stop the tower!

To make your views known to Brent, click the link called “Comment on this planning application” in the sidebar to the left. To find out more about the application, click the link called “Planning application information” in the sidebar to the left.

Below you’ll find Brent’s postal address and details of who’s coordinating the planning application at Brent.

This is a model of the proposed development, looking from Salusbury Road (roughly!) southwards over the railway bridge. The pinkish buildings in the foreground are the shops (e.g. Mr. Fish) at the traffic lights. The tall buildings to the right form the skyscraper whose scale everyone’s objecting to, the other blocks directly in front of you and to the left are the redevelopment of South Kilburn—for instance, part of the scheme involves redeveloping that island of buildings (including the Falcon pub) currently used as a traffic gyratory—but that will come later, after the skyscraper (much shortened, everyone hopes) is built.

Here’s the same model looking (again roughly) from the direction of the Park. It looks like the top floors of the skyscraper are intended for investors who hope that views over Queen’s Park will attract wealthy tenants and company lets. There’s even a penthouse for sale on the roof! This is like the lunatic 1970s skyline anarchy that did so much to disfigure London (another Centrepoint, anyone?). It’ll crush our neighbourhood and create a dangerous precedent—no doubt another developer/architect seeking gratuitous self-promotion in the future will attempt to slap another such personal advertisement across this part of the city for all time. Meanwhile, we huddled masses will be living in their shadow (literally!)—also for all time. Again, the pink buildings in the foreground are by the traffic lights and along the beginning of Harvist Road.

Fellow residents

We draw your attention to a development that WILL take place unless it receives enough opposition to scale it down. You have only until the end of July to make your comments known to Brent Council.

All South Kilburn (the area the other side of the railway tracks, southeast of Queen’s Park station) is due to be rebuilt soon in order to make it more people-friendly and to fit lots more people in.

Fair enough—the area has a crime problem and needs to be brought into the 21st century after the mistakes of (surprise! surprise!) architects and planners in the 1960s.

BUT… the “highpoint” of this major development is a building that is SO TALL it will DWARF the entire area south AND NORTH of the railway. Genesis Housing Trust is planning to build a HUGE 26-storey SKYSCRAPER right by Queen’s Park station in that car park by the bus stops. At 86 metres high, it’s just a few metres less than St. Stephen’s Tower (Big Ben to you and me)—but it will be MUCH, MUCH bigger in circumference, and its effect on the area will be devastating because our homes are built right up to it.

And you know what? It’s only a little over 30 metres shorter than the new arch going over Wembley stadium—so that gives you a clue as to what this is really all about: it’s an architect-led “me too” monument so he can join the “mile-high” club.

Building such a tall monolith is not about regeneration of the community—the people behind this insane scheme don’t care about us, the people of North Westminster, Kilburn or Queen’s Park. Theirs is a different agenda—ego, greed, megalomania and arrogance. Exactly the factors that led to the erection of the notorious Centrepoint building (where Charing Cross Road meets Tottenham Court Road) by the infamous property developer Harry Hyams. And guess what—the proposed skyscraper is just 20 metres less than Centrepoint! We invite you to stand under Centrepoint and look up and imagine you’re living under that. That’s what we’re in for.

There’s no doubt the area just south of the railway needs help—it’s unfriendly to pedestrians, the traffic is all over the place and it doesn’t have that ‘friendly neighbourhood’ feel of Salusbury Road in Queen’s Park.

BUT… all that can easily be fixed without having to build a massive skyscraper. The other new buildings in the new development will be anything up to 14 storeys high, but they will be further down the railway where there are existing blocks.

So why are they planning a building twice that height, so close to our homes? The developers are basically sticking two huge great 90-metre fingers up to everyone living and working in the area. They seem to be confident that Brent will give them the go ahead. Unless you register your opinion (see links).

The proposed Queen’s Park skyscraper is slated to be 26 storeys high. Here are photos of a few other towers in the area that you can compare with—and they’re all shorter than what’s being proposed! Why not go to your nearest block, stand underneath it and look up—then imagine the new skyscraper being much higher still!

This is Blashford Tower, at the junction of Adelaide and Primrose Hill Roads, NW3. Blashford Tower is 20 storeys tall.

This photo shows Casterbridge and Snowman Houses at the junction of Abbey and Belsize Roads. These towers are some 24 storeys high.

Have you seen Falkirk and Glasgow towers, part of the Maida Vale estate? One crucial difference between these and the proposed QP skyscraper is that these are surrounded by acres of emptiness—they don’t tower over the neighbours. The threatened skyscraper, on the other hand, most definitely will—literally—overshadow everyone living in the area.

The proposal is insane, and gets madder the more you think about it.

For instance: one excuse for building the skyscraper is that they want to make it a “landmark” building that says: this is where a lot of money has been spent making the area nice. Rather ironic, don’t you think?

Another reason they give is that they want to show the whole of this part of North London that this is where to find what they are calling a “transport node”, where people meet buses, the tube and trains. But do you know what would be so funny if it weren’t so tragic? Neither the railway bridge nor the station are included in the plans, because they are owned by Network Rail (or whatever they are called this week), and there are no plans whatsoever (or the money) to do anything to the moth-eaten 19th century station.

So this skyscraper (with its upper floors reserved for immensely rich tenants with views over the park, lording it over all the little people—only the bottom floors are housing trust flats) is drawing attention to a mirage, something that does not exist. There is no modern integration of transportation—things will remain exactly as they are, with people having to walk from the bus to the trains in the wind and rain as they do today, only the winds being whipped up by the skyscraper will be a hundred times worse.

Everyone in the area will feel the weight of this unbelievably big block on their heads: wherever you look, this architect’s wet dream will be a permanent blot on the cityscape. People way over in South London will be able to point at it and say: that’s where the people of London lost out to the developer, the uncaring council, the overweening architect and big business.

The message needs to be: SCALE IT DOWN! Get back to sense of what is right for people, for the community, for neighbourhoods, for US!

Here are more pix of nearby blocks to give you an idea of what we’re in for—except that these are all shorter than the proposed skyscraper…

Hall and Braithwaite Towers are on Westminster’s Paddington Green estate, and they’re a mere 20 storeys high… but they still look b….y tall!

This is the Hilton where Marylebone Road meets Edgware Road by the A40 flyover. There’s no way of knowing, but this may be about the height of the proposed block, or it may be shorter. Either way, can you imagine that in Queen’s Park?

And here’s one we all know… Kilburn Square Tower towers uncaringly over the area—and it’s only 18 floors tall, much shorter than the Queen’s Park skyscraper. Do developers never learn from previous mistakes?

NP wrote: “I understand the need for maximisation of possible income to support a scheme such as this one. However, it should hardly be necessary to state that the tower is out of place and inappropriate for a low-rise neighbourhood such as ours. Surely there’s some sort of compromise density/height that would leave us with something short of a north-west London Centrepoint.
Perhaps this might be the time to show that consultation is more than a cosmetic exercise and let us poor drongos actually have a say in, or some influence over, what you decide on our behalf.
It also seems obvious that to go ahead without changes to the railway bridge or co-ordination with Network Rail about the station, HOWEVER difficult that may be, is mad.”

And from PF: “Buildings this tall will destroy the local amenity: I do not wish to be overlooked in my garden. Increased windspeeds at ground level exacerbated by these tall towers will make walking difficult in certain meteorological conditions and wind chill factor in winter will make life very unpleasant for pedestrians at ground level around these structures. We do not need/there is no requirement for a skyscraper as a “landmark” - this is a predominantly residential neighbourhood. “We” have own own identity already. The proposed buildings will have a very negative effect on the skyline. The scale of these proposed buildings is inappropriate & unnecessary and out of character of the established local townscape. Please scale it down….DRASTICALLY”.

Could it be that BD has his tongue firmly in his cheek? “The benefits are plain to see: it looks like you could jump from one building to the next. At least, the residents could throw garbage onto each other’s balconies.
Business in the spy store (Kilburn Lane) would boom.
And maybe Spiderman would come and hang around for an afternoon.
My property value would increase because there would be a lot more f….ing yuppies living in the neighborhood.
The poor folk in South Kilburn would could get jobs as cleaners and janitors in the new buildings!!!! :-O
And the best point is that there would undoubtedly be a pool party to crash”.

Feel free to add your comments by clicking the button below—and don’t forget to write in to Brent (use the link on this page) to make your position known. For all our sakes!

Here is another selection of photos of tall towers in the area, yet all of which are much shorter than the skyscraper the developers are hoping to foist on us here in the Queen’s Park area.

The above tower is on Westminster’s Paddington Green estate, and is some 21 storeys tall.

The above tower is the failing Taplow House on the Chalcots estate on Adelaide Road by Swiss Cottage. It’s a full 23 storeys high and immensely tall—yet it’s still much shorter than the feared Queen’s Park skyscraper.

By way of contrast, here’s the so-called Visage building going up in Swiss Cottage—just 16 storeys, but still plenty tall enough. The point is that distant views for a very few high-rise residents are probably quite attractive, but that attraction is far, far outweighed by the thousands and thousands of people who are positively disadvantaged by having tall buildings on their doorsteps. Imagine motorways being reserved for 1% of traffic, with the remaining 99% having to take the side roads: tall buildings are highly divisive and undemocratic.