Library plans "leave nasty taste and room for suspicion"

This is the Letter of the Week in the Brent and Kilburn Times. It is also worth reading their Editorial on Consultation.

Click on image to enlarge

Keep Willesden Green to meet with Ann John

A meeting has been arranged between some of the Keep Willesden Green committee and Ann John, leader of Brent Council. The meeting will take place on Wednesday April 4th.  Supporters who have questions or points to make should e-mail them to keepwillesdengreen@hotmail.co.uk

KWG is continuing its multi-pronged campaign which includes:

1. Calling for the Council to Stop, Listen and Reflect before continuing with the development
2. For full consultation with residents about what they would like to see on the site
3. For allocation of space in any new development to the Willesden Bookshop
4. Preservation of the Old Willesden Library building and gaining support of English Heritage
5. Preservation of the open space in front of the current library
6. Preservation of the Conservation Area on the site of the development
7. Full recognition of the petitions on the Old Library Building and the Willesden Bookshop and a special meeting of the council to discuss the former.
8. Researching the land titles for our (Brent citizens') land the Council is about to give to the developer
9. Preparing submissions on the upcoming planning application
10. Continuing to ask people to sign the Stop, Listen and Reflect petition HERE

Meanwhile supporters are urged to lobby councillors, including the newly elected Lib Dem Alison Hopkins who sent a message opposing the scheme to our hustings meeting.

Supporters cam also register their official complaint about the Regeneration and Major Projects Department's handling of the issue with Brent Council  HERE  Please send us a copy of your complaint at the hotmail address and keep your own record. If you are not satisfied with the response move quickly to Stage 2 and 3 of the procedure.

In addition some Freedom of Information requests have been sent to the Council on detailed issues.

Clearly the fight continues. Please keep checking out this blog and e-mail ideas to keepwillesdengreen@hotmail.co.uk

And circulate the link to the e-petition via your e-mail lists, Twitter,  Facebook etc.
http://democracy.brent.gov.uk/mgEPetitionDisplay.aspx?ID=32

Victorian Society 'strongly criticises' Brent Council over old library demolition

A proposal to demolish the old Willesden library building has been strongly criticised by the Victorian Society.

Brent Council has drawn up plans for a new cultural centre and the proposed development site includes the current Willesden Green Library building, as well as the distinctive 1894 former library.

The Arts and Crafts style old library is locally listed and has been identified by the Council as being a key building within the Willesden Green Conservation Area. It holds a prominent position on the High Road at the junction with Brondesbury Park Road.

'Plans to knock down this attractive building in the heart of Willesden fly in the face of the Council's own guidance,' said James Hughes, Conservation Officer for the Victorian Society. 'Council documents stress the importance of the old library and the need to preserve the character of the Conservation Area.'

Mr Hughes added: 'we want to see the Council take a more imaginative and sustainable approach to this key site, as the loss of the Victorian library is unnecessary and wasteful. It should be possible to build a new cultural centre while retaining this important reminder of Willesden's heritage.'

The Society has written to Brent Council urging it to rethink its proposals.

LINK to Victorian Society website

Happy St Patrick's at Willesden Green on Saturday. Where will it be held after 'regeneration'?

Happy crowds filled the Willesden Green Library, its car park and the piazza open space in front of the library last Saturday to celebrate St Patrick's Day.  Their high spirits were not dampened by the rain.

The picture below challenge the council's claim that the library and its environs are not fit for purpose. With a smaller footprint Cultural Centre and no car park or piazza in the future we are left wondering how St Patrick's Day will be celebrated in Willesden if the regeneration takes place.

The library concourse

The piazza in front of the library

Crowds around the stage erected in the car park

Willesden Green Redevelopment: What the by-election candidates say

BNCTV  have uploaded two videos of our recent Hustings for the Dollis Hill by-election. Voting is on Thursday March 22nd.

Why the Old Willesden Library should be retained in the new development

Many thanks to Phil Grant for this.

The Ignoring of the Five Thousand

The 'Gospel According to Brent Democratic Services' is a strange one. Keep Willesden Green are aggrieved at the lack of consultation and full public information on the Willesden Green regeneration proposals and want Brent Council to 'Stop, Listen and Reflect' before carrying on.  We claim that the Executive decision to approve the scheme without proper consultation was wrong.

Two petitions, one on retaining the Old Willesden Library and the other on allocating the Willesden Bookshop space in the proposed Cultural Centre have attracted 5710 and 1295 names respectively.  However because the Executive made the decision to go ahead with the scheme Democratic Services have rejected tabling the petitions at Full Council and may do the same for a request for them to go before the Executive.

In the Old Willesden Library case with more than 5,000 names Brent Council's guidelines are clear:

If a petition contains 5,000 or more signatures and is not a petition requesting officer evidence, it will, if requested by the petition organiser, be referred for debate by Full Council. The petition organiser will be informed of the date of the meeting, invited to attend and to take up to 5 minutes to present the petition. The petition will then be considered by councillors

At the next Full Council is not until May and is largely ceremonial with the induction of the new Mayor, and the planning application will be made before then, Democratic Services have said that both petitions should be taken into account by Andy Donald, Head of Regeneration and Major Projects, as part of the application process.  However Andy Donald is the instigator of the council-private partnership project, has defended it strongly at Executive and Scrutiny meetings, and will be making the planning application.

As far as the Planning Committee goes, despite its statutory independence, it will be Brent Council, via the Executive making an application to Brent councillors.  Labour councillors hold the majority of places on the planning committee.

The Council's stonewalling and avoidance of debate raises vital issues of democratic accountability and Keep Willesden Green will continue to press for a full debate of these issues.

What really happened at that consultation meeting

The following letter was published in this week's edition of the Brent and Kilburn Times:

In last week's issue (8 March) you published the response from a Brent spokesman to criticism that the Council had not consulted local people about plans to demolish the 1894 Willesden Green Library building. He claimed that the plans were made public in February 2011, and that:

"Consultation was carried out last year to develop the brief for the new building with councillors, staff and a small number of library users."

I was among seven library users invited to a focus group meeting with one of Brent's Regeneration Officers (and an outside consultant) on 28 February 2011, and am writing to make clear what happened at that consultation.

We were told that although the 1980's Willesden Green Library Centre building was "a much valued and well used local resource" it was no longer "fit for purpose" and was "inefficient to run". It was explained to us that there were five "options" for dealing with the current position, ranging from just dealing with "essential repairs and maintenance" to a "major mixed use new build development". We were advised that Brent's Regeneration Department favoured the complete redevelopment option, if it could be "delivered at zero cost to the council".

 

In the discussions which followed, we found out that what they had in mind was not just the demolition of the 1980's Willesden Green Library Centre building, but also the original Victorian library building. All seven members of the focus group made clear to the Regeneration Officer that if the redevelopment option was taken, the original 1894 library building fronting the High Road must be retained, both for its importance to the streetscape and because of its key part in Willesden's heritage.

 

Focus group members were invited to join "a user group that can be regularly consulted throughout the project". I am sure that I agreed to join that group, but I have never been invited to another meeting of it. The advice that we, as local people and users of the library centre, gave about not demolishing the 1894 library building was clearly ignored when Brent's Regeneration Department came "to develop the brief for the new building".

 

Your readers will understand why I feel aggrieved that a Brent spokesman is now using the February 2011 "consultation" with myself and other library users to try to justify the proposals which were displayed at the library centre last week. Hopefully, the strength of feeling expressed by the hundreds of people who attended that event will make Brent Council and their development partner realise that they must change their plans, and retain the Victorian library building.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

Philip Grant.

Victorian Society joins in calls to save Old Willesden Library

The Wembley and Willesden Observer has a story about our campaign on its web page today which includes the following:

...The Victorian Society, a national charity campaigning for the Victorian and Edwardian historic environment, has raised concerns bout the loss of the  (Old Willesden Library)  building, which is locally listed.

The society has written to Brent Council urging it to rethink its proposals.

Spokesman for the society, James Hughes, said:

We want to see the council take a more imaginative and sustainable approach to this key site, as the loss of the Victorian library is unnecessary and wasteful. It should be possible to build a new cultural centre while retaining this important reminder of Willesden's  heritage.

LINK to Willesden and Wembley Observer story

Come to our by-election hustings on Thursday

Willesden speaks up for local heritage

Many thanks to BNCTV for this video:

Developers put the 'Con' into 'Consultation - Michael Rosen

After Keep Willesden Green had a successful morning outside the Brent Council - Galliford Try Consultation I came across this on Michael Rosen's blog. LINK  Michael is the children's poet and BBC broadcaster. It may ring bells for you!

In many streets, there is a scarcely visible process going on: developers eye up land and properties with a view to convincing councils that there is a place or space which they can make a profit out of. They don't call it that. They call it 'regeneration' and proceed to line up various agencies or authorities to back them: eg the local transport people, some 'business people', some kind of 'development agency' or ngo in the area and so on. They will also try to capture some key members of the council (elected or non-elected). Sometimes this process is initiated by a council committee as part of their own 'regeneration' scheme.

In fact, more often than not, it's a con. The 'affordable' housing that is sometimes promised at the outset, starts diminishing in numbers as the developer pleads economy and 'returns  on investment'. Quite often some kind of half-hidden subsidy is engineered by either the council or one of the ngos whereby the developer gets the land cheap or received some kind of suspension in the council tax etc. And when it comes to the 'retail units', more often than not, this is in fact an effort to bring in the multinational chains.

Prior to all this, the land or properties that the developers have been eyeing may well have been deliberately run down by the public authorities eg the council or transport authority. The 'dereliction' they talk about in their glossy brochures may well have been engineered, by refusing to let tenant holders, short-term occupiers or some such stay and develop their own property. Groups (eg council subsidised self-help groups, community organisations and the like) are often told that they can be moved out at any time. Another trick is for the council to have not updated and upgraded some properties they owned so that they are in effect falling down.

At this point the developer's plan is presented as the only viable alternative. The possibility of people on the ground developing their places and spaces has been eliminated by refusing to let them (!), some deal is on the cards whereby the developer is getting some kind of subsidy from us, the council tax payers, but which may well be hidden as a non-ask eg a very low payment for a slice of property, and the council and the developer produce some great big brochure of blather saying how this is all a marvellous retail opportunity, everything is going to look smart and nice, Marks and Spencer are going to be on your doorstep etc etc.

Now to the council meeting to see if they can get it through.

At this point, I'll break off the story...with this:

Just up the road from a historic defeat for the people, places and spaces of Dalston in Hackney, comes a historic victory:

http://opendalston.blogspot.com/2012/03/dalstons-voice-is-heard-hackney-reject.html

Transition Willesden make their voice heard on redevelopment

Willesden Transition at an earlier event

Transition Willesden is a local group offering a community-led response to the challenges of peak oil, climate change and the economic crisis.  We are not a campaigning organisation, but wish to issue the following in response to this local issue:

Viv Stein, Co-ordinator of Transition Willesden, says:

We are very concerned about the impact the proposed development will have on both the local community and the environment.  We oppose the loss of green space and are calling for a community food growing area within the plans.

The loss of the existing library, bookshop, meeting rooms and other facilities will have a damaging affect on community cohesion during the closure period.  Following the closure of other local libraries in the area, we do not consider that adequate interim facilities are being made available for local residents.

The scheme appears to have come about as a result of the cash-strapped Council letting the developers call the shots, at the expense of the local community.  Willesden High Road is supposed to be undergoing regeneration for the benefit of local residents and businesses.  The community is rightly angry that decisions have been made without listening to them from the start.

We welcome Keep Willesden Green’s aim to get the Council to pause and reflect on the plans.

Willesden Green Library Alive and Kicking in 2010

Brent Council talks about Willesden Green Library being a failed building. Keep Willesden Green say that managed better it could be dynamic and attract local people. This video made by Brent Council itself shows that the building can indeed come alive given the right sort of event. For our international readers it gives you an idea of the space inside the building which the Council calls dead - and more important the wonderful people who make up our community.

Kilburn Times gives a voice to Keep Willesden Green campaign

There is great coverage of the Willesden Green Regeneration issue in the Brent and Kilburn Times this week. It is heartening to see a local newspaper so committed to covering the community's concerns. LINK TO KILBURN TIMES

Brent's 'Gratuitous vandalism' - Private Eye

1295 people sign Willesden Bookshop petition but will they count?

The e-petition on Willesden Bookshop closed on February 27th and I have been trying to find out when it can be presented to the Council.I have now received this response from Peter Goss of  Brent Democratic Services:

Dear Martin Francis,

Your e-petition has now finished with 511 names against it, most of which appear to live within the borough. In addition I have received a paper petition comprising 312 signatures and paper petitions from pupils of the following schools in the numbers shown:
Gladstone Park Primary – 291
Queens Park Community – 174
Our Lady of Grace Junior – 7

The Executive originally considered the Willesden Green redevelopment project in February 2011, and subsequently on 16th January 2012. You addressed the latter meeting to express concern about there being no provision for the Willesden Green bookshop. The Executive agreed to the redevelopment proposals which did not include provision for a bookshop and delegated officers to take the necessary action to progress the scheme. In addition to this, the scheme will be subject to the necessary planning approvals.

Your petition in its various parts has therefore been forwarded to the Director of Regeneration and Major Projects so that he may take the views expressed into account at the appropriate time when decisions on the detailed design and costings are taken. I have also drawn the petitions to the attention of the Head of Area Planning who will ensure that they are referred to when any planning application is reported to the Planning Committee. However, I understand that there is no planning policy that would require a bookshop to be provided within the development.

So it appears it will not be presented to elected councillors for consideration but to two Brent officers...

Tell the councillors and developers what you think: Friday and Saturday this week

The Exhibition is at Willesden Green Library

Our new leaflet: Make your voice heard on Friday and Saturday

This is our new leaflet. You can download it to distribute yourselves. PAGE 1  PAGE 2

Brent Council must PAUSE, LISTEN AND REFLECT: new epetition now available

Keep Willesden Green have launched a new petition asking Brent Council to PAUSE, LISTEN AND REFLECT on their proposals to redevelop the Willesden Green Library Centre.

The text of the Petition is below. You can sign the epetition version HERE and paper versions will be available outside the Exhibition at Willesden Green Library on March 9th and 10th.

We the undersigned petition the council to Pause the Willesden Green Library Centre regeneration plans to allow for full consultation with residents in order to ascertain their views on how the area should be developed and the amenities that should be provided or retained.

Brent Council is handing over public land worth £10.4 million to a property developer in exchange for rebuilding the Willesden Library Centre. The original 1894 library building on the High Road will be demolished, The Willesden Bookshop is likely to be driven out of business, the public car park will be reduced to 8 spaces and a children’s play area will be lost. Over 18 months, three five-storey blocks of 90+ luxury flats will be built behind the existing Library Centre.

We all want a thriving, welcoming and dynamic library and cultural centre, but the current deal has been sealed with virtually no public consultation and very little available information, ignoring the wishes of over a thousand local residents who have expressed opposition to these plans in two Brent e-petitions.

While the developers get a healthy profit from the sale of luxury flats and Brent councillors get some fancy new offices, the cultural and financial cost to rate-paying citizens is disproportionately high. It smacks of ‘profits before people’.

Borough residents need to have a say in the content and design of the library centre redevelopment, but we have not yet been given the chance to do so.

The Council says: Plans for the development of the library centre were raised at the executive committee in February 2011, and quickly followed by two public consultations to ‘test the market’. The council had to abide by commercial confidentiality, so no detailed plans could be made public until a deal was signed with the developer on 15 February 2012.

We say: Did you know about this in 2011? Not a single local resident or tradesperson we spoke to knew about the plans until Jan 2012, and only then through word of mouth. The Feb 2011 consultations were conducted with, respectively, 5 and then 7 people. One person present recounted that they were asked for their opinion, then shown plans for the centre that were drawn up before the meeting. This does not conform to the generally understood definition of a ‘consultation’

Keep Willesden Green on YouTube

Send the LINK

Willesden Green Consultation: a shambolic sham?

We are gathering feedback from the individual consultation sessions that were held this week on the Willesden Green Regeneration. Individuals and small groups met with Brent Regeneration, Galliford Try, the project architect and Remarkable Public Relations.

It became clear that the Consultation Team acknowledged that the communications.consultation strategy thus far has been poor. However, they appeared confident about their ability to bring residents on side in a scheme which they felt was strong because of the zero cost to the council and the fact that, in their eyes, there was no alternative.

They said that the demolition of the Old Library was required in order to build the 90 plus flats behind the new building. They justified the lack of play space in the development by their expectation that as they would be one or two bedroomed flats there would be few children and thus no impact on local schools. There is of course no justification for such an assumption and many local families live in extremely over-crowded conditions.  None of the team lived in Willesden which is a real weakness in terms of local sensitivities.

Brent Regeneration appeared to give some ground on possibly bookshop space, according to some who attended, but this could not automatically be allocated the the Willesden Bookshop. It would have to be offered on the open market.

When the Team said that this was the beginning of the 'real consultation' a KWG supporter retorted that this was like discussing what kind of lock to put on a stable door long after the horse has bolted. When they were asked if the two day consultation had thrown up a single person who actually supported the plans, the ensuing silence said it all.

Consultees were assured that the trees would stay and there would be an application to move the bus stop. The Team were more confident that residents that the Planning Committees decision would be impartial and independent. One resident felt that the project architect was less than proud of the plans for the development and he suggested this was due to the constraints imposed on the developer.

Residents felt that often the Team were unable or unwilling to answer detailed questions on the scheme, including how the building would be managed and maintained on completion. Despite the loss of the car park, which will be built on, they confirmed that there will be NO public parking for the Cultural Centre - just 2  'mother and baby spaces' and 6 for the disabled. There would be no extra Pay and Display in the surrounding streets.

They were challenged that their plans amounted to a net loss to the neighbourhood of a landmark building and valued bookshop and a net gain of offices for Brent Council.

Asked about the status of this part of the consultation Remarkable PR replied that it would feed into the Community Involvement section of the planning application.

Following the controversies over Equality Impact Assessments in the legal proceedings and the need under the Equalities Act to ensure that no section of the community was discriminated against, it was surprising that the Teams recording of the age, ethnicity etc of consultees was haphazard with some residents reporting that there was little consistency in documenting demographic details. Some were asked to fill in a form and others were not.

One resident concluded, "Overall, I think the experience confirmed my suspicion that the consultation is a sham and I let them know that."

Green Mayoral candidate backs 'Keep Willesden Green' campaign

The Willesden Green redevelopment became an issue in the London Mayoral and GLA contest today when Jenny Jones, the Green Party candidate for London Mayor, added her voice to the  campaign to save Willesden Green Library from ‘flawed’ private development
 
Green Mayoral candidate Jenny Jones has backed Brent Green Party’s involvement in the campaign,

Under Brent Council proposals a private developer will be given a portion of the land to build 90-95 residential units at market prices despite the Council’s long waiting list for affordable housing.

Both Jones and local Green candidate for Brent and Harrow, Dr Shahrar Ali, added their voices to the ‘Keep Willesden Green campaign’, stating that the council has pushed through plans without proper public consultation, prioritising the concerns of a private developer over those of the residents they serve.

Dr Ali said: "I am full square behind the campaign of local residents to have the Willesden Green redevelopment proposal properly reconciled to the needs and wishes of those most affected by it.
“If necessary, it should be kicked into the long grass. I well understand, time and again, residents’ sense of betrayal in the hands of a Council whose library decimation smokescreen seems to know no bounds."

Jones said: “Not satisfied with closing half its libraries, Brent Council is now proposing a flawed redevelopment of Willesden Green Library.

“The plans will see the much loved and locally listed Old Willesden Library bull-dozed with the closure of the renowned Willesden Bookshop, a shop that has served Brent's diverse population, especially its children, for more than 20 years.

“Brent Green Party has been fully behind the local library campaigns and I applaud the people of Brent who are challenging the Council's cultural vandalism.

“Greens respond to the aspirations of local people to participate in developing and enriching their neighbourhoods and shopping streets, rather than letting developers dictate regeneration in the interests of private profit.”

Willesden Green regeneration in the news again

The Brent and Kilburn Times had lots of coverage of the Willesden Green Library regeneration this week. Here are some cuttings:

 

Make sure you get down to the Exhibition and give your views on  March 9th or 10th

Questions for Brent's Conservation Officer

 Letter to Mark Smith, Brent Council's Conservation Officer

Dear Mark Smith,

We recently spoke on the phone regarding the plans for the Regeneration of Willesden Green. I mentioned during our conversation that I was concerned that the plans included the Demolition of the old 1894 Library currently occupied by BIAS.

You said that you had been involved in discussion with the Regeneration team and that it was your view that the financial benefits of the proposals outweigh the reasons for retaining a significant heritage asset within the Conservation Area of Willesden Green High Road.

I am aware that your decision making will be made in accordance with Planning Policy Statement 5 and would like clarification on the following:

HE3.1 gives guidance of Policy approach.

Please could you let me know the details of your proactive strategy to conserve the historic environment of the High Road. I notice that the Spotted Dog has a retained  façade. Clearly architectural context is respected and preserved by your department.

Have all the points (i-iii) of HE3.1 been considered with regard to the Old library Building?

Please can you direct me to the Brent local framework strategy for the High Road Conservation Area. I am particularly interested in the Council’s policy on investment in Heritage Asset. Surely, as a landmark building, the historic library building gives an important sense of place. Its history and plaque are fitting tribute to the rate payers of Willesden, who worked hard to ensure literacy. Is this not the ideal context for any new development?

Please can you also let me know the extent of Consultation that has been carried out to understand local community views. I notice that the Council carried out a Consultation of a target audience of 12 people. I have spoken to several of the people involved in that Consultation. They have all said that they requested that the Old Library should be preserved. Please also note that subsequent to the plans being published, there is a strong objection locally to the Galliford Try scheme. A petition has been circulated during the last 3 weeks and well over 1000 signatures have been collected. Planning Policy Statement 5 paragraph HE7.3 tells me that reasonable steps should be taken to seek the views of the Community. Please can these steps be taken during the current Consultation period? Your comments regarding, the Consultation to date would be appreciated.

Has the following been considered carefully?

HE9.1 says that there should be a presumption in favour of the conservation of designated heritage assets and the more significant the designated heritage asset, the greater the presumption in favour of its conservation should be. Once lost, heritage assets cannot be replaced and their loss has a cultural, environmental, economic and social impact. Significance can be harmed or lost through alteration or destruction

of the heritage asset or development within its setting. Loss affecting any designated heritage asset should require clear and convincing justification.

Please let me know where I can find your report justifying the demolition of the 1894 Library? I assume, as a contract has been signed with Galliford Try for a development including the demolition of the Old 1894 Library, that a report has been written by your department giving guidance on the following:

HE9.2 Where the application will lead to substantial harm to or total loss of significance, local planning authorities should refuse consent unless it can be demonstrated that:

(i) the substantial harm to or loss of significance is necessary in order to deliver substantial public benefits that outweigh that harm or loss; or

(ii) (a) the nature of the heritage asset prevents all reasonable uses of the site; and

(b) no viable use of the heritage asset itself can be found in the medium term that will enable its conservation; and

(c ) conservation through grant-funding or some form of charitable or

public ownership is not possible; and

(d) the harm to or loss of the heritage asset is outweighed by the benefits of

bringing the site back into use.

My own view is as follows;

The Old Library makes a positive contribution to the character of Willesden Green. It is a landmark building and a monument to the determination of the local 1894 poll tax payers who raised funds in times of terrible poverty to provide books, a library and ensure literacy. Surely it is these historic values that should be celebrated and influence the future character of the area?

The development should be informed by The Old library, not facilitated by it’s demolition. It reinforces meaning and civility and it’s presence should enhance our relationship with the new building. It is an inherent and unique part of the Willesden Cultural heritage and should be recognised as a catalyst for regeneration. It should be valued, conserved, restored and put to a suitable and viable use in the new Library Centre. The area around the Old Library is an attractive gathering space and lively market place, it makes a good contribution to the economic vitality of the High Road. This space is an essential part of our local townscape.

Please consider these matters before an Application is submitted to ensure that Public funds are not wasted on developing plans for a scheme that has not followed normal Planning procedure.

Kind regards

Kate Spence

Brent celebrates history of Willesden High Road weeks before they obliterate it!

Honestly, you couldn't make it up. Weeks before they are due to bulldoze the old Victorian Willesden Library into oblivion, Brent Council is mounting an exhibition on the history of the High Road whose most distinctive feature is.... Victorian Willesden Library.

From Brent Council's website:
On the High Road
March-July 2012, Special Exhibitions Gallery, Brent Museum

 

Brent Museum's new exhibition on the history of Willesden High Road will be opening in March 2012.

The exhibition will explore how the High Road has changed over the years, from the late nineteenth century when it was a semi-rural roadway, offering a small range of shops and services to the local population, to the diverse and vibrant street we see today.

Using images from Brent Archives and incorporating the work of local artists inspired by the area, the exhibition will give visitors the opportunity to reflect on the changing face of the High Road.

Join us for one of two High Road history walks to find out more about the fascinating stories that lie behind every door; to find out more, visit our events page.

STOP, LISTEN, REFLECT: Get the message out on Willesden Green plans

Shop/house window poster

Keep Willesden Green is producing these posters for display in shop and house windows to get the message about the redevelopment out as widely as possible.

You can download your own A4 version as a PDF HERE

We are pressing the Council/Galliford Try to STOP, LISTEN  AND REFLECT to enable residents to say what they think of the proposals and what they want for their community. It is important that this message gets to them on the Exhibition/Feedback days to be held at the Willesden Green Library Centre on Martch 9th and 10th.

We do not accept that this development is a 'done deal'.