After recent unhappy events in the park, Barnhill Conservation Group are welcoming children and their families to Fryent Country Park today using the entrance between 109-111 Valley Drive, Kingsbury.
It's a lovely day to explore the park and you'll be sure of a warm welcome from Larry!
4Front is a youth project based in Grahaeme Park, Barnet. Yesterday the project hit social media when a 14 year old youth was arrested by police and youth workers intervened.
This was the police account of the incident.
A 14-year-old boy [A] was arrested on suspicion of possession of cannabis. As
officers carried out the arrest, a group began to gather around
officers and obstructed the police vehicle from leaving the scene. Further police units attended.
A further two people, a 23-year-old man [B] and a 25-year-old man [C] were arrested on suspicion of obstruction of a constable. The
police vehicle left the scene and the group followed on foot to
Colindale Police Station; a group of approximately 30 to 40 people
remained outside the building.
A cordon is in place around the
police station and a Section 35 dispersal order was authorised and
further officers are supporting the dispersal of the group.
4Front have previously complained about 'over policing' of the area and they are taking legal action over a previous incident when head of Community Support, Kusia Rahul, was arrested when he went to support a user of the project being questioned by police. He had showed his ID on a 4Front lanyard but police demanded his car licence, which he said was not necessary as he'd established his ID. DETAILS
4Front released a video and preliminary statement about yesterday's event on Instagram HERE
According to the Huffington PostLINK, Project member Temi Mwale, named by September's Vogue as one of Britain's most influential activists, said at the scene:
We’ve been assaulted so many times here today. We have two members of my staff team that have been arrested.
We
have several young people who have also been arrested. This is what
we’re dealing with and I’ve told them we want it to be deescalated and
yet they’ve refused.
This community is sick and tired of the way
we’re being treated and now we need your support. We’re meant to be out
there tomorrow, Tottenham police station, but instead we’re out here at
Colindale police station right now.
Those arrested have been released pending investigation.
Co-leader of the Green Party, Sian Berry said on Twitter:
This news that police are raiding a well-respected London community project the day before a protest about police violence is extremely concerning. Strong arm tactics are not the way to reduce tension or build confidence.
The incident is relevant because, although it happened in the London Borough of Barnet, the police Basic Control Unit (NorthWestBCU) also covers Brent and Harrow.
A number of factors combine at the moment: oppressive summer heat, Black Lives Matter concern over police conduct towards the black community (not helped by the Fryent Country Park incident), and frustration at the continuing lockdown.
Good police-community relations really matter at such a time. Back in 1986 with riots in Brixton and Bristol, Brent avoided riots because of the action of a small group of black youngsters in setting up the Bridge Park project. Significantly at the time their efforts were strongly backed by Brent Council and the local police commander.
Now in Brent we are awaiting the court's judgment on the battle in which Brent Council is fighting the original Bridge Park campaigners and their successors for possession of the site, and people are waiting to see if the police, who took pictures of the bodies of the women at the Fryent Country Park murder scene, are going to be brought to justice.
Borough youth facilities have been cut back rwith just a remnant at Roundwood, Stonebridge Adventure Playground has been closed and the land sold off, the playschemes that used to operate across the borough in the summer, are now largely closed.
Section 60 orders are creating tension in some areas of the borough.
It was not clear at the Bridge Park trial that the current Brent Council understands what a formidable achievement it was that the young campaigners of the time addressed groups of youth on our estates stopping a riot with the slogan, 'Build Don't Burn.' The presentation of the Council case paid lip service to the founders of Bridge Park but there were moments when the mask slipped: 'Answer my question - this is not a street meeting' to one of the founders and a reference to the new development catering for the demographic of today - not the 1980s. Both QCs, the judge and most of the council witnesses were white. The defendants black. None of the current Harlesden or Stonebridge councillors supported the Bridge Park campaign in court.
Surely there is a need for councillors at this crucial moment to get out into the community, make links with the young, hear about their concerns and act on them. The network they build may be vital over the hot summer ahead.
Guest blog by Chris Coates of Preston Community Library. Plenty of material here, especially the video, for local teachers who are teaching the Second World War to Year 6 next academic year.
Part 2 of The Preston Story ended in the early years of
the 20th century with Preston still a rural hamlet. Its small
population were employed on farms or as servants in the large houses starting
to appear along Preston Road – their middle-class residents now able to commute
into London from the ‘request stop’ Halt on the Metropolitan Railway. At
weekends, the population was swelled by visitors to the two golf clubs, the
shooting grounds and the various sports grounds owned by London-based
companies.
1.A 1930s postcard of Preston Hill, with bridge over the Wealdstone Brook in
the distance. (From the Wembley History Society Collection –
Brent Archives online image 8979)
The
years following the First World War brought fast moving change to Preston.
Local farms had specialised in producing hay for the 1000s of horses in London
- Uxendon and Forty Farms were 100% meadow land in 1900. As motor traffic
increased the demand fell, so some farms closed while others down-sized. In
1907, there were 66 farms in Wembley and by 1937 there were only nine.
2.The rib-making workshop for aeroplane wings at Hooper & Co, North
Wembley, 1917.
At the
same time, new industrial areas near Preston attracted workers away from
agriculture and, during the war,
women were encouraged to leave domestic service for better paid, though
often dangerous, work in factories. In Kingsbury, there were 4 aeroplane
companies including The Aircraft Manufacturing Company, which by 1918 was
employing 4,400 people, more than half of them women. Another company, Hooper
& Co, moved to East Lane, North Wembley in 1917 to build the Sopwith Camel
and produce spare parts for other planes. The site – later the GEC estate –
covered 40 acres including a flying ground and railway sidings. British Oxygen also moved to East Lane
in 1918, as did the Wrigley [chewing gum] Company in 1926.
From 1921, Christ
Church College, Oxford, Harrow School and other landowners sold their Preston
estates for building development. Developers were attracted by the good
transport links both into London and to the North. Local roads, including Forty
Lane, had been widened and improved to ease visitor access to the 1924-5
British Empire Exhibition and the train network had been extended and
modernised. The Metropolitan Line was electrified through to Harrow by 1908 and
the Bakerloo Line, running on L. & N.W.R
tracks, electrified out to Watford Junction by 1922. A large triangle of land
was created between the lines where commuters might find the Metroland dream of a modern home in beautiful
countryside plus a fast rail service into London.
3.The cover of the 1921 edition of the Metro-Land guide. (Image from the internet)
The term "Metro-land" was coined by
the Metropolitan Railway Company’s marketing department in 1915 to promote
sales of housing on its land in the North-west London suburbs. The Company did
not build housing in Preston, but other developers were clearly influenced by
the Metroland ideal of Tudor Revival design. Sadly, John Betjeman gives only a
passing [literally!] reference to Preston in his many Metroland poems:
Smoothly from Harrow, passing Preston Road, They saw the last green fields and misty sky….Baker St Station Buffet [1954]
Housing
and shops spread along Preston Road in the 1920s. Several builders were
involved in the development, notably Clifford Sabey who built the Preston Hotel
(now The Preston) c.1927 and Preston Park Primary School in 1932. The lovely
Harrow Golf Clubhouse, that we saw in Part 2, overlooking peaceful fields and the meandering
Crouch Brook, was demolished in 1928 and the Preston Park Estate began to cover
the whole golf course and fields beyond up to the Bakerloo Line boundary,
taking some 12 years to be completed.
5.An aerial view looking west from Preston Road, 1932.
(From “Britain
from Above”, image EPW037564)
This aerial photograph, taken in 1932, looks west across the growing Preston
Park Estate. Logan Road, Carlton Avenue East, College Road and Preston Road
down to St Augustine’s Avenue can clearly be seen, with the Crouch Brook
crossing Glendale Gardens, the school grounds and the fields beyond. Sudbury
Court Estate in the distance is nearing completion.
6.Exterior and interior views of The Windermere, built 1938. (Images
from the internet)
Some developers
included outstanding designs. The Lawns Court estate on The Avenue, was built
in the Moderne style on the old Forty Farm estate around 1931. The Windermere, a Grade 2 listed pub in Windermere Avenue, was
built in 1938 in the Dutch style, with Art Deco interiors. To enhance
the attraction of the area for commuters, the old Halt was replaced with a
proper Preston Road station, built to the west of the road bridge in 1931-2,
and a new station, South Kenton, on the Bakerloo Line, was opened in 1933.
7.A newspaper article about South Kenton Station, from the Nottingham
Evening Post, 1 February 1934
By now it was clear that the new heart of Preston would be to the south of the
old hamlet. More shops appeared around the station in the 1930s and by 1936
Preston was being described as ‘a high class and rapidly growing residential
area with a population of between 6,000 and 7,000 people’. Under Wembley's Town
Planning Scheme 1931-2, the remaining country lanes in the area were improved
and Clay Lane re-named Preston Hill - both it and Preston Road became
straightened and widened suburban streets by 1937. Preston Manor Secondary
School was built in 1938 for the families moving into the area.
8.Carlton Avenue East from the corner of Longfield Avenue, c.1935. (Brent
Archives online image 10539) [Note the newly-planted lime trees, and the absence of traffic!]
Development moved north-east of Preston when the Metropolitan Railway extension from Wembley to
Stanmore (later the Bakerloo and today the Jubilee Line) was opened in 1932. The final remnants
of the old Uxendon Manor estate that we looked at in Parts 1and 2 were demolished to
make way for it. Forty Green began being
built over as early as 1923, but in the years that followed housing covered the
whole of Uxendon, except for Barn Hill Open Space, which had been purchased by
the Council from the owners of Preston Farm in 1927.
The demand for building workers far outstripped local availability. As in
previous times, migrant or incoming labour was vital. Government schemes
brought unemployed workers from ‘Distressed Areas’ in the North to meet the
inter-war development boom in the South East. My father came down from Durham
on such a Scheme and was put to navvying on building sites in Kingsbury. After
finding work more suited to his skills, he, like many generations of migrant
workers before him, settled in the area.
9.Bombs dropped on Preston, 1 October 1940 to 6
June 1941 (where multiple bombs fell, number shown).(Image from the bombsight.org website)
The
Second World War came to Preston in August 1940, when incendiary bombs were
dropped on Barn Hill. Later in the Blitz, the area was hit more severely. This
bombing map from the 1940s shows 43 High Explosive Bombs dropped from October
1940 to June 1941 in Preston, probably aiming for the rail networks or for North
Wembley’s industrial complex - especially the GEC Research Centre where radar
systems were being developed.
10.Wembley's A.R.P. Post 32, in The Avenue, c.1939. (From a Brent
Archives local history article)
The A.R.P.
[Air Raid Precautions] Post above was in The Avenue, Wembley Park. The wardens’
name-sign for their base shows a rattle, to warn residents of a possible gas
attack, and a bell to signal the ‘all clear’ afterwards. A.R.P. wardens also
enforced the ‘blackout’. Heavy curtains and shutters were required on all
private residences and commercial premises to prevent light escaping and
helping enemy bombers locate their targets.
At the
start of the war, Government evacuation schemes moved children out of the
cities. In 1940, the City of Benares, an evacuee ship on its way to
Canada, was torpedoed by a German submarine with heavy loss of
life, including 77 evacuated children. Many Wembley children were on the Benares
and 7 pupils from Preston Park Primary School were among those who died.
Further plans to relocate British children abroad were cancelled.
11.Excerpt from Preston Park Primary School diary, September 1940, listing 7
pupils lost on City of Benares.
British
Restaurants were set up for those made homeless, but later became open to all,
serving meals each day at 1 shilling for 3 courses. There were 8 British
Restaurants in Wembley, including Preston [1943] at 3-7 Lincoln Parade, Preston
Road - the building survives at the junction with Carlton Avenue East.
12.War Savings poster, 1942. (Image from the TUC Library Collection)
Everyone
on the Home Front was expected to contribute in some way – in war work, ARP,
the Home Guard or the War Savings Campaign. Elmstead Avenue’s War Savings Group
managed to collect £40,000 for the war effort through its activities. Children
were encouraged to help collect recycling. There is a short silent film of Kenton Boy
Scouts doing just that in Woodcock Hill!
Families
with space were expected to accept billeted essential workers, Land Army women
working on the remaining Preston farms, or refugees. Wembley’s Empire Pool
acted as the Middlesex Reception Centre for European refugees and many were
found temporary homes locally. The Church of the Ascension church hall [built
1937] in The Avenue set up a refugee club. The Church itself was not built
until 1957.
13.Metropolitan trains come and go
at Preston Road Station, while a steam train races past on the British Rail
tracks. (Photograph taken by a trainspotter
in October 1962 – Brent Archives online image 8654)
After
the war, a prefab estate was built for bombed-out families at Tenterden Close,
Woodcock Hill, and was there until the late 1960s. Housing development
continued to the north and east of Preston Road, and The Mall was extended to
the Wealdstone Brook, cutting across playing fields to make a more direct route
from Preston Hill to Kingsbury.In 1947
another place of worship, a Liberal synagogue, was built on Preston Road. By
1951 Preston's population had risen to 12,408. The company owned sports fields
on Woodcock Hill were bought by Middlesex County Council for Wembley in 1957
and renamed the John Billam Sports Ground after a previous Mayor.
15.Shops in Preston Road c.1960, from
the junction with Grasmere Avenue. (Brent
Archives online image 8628
By the
early 1960s, all of Preston's old buildings in the original hamlet had been
lost. Preston Farm, Hillside Farm and the Preston Tea Gardens demolished for
flats and John Lyon’s farm replaced by John Perrin Place – a council housing
estate. After hundreds of years with little change, within 50 years the tiny
village of Preston had become a radically different place – and very much part
of London.
If you have memories of Preston in the Second
World War or the years following, please share them in the Comments box below. Do return for Part 4 of the Preston Story when we
will look at our area today.
Two
weeks ago, we celebrated the 1908 Olympic marathon race on its 112th
anniversary, with a video including newsreel film of the
two leading runners, with a crowd in Wembley High Road watching them.
The Olympic marathon
runners on a circuit of the track, before leaving Wembley Stadium, 7 August
1948.
When I
wrote to Joe Neanor, who had made the video, he said that he had also recently
run the 1948 Olympic Marathon race route – and he supplied a link to a colour film
of the race, which took place 72 years ago today. That race started and
finished in Wembley Stadium, and went out and back along Forty Lane, Fryent Way
and Honeypot Lane to Stanmore, with a loop through the countryside of
Hertfordshire. It was a tough course, with plenty of hills to climb!
The 1948
Olympic marathon course map and details. (Images
from the internet)
If you
watch the video below, it will take you back in time, and you will spot scenes
you recognise, as they were in 1948, including Olympic Way and the Town Hall.
As the runners head back towards Wembley, there are some key moments in the
race, along Fryent Way with what are now the fields of Fryent Country Park in
the background. And the finish in the stadium is almost as dramatic as that in
the 1908 Olympic marathon!
As you can see the International Olympic Committee has banned live viewing of the video on Wembley Matters but you can view it on You Tube by clicking on the embedded link or use this LINK.
Residents of Brent may feel frustrated that their opposition to
developments in South Kilburn, Alperton, Wembley Central, Sudbury, Queensbury
and Wembley Park have been swept aside at Planning Committee and may think
there is already a 'planning free for all' in the borough, but if government
proposals go through the situation will become worse with that Committee's role
curtailed.
London Councils said yesterday:
London Councils has stated its strong opposition to “any moves towards a
planning free-for-all”.
Responding to the government’s white paper on planning policy, London
Councils expressed concern that the changes will severely restrict boroughs’
ability to uphold quality standards and to ensure affordable housing targets
are met.
The cross-party group, which represents all 32 London boroughs and the City of
London Corporation, is opposed to eroding councils’ control over development in
their area through zoning arrangements.
These arrangements risk mirroring the lack of control local authorities have
over notoriously poor-quality permitted development rights (PDR) schemes. PDR
often produces low-quality residential accommodation in unsuitable locations,
with no requirement for affordable housing, and a loss of employment space.
Boroughs are particularly alarmed by the white paper’s proposed abolition of
Section 106 and Community Infrastructure Levy agreements, which local
authorities use to make sure development includes affordable homes. Weakening
council planning powers will also make it more difficult to push developers on
reducing carbon emissions, undermining national climate change measures.
Cllr Darren Rodwell, London Councils’ Executive Member for Housing &
Planning, said:
These changes are potentially disastrous for Londoners and could reduce
the amount of affordable housing built in the capital.
London is suffering the most severe homelessness crisis in the country
and the chronic shortage of affordable housing is at the heart of this. It
would be a massive step backwards if the government undermined boroughs’
ability to ensure new development in London includes affordable homes.
Councils play a crucial role in the planning system, safeguarding our
communities’ long-term interests and upholding quality standards. While we
support ambitions to build more housing, we strongly oppose any moves towards a
planning free-for-all – which would lead to lower quality and fewer affordable
homes in London.
We will be sharing our concerns with ministers. Councils certainly need
more detailed information and reassurance from the government over how these
changes would work.
London Councils has repeatedly highlighted inadequate funding, rather
than the planning system, as the key factor explaining the capital’s housing
pressures.
Boroughs grant around 50,000 planning approvals each year and there are
approximately 305,000 new homes in the capital's development pipeline. Boroughs
do not have – and are not being given – powers to make developers build out
planning permissions. Instead, the white paper would remove their ability to
ensure good quality, sustainable development with sufficient affordable
housing.
There are currently 243,000 London households on council housing waiting lists.
Over 58,000 homeless households are placed in temporary accommodation by London
boroughs. The capital accounts for two-thirds of homelessness in England.
To address the shortage of affordable housing in the capital, London Councils
is seeking increased government investment and improved support for council
housebuilding. This requires an end to all national restrictions on the use of
Right to Buy receipts, so that every penny raised from council house sales can
be reinvested in replacements, and confirmation of long-term social rent
levels.
London’s council housing stock is under considerable pressure. 287,000
London council houses have been sold through Right to Buy since the policy’s
introduction in 1980. In 2016-17, 3,138 council homes were sold in London and
only 1,445 replaced.
Commenting on the proposed abolition of Section 106 and Community
Infrastructure Levy (CIL) agreements, Cllr Shama Tatler (Cabinet Member for
Regeneration, Property and Planning) and currently a candidate for Labour's
NEC, said on Twitter:
S106 whilst a technical element of planning not only secures affordable
housing commitments on a development but also a wide range of infrastructure
guarantees AND locks in commitments to local employment opportunities
Under these streamlined reforms in planning what is there to ensure
delivery? Timely delivery? Can't see how developers will be pushed for delivery
after permission is granted.
Commenting on Robert Jenrick's claim of a 5 year delivery delay in
developments she said:
Nearly 90% of all planning applications are determined within 13weeks.
Large schemes rightly need time and scrutiny to make sure they contribute to
the placemaking of an area, affordable housing and infrastructure.
A proposal that the requirement for a proportion of affordable housing
be provided should be raised to only apply to developments of 50 units and over
she pointed out:
A large proportion of site allocations and schemes in Brent are on small
sites with less that 50 homes. This is going hugely impact affordable housing
delivery.
We can expect to see planning applications for 49 units as developers
maximise their profits from market price housing.
In an exchange with me on Twitter, Cllr James Denselow, currently Chair of
Brent Planning Committee, even doubted that the Committee would continue to
exist under the proposals:
The website ONLondon LINK reported Green Party AM Sian Berry's
comment which will be of interest to people on Brent's estates, particularly St
Raphael's:
Green Party AM and mayoral candidate Siân Berry was also critical,
saying an “imbalance of power” in a planning system “already heavily weighted
towards big developers over local communities” will be made even worse by
centralised “top down targets” and reduced scrutiny and rights.
“People living on estates in London will be chilled to see whole areas proposed
to be set aside for ‘growth’ or ‘renewal’ without a single mention of the
rights of people already living there,” Berry said. “These new proposals don’t
even set out whether residents will have a real say over the areas where they
have made their homes and communities being earmarked for instant planning
permission.”
Liberal Brent Councillor, Anton Georgiou (Alperton) told Wembley Matters:
Planning decisions have a massive impact on local communities.
It cannot be a free for all allowing rich developers to force massive tower blocks and regeneration in our area. There must be local scrutiny and local control to help protect our community and ensure the concerns of residents are heard throughout the decision making process. But also to ensure that the right type of genuinely affordable and social homes are being built.
These top down changes are wrong and must be stopped.
This year, as part of #Blossom2020, Wembley Central and Alperton Residents Association (WCARA) ran their first ever Best Garden Competition - they were impressed by the enthusiasm, passion and commitment shown.
First prizes, kindly presented byThe Chasestar and local resident Shaun Wallace, were awarded as follows:
BEST BACK GARDEN
Best Back Garden - Amarbai Patel, Alperton Resident - prize kindly donated byBirchen Grove Garden Centre
BEST FRONT GARDEN
Best Front Garden - Sandhya Patel, Wembley Central Resident - prize kindly donated byBirchen Grove Garden Centre
BEST USE OF SMALL SPACE
Best use of Small Space – Nawaar Al-Ahmed, Alperton Resident
Highly Commended prizes were presented as follows:
Back Garden - Neera Lakhmana, Wembley Central Resident & Jyoti Desai, Alperton Resident
Front Garden - Kit Friend & Siobhan Cafferkey, both Alperton Residents
Best use of Small Space – Manisha Patel, Wembley Central Resident
A token ‘thank you’ gift of a selection of seeds was presented to all other entrants.
