The call-in of the Stonebridge Annexe contract resulted in officers agreeing to take forward the three actions recommended by the 5 councillors who signed the call-in. These were that the implementation of the refurbishment contract be deferred until:
1.It
is certain that the proposals for 1 Morland Gardens comprised in the 1 Morland
Gardens Application have received all necessary consents, including GLA consent;
and
2.The
legislatively required minimum of three bat emergence/re-entry surveys between
May and September in one year have been undertaken, consequent assessments
undertaken, the results considered and appropriate response actioned; and
3.The
potential requirement of bat surveys for the Stonebridge Annexe considered and
(if necessary) dealt with as above
Much discussion revolved around the lack of legally compliant bats surveys. Two were added to the agenda but did not cover the period required by law and so there will be delays until compliant surveys are conduction at 1 Morland Gardens. The Committee has asked that the legal advice given to the Council be published.
Cllr Perrin suggested that the Council were in grave danger of breaking the law on protected species, a criminal offence and Cllr Lloyd pointed out that obtaining a licence regarding development where there were bat roosts was a two stage process with the initial 3 stage process having to be completed before a licence application could be made.
There was concern that the initial Cabinet decision on 1 Morland Gardens had been made without councillors given sight of a report on protected species.
Councillors also considered that changes in the Council's constitution should be considered regarding delegated decision making by officers. It had been established that the officer who had made the recommendation that a contract for the Stonebridge Annexe be awarded was also the delegated officer who made the decision to award the contract. Alan Lunt, Strategic Director of Regeneration, said that he had been on leave but would have made the same decision himself. This did not satisfy Cllr Perrin who said it was important that there should be separation of powers in this regard.
Lunt emphasisied that no contract had been awarded and that this would wait until all the planning processes for 1 Morland Gardens had been completed.
A lone voice in the wilderness was Cllr Shafique Choudhary who in the wake of Covid19 held no brief for the protection of bats.
The complaint made by local historian Philip Grant about the planning process for 1 Morland Gardens has still to be resolved.
I recommend you read the tweets by @MaryDuffinator for a blow by blow account of the meeting.
This event is still going ahead on Saturday 3rd and Sunday 4 October
Barham Community Library is participating and we’ll convert our Library into an Art Gallery and will display art from at least 2 local artists from Wembley and Sudbury.
Queen's Park Area Residents' Association (QPARA) learnt a few days ago of Brent draft
plans to block certain streets in its area, without prior public consultation, in a scheme under TfL's Healthy Streets initiative. We expect this to be implemented before
30 September.
QPARA supports initiatives which improve air quality and promote healthy lifestyles,
including benefits to pedestrians and cyclists. But these new proposals, which would change the flow of much road traffic inside and through its area, are rushed and
opposed by the majority of those who have heard about them. QPARA has long advocated
a traffic management plan for the area, following proper consultation, but does not see
these plans as the answer. While some rush hour rat runs may be diverted, concentration of
traffic on key roads like Salusbury and Chamberlayne with schools, shopping, cafes,
community facilities and many homes risks more jams, standing traffic and pollution there.
These and residential roads like Harvist Road by the park already have long traffic queues
towards junctions at busy times. Other streets west of the park, the green heart of the area
with its open spaces and children's playground, could become even worse 'rat runs'.
QPARA's Chair Virginia Brand says:
In recent years QPARA has worked closely with Brent on improvements for key roads in our area, looking carefully at ideas in a joint
approach. This model works well. This time it's the opposite, a sudden shift from
consultation, with predictable confusion and opposition. Councils are suddenly under
pressure from the centre to deliver such schemes quickly, but there is everything to be
gained by holding fire and find joint solutions. We should take these issues forward with
prior discussion and time to involve residents' associations and their communities properly, like so many good projects before.
QPARA has contacted Councillor Shama Tatler, the lead Brent councillor for this scheme,
asking for an urgent meeting or at least an assurance of enough time for proper
consultation. On 22 September she is proposing a Zoom with all residents’ associations
affected in the Queen’s Park and Kilburn areas when minor changes may be tabled but this
is NOT a substitute for evidence or proper assessment by those affected.
Don't miss Brent Trades Council'smeeting onWednesday 23rd September at 7pm
WE WILL NOT PAY FOR THEIR CRISIS, WE WILL FIGHTBACK
Sarah Woolley, Gen Secretary of the BFAWU and Vic Paulino, Unite Community Coordinator for LESE, will attend our meeting and will tell us about developments in their unions and their take on the developing situation. We welcome union reports from delegates.
COVID 19 infections are on the rise in schools, the hospitality industry,and communities resulting in new restrictive measures being imposed by a negligent government could mean more deaths, unless proper protective gear is available and testing, tracing and isolation isgiven to all those who need it. The government's testing programme is on the brink of collapse asprivate companies fail to provide. Risk Assessments in the workplace become more urgent than ever to ensure there are no loss of lives.
The crisis will deepen with the end of furlough and the rise in demand for Universal Credit caused by the rapidly rising unemployment are calling for fightback from all unions and trades councils.
Brent Trades Council has been campaigning for public measures in Brent to be systematically applied by the Council, met with community groups and workplace union reps and continues to work with unions to ensure health and safety measures are in place and agreed by employers. Not always the case.
I have sent agenda and minutes to delegates, but friends of our trades council are welcome to attend and contribute.
A topical one-off “special” local
history article by Philip Grant.
As part of Brent’s London Borough of Culture 2020,
and “Brent Biennial”, a 9-metre high mural by the artist Dawn Mellor is due to
be unveiled in Kingsbury Road on Saturday 19 September. It will celebrate the
life of the singer George Michael, who lived and went to school in the area. Many
people may not know much about his early life, and this seems a good time to
share what I know about his Kingsbury connections. As George said himself, in a
line from a song he wrote about growing up “Round Here”: ‘So come with me, let me show you where
I've lived.’
1. Three images of work in progress on the
George Michael mural, and its location, 13 September 2020.
It was not just people from the Caribbean (“the
Windrush Generation”) who came to live and work in this country following the
British Nationality Act, 1948. Britain’s labour shortage in the post-war years
meant that anyone with the newly created status of ‘citizen of the United
Kingdom and Colonies’ could do the same. In 1953, young Kyriacos Panayiotou and his cousin left their village
in Cyprus, and came to London for a better life. He worked as a waiter in a
restaurant, and through a shared love of dancing, married Lesley in 1957. Some
people thought it was wrong for an English girl to marry a Greek Cypriot, but
love is stronger than prejudice.
2. Holmstall Parade, Edgware Road, 2019.
Kyriacos and Lesley
already had two daughters before their son, Georgios, was born at their flat in
East Finchley in June 1963. Within a year they had moved to a larger home at 3a
Holmstall Parade, above shops on the Edgware Road, close to Burnt Oak, in what
was then still the Borough of Wembley. Kyriacos Panayiotou, commonly known as
Jack Panos, worked in a Greek Restaurant in Edgware, becoming a partner in the
business. Although Holmstall Parade looks similar now to what it did in the
1960s, the Asda superstore and Capitol Way just down the road were then a
Frigidaire factory, on a site first used by the Aircraft Manufacturing Company,
“Airco”, during World War One.
3. The Redhill Drive street sign, at the corner with
Holmstall Avenue.
By 1967, the
Panayiotou family had their own semi-detached suburban home, nearby in Redhill
Drive, then part of the recently formed London Borough of Brent. No.57 was
where Georgios (or George as he would become known) lived for about ten years.
He soon had friends to play with, and his best friend was David, who lived just
up the road, and was a year older than him.
4. 57 Redhill Drive, Burnt Oak, in 2019.
When it was time for George to start school, he
went to Roe Green Infants, then the Juniors, in Princes Avenue, the same as his
sisters (and David), as that was the local state school. In those days, that
was what most children did. They probably walked to school.
Figure 5. Roe Green Infants and Junior Schools,
Princes Avenue, Kingsbury, in 2019.
Years later, George wrote in a song: ‘And I remember my, my first day at
school. And I remember trouble and thinkin' I was so cool.’ Whether this was
about his very first day at school at Roe Green, or when he went on to
secondary school, I’m not sure. You wouldn’t think this young Georgios would
get into trouble, would you? Or perhaps you would.
6. Georgios Panayiotou, at primary school
age. (Image from the internet)
Trouble or not, he must have been
quite a bright student, although having encouragement from a good creative
writing teacher at school (probably Ian Greenwood then) must have helped. Only
just eleven years old, two of his poems were included in Roe Green Junior
School’s end of year magazine in July 1974. How these came to light, shortly
after George’s death in 2016, is a story in itself. A girl who knew him at the
school had kept her school magazines. Years later, her older sister met a
former classmate, Melanie, at an awards ceremony – and Melanie was with her
brother, Georgios, better known by then as George Michael. The sisters had
never guessed that the music star was the quiet boy they knew at Roe Green
Juniors!
7. The cover of the Roe Green Junior School
magazine, July 1974. (Image from the internet)
The first of the poems, ‘The Story of
a Horse’, appears above the name Georgios Panayiotou, 4S, but the second
reveals his nickname. Whether this was one he invented for himself, or what his
friends decided to call him (because he was brainy?), Professor Whatsisname
(alias G. Panayiotou, 4S) was the author of this imaginative piece, ‘Sounds in
the Night’.
8. "Sounds in the Night" by
Professor Whatsisname, from "The Junior", July 1974. (Image from the
internet)
From junior school, George moved on to the local
secondary school in September 1974, again just as most eleven-year olds would
have done then. Kingsbury High School had become a comprehensive in 1967, when
the grammar school in Princes Avenue merged with the Tyler’s Croft Boys and
Girls secondary modern schools in Bacon Lane. The lower years of the High School
were housed in the Tyler’s Croft buildings, which had opened in 1952.
Twenty-two years before George walked through that school’s gates, the first
boys to start at the school when it opened had included a young Charlie Watts, from Fryent Junior School, who also went on to
become a famous pop musician.
9. Kingsbury High School's Tyler's Croft
buildings, beside Roe Green Park, 2019.
The photo above shows that Kingsbury
High’s Lower School is next to Roe Green Park, and there’s no doubt that George
spent some time there after school. In one verse of his song about growing up,
he sings:
‘I hear my mama call
in Kingsbury Park Just me and David and a football that glowed in
the dark Waitin' patiently to make my mark, round here.’
10. Roe Green Park, towards the school, and a wild flower
meadow that wasn't there in George's time!
Life sometimes takes an unexpected
turn, and it was not in Kingsbury that George made his mark. His father’s
restaurant business was doing well, so he decided to move upmarket. He found a
house he liked in Radlett, and around 1976 the Panayiotou family moved out of
Redhill Drive. As their new home was not quite ready, they lived above the
restaurant in Edgware for several months, before George left Kingsbury High
School, looking something like this.
11. Georgios Panayiotou in the mid-1970's. (Image
from the internet)
The move to Radlett meant changing to a new school,
Bushey Meads School, which took students from much of the western side of
Hertsmere District, just north of London. One of his new classmates was Andrew
Ridgeley, and they were soon friends. The two teenagers shared a love of pop
music, and a desire to make a that their career. The result, in 1981, was Wham!
12. Andrew Ridgeley and George Michael as the
duo, Wham!, mid-1980's. (Image from the internet)
From then on, Georgios Panayiotou would be known as
George Michael, and you can read about his musical career, his generosity and his
sometimes troubled private life, online, or by borrowing a
copy of the biography “George”, by Sean Smith, from your local Brent Library
(ref. no. 782.421 on the adult
non-fiction shelves).
Although no longer
living in Brent, George’s career brought him to Wembley on a number of
occasions. Wham! played several concerts at the Arena in 1984, and their
“Final” concert together at the Stadium in 1986, before the duo went their
separate ways. George Michael was one of the stars who performed at the 1985
Live Aid concert at Wembley, and at the 70th birthday concert for
Nelson Mandela in 1988. George’s singing of “Somebody to Love” with Queen, at
the Stadium’s Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert to raise money for AIDS research
in 1992, was highly rated, and the live recording featured on a follow-up EP.
13. George Michael, with Brian May of Queen,
at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert. (Image from internet)
George Michael was a prolific songwriter, and in 2004
he recorded a song about his memories of growing up. Called “Round Here”, it
wasn’t a big hit for him, but it came from his heart and tells his story before
he became famous. There is an online video of him singing and recording the
song, with brief clips of film included that show various scenes from
Kingsbury, and London more generally. If you watch carefully, you’ll spot
glimpses of 57 Redhill Drive (at 0:05), the flats at Holmstall Parade (0:25),
Roe Green Park (1:17) and Roe Green Junior School (1:35) and Kingsbury High
[Lower] School (1:41), plus other places you’ll recognise.
14. The CD cover for "Round Here", 2004. (Image from the
internet)
George
Michael, who sadly died in 2016, aged just 53, is not the only famous person
who has lived “Round Here”, in the north of Brent, but he is fondly remembered
by many for his music and his humanity. That is why he was chosen as the
subject for a mural in Kingsbury, which celebrates his life. I hope you’ve
enjoyed finding out about his local connections.
15. Kingsbury Station signs, including for
the London Borough of Culture 2020.
Next time you come out of Kingsbury Station, turn
right, and after walking about 60 metres you will find the mural, on the end
wall of a block of shops with flats above. You can’t miss it – it is 9 metres
high!
Philip Grant.
Next weekend, we welcome a new member to the “local history in lockdown” team.
Don’t forget to join us, to discover what part of the borough her weekly series
will cover!
Following on from the previous two post this is a statement made by London Mayor, Sadiq Khan, today:
“The Prime Minister has said that we are now seeing the start of a
second wave of COVID-19 across the UK. Londoners should also know that I
am extremely concerned by the latest evidence I’ve seen today from
public health experts about the accelerating speed at which COVID-19 is
now spreading here in London. This is made worse by the uncertainty
caused by the lack of testing capacity in the capital.
“This afternoon I held an emergency meeting with London council
leaders, the Government and Public Health England to discuss the next
steps. It is increasingly likely that, in London, additional measures
will soon be required to slow the spread of the virus. We will be
considering some of the measures which have already been imposed in
other parts of the UK. I am of the firm view that we should not wait, as
happened six months ago, for this virus to again spiral out of control
before taking action. The best thing for both public health and the
economy is new restrictions imposed early, rather than a full lockdown
when it’s too late - but the government must urgently ensure there is a
fully functioning testing system.
“I strongly urge all Londoners to be as cautious as possible over
this weekend. Please think very carefully about your actions - strictly
follow social distancing rules, regularly wash your hands and wear a
face covering to help reduce the spread of the virus.”
A further 4,322 coronavirus cases and 27 deaths have been reported in the
UK, according to the government's daily figures.
This
is the highest number of cases reported since 8 May, when there were 4,649
cases. The government is considering what measures should be taken nation-wide.
I understand there is local concern about the rising number of cases in
Brent with figures said to be above 20 per 100,000. Government action occurs
when figures reach 30-50 per 100,000 but there is discussion about whether Brent
Council Public Health should pre-empt such action.
Certainly, I was concerned when earlier this week I saw crowds of school
students outside Ark Academy at dismissal time with little social distancing
and few face coverings. They mixed with the general public at the Wembley Park
Station bus stops.
Unfortunately, this concern coincides with the Brent Biennial which kicks off
tomorrow as part of the ill-fated 2020 London Borough of Culture programme. I understand that the opening of local libraries for 4 hours on Saturday and Sundays until December had been planned.
Brent Council might be encouraging people to attend a number of events when they
are at the same time considering possible restrictions.
