Housing issues won't go away
The way the Council has managed Kilburn South is appalling but predictable
Robin Sharp has agreed to stand as a Councillor in Queen’s Park as a Liberal Democrat. He’s an enormously well-informed and dedicated long-time resident who was a senior civil servant. He has been involved in local issues for decades. He is an expert in health matters and is part of the core group of the Patient Participation Group at Lonsdale Medical Group, which I chair. The role of the PPG is to talk to the Practice and relay patient concerns and push for better service. This is no easy time to try and help patients and GPs cope with the demands of the pandemic and the ever-changing way central government tries to manage and reorganise the NHS.
Robin also co-leads the Streetscape Group of the Queen’s Park Area Residents Association (QPARA) — he was a founder of QPARA too — and knows a thing or two about development. He’s just written about the problems of having a Council that won’t listen to people as it pertains to Kilburn Square, which is just outside the Queen’s Park ward.
Housing is for the people
by Robin Sharp
Brent’s Housing
Housing is for people. It is a fundamental human need. Why should we have to state this here and now? The answer is that in Brent new housing seems to be for developers, aided and abetted by the Council.
In their enthusiasm for ambitious targets for new housing Brent Council have entered into a range of deals and projects which will result in the wrong type of house or flat in the wrong place. The outcome will be that no-one is satisfied, least of all those in desperate need.
While invariably come along with complicated schemes for flats that may internally meet all modern requirements, getting into them or relaxing outside them may throw up problems of various kinds when density is too high and an estate becomes over-crowded. People may have to get closer to strangers than is comfortable to access their own front door or when putting out rubbish. Or they may have not enough garden or green space to relax when the sun shines.
A case in point is the existing well-established estate of Kilburn Square, just off the Kilburn High Road. Here on a peaceful site with adequate trees and green space the Council want to insert around 60% more flats in blocks. A botched and devious “consultation” where residents had no opportunity to reject the plan has left them reluctant to protest further for fear of comeback by Brent Council.
Worse really are the problems of the Granville Estate in South Kilburn. This prize-winning group of 140 flats with a strikingly patterned exterior has experienced a host of maintenance problems since it was built 10 years ago at a cost of £17m. Now it needs major repairs at a cost of £18m, thus having a negative value of minus £35m under Brent’s stewardship.
What is fundamentally wrong in these and many other cases is that neither Councillors nor officers listen to tenants who are on the spot and know what is going amiss. Once the top people have posed for their photos on launch day they see no mileage in revisiting.
Meanwhile Wembley around the stadium is being choked by developers with affordable new flats which are distinctly un-affordable. It’s time for a major rethink.