stop the tower!

Here are some of the reasons local people gave in the objection letters for opposing the towerblock in Queen’s Park.

• Highrise is a failed form of social housing. Why should this towerblock be different? A successful towerblock including social housing is an architectural holy grail that has evaded leading architects in major cities the world over. Is Brent Council likely to be the one to find it?
• High maintenance costs.
• Residents don’t want it. South Kilburn residents were consulted and said they want to live in low-rise buildings. As a result many of the towerblocks in South Kilburn are being torn down.
• It will dominate a low-rise area. QP is the most successful part of Brent, why blight it?
• It will be out of keeping with the neighbourhood, which is low-rise and a Conservation Area.
• It will destroy QP’s ‘village’ atmosphere. Queen’s Park is not a city-centre location.
• Highrises block light.
• Highrises create shadow – 1.5hr per day on many streets, according to Brent.
• Wind turbulence, specifically in the pedestrian area – a level of wind that makes pedestrian area uncomfortable.
• Towerblocks are associated with increased crime.
• Towerblocks are associated with increased congestion. Once the Congestion Charge is extended to Harrow Rd, this will be even more of an issue for QP.
• QP doesn’t have the transport infrastruc to cope.
• Transport at rush hour already at capacity.
• Privacy of housing nearby will be affected.
• Towerblocks are bad environmts for families, whether rich or poor.
• Genesis (the developer) have no experience of building over 10 storeys.
• Nor does Rob O’Hara (the architect).
• Brent say the towerblock will be a landmark that will bridge the divide between QP and South Kilburn. But there’s no community divide to be ‘bridged’. People on both sides of the railway use amenities on the other (eg park, Jubilee pool).
• If there was a divide, how would a tower block bridge it? Shouldn’t we be bringing the success of Queen’s Park to South Kilburn, not the architectural problems of SK to QP?
• There’s no need for a “landmark” building to help people find the station (this was seriously put forward as a justification for the tower by Brent).
• Parking – displacement of current spaces + impact of people living there.
• Water pressure already low.
• Won’t link rail + bus networks.
• Wesminster council leader opposes.
• Not enough schools and nurseries; doctors and dentists, disabled public t’port access.

And here are some quotations from a report for the GLA on ‘London Skyline, Views and High Builldings‘ (Aug 2002):

“High Buildings can: absorb vitality and activity away from the street below, create adverse climatic effects, dispropportionately absorb infrastructure capacity and decisively change the character of historic areas.”

“For a large section of the community, the image of residential high buildings is tarnished by the failure of highrise social housing developments of the 60s and 70s. The negative associations with highrise are probably strongest among those to whom affordable housing is targeted.”

“There is no need to build high in order to achieve a high degree of intensification. Plot ratios of 2 – 2.5 (well above London and UK practice) can be achieved by development of up to 6-8 storeys”.

Finally, here are some public responses to Brent’s plans, published by Brent in their Summary of Consultation

• “One lesson that has been learned only too well, not least in South Kilburn – is that highrise public housing does not promote healthy communities”.

• “Have we not learned a lesson from the awful highrise council flats in the area?”

• “This will be out of scale with both the existing Victorian landscape on both sides of the railway line, and with the perimeter blocks of the new development, and it will be far more successful than the form of the existing landscape in isolating and alienating communities”.

• “The scale of this element of the proposed development seems to fly in the face of the principles adumbrated with such passion in the document – the requirement to “learn the lessons of the past” and consider the “needs and contribution of existing buildings (particularly buildings within Conservation Areas)’; and the precept that “the opportunity to develop and improve on a building’s role in the development or termination of a view should not be lost”.

•”…anything over 4 storeys in the car park would create an inner city or business highrise feel to the area rather than the understated, quiet and pleasant residential area that the locality has recently assumed. It would be very detrimental to existing residents for the skyline in this area to change much – most of the area is a Conservation Area and development should be sympathetic”.