View of the proposed buildings from Olympic Square ('Archer' statue and station steps on right)
The proposed blocks (Dark green, lower right) showing their suburban context
The proposed blocks from Elmside Road (junction with Kingswood Road)
The proposed blocks (outlined in green) and other planned developments (pink) as they will appear from the junction of Forty Lane and Bridge road (The Torch pub on left and Ark Academy right)
The development of 5 blocks on Brook Avenue goes to Brent Planning Committee on Wednesday November 4th. This is a development of TfL land (formerly the station car park and tube drivers' depot). Two blocks are 13 storeys high, 1 is 14 storeys, 1 is 17 storeys and the highest, nearest the station is 21 storeys (reduced from the original proposed 30 storeys).
Th development represents the further 'leaking' of the highrise buildings around the stadium across Bridge Road into a partly two storey suburban street. It is likely that eventually the whole of Brook Avenue will become high rise.
Looking along Brook Avenue towards Bridge Road and Wembley Park station with existing flats in the foreground
The blocks outlined in green as they will be seen from Eversley Avenue/Barn Rise
The tallest block, block E, will have commercial premises on the first 3 floors with retail facing on to Olympic Square,
Of the 454 housing units 73 will be London Affordable rent and 79 shared ownership ('affordable' 33.5 % of the total).
The officers' report states:
Whilst the London
Affordable Rented flats will be a self-contained element of the development,
the other affordable tenure will be intermixed with the private units of the
development and residents of all tenures within the scheme will have equal
access to the first floor landscaped podium. The development will therefore
facilitate social cohesion between the different tenures.
The buildings
proposed would serve as both a place-marker for the station but also
effectively transition away from the denser core of Wembley Park across Bridge
Road whilst also respecting the key viewing corridor of the stadium within
which it sits. The height of this apex point of the development is acknowledged
as significant and that it is taller than envisioned within the draft site
allocation in general design terms. Nonetheless, officers give weight to the
benefits of the scheme (including 40% affordable housing provision) and other
policy requirements such as the Mayor’s housing SPG seeking densification of
car free development around public transport hubs and consider that the
proposed height of the building strikes a good balance between the competing
requirements.
A significant reduction in height from 30 storeys at this
scheme’s initial pre-app stage is also acknowledged and has resulted in a
building which establishes a reasonable maximum height which balances the
townscape and visual impact considerations with the benefits of the housing
delivery. The applicant's submitted Townscape and Visual Impact Assessment
identifies a number of local views away from Brook Avenue from where the
development would be visible and demonstrates how these views would change. The
development will result in a substantial change to the backdrop visible from
some nearby roads (such as Elmside Road and Beechcroft Gardens), but this change
would very much be reflective of the status of the site as within a growth area
and a housing zone.
There are the usual comments in the officers' that may be challenged by some members of the Planning Committee. As well as the above they include:
The development is a'suitable and attractively built addition to theWembley park growth area.
Amenity space is below standard but of good quality through podium gardens.
On-site child play space is only 'marginally' below policy objectives and shortfall will be offset by developer contributing £31,000 to the imporvment of existing parks
Viability has been robustly tested and has demonstrated that the proposal offers more than the maximum reasonable amount [of affordable housing] that can be provided on site.
Loss of light to some windows of surrounding properties is 'not unusual for developments of this scale.'
The developers will contribute £260,00 towards enhancing bus capacity in the area.
There are 15 objections recorded on Brent Planning Portal including this one:
I
am objecting to this application because it is a massive overdevelopment of a
small and narrow site.
The Wembley Park area has sites allocated within it, under
the Wembley Area Action Plan, as being appropriate to tall buildings.
At the same time, the WAAP identifies sites INAPPROPRIATE for
tall buildings, and this site in Brook Avenue is one of them. On those grounds
alone (and there are others) this application should be refused.
The applicants argue that as the site is only just across the
road from a site where tall buildings are considered appropriate, there would
be no harm in allowing their five proposed blocks of between 13 and 21 storeys
high. That is a false argument!
If this application is allowed, what is to stop another
applicant coming along and saying, 'Well, my site is just across the road from
one where tall buildings are allowed, so I should be allowed to build a tall
block too!'. To accept this application would set a dangerous precedent, which
other developers could exploit, and that must not be allowed to happen.
Brent's core policy CP17 is aimed at protecting and enhancing
the suburban character of Brent. This application would do the opposite of
that, by encroaching into the suburban character of Brook Avenue and its nearby
streets, and the view from the Barn Hill Conservation Area.
Only five years ago, Brent adopted the Wembley Area Action
Plan, and with it, a line on the map which showed "this far and no
further" for tall buildings. That line must be held, and this application
must be rejected, so as not to undermine it.
Tonight's Community and Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee meeting has been cancelled. The following announcement appears on the Brent Council website:
Please note this meeting has been cancelled, as the Task Group has been paused following the announcement of the second national lockdown coming into force later this week.
The meeting was to discuss the scope of the Task Group's investigation of access to GP surgeries in Brent. Details: LINK
The Green Party is calling for secondary schools, colleges and
universities to be added to the list of closures from Thursday after a
month-long lockdown in England was announced by the Government.
Co-leader Jonathan Bartley is demanding this afternoon that common
sense prevail, following the release of figures by Independent SAGE
showing that a lockdown with schools remaining open will be
significantly less effective than if they were closed.
“The government is fond of saying they are following the science, but
this is an example of them doing the exact opposite,” says Bartley.
“The figures are clear, a lockdown with schools open would need to be
three times longer than if they were closed, to have the same impact.
This lockdown is going to negatively affect huge numbers of people, so
it has to be worth it.
“Of course there are going to be exceptions - young people with
special educational needs for instance should still be able to attend
schools in person. But in general, this is the time to shut secondaries
and universities, move to remote learning, give the support needed to
curb the rates of infection where that can be done, fix the test and
trace system which is still woefully underperforming. Use the time to
make this lockdown worthwhile.”
Green Party Education spokesperson Vix Lowthion said: “The government
produced their own guidelines back in August which clearly stated that
secondary schools must be on a remote learning rota or closed when the
threat of the virus increases. Surely, that’s where we are now?
“University teaching can move online during this heightened period
and school teachers can focus on online learning plans whilst
appropriate home-school rotas are put in place. Yes, it’s a huge
challenge for our schools but so is working in a frankly unsafe
environment where you’re not being given the back-up you need to keep
yourself and your pupils out of harms’ way.
“Along with this there needs to be thought put into safeguarding for
children at home, their physical and mental health and making sure they
have everything they need to learn – the tech equipment and the support.
“The vast majority of children in secondary schools and young adults
in higher education are able to learn from home with supervision from
teachers. In the medium term this 'blended learning' will disrupt the
economy less than a full shutdown including primary schools as in most
cases older children have less need for intensive childcare provision.”
The Mayor of London has today reached an eleventh-hour agreement with
the Government on a funding deal to keep tube, bus and other TfL
services in the capital running until March 2021.
Sadiq Khan said the deal was "not ideal” but added: "We fought hard
against this Government which is so determined to punish our city for
doing the right thing to tackle Covid-19. The only reason TfL needs
government support is because its fares income has almost dried up since
March.”
The Mayor has succeeded in killing off the very worst Government
proposals, which were confirmed in writing by the Transport Secretary
during the negotiations. The Mayor had rejected the extension of the £15
daily Congestion Charge to the North and South circular roads as
ministers had wanted – in a proposal which would have hit four million
more Londoners hard. The Government has now backed down from this
condition.
The Government also wanted to scrap free travel for under-18s and
over-60s. These proposals have also been successfully defeated. The
Government also wanted TfL fares to rise by more than the previously
agreed RPI+1 per cent This has also been successfully fought off.
The deal makes around £1.8 billion of Government grant and borrowing
available on current projections to TfL in the second half of this
financial year. Transport for London will itself make up through cost
savings the £160million gap the deal leaves from the nearly £2 billion
the organisation projects it will need to run the tube, bus & other
TfL services for the remainder of this financial year.
As part of the deal, London will also have to raise extra money in
future years. Decisions about how this additional funding will be raised
are yet to be made by the Mayor, but some of the options that he and
the government have agreed to be looked at include a modest increase in
council tax, pending the appropriate consultation, as well as keeping in
place the temporary changes to the central London Congestion Charge
that were introduced in June 2020, subject to consultation.
Despite providing the private rail operating companies with 18 months
of funding with no conditions attached, the Government has refused to
give TfL more than a six-month deal and even this has come with
conditions. This means another financial agreement will have to be
negotiated just before next year’s mayoral election, a far from ideal
time to negotiate a fair long-term deal for London.
The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan said:
“These negotiations with Government have been an appalling and
totally unnecessary distraction at a time when every ounce of attention
should have been focused on trying to slow the spread of Covid-19 and
protecting jobs.
“The pandemic has had the same impact on the finances of the
privatised rail companies as it has had on TfL and the Government
immediately bailed them out for 18 months with no strings attached.
There is simply no reason why the same easy solution could not have been
applied to London, which would have allowed us all to focus on the
issues that matter most to Londoners, which are tackling the virus and
protecting jobs.
“I am pleased that we have succeeded in killing off the very worst Government proposals.
"These proposals from the Government would have hammered Londoners by
massively expanding the congestion charge zone, scrapping free travel
for older and younger Londoners and increasing TfL fares by more than
RPI+1. I am determined that none of this will now happen.
"This is not a perfect deal, but we fought hard to get to the best
possible place. The only reason TfL needs Government support is because
almost all our fares income has dried up since March as Londoners have
done the right thing.”
From London Green Party
Green Party Assembly Member and Mayoral Candidate, Sian Berry said:
"A six month agreement leaves all the same arguments to flare up again ahead of the Mayor and Assembly elections when we needed long-term security.
"I am sick of Londoners being used as a political football by the Government. It's clear is so many recent events that they are only interested in winning power. not governing well and the uncertainty this leaves Londoners facing is not in the city's best interests.
And it is completely unfair to make a council tax rise and fare increase cover travelcards for older and young Londoners.
If we had a fair, smart road charging system in the works for a longer term deal, these extra charges for all Londoners would not be necessary."
Welcome back! If you missed Part 5, please click on the “link” to read it. We’ll
begin this week with a look at some local homes.
1. Albert Road, South Kilburn, late 1940s. (From
“The Willesden Survey, 1949”)
By 1900, there was a growing divide in Kilburn
between the more prosperous north and the poor south. The conditions in some
areas of South Kilburn were dire – in 1881 a report was made to a meeting at
Kilburn Town Hall on the living conditions in Victoria Place, behind the Cock
Tavern. 161 people, including 84 children, lived in 26 small dwellings, which
were accessed from the High Road along a narrow passage, which went by the
pub’s urinal, the walls of which were covered in bad language.
In 1898 the Vestry reported on ‘houses let in
lodgings’ in Palmerston Road and Kelson and Netherwood Streets off Kilburn High
Road. Although they did not see any cases of ‘actual want or destitution’, many
of the residents kept hens as a source of food in winter when men were out of
work. Houses were in need of cleansing and the repair of plaster. ‘The total
number of souls in the 160 houses was 2264, of which 668 were children under 10
years of age, an average of a little more than 14 for each house, against 7 for
the rest of the Parish.’
Kilburn Vale, on the Hampstead side, had been
reported to be ‘in a most foul, unwholesome state, well before the turn of the
century’, and remained slums until the 1930s.
2. The Animal's War Memorial Dispensary building in
Cambridge Avenue, 2020.(Photo by Irina
Porter)
It wasn’t just people who needed better treatment. An
interesting memorial commemorating World War I is located at 10 Cambridge
Avenue. In 1931 the RSPCA bought this building for the Animals War Memorial
Dispensary, as a practical tribute to countless horses, dogs, donkeys, pigeons
and many other types of animals used by the army and who gave their lives for
their human masters. The dispensary was where ‘the sick, injured or unwanted
animals of poor people could receive, free of charge, the best possible
veterinary attention, or a painless death.’ By the mid-1930s, more than 50,000
animals and birds were treated at the Kilburn Dispensary. It closed in 2016.
The years between the First and Second World Wars
also saw the emergence of large-scale municipal housing, in particular the
Westcroft Housing Estate on the Hampstead side. In the 1930s some new
developments, in particular on Shoot Up Hill, took the form of mansion blocks
of flats. On the Willesden side of the High Road, however, there was little in
the way of housing improvements for people in Kilburn during the inter-war
years.
3. Warwick Lodge, Shoot Up Hill, a 1930s mansion
block of private flats. (Photo by Irina Porter)
The overcrowding and living conditions in South
Kilburn meant that many people lacked basic amenities for washing, and the
opening of Granville Road Baths in July 1937 was a welcome addition to local
facilities. Willesden Council bought a terrace with cottages and stables at the
rear, and the baths were specially designed for the confined site –
nevertheless, providing not only a 100ft x 33ft swimming pool with diving
boards of a competition standard, but also private slipper baths (where people
could have a bath for a small fee), lockers, cubicles and a public laundry with
a washing machine. A superintendent lived in a flat on the premises.
4. Granville Road Baths, and a Leon Kossoff painting
of the swimming pool. (Images from the internet)
The baths became a subject of paintings by artist
Leon Kossoff in 1960s, who had his studio in Willesden. They continued to be a
popular local facility until demolished in 1990s, and now the space is occupied
by Len Williams Court.
Whatever Kilburn lacked in home comforts, there was
no shortage of places of entertainment, and we’ll take a tour of some of the
grander venues over the years. The Kilburn Theatre Royal, which occupied the
former Kilburn Town Hall building in Belsize Road, operated as a cinema from
1909 to 1941, known as the Kilburn Picture Palace and Theatre of Varieties. In
later years the building housed Shannon’s Night Club, a warehouse and a Decca
Recording Studios in 1990s. It is currently used as offices.
5. A Theatre Royal poster, and the Kilburn Empire,
early 1900s. (Images from the internet)
The Kilburn Empire, opened in 1906 at 9-11 The
Parade (the triangle of Kilburn High Road and Kilburn Vale), offering music
hall, circus and films (the great escapologist Houdini performed there in
1909). It remained a cinema under various names until 1981, was then used as a
religious building, and a paint-ball game centre, until demolished in 1994 to
make way for the Regents Plaza Hotel.
The Grange Cinema opened on the site of the The Grange mansion in 1914. It had over 2,000 seats, a stage,
an organ and the Winter Garden café, and was the largest purpose-built cinema in
the country at the time. Sixty years later the cinema closed, and the building
became the National Club in 1976, and was a popular music venue for the large
Irish community in the area. As well as Irish showbands, it featured many
famous performers, including Johnny Cash, Simply Red and David Bowie, until it
closed in 1999. Now the building is used by the Universal Church of the Kingdom
of God, and since 1991 it has been a Grade II listed building.
6. The Grange Cinema c.1930, and as a Christian
centre in 2018. (Old image from internet, photo by John Hill)
7. Kilburn's Gaumont State Cinema, c. 1970. (Brent
Archives online image 427)
The biggest jewel in Kilburn’s crown was the Gaumont
State Cinema, which opened on 20 December 1937. Owned and commissioned by the
Hyams brothers and designed by the famous cinema architect George Coles, it
seated 4,000 people, had a separate dance hall and a restaurant. It was the
largest cinema in Europe at the time, and remains the third largest ever built
in the UK. The 120 feet (37 metres) high tower inspired by a 1930s New York skyscraper,
housing its own radio studio, could be seen for miles and immediately became
the local landmark. The opulent interior reflected the trends of the day and
included a Wurlitzer organ on a rising and revolving platform, which remained
one of the largest fully functioning Wurlitzer organs in Britain well into 21st
century, and one of the few remaining in its original location.
From the opening performance which starred Gracie
Fields, George Formby, Larry Adler and Henry Hall and his band, the Gaumont
State became a popular entertainment venue, hosting variety, pantomimes,
circus, ballet and concert performances in addition to film screenings. Over
the years it featured such acts as Bill Haley, Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis,
Ella Fitzgerald, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, David Bowie, the Who and many
others.
8. Bill Haley (1957), John Lennon and Mick Jagger
(1963) at the State. (Brent Archives 433, 9036 & 9034)
In 1980s the building became Mecca Bingo. In 2007
it closed and was under the
threat from developers. Eventually it was bought by Ruach City Church, 70 years
to the day after the original opening of the Gaumont State. The building has a
Grade II listed status.
(You can find more information on music venues in Willesden on Music Maps here
- https://www.notjustcamden.uk/maps/ )
During the Second World War Kilburn suffered some
bomb damage, but not on a massive scale, which is lucky, considering the
concentration of railway lines in the area. The first raid hit the area around
Kilburn High Road on the Brent side in September 1940. 1944 was one of the
worst years, with V1s arriving later that year to hit West End Lane, Ardwick
Road, Burgess Hill and Fortune Green Road, as well as the Willesden side of
Shoot Up Hill. The writer, George Orwell, had to rescue his books and other
belongings from the flat in Mortimer Crescent, where he had written “Animal
Farm”, after that was destroyed by a V1. In January and March 1945 two V2
rockets brought greater devastation damaging hundreds of houses on Hampstead
and Willesden sides – the latter being in Dartmouth Road.
By the end of the war there was an urgent need for housing,
and factory-built houses (popularly known as “prefabs”) which could be put up
quickly on cleared sites were a temporary solution, although a few of them
stayed until 1960s. On the Hampstead side there was a large prefab estate
around Lichfield Road and Westcroft Close. Willesden had large sites of them
elsewhere in the borough, but there were 28 prefabs around Christchurch Square,
Close and Terrace and 33 more in Christchurch Avenue.
9. The 1945 "Willesden Chronicle" article
and a Uni-Seco prefab of the type built at Priory Park Road. (Cutting from the local newspaper
microfilms at Brent Archives, photo from the internet)
A small prefab estate in Priory Park Road was the
first one to be built on a cleared bomb site. On 26 October 1945, the Willesden
Chronicle reported that work on the site began on 1 May, the houses were
erected quickly, but had to wait a while for fittings. It was well worth the
wait for the delighted occupants, who came from overcrowded homes in various
parts of the borough and ‘could hardly find sufficient superlatives’ to
describe the new dwellings of their own.
The wider aim of providing better housing in
Kilburn after the war was inspired by Patrick Abercromie’s 1944 Greater London
Plan. Obsolete industry, overcrowded and dilapidated slums were to be replaced
with housing and community facilities. Unfortunately, many Victorian buildings
also had to go. The housing conditions were particularly bad in Carlton / South
Kilburn. The Willesden Survey of 1949 stated that this was the area with the
highest average density in the borough, in some cases with 15 people in
two-storey houses. Many of the bigger houses, built in 1850s-60s for wealthy
families were being let as single rooms to boarders.
10. Willesden Council's original plans / perspective
drawing for the South Kilburn Redevelopment. (From “The Willesden Survey, 1949”)
The South Kilburn redevelopment plan was drawn up
in 1948, covering an area of 87 acres between the main line railway in the
north, and Carlton Vale / Kilburn Lane in the south. Much of its new Council
housing would be in three or four-storey blocks of flats, and the first of
these were built on bomb-damaged sites at Canterbury Terrace and Chichester
Road.
11. Newly built Willesden Council flats at Canterbury
Terrace, 1949. (From “The Willesden Survey, 1949”)
Under Willesden’s original plans, there would have
been plenty of green space, with a large area of school playing fields at the
heart of the redevelopment serving three schools. At the western end of the
playing fields would be a shopping area, providing all local needs, and a
community centre (possibly including a branch library).
12. Percy Road, South Kilburn, just before its
development in the 1960s. (Photos courtesy of John Hill)
However, as the scheme moved into the 1950s, and
was extended in 1963, taller blocks of flats began to form part of the plans.
Percy Road, in the photos above, ran south from Granville Road, opposite the
baths, across Carlton Vale and down towards Malvern Road. It was virtually
wiped off the map during the redevelopment, with the Immaculate Heart of Mary
R.C. Church (seen behind the playing children in the colour picture – entitled
“Last Days of Percy Road”) one of the few buildings to survive, and now Dickens
and Austen Houses would be behind you. The final phase of this part of South
Kilburn’s redevelopment ended in the 1970s.
13. Two views of Cambridge Road, from the early and
late 1960s. (Photos courtesy of John Hill)
The photos below show the western end of the South
Kilburn redevelopment in progress, with William Saville House (and William
Dunbar House behind it) already built in the first picture, while construction
is underway on Craik Court, which hides them in the later colour view.
14. Carlton Vale, in the mid and late 1960s. (Photos
courtesy of John Hill)
Further north, in the early 1960s, Kilburn Square
saw the replacement of its 3/4 storey Victorian terraced houses with a shopping
centre and market, along with a 17-storey block of flats labelled the 'pocket
skyscraper' (officially just numbers 11-90 Kilburn Square!).
15. Two views of the 'pocket skyscraper', from 1964
and c.1970. (Brent Archives image 236 / from the internet)
We will finish this series by looking at modern
Kilburn, from the 1970s onwards, next week. I hope you can join me then.
Irina Porter,
Willesden Local History Society.
A special thank you to John Hill,
for sharing his father’s 1960s photographs, and to local historian Dick
Weindling, co-author of 'Kilburn and West Hampstead Past' and History of Kilburn and West Hampstead blog .
It is about 5 years since Scrutiny has looked at GP services in Brent and there have been many changes since then as well as current issues around accessibility during the Covid pandemic. A quick glance at locally based Facebook sites will demonstrate there are issues around accessiblity to face to face appointments, difficulties in making contact via the telephone and differences between surgeries regarding email contact and on-line consultations.
It is welcome then that a strong General Practioner and Primary Care Accessibility Group has been formed consisiting of Cllr Mary Daly
as Chair plus Cllr Abdi Aden, Cllr Tony Ethapemi,
Cllr Claudia Hector, Cllr Gaynor Lloyd and Cllr Ahmad Shahzad.
The scope of the Task Force will be discussed at 5pm on Monday at a meeting that is available to watch on Zoom.
The Task
i) To gather findings based on quantitative data and information
about GP accessibility based on face-to-face appointments, physical and digital
access, and qualitative information from patients’ experiences with particular
reference to those who are older, have mental health needs or a disability, and
who have long-term health conditions.
ii) To review the overall local offer of GP services, including
the extended GP access hub service, and evaluate any variation in accessibility
by practice and the underlying reasons for any variation with particular
reference to clinical capacity and nursing.
iii) To evaluate the local demand to access primary care,
changes in demand during the Covid 19 pandemic and changes in access to GP
services during the pandemic with particular reference to digital accessibility
and face-to-face appointments.
iv) To understand the role of primary care in addressing health
inequalities by gathering findings on population health, deprivation and
demographic trends in the borough with particular reference to Black and
Minority Ethnic (BAME) patients.
v) To develop a report and recommendations for local NHS
organisations and the local authority’s Cabinet based on the findings and
evidence gathered during the review.
It is suggested that there are
five evidence sessions for this task group. The proposed structure for the
meetings will be meetings with representatives from NHS organisations and GPs
for evidence session 1 and evidence session 2, meetings with Healthwatch Brent
and patient advocacy groups for evidence session 3, and a meeting with the
voluntary sector and other relevant community organisations for evidence
session 4. There will be a meeting with community organisations for evidence
session 5.
Key Lines of Enquiry
To structure the evidence
sessions, the scrutiny task group will focus on particular key lines of enquiry
to ensure there is accountability about local primary care services.
These will include, but not be
limited to, the following suggested key lines of enquiry.
1. What is the local demand for GP
services and what are the particular needs of Brent residents, including
vulnerable patient groups, in relation to accessing GP care?
2. Is there sufficient provision
of GP services in the London Borough of Brent based on local population health
needs and the growing population in the borough and is there a difference in
provision or accessibility between the north and south of Brent?
3. What has been the long-term
trend in how GP services are accessed and what has been happening during the
Covid 19 pandemic in terms of the balance between remote appointments using
digital technology and face-to-face appointments?
4. Is there a danger of exclusion
from primary care services for those patients who are not able to use the
digital or online options and rely on face-to-face appointments?
5. What strategy is needed to
address variation and ensure that there is fair and equitable access to GP
services available to Brent residents across the borough?
6. What does benchmarking data show about primary care and
GP performance in Brent compared with the other clinical commissioning
groups in North West London?
7. What is the role of Patient Participation
Groups in addressing accessibility issues?
