Watch out for major traffic delays in Wembley area Saturday evening

Major emergency works to a collapsed sewer at the junction of Wembley Park Drive and Wembley Hill Road and Joshua v Povetkin boxing at the stadium (gates open 5.30pm) means that there are likely to be major delays to traffic, including local buses, during the evening, restricting local residents' ability to move around the area,

Event Day parking restrictions will apply.

UPDATED: Brent Civic Centre, or Quintain billboard?

Brent Civic Centre from Olympic Way (from the 2018 Open House website)

This weekend (22 and 23 September) it’s the annual London “Open House” *. One of the buildings you can visit and tour as part of this event is Brent Civic Centre, but if you rely on the outside view of the building shown on their website, you may be in for a disappointment. 

(Contributed)

 

The reality of the view, as shown by this photograph taken by a local resident earlier this week, and shared with me (thank you), is rather different. Parts of Brent’s highly praised Civic HQ may not be the most picturesque architecturally, but do they really need to be covered up with a huge advertisement?

The advertisement, for Quintain’s Tipi Rental flats, makes a striking addition to the area, but is this what public buildings are meant to be for? For some reason, it makes me think of the Soviet Union during the Stalin era. Is that an appropriate image for our Civic Centre to project?

You may, like me, wonder how this use of a prominent Wembley Park landmark was allowed to happen. The answer lies in application no. 17/4177, which was dealt with by Brent’s Planning Officers, not its Planning Committee, in October 2017. This was an application for advertising consent, for the ‘installation of a non-iIlluminated advertisement banner to the side elevation of the Brent Civic Centre.’

The application drawings showed that the proposed banner would be 30.25 metres high and 9.45 metres wide. They also included an elevation drawing, showing what the proposed banner advertisement would look like:-

 

I have researched the law on advertising consent recently, in connection with the adverts which have covered the tile murals in the Bobby Moore Bridge subway, at the Wembley Park Station end of Olympic Way, since 2013. The law is set out in the Town and Country Planning (Control of Advertisements) (England) Regulations 2007.  Regulation 3 says that:

‘A local planning authority shall exercise its powers under these Regulations in the interests of amenity …’ and that,

‘… factors relevant to amenity include the general characteristics of the locality, including the presence of any feature of historic, architectural, cultural or similar interest.’  

By inviting visitors to the Civic Centre for Open House week-end, Brent Council would appear to claim that the building is a feature of, at least, architectural interest, but this does not seem to have carried much weight when it exercised its powers ‘in the interests of amenity’.

That does not come as a surprise to me, however, as when it considered a similar application LINK , it failed to take into account the historic and cultural interest of the tile murals, a major piece of public art welcoming visitors to Wembley Park, which it allowed to be covered with adverts! I may write more on that subject, another time.

The decision letter of 20 October 2017 on application 17/4177, was addressed to a Mr Welbourne of Leeds (who I presume was acting as agent for Quintain) and signed by Brent’s Head of Planning. It granted consent for an advertising banner on the side of the Civic Centre for a period of 5 years. The reasons for giving consent were:

‘The proposed development is in general accordance with policies contained in the:

Brent’s Development Management Policies (and)
Council’s Supplementary Planning Guidance 8.’

I have not checked through all of those planning policies, so can’t say whether or not I agree!

You may think that at least Brent Council is getting some income from allowing this advert to be displayed on the side of the Civic Centre. But perhaps not. I have heard (unofficially) that the part of the building with the advert attached actually belongs to Quintain, as part of the deal with Brent for building the Civic Centre. Can anyone confirm whether that is true or not? Is it our Civic Centre, or just a Quintain billboard?

* See the Open House website LINK  for details of all the interesting Brent buildings and architecture available to visit this week-end.

UPDATE

Asked for a comment on Philip's article a spokepserson for Brent Council said:

“With Government funding to Brent being cut in half, we’re having to find new ways to generate income to help meet that shortfall, which can then be spent on protecting services that matter most to residents, so this isn’t just an adverting sign, it’s a sign of the times.

“To get the most out of the space on the side of the building, we are partnering up with Wembley Park who, as well as having excellent contacts with Wembley event organisers, also offered the council the most amount of money in a competitive tendering process to use the space, under an agreement which will also ensure that adverts displayed there are in line with Brent values.”

Standing together against racism and Islamophobia in Dollis Hill

The T-shirt says: There are two types: they are either your brothers in faith or your equals in humanity

Standing together in solidarity

Local people, including members of North West London Stand Up To Racism, received a warm welcome tonight at the Al-Majlis and Al- Hussaini Centre in Dollis Hill when they visited to express support and solidarity after the previous night's attack. The Chair and Secretary of Brent Trades Council were amongst the visitors.

The group were invited in to share in the celebrations and the atmosphere was positive with clear determination that such episodes would not be allowed to divide the community.

I was struck particularly by a very articulate lower secondary boy who was keen to explain his faith and at the same time emphasise his respect for all religions by explaining the meaning of the slogan on his T-shirt.

Women visitors were welcomed with  food and sweets and speeches were made thanking them for their support.

There was a low-key police presence at the Centre in Edgware Road as well as effective stewarding by the Centre itself.

Earlier Brent Council had issued this statement from Cllr Muhammed Butt, leader of the council:

Our thoughts and prayers are with those who have been injured and all those affected by the serious act of violence which took place outside the Al-majlis Al-Hussaini Center last night.

We are in close contact with the police who are looking into this as a possible hate crime. However, we are reassured that the police do not believe there is an ongoing threat to Brent's Muslim community. There is absolutely no place for hate in our borough. Violence like this will not be tolerated.

We visited representatives at the centre this afternoon and will give them all the help they need.

Brent has one of the most diverse communities in the UK and we are extremely proud of this. We will not allow cowardly acts like this to spread fear and hate amongst our residents.

Wembley sewer collapse will mean severe traffic delays for up to two weeks

From Brent Council

Due to a sewer collapse on Wembley Park Drive near the junction with Wembley Hill Road, Thames Water are doing emergency works and four way, four phase temporary traffic lights have been set up to control traffic. Clarendon Gardens has also been closed to assist with traffic flows.

It is estimated that these works will take up to two weeks to complete and delays in the area are expected to be severe, especially during peak times. There will be clashes with events at Wembley Stadium, the boxing on Saturday and potentially Spurs v Barcelona.

Repair carried out at pensioner's flooded flat. Power still off.

The good news is that after two weeks the repair to dry risers at William Dunbar House on the South Kilburn Estate  that caused John Healy's flat to flood has at last been carried out. There was a residual amount of water that continued to drip from the ceiling but that has now stopped.

Unfortunately the flat will need to dry out before power can be restored and meanwhile John has no heating or hot water. Wates will need to visit to assess when power can be safely switched back on.

Don't let the government off the hook for meaningless platitudes on housing

Tim Clark of Construction News writes some straight-talking updates for the sector and today's is no exception:

Is there any part of the industry that has seen more false dawns over the past decade than the housing sector?

I ask this following this morning’s unprecedented visit to the National Housing Federation’s annual conference by the prime minister, where she gave a speech making all the right noises. Theresa May got a standing ovation for a speech full of platitudes, faint praise, promises to understand social housing needs, and an announcement of £2bn in extra cash. Unfortunately, promises made on the stump are often too good to be true. While this announcement was billed as genuinely new cash rather than recycled spending, it still comes with a catch: the £2bn will only be available from 2022. Call me a cynic, but if a company chief executive stood up in front of their staff and said, “Great news: you’re all getting a raise… in four years’ time”, how many of those employees are going to whoop in delight? Following May’s announcement, how many development managers will call a meeting to plan how to use this new cash? None. Because there’s absolutely no guarantee this money will ever actually be available. You might as well place a bet on the 2022 Grand National. No parliament can bind its successor, and the PM’s promises today are empty because she cannot guarantee she’ll be heading up the government for the next decade. Right now you’d be brave to bet on May surviving beyond Christmas, let alone 2022. Even then, this £2bn has been pledged for a period of time for which departmental budgets have not even been set out yet. May knows that we can have no idea how this money will fit in with the overall social housing settlement for 2022-28, or how it will compare with the £9bn in total funding committed for 2015-21 – not to mention the pre-2010 level of £3bn-a-year. This all falls far short of the PM’s claims to be providing clarity for the social and affordable housing sector. Of course, the government has also broken promises before. At the NHF conference in 2015, the then communities minister Greg Clark struck a historic deal with the sector that opened up housing associations to right to buy. This meant HA stock was set to be sold off for the first time. The sector agreed to the plan because it feared what the then Cameron government would devise if it did not. The government promised that homes sold would be replaced on a one-for-one basis. New figures show this has not happened – in fact, fewer than a third of the 60,000 homes sold by councils since 2012 have been replaced, mainly due to lack of funds. It often feels that the housing sector suffers from a form of collective amnesia, happy simply to be given attention and lap up the warm words.  An announcement of real cash to build real homes right now would be welcome, but this is not it. We shouldn’t let the government off the hook for giving out meaningless platitudes.

Vigil tonight 9pm outside Cricklewood Islamic centre after last night's attack by a car mounting pavement

Cllr Tom Miller, lead member for Brent Council for Stronger Communities, speaking about the incident last night when a car drove into the crowd outside  Al-majlis and Al- Hussaini halls on Edgware Road, Cricklewood, said:

It's not clear that Islamophobia was the actual reason why the incident developed, but it may have had a role as it went on. There's not much more information for now, but I'd just like to reassure that we don't believe Muslims are being deliberately targeted.

The Guardian reported:

Three people have been injured after a car ploughed into a crowd outside a north London Islamic centre, in an incident that is being treated as a hate crime.

The collision took place at Al-Majlis Al-Hussaini centre at the junction of Oxgate Lane and Edgware Road in Brent, which had been hosting a religious event.

Simon Rose, the local police commander, said at 12.30am voluntary stewards and members of the security team challenged a group of people who were in a car park around the corner from the centre. 

The volunteers and stewards were allegedly subjected to Islamophobic and racist abuse and there was an altercation.

 “The people who had been challenged then drove at members of the community in a car,” Rose said. “The car mounted the pavement twice and two people have been seriously hurt. Their injuries at this time are not believed to be life-threatening.”

He added: “It’s being dealt with as an Islamophobic hate crime. It is not at this time being dealt with as a terrorism incident, although that is as always subject to continuous review.”

A spokesman for the Hussaini Association, which organises Islamic lectures at the centre, told ITV News : "We are in deep shock at such an attack taking place on our community but remain proud to live in a diverse and tolerant society."

There will be a vigil outside the centre tonight from 9pm:

North West London Stand Up To Racism urged local people to join the vigil in solidarity with the victims. Vigil at 9 p.m tonight at Al-majlis and Al- Hussaini halls, 403-405 Edgware Road, NW2 6LN.

Should Wembley residents be picking up the bill for Quintain’s mistakes?

Guest blog by ' A Wembley Park Resident'.

The first residential block in Quintain’s rapidly expanding Wembley Park empire, Forum House was a flagship development at the time it opened back in 2009.   Along with neighbouring Quadrant Court which opened a year later, these developments were intended to establish Wembley Park’s reputation for “destination living” at an affordable price.   These early developments were mixed tenure - with private leaseholders and renters, shared owners and social renters all moving in to the new blocks. But as Quintain rolling out new developments at a rate of knots, some of which feature no properties at social rent, they appear to have taken their eye off the ball when it comes to ensuring that their original residents remain satisfied.  Most of their efforts are going into marketing newer luxury properties, and promoting their much-vaunted Tipi scheme, based on a build-to-rent model.

Quintain implicitly acknowledged that the managing agents they had originally contracted to oversee the developments were under-performing when they took the contract away from LRM and awarded it to rivals First Port.  But the full scale of LRM’s failure only became clear subsequently, after they left a vast deficit (thought to be just short of £100,000) in the Forum House annual accounts for 2016-17. Despite already high-levels of service charge, LRM had apparently failed to make any provision for a sinking fund - necessary for prudent management of any estate - and had consistently overspent despite failing to address recurring problems in servicing the estate, including the regularly faulty boilers and pumps.

So who is to pay for the shortfall?   LRM has now pocketed its fees and the accounts have been signed off.   Quintain might yet to be entitled to query whether LRM delivered on its contractual obligations, and potentially recover some of their cash.   But in the meantime, it’s been left to residents to cough-up for a significant “balancing charge” running into hundreds of pounds each, whilst at the same time being hit with major service charge increases from First Port (using LRM’s questionable figures as a baseline guide).   

In his usual suave manner, Quintain boss James Saunders promised WPRA’s febrile Wider Residents Meeting in June that the company would undertake a review of what monies could be reclaimed from LRM, which he anticipated might take three months.   But when the residents have asked for a progress update, no further reassurances have been given. Residents fear they’ll still be on the hook for the costs of having been failed by the freeholder and managing agents. Isn’t it time, they are asking, that Quintain paid the price for its own mistakes?