offices for Chiltern Railways staff.

Along with the new two tower development on the site of the former  Mahatma Gandhi House the development will face the 2 -3 storey buildings on the other side of Wembley Hill Road. Some mitigation is proposed where the SW07 building overlooks properties on Juniper Close.

Full Officers' Report HERE

Postscript from local historian Philip Grant

They say that history repeats itself - there was ground floor retail development near the station (then Wembley Hill, on the Great Central Railway) soon after it opened in 1906, but the scale then was on a more human level - see postcard picture below.

 

Wembley Hill Station 1908

 

 

Parents win stay of execution for Swaminarayan School

The Kilburn Times LINK is reporting that following a 3,000 signature petition  organised by parents asking Trustees and Governors to keep theSwaminarayan schools open it has been decided to keep both the primary and secondary schools open until at least 2020.

The signatures were achieved despite a text message circulated around Swaminarayan Temple volunteers asking people not to sign the petition or pass it on to other groups because it would affect the reputation of the Swaminarayan organisation.

A governor, Tarun Patel, told the Kilburn Times:

We had a review after meeting the parents and came to the conclusion that we will keep both schools open until July 2020.

This will be welcome news for parents in years 4, 5 and 6 as it will allow students to complete their prep-school education.

If it’s feasible and circumstances allow, we will look to keep the prep school open for a further year until 2021.

Parents have put together a business plan that they claim would keep the school open for  another 7 years and are due to discuss their proposals with Trustees and Governors tomorrow.