Brent Community Skips March to Early May - Full List giving dates, times and locations

 

See Brent Council website for what you can put in them LINK

Barham Park Trustees confirm removal of covenant on payment of £200,000 by George Irvin

 Barham Park Trustees, consisting only of Brent Labour Cabinet members, approved the removal of the covenant protecting the park from development on the payment of £200,000 by developer and fairground owner George Irvin.

Cllr Mili Patel sought an assurance that agreement of the Charities Commission for the action would be sought 'in order to safeguard ourselves'. Chair of Trustees, Cllr Muhammed Butt, confirmed that this would be the case.

Cllr Butt confirmed that exempt papers (confidential papers not available for public perusal) had been considered.

He went on to say that representations from a local resident had been received and he had looked through them and concluded that they would add no value to what the Trustees were considering.

In fact they were detailed papers that picked apart the process and reasons for the covenant removal.

More generally Trustees were told of plans to expand the Trust's activities and continue the 'redevelopment journey'.

 

Cllr Butt 'not minded' once again to allow democracy and scrutiny over Barham Park Trustees' action - this time removing covenant protecting the park from development for a payment of £200,000 by developer George Irvin

 

George Irvin's plans for houses in Barham Park

Readers of this blog will know that many questions have been raised about Cllr Muhammed Butt's refusal to allow any scrutiny of Trustees' actions over Barham Park.

Barham Park was gifted to the people of Wembley by Titus Barham (HISTORY HERE) but Butt gained control of the Trustees by making himself their Chair and other members of his Cabinet fellow Trustees. They claim that they represent the people of Wembley and refuse any other representation.

In his role as the all-powerful Chair, Cllr Butt has refused to let people speak at meetings of the Trustees to raise issues over the accounts, plans to redevelop and privately market park buildings, his relationship with the developer and fairground entrepeneur George Irvin, the sale of two workers' cottages in the park to Irvin, and Irvin's gifts of free fairground ride tickers to councillors (see links below).

There is a Trustees' meeting on Monday morning where a payment bu Irvin  to the Trustees of £200,000 will allow a restrictive covenant protecting Barham Park to be removed, enabling Irvin to build four three storey houses inside the park on the site of the cottages. (CGI above). Irvin has already received planning permission for them from the Council pending settlement of the covenant issue.  Observers reckon given the sale value of the proposed private houses, situated in a beautiful park with vehicle access and nearby rail connections,  the payment is quite a bargain.

Unsurprisingly, local councillor Paul Lorber has asked to speak to the Trustees about the issues raised. Equally unsurprisingly Chair of Trustees and Leader of the Council, Cllr Muhammed Butt has refused:

The Brent Officer concerned responded:

As is usual practice I’ve consulted with the Chair and, as a result, can advise he is not currently minded to allow any requests to speak at Monday’s meeting.  Whilst it will not, therefore, be possible for you to address the meeting in person you’ll obviously still be more than welcome to attend to observe proceedings.  We’ll also be webcasting the meeting live, which you’ll be able to follow, as an alternative, via the following link:

Home - Brent Council Webcasting

In other words you are at liberty to silently watch us sell out the people of Wembley...

 

BREAKING: Barham Park Trustees' £200,000 deal with George Irvin to enable him to build four 3 storey houses in Barham Park

Trustees set to rubber stamp process to remove covenant restriction on building in Barham Park

Brent Council on Barham Park Covenant: 'Move along, nothing to see here.'

Barham Park Trustees approve original accounts in 7-1/2 minute meeting after refusing representations

Butt again refuses representations on Barham Park. Time for the CharityCommission to intervene?

Be Fair on the Fun – An open Letter to Brent on councillors’ free rides 

 

The Curious Incident of a Dornier in the Night

Guest post by local historian Philip Grant

 

 

A WW2 German Dornier DO-217-M bomber aircraft. (Image from the internet)

 

The distance from Wembley to Cambridge is around 50 miles (80 kilometres) as the crow flies. This story links both places. I was contacted by someone who knew the Cambridge half, and asked what I knew about the Wembley part. At the time it was nothing, but after a little research in the local newspaper microfilms at Brent Archives, I can now share a remarkable story with you.

 

The events in this article took place on the night of 23 February 1944. The Second World War had already been going on for 4½ years, and it would be another fifteen months before the country could celebrate VE Day, the end of the war in Europe. After several years with little or no German bombing, London was in the middle of a “mini-blitz”. Just five nights earlier, eight members of the Whitfield family and seven members of the Metcalfe family had been killed when their semi-detached homes in Birchen Close, Kingsbury, suffered a direct hit from a high explosive bomb. An air raid warden, who’d been blown across the road by the blast, died in hospital two days later.

 

The first report of the incident in Alperton was this short article in “The Wembley News”:

 

A brief report from “The Wembley News”, 25 February 1944. (Brent Archives local newspaper microfilms)

 

The following week’s edition of the newspaper had more time for a full front-page report of what had happened:

 

“Fireguards Arrest German Airmen”, headline from “The Wembley News”, 3 March 1944.
(Brent Archives local newspaper microfilms)

 

Fireguards were ordinary local residents, not otherwise serving in the Home Guard or as air raid wardens. After the widespread damage caused by German incendiary (fire) bombs in the “blitz”, regulations were introduced in early 1941 that adults should spend 12 hours a week (often split into four-hour shifts) on night-time fire watching duties. The Wardens in charge of Wembley’s eighty A.R.P. posts had to organise firewatchers for every sector in their area. 25,000 Wembley civilians were given the necessary training, and supplied with bags of sand, galvanised water buckets and stirrup pumps to use in putting out fires.

 

A WW2 fireguard bucket, stirrup pump and hose. (Source: Imperial War Museum)

 

The local newspaper report on 3 March included this eyewitness account, from an Alperton man, of what he saw during an air raid on London by over 200 German bombers that night:

 

‘I was watching the barrage [of anti-aircraft gunfire] when suddenly a plane could be seen caught by about eight searchlights. The guns put up a terrific barrage and got him “boxed”, and then closed in on him. It was obvious that no plane could stay up there long, and all of a sudden there was a flash. They had got him. The next thing I saw was two parachutes sailing down. They were picked up by the searchlights and followed down.’

 

 

A WW2 photograph showing searchlights on a bomber, and anti-aircraft gunfire.
(Image from the internet)

 

Two firewatchers, Mr W. Hall of 47 Douglas Avenue and Mr F. Harrison of 1 Christchurch Green, were sheltering under the front porch of his house. They had seen a parachute descending, and heard a bump as something hit the roof of number 49. The newspaper report said:

 

‘A high hedge separates numbers 47 and 49. The airman went one side and the parachute the other. After a discreet wait Messrs Harrison and Hall, who thought it was a land mine, hurried over to investigate.’

 

47 and 49 Douglas Avenue, Alperton, as it might have been at the time.
(A Google Street View image, painted to restore the wartime hedge!)

 

The firewatchers were right to be cautious. “Land mines”, as they were commonly called, were  500kg German bombs dropped by parachute, which drifted through the air until they hit a solid structure, killing indiscriminately. On the same night in September 1940, two such bombs had killed four people, women and young children in flats above shops in Kingsbury Road, and four more (two married couples) in District Road, Sudbury.

 

The newspaper report continued:

 

‘After releasing the Nazi from his complicated harness, Mr Hall picked him up. He was thoroughly dazed, helmetless and dressed in a blueish grey uniform. First-aid was rendered, he was given smelling salts and asked if he was alright. He nodded his head, answering in the affirmative.’

 

‘By this time neighbours began to collect, and the head fireguard of the sector, Mr W. Thornton, disarmed the Nazi by removing his belt and revolver. He offered no resistance and was quite docile. When the young airman had sufficiently recovered, he was taken to the wardens post in Christchurch Green and the police were sent for and he was taken to Wembley Police Station.’

 

Locations from the incident, marked on a map from 1939.
(Extract from page 30 of the original A to Z Atlas and Guide to London and the suburbs)

 

Mrs Hall, the wife of the fireguard at 47 Douglas Avenue, had also spoken to the reporter:

 

‘The German airman proved to be a youth, aged about 20, fair haired and according to Mrs Hall “a good looking young boy”.’

 

The young German who landed in Douglas Avenue was lucky. In April 1943, Ronald Francis, a 21-year old RAF airman who’d lived just along the road at 19 Douglas Avenue, was killed with the rest of the 7-man crew of a Lancaster aircraft which crashed in The Netherlands, after being shot down while returning from a bombing mission over Germany.

 

The newspaper mentioned two German airmen in Wembley’s streets. There were brief details of the other one:

 

‘The second defeated raider landed in Wembley Park Drive about the same time. He also was captured without any difficulty, and after being taken to a nearby Army unit’s headquarters was handed over to the police.’

 

But all four crew members of the Dornier bomber had baled out. The airman captured in Wembley Park was described as being around 30 years old, so might have been the pilot. I don’t know where the other two landed, but it may have been earlier, just over the Wembley Borough boundary in Ealing. If you have any information on this, please add a comment below!

 

The Dornier’s pilot must have thought that his aircraft would crash, after being damaged by anti-aircraft “flak” shells. He locked his plane’s controls so that it stayed level while he and his crewmen baled out. If it had crashed, the plane and its load of 860 incendiary bombs would probably have come down on a built-up area in Kingsbury or Edgware, causing massive damage and potential death or injury to local residents. But the Dornier DO-217-M did not crash. It flew on in a north north-easterly direction, over Hertfordshire and beyond.

 

Later that night, a lady at 302 Milton Road in Cambridge heard a loud noise behind her house. When she dared to look out, there was a German bomber aircraft with its nose up against her back garden fence!

 

Two photographs of the Dornier bomber where it came to rest in Cambridge, February 1944.
(Screenshots from the “German Ghost Bomber” video)

 

The Dornier bomber had flown over fifty miles, without a pilot, gradually getting lower. Miraculously, it had passed just east of the centre of Cambridge, missing the University’s historic colleges, and the homes in its northern suburb, and made a “wheels-up” landing across a large allotment site. Although it left a trail of unexploded incendiary bombs behind it in the vegetable plots, the remaining fuel in the aircraft’s tanks had not ignited. No one was hurt.

 

The Cambridge end of this curious incident is told in an excellent 9-minute video film from 2022 by Mark Felton, “German Ghost Bomber – The Mysterious Case of the Cambridge Dornier”, which I will leave you to watch and enjoy!

 

 

Thank you, Mark Felton, for the video that led to the enquiry, and which has enabled me to share the Wembley end of this story.

 

Philip Grant.

[With apologies to Mark Haddon, for borrowing from the title of his award-winning book “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time”. When the idea flashed into my head, it fitted this story so well that I just had to use it!]

 

Stop the office block! Save Hazel Road's Victorian Community Centre!

 

 

Frome Kensal Green Residents Association

 

There were 116 responses to Making The Leap's planning application Ref: 25/0041 on the Brent Planning Portal LINK  110 objections, 5 in favour and 1 neutral). This is a fantastic achievement and brilliant community engagement!!!

 

We now also have the support of Kensal Triangle Residents Association, Kensal Rise Residents Association, Queens Park Residents Association, The Victorian Society, SAVE Britain's Heritage and Willesden Local History Society.

 

Making The Leap's planning application will now almost certainly be referred to the Brent Planning Committee and it's essential that we email our local Councillors to urge them to lobby the committee on our behalf and that we also email the members of the committee too, and our MP Georgia Gould. The next meetings of the committee are 12 March and 9 April.

 

OUR LOCAL COUNCILLORS ARE:

 

Steve Crabb

Cllr.Stephen.Crabb@brent.gov.uk

 

Neil Nerva

cllr.neil.nerva@brent.gov.uk

 

Lesley Smith

cllr.lesley.smith@brent.gov.uk

 

Jumbo Chan

cllr.jumbo.chan@brent.gov.uk

 

Mili Patel

cllr.mili.patel@brent.gov.uk

 

THE MEMBERS OF THE PLANNING COMMITTEE ARE:

 

Matt Kelcher  (Chair) 

cllr.matt.kelcher@brent.gov.uk

 

Saqib Butt  (Vice-Chair) 

Cllr.Saqib.Butt@brent.gov.uk

 

Ajmal Akram   

Cllr.Ajmal.Akram@brent.gov.uk

 

Rita Begun

Cllr.Rita.Begum@brent.gov.uk

 

Elliot Chappell

  Cllr.Elliot.Chappell@brent.gov.uk

 

Liz Dixon

  cllr.liz.dixon@brent.gov.uk

 

Robert Johnson

  Cllr.Robert.Johnson@brent.gov.uk

 

Jayanti Patel 

Cllr.Jayanti.Patel@brent.gov.uk

 

OUR MP GEORGINA GOULD can be contacted at: georgia.gould.mp@parliament.uk

Wembley Triangle works catch-up plus Cecil Avenue development progress

 

Wembley Hill Road

Wembley High Road looking south

 

High Road looking north

 

 

The core of new flats on the Copland/Cecil Avenue site
 

 

Traffic lights and crossing at Bridge Road/North End Road junction coming soon?

 

Since the North End Road was re-connected to Bridge Road at Wembley Park in June 2021 LINK concerns have been raised about the danger to pedestrians and cyclists at the road crossing as no lights were installed. Traffic came in 3 directions and visibility of the junction from further down North End Road is poor.

 In August 2021 I sent Brent Council a video of the danger, particularly for families with children walking from Chalkhill or the Bridge Road bus stop to the Civic Centre, Wembley Library or the LDO. Crossing North End Road was made more difficult by terrorist prevention concrete slabs that were eventually replaced by bollards.

 

At the time Brent Council said they were liaising with Tranport for London over installing signalling at the junction. Four years later, as you can see from the images above, it looks as if we are almost there.

Unfortunately, on the issue of allowing the 206 bus to re-route via North End Road on Event Days, raised  at the same time with the same answer about liaising with TfL , no progress has been made.

At present the 206 is curtailed at Brent Park on event days and Wembley is not served.

Pressure continues on Brent Council to divest from companies complicit in human rights abuses in Palestine - presentation at Pensions Sub-committee

 

 

Unusually the public gallery was packed last night at the meeting of the Brent Council Pensions Sub-Committee that oversees the council's Local Government Pension Scheme. Brent Council workers and non-teaching school staff form the bulk of members of the scheme. Chair of the Pension Sub-committee Cllr Robert Johnson declared an interest at the meeting as he is a member of the Scheme as a former Brent Council employee.

The full presentation and response can be seen in the short video above. The Chair of Brent and Harrow Palestine Solidarity Campaign told the Sub-Committee that more than 2,000 residents. local workers and students had now signed the petition calling for divestment from funds complicit in human rights abuses in Palestine and elsewhere. The Council should take urgent action as it did over South African apartheid in the past.

The call for ethical investment was shared by many including environmental campaigners.

The Council's response was carefully worded and took less than two minutes.  Listen to it above to see whether it fully answers the points made earlier in the presentation.

The presentation asked for a list of the LGPS investments. This was supplied to national PSC in 2020 but when asked last year Brent Coucnil said they were unable to supply a list.

 

These were the top five of their complicit investments in 2020 and a check on whether they still have such investments would be helpful:

HSBC £4,663,056

HSBC invests over £830million in, and provides financial services worth up to £19billion for, companies arming Israel. These investments include up to £100million worth of shares in the company Caterpillar, who supply the Israeli army with bulldozers which are weaponised and used to demolish Palestinian communities, build Israel’s illegal settlements and apartheid infrastructure including the apartheid wall and military checkpoints. For more info: https://www.palestinecampaign.org/campaigns/stop-arming-israel/

Barclays £1,252,342

Barclays is a British multinational bank and financial services company. Barclays hold approximately £1,167.6 million of investments in companies that are known to supply the Israeli military. This includes Babcock, BAE and Boeing, Cobham and Rolls Royce. More information available in War on Want’s 2017 ‘Deadly Investments’ report.

BAE Systems  £970,233

According to CAAT, “BAE Systems is the world’s fourth largest arms producer. Its portfolio includes fighter aircraft, warships, tanks, armoured vehicles, artillery, missiles and small arms ammunition. It has military customers in over 100 countries. BAE has a workshare agreement with Lockheed Martin producing the US F-35 stealth combat aircraft. Israel, for example, took delivery of its first F-35 in 2016. According to Investigate, a project by the American Friends Service Committee, BAE has worked in cooperation with Lockheed Martin and Rafael to produce and market the naval Protector drone used to maintain the siege of Gaza along the Mediterranean coast.

Smiths Group £316,811

According to CAAT “Smiths Group is a global technology company with five divisions: John Crane, Smiths Medical, Smiths Detection, Smiths Interconnect and Flex-Tek. Smiths Connectors is part of Smiths Interconnect and comprises Hypertac, IDI and Sabritec brands. Products include connectors used in fighting vehicles, unmanned vehicles and avionics systems.” They have applied for a number of military export licences to Israel.

Rolls Royce £294,535

Rolls-Royce is a British manufacturer that produces military aircraft engines, naval engines and cores for nuclear submarines. Despite arms comprising only 26% of its total sales, it is still the world’s 17th largest Arms trade. In 2014, the year of Israel’s arial bombardment and ground invasion of Gaza, which killed over 2,200 civilians, nearly a quarter of them children, Rolls-Royce was granted export licenses for engines for military aircrafts to Israel.