WEMBLEY MATTERS News and views on local politics, the environment, climate change, culture and local history
Jean is a founder supporter of Clean Air in London , and as an MEP has pressed the European Commission to take action against the UK government for failing to meet legally binding EU air quality standards. She has also made numerous air quality consultation responses to the London Mayor and the UK government, and has published the pamphlet Air Pollution, London's Unseen Killer, which was widely distributed across London.* Aaron Keily from Friends of the Earth England , Wales and Northern Ireland
Friends of the Earth are currently running a campaign called Ditch Diesel* Paul Drummond from UCL.
Paul has led work on looking fiscal ways of how a move away from diesel vehicles could be encouraged by taxation methods.* Andrea Lee from ClientEarth.
ClientEarth have successfully sued the UK Government for lack of action on implementation of measures to combat air pollution.Each speaker will give a short talk, and afterwards there will be a Q & A session/discussion.
Objection on behalf of Kings and Carmel Courts Residents' Association (170 Flats on Kings Drive Wembley)
Kings and Carmel Courts Resents' Association object to the planning application 17/0368 on the following grounds:
1) Parking: Kings Drive is in the Event Day Parking Zone and whilst the permits required to park in the road limit the cars parked on event days it is becoming apparent that more cars have permits during recent events. The number of cars parking is steadily increasing and the application does not address this important issue which impacts on the daily lives of those living on Kings Drive. Consideration should be given to permits having an expiry date and residents having to reapply to ensure that those parking are doing so on a valid permit. The cost of this must not be passed on to the local residents and should be borne by the Stadium or Council.
Kings Drive is already used for daily commuter parking, the new local schools and ASDA shoppers which impacts heavily on residents who wish to park close to their home. Event Day parking used to weed out these users allowing residents to park easily but this is no longer the case.
2) Anti-social behaviour: Kings and Carmel Courts have extensive gardens adjoining the corner of Forty Lane with Kings Drive. Fans use these private grounds to throw litter, picnic, drink and urinate in. This is unacceptable behaviour and furthermore the Leaseholders of Kings and Carmel Court then have to pay for the clean-up operation after event days. This is particularly bad when rival teams are playing against each other and customers from the Torch and local supermarkets selling alcoholic drinks sit along the walls and grass banks on Kings Court.
The planning application does nothing to address the disruption to local people yet it seeks to impose further disturbance and expense to residents.
Residents need to be protected from the invasion of drunk fans who have little care for other peoples' property and the Stadium/Council need to take responsibility protecting private property from trespassers and cover the cost of all associated cleaning.
Please note that Kings and Carmel Courts Residents' Association is known to Brent Council however it was not consulted on this proposal.
We are happy to meet with the Council or Stadium to suggest ways in which Event Days can be managed in an acceptable way to the residents of Kings and Carmel Courts.
I am a local resident and am a transport planner/modeller by profession (hence the detailed questions).
I strongly oppose this application and appeal to all on the committee to consider the people they are representing. I went to the community engagement session with the FA & Wembley Stadium (which was very POORLY advertised just fyi) and met the officials. They were quite blunt and open with the fact that this was a purely commercial deal for them. They struggled to explain any benefits to the local community, didn't propose any reasonable solutions (apart from improved signage) and at that point in time, the application documents were not online for my scrutiny.
The documents are now available and here are some comments and questions from me to the applicant and their consultant;
With reference to the Environment Statement, Chapter D (Transport):
D5.23 - I note that the applicant says there will be a 'negligible' effect on the London Underground. I would like to challenge that.
D5.20 says that events will take place outside peak hours on a weekday. This is usually kickoff at 7:45pm according to my knowledge of football. Earlier on in the chapter, it was found that spectators "make their way to the event 2 hours before" - this means between 5:45pm and 7:45pm i.e. the PM peak hours. I have personally been travelling home from work in the city in the PM peak hour during a midweek THFC match and to say additional midweek matches will have a negligible impact on the tube is grossly incorrect. There is no data or modelling or criteria that I can see that defines this 'negligible effect' conclusion. Have any station crowding, egress, ingress models been developed? Have any general Railplan model's been run? If so I would like to see the results and the accompanying criteria.
(And to echo other comments from neighbours, the LU network just about copes in the AM & PM peaks on normal days let alone weekday PM peak event days! The Transport Chapter emphasises the push for people to use PT to get to the games...but this is inherently flawed as the PT network is already heaving).
D5.28 - I quote: "However, as the period of time where Olympic Way will be congested will likely be limited to one hour and 30 minutes for an average of three additional days per month, it is considered that this is a negligible effect." The ingress 1hour 30minutes of congestion has been ignored here. This brings the total congestion to 3 hours per event. When we spoke to the Wembley Stadium rep at the community engagement session, they said there would be measures in place to allow this north/south movement for residents and locals to be improved. I have personally be stuck several times trying to just get from Lidl to my home.
D6.36 - "To promote and support the use of measures which reduce the need for travel, like video-conferencing and flexible working" - what? This doesn't really apply to Wembley Stadium spectators (and probably 90% of staff who need to be there physically!)
D.39 - You need to get Google Maps and Waze on board because lots of people use their phone applications for navigation rather than TomTom these days. Getting TomTom on board simply isn't enough.
There are no numbers to quantify the delays to buses and the local baseline traffic. Has modelling been undertaken and can I see the results, please?
The metric used in the ES to identify minor/major/adverse/beneficial isn't clear. Please provide this. We also need to see the empirical modelling evidence.
With the Brent/Quintain regeneration plans, the numbers are probably far higher than when Wembley Stadium got approval many years ago. This needs to be taken into account before any cap is lifted.
As a local resident and a transport planner, I am abhorred by this application. We manage as residents with the current number of event days as they are sporadic (maybe twice a month?) and varied. Regular football matches will change this completely. I won't repeat in detail what others have said about anti-social behaviour, litter, drunkenness, transport pressures, safety, children, no 'home' affiliation etc but I echo those points as well.
There is no mention of Chelsea wanting the stadium for 2018/2019 in this application but rumours are already going around about this. Approving THFC this would set precedent and it would be a disaster for the up-and-coming regenerated Wembley Park/Brent.
I urge the council to reject this application and to apply pressures to Wembley Stadium & THFC to mitigate the 50,000 spectator matches that are likely to still be held.
Residents, locals and family need to come above corporations, money and commercial pressures.
I and many other will be attending the committee meeting.
In addition to my previous comments on the Transport Statement, I wanted to add that if their current/old stadium has a capacity of around 36,000 and their new one is "only" going to seat around 61,000 they can surely manage with the current limit of 50,000.
Pure profit for a few at the detriment of a whole community and area is unjustifiable.
I have already raised my concerns regarding this application and the Environmental Statement in a previous comment.
I am trying to get hold of the case officer to raise the issue that none of us at Danes and Empire Court have received letters about this application. Brent Planning told me on the phone that 20,000 letters have been sent out to neighbours. We have over 300 flats on North End Road, less than 5 minutes walk from the stadium and we have NOT received letters about this application. I found out about this through curiosity and some Google searching about why Spurs were playing here this season, because of all the grief it was causing us.
The neighbourhood consultation closes in less than ONE week, and it is unacceptable that we were excluded from being informed about it. I appreciate there is no restriction in making a comment on here, but how are my neighbours supposed to make their comments if they HAVEN'T been informed about the application in the first place?
Unacceptable.
I look forward to hearing from the case officer, and to receiving letters from the Council/Applicant very soon. The neighbourhood consultation will probably need to be extended to allow residents on North End Road to comment.
The application will be formally considered at the meeting of the Planning Committee on 23 March, 2017. The meeting will be held at Brent Civic Centre, Engineers Way, Wembley, HA9 0FJ starting at 7.00pm. You are welcome to attend the meeting and listen to the proceedings. It is possible to speak to the Committee subject to the restrictions set out in the Council's Standing Order. These provide for one objector and/or one supporter of the application to speak. The Chair has the discretion to increase this to two people from each side. In doing this, the Chair will give priority to occupiers nearest to the application site or representing a group of people. To address the committee you must speak to Democratic Services at least one clear day before the meeting and arrive at the Brent Civic Centre at least 15 minutes before the meeting starts. Please telephone the Democratic Services Officer, Mr Joe Kwateng, on 020 8937 1354 during office hours.
Thank you for pointing this out to me. I need to first identify what the correct time of the meeting is, and we will then send out clarification to all those who have been invited.I have heard nothing further...
I understand that the deadline for Tottenham to sign up for the stadium deal is at the end of March so things are looking very tight, especially as the many omissions and claimed lack of due diligence in the officers' report as well as the problems referred to above, could give grounds for the Committee to defer the application.The Council initially suggested that the maximum capacity of the proposed additional event is reduced to 61,000 (the capacity of the new stadium at White Hart Lane). However, the applicant was not willing to propose reduction as this would result in a part-full stadium with only parts of the upper tier being occupied by fans, which they did not consider would achieve an appropriate atmophere(sic). Instead, following discussions with Council Officers, the total number of additional high capacity (up to 90,000 people) events has been reduced from 31 to 22 in order to reduce the number of instances where additional impact will occur.
