stop the tower!

You might be interested to know why South Kilburn New Deal For Communities (SKNDC) are so keen on the tower block - it’s because no one wants to live in them.

Sounds weird? Well, the SKNDC council tenants were balloted on what they wanted to live in, and they said 6 storeys or less.  As a result most of the new buildings in South Kilburn will be low-rise.  This means that to hit density targets in South Kilburn as a whole, Brent has to build tower blocks near the station to compensate for the lowering of the existing estate. If you think this sounds like simply shifting the problems of tower blocks north and westwards, we’d agree with you.  And if you think raising the other buildings from six storeys to seven would be better than building a tower block, we’d also agree with you.

We got this information from Peter Jones at the Stakeholder Forum. You may be interested to know that the head of the pro-tower SKNDC, Jack Davies, and his deputy have just been suspended from their £100k/year and £80k/year jobs for using a flat provided for NDC office-use as a London pied-a-terre.

Here are some artists impressions that show how the tower will dominate the landscape, towering on the horizon over Queen’s Park.  These are Brent and Genesis (the developer)’s own pictures.

Brent risk losing council majority over decision to railroad through Towerblock in Queen’s Park.

Brent Council is determined to push through plans to build a massive tower block next to Queen’s Park Station, despite enormous opposition from the local community.

(more…)

BRENT PLANNERS IGNORE WISHES OF STAKEHOLDER GROUP

Brent planner Dave Carroll announced today that Brent will ignore the views of an overwhelming majority of the Stakeholder Forum it set up to consider plans for a towerblock in Queen’s Park.

(more…)