Action needed now over 'dead time' August meeting

Martin Redston, co-chair of Keep Willesden Green, has written to Beth Kay, lead officer on the Willesden Green Redevelopment for Brent Council (Major Projects) after her e-mail to Martin Francis (below) on the summer consultation event on August 8th.

You are of course taking the Mickey aren't you! You are clearly aware that the Nation (the World?) will be deep in the middle of watching and celebrating the Olympics. Many people will be attending the games, still others are actually on holiday during that period (myself included). Travelling to and from work will be difficult and people may have difficulty in attending at those times. I suspect that you personally will have a travel problem because you don't even live in the borough. The idea that people will be in a position to attend a drop in session to discuss the future of our Library facility at such short notice is frankly an insult to the community.

 

What is the relevance of your statement"We are aware of the constraint of the Olympics which is why we have programmed this event on a day when there are no events in Wembley"? exactly.

 

This proposal is appalling and clearly an effort to 'bury bad news' by Brent Council and their preferred partners Galliford Try. You clearly have taken absolutely no notice of the points in our discussion at the Willesden ACF in which I predicted that the developers would be working overtime to come up with a revised plan, but you denied that this was the case. Once again I was correct.

 

Even if the new plan includes everything that the Community has clearly requested in recent weeks, it is anti democratic to call a critical meeting at this time with less than a fortnight's notice. This event must be postponed until September when the community will be in a position to engage fully again. We have requested a meeting with Cllr Butt on many occasions since he took over as leader and no response has been received to date. Why have you as Regeneration Officer not ensured that it is properly arranged?

 

I am copying this to the Chief Executive and Brent Council Leader amongst others. Action must be taken now.

Yours in disgust,

 

Brent Resident, Martin Redston