Guest blog by local historian Philip Grant
It seems that we are likely to see the last remaining relic
of the British Empire Exhibition, the Palace of Industry building in Olympic
Way and Fulton Road, demolished within the next couple of weeks.
Quintain Estates advised me on 14 February that they intend
to go ahead with the demolition before their planning application for
1350 temporary car parking spaces on the site goes before Brent's Planning
Committee on 13 March. They can do this, as Brent gave them permission as part
of the overall scheme for Wembley City some years ago.
I had asked them to allow the east and north external walls
to remain standing until the main redevelopment of the site for a shopping
centre goes ahead in several years time. This would not stop them from having
all of the car parking spaces they require to fulfil their commitments to
Wembley Stadium, and would allow visitors coming to Wembley Park for the
90th anniversary of the British Empire Exhibition in 2014 to see the scale and
style of the last of these iconic buildings. They claim it would be unsafe to
do this, but have ignored my request (four weeks ago) to have sight of their
evidence.
It was intended to ask for the retention of the walls to be
made a condition of granting planning permission for the temporary car
park. It appears that Quintain Estates have decided not to take that risk, so
that the demolition will already be a "fait accompli" when the Planning
meeting takes place. As a concession to the proposed BEE 90th anniversary
exhibition, which it is hoped will be held in the new Civic Centre in the
summer of 2014, Quintain have said that they will give Brent the lion's head
corbels from the building.
When I suggested to the Quintain representative yesterday
that it might be better to co-operate with local people and Brent Museum and
Archives on this matter before sending in the demolition team, I was told they
'hope that the excitement about a new cinema for Wembley, with shops and
restaurants accessible for all plus 1500 new jobs will outweigh any "bad
publicity".'