Ballymore's "Anytown" Design for Brentford Waved Through by LBH's Planning Committee

Despite the meeting having inexplicably drifted on for several hours when Ballymore's bland design for Brentford High Street was discussed, the application was waved through as expected by majority party councillors on the London Borough of Hounslow's Planning Committee acting dutifully upon officers' recommendations. Few if any meaningful concessions were made to the Community Vision which had been painstakingly drawn up by residents and councillors. Typically the assumption was that the officers and planners understood the complexities of the planning process, whilst members of the Brentford community didn't.

Of them, only Councillor Mel Collins (Brentford) had the courage to break ranks, expressing the view that more could be done towards making the application acceptable to local people and proposing deferral pending more work on the design. Sadly he received no backers and was destined to remain the lone abstention amongst the majority party (Labour) councillors.

DISAPPOINTMENT

Some 200 local people in the public gallery made their disappointment known, with comments such as "Shame on you!" being directed at the unrepentant Committee members.

Although this outcome is a setback for the people of Brentford, there is still much to play for. Only approximately 40% of the design was approved outright with the remainder being outline approval, with full approval still to be given. With a concerted effort residents and traders still have a chance to limit the damage.

It is worth noting that very recently a former Hounslow Conservative councillor who had been a party to approving the infamous 2009 Mogden planning application by Thames Water, which resulted in a predictable (to us) increase in odour rather than the claimed reduction, made an unsolicited intervention on a local community Internet forum to scoff about the fact that he and his family had now moved away from the area and therefore no longer had to live with the consequences of his decision. One wonders whether the Labour councillors who so nonchalantly imposed this appalling eyesore on the people of Brentford will in a few years be similarly in a position to taunt their victims from a faraway country retreat.

Ballymore's Bland Proposal: a Letter from Andrew Dakers - Chair, Brentford High Street Steering Group

Dear friend,

As you will know, since 2006 I have chaired Brentford High Street Steering Group, the town centre regeneration charity.

Tomorrow night is without a doubt a milestone in our town's history. Fifteen years after the last plans were presented, Ballymore's proposals go to planning committee (7.30, Civic Centre, Hounslow). On one level I am glad to see a scheme with many of the elements needed to move forward. However, I am bitterly disappointed that so many of the ideas put forward by the community for less density and more beautiful buildings (respectful of the town's historic waterside location) have been ignored.

Brentford is a suburban market town, not Oxford Street!

You can watch a video produced by Cat Berry and Tom Keane here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpRVquj12Ww (It's had over 1000 views in just 5 days!)

My personal view, and the steering group's, is that more work should be done on:

* the 'Design Code' and the aesthetics of the detailed scheme over the next six months;

* clear plans should be set out for how and when Watermans will move into the town centre; and

* independent traders should be supported through the transition.

Ballymore and the Council have time that can be used constructively to make these improvements: it will take at least a year to complete Compulsory Purchase Orders on some parts of the site, and raise the funds to move the scheme forward.

Local residents' concerns are well expressed on: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Brentford-High-Street/153798158085687 Twitter: https://twitter.com/brentfordhighst

Whether or not you can make the meeting please email the members of Planning Committee in the last few hours to remind them of the importance of getting these details right. You can get their fifteen (!) email addresses from http://tinyurl.com/lbhplanning

If you can make it tomorrow night - we need all the support possible to make sure that the regeneration keeps moving forward, but with the attention to detail that our wonderful town deserves.

With best wishes,

Andrew

Brentford High Street Steering Group Raises Awareness for Meeting

The community-led Brentford High Street Steering Group has produced a leaflet reminding locals that the big meeting of the Planning Committee to decide the fate of the disappointing Ballymore application will take place at Hounslow Civic Centre this Thursday.

After years of discussion and input from the community it would appear the developer has determined to press ahead with an application which has been described by locals as "too high, too dense and too ugly". The plans include eighteen bland 6-11 storey blocks and 929 residential units crammed onto the land south of the Brentford High Street. The proposed development is clearly out of sync with the existing character of the local area and contains no clear plan for community facilities or small businesses.

Unfortunately there is a widespread belief amongst the community that Hounslow Council is determined to rush this through without the requirement for any meaningful concessions to local people.

BHSSG Chair Andrew Dakers commented: "For, against or wanting modifications to Ballymore's proposals for Brentford town centre, this is a community that cares. But does everyone know that the critical decision is about to be made?"

"If you want to help make sure that local residents - your neighbours - know that the key planning decision will be made next Thursday 27 November, 7.30pm at Hounslow Civic Centre".

The leaflet can be downloaded in PDF format by clicking this link. The meeting takes place this Thursday, 27th November 2014 at Hounslow Civic Centre from 7.30 pm.

Brentford Town Centre - Calling for a Human Scale and Beautiful Regeneration

Petition Background (Preamble):

Five years ago the Brentford community came together with our award-winning vision for the future of our town centre. In 2010 Brentford High Street Steering Group co-commissioned with Ballymore developers a study by The Prince’s Foundation, to ensure a design brief of which future generations would be proud.

The town centre planning application submitted by Ballymore Properties in September 2012 does not deliver the world-class scheme Brentford’s historic town centre should be. Ballymore has submitted a plan for eighteen 6-11 storey high blocks with 929 flats on the south side of Brentford High Street.

Local residents have described the plan as: “aggressive, overbearing and underwhelming.” The high rise, bland buildings are totally inappropriate in Brentford – a town centre with Roman, Saxon and medieval archaeology and once home to Pocahontas.

In 2000 English Heritage recommended the site should be designated a Conservation Area.

As home today to respected innovative global companies GlaxoSmithKline and Brompton bicycles, employing hundreds of local people, Brentford High Street deserves an outstanding regeneration scheme.

THE PETITION:

We, the undersigned, call on Ballymore to work further with the local community to:

1) Reduce the massing (929 flats) and height (up to 11 storeys) of the development; and

2) Develop the architectural aesthetic to include traditional styles, as well as the restoration of old buildings and modernism currently included in the development.

The scheme must be in line with the Brentford Area Action Plan (local planning policy) agreed in 2009.

Please click here to sign the petition.

Reproduced with acknowledgements to the Brentford High Street Steering Group.

Brentford is a "home town" according to new survey

Reproduced with acknowledgements to BrentfordTW8.com


Brentford is a 'Home Town' according to the widest ever Clone Town survey results released this week by leading independent think-tank NEF (new economics foundation).

The Clone Town Britain Index measures both the identity and diversity of outlets on the core of the high street. It weights more for identity because ownership is critical to the health of the local economy and community. But diversity is important, and so is also included.

Towns scoring below 50 on the scale – like neighbouring Chiswick - are classified as Clone Towns. Over half of the stores counted are chains, and there is little diversity. Towns scoring over 65 – like Brentford - are classified as Home Towns, where almost two thirds or more of the stores are independent, and there is a wide range of outlets. In between are ‘Border Towns,’ which are neither highly homogenised, nor strongly independent and diverse.

The key to success, according to Andrew Dakers, ward councillor (2006-10) and a guiding light behind the group, is the community identifying a vision of a future that it wants for itself. Constantly in sight is “world-class sustainable development that is also financially deliverable”. The group is supported on a cross-party basis.

Chief among issues addressed by Brentford’s community problem-solving has been restoring economic viability, especially in retail. Late in 2005 Jersey-based company Geronimo Ltd purchased freeholds along one side of the high street, later completing more acquisitions to emerge as the centre’s major landowner. Soon afterwards developer Ballymore Ltd’s option to buy the site was revealed, once Geronimo had obtained planning permission for a major mixed use housing and retail development.

Other community groups may have chosen to confront the developers. Brentford’s Steering Group sought dialogue instead. Representatives of Ballymore and Geronimo responded to invitations to attend all the workshops in 2007. In consequence the landowners reviewed the group’s recommendations and provided written feedback on aspects of the proposed urban design approach. In a further effort to support the community, the landowners removed boards on some empty high street shops. With the economic downturn delaying redevelopment in 2009 they started making the units available again on short leases to help bring additional vitality back to the town centre, and by May 2010 they were nearly all reoccupied.

Three years on and the Steering Group has made a number of key interventions: introducing Christmas lights to the town centre, securing funding for a small car park to capture more passing trade, launching the Wedge Card loyalty card scheme, a town centre website and the town’s first ever public event – a celebration of St George’s Day – in the historic Market Place.

Unfortunately, due to a combination of the economic downturn and the developers standing down their development team, dialogue largely stalled, giving campaigners their one serious setback. In autumn 2009 however, a new collaborative approach emerged. With funding secured from Ballymore and the local area committee S106 fund, Ballymore and the High Street Steering Group commissioned a joint workshop and report from The Prince’s Foundation for the Built Environment. The process worked through the complex urban design required for the site and provides the basis of a brief for the urban planner that will be hired to work up a planning application for the site.

In the current economic downturn, upwards-only rent reviews are a major concern for the 50 or so independent high street traders who remain tenants of Hounslow borough. Responding to the local councillors approaches, borough officers are seeking flexible solutions and discussions are now progressing on redefining the rent frameworks. This would substitute lower turnover of tenants and reduced volatility of income in the medium-long term as a goal in place of maximising short term revenue. The proposed framework would consider the type of businesses that are missing from the retail mix when evaluating rental income potential and the marketing of vacant retail units.

Nine of the 13 West London villages were registered as clone towns. Richmond tops the table with just five independents counted on its high street, suggesting Conservative MP Zac Goldsmith will have his work cut out in his campaign to create a retail association to save local independents.

At the other end of the scale only Shepherd’s Bush in addition to Brentford registered as a home town from West London. How long Shepherd’s Bush’s ethnically diverse Goldhawk Road, with 48 out of 52 shops classified as independent by our survey, can survive remains to be seen. The recession has neatly coincided with the opening of the largest urban area indoor shopping centre in Europe – ‘Westfield London’ – right next door, complete with over 250 chains stores.

Of the 18 London villages that were resurveyed from 2005, three worsened. Hampstead, Camden and Brixton all moved from border to clone status. There was better news on nearby ‘hills’, with Streatham Hill improving from a border to a home town and Muswell Hill from a clone to a border town.

It's a fair cop guv!

I've got the hump with my Community Group colleague Councillor Paul Fisher at the moment.

It was Paul who, acting in his capacity as Lead Member for Parking at the London Borough of Hounslow, introduced free parking for the first hour to the new car park in Brentford High Street. In doing so he made struggling businesses along the High Street more attractive to passing trade, a particularly needed boost during a time of economic hardship. Now drivers can stop to buy a newspaper, eat at a café, or even get their hair cut or do a bit of shopping without having to factor in the additional cost of parking their car in order to do so.

The problem for me yesterday morning was that, in a senior moment amid my eagerness to cross the road and distribute some leaflets to residents at Brentford Lock, I forgot to get a ticket from the machine which would have told the attendant at what time my free hour had commenced. As a consequence I returned to a Penalty Charge Notice (PCN), leaving me a cool thirty quid lighter for my empty-headedness.

Yesterday was only the third time that I'd ever received one of these damned violation things. On the first occasion an over-eager attendant ticketed me in a council car park which I was entitled to be in. On the second (in neighbouring Richmond) I entered a bus lane ever so slightly sooner than I ought to have done in order to effect a left turn. Both times I appealed to the Parking & Traffic Appeals Service (PTAS) and won my case. This time though it is different. It's a fair cop guv.

Under recent government legislation we as councillors are not permitted to interfere in the issuing and progress of PCNs to our constituents, much to the chagrin of many of them. Most weeks we are contacted by somebody or other who wasn't aware of the regulations, their ticket fell off the windscreen or whatever. Sometimes their challenges are clearly frivolous, at other times they appear on the surface to have some kind of case. All we are able to do is explain the appeals process to them.

I shouldn't be ungenerous. In Paul's hands the parking regime has become much more customer-focussed, more flexible and responsive to particular local needs, and less profit-driven. This is how it should be.

I hope the residents of Brentford Lock enjoyed our latest leaflet and, if any of them are reading this, please be impressed by the sacrifices we make to get news and information to your letterbox.

Brentford Rededication Parade, Saturday 19th September

On Saturday morning I attended the parade along Brentford High Street to mark the Rededication of the Brentford First World War Memorial, which has been transferred from the churchyard of St. Lawrence Church to Brentford Library.

The project was made possible through the hard work and dedication of residents and traders led by local estate agent Julia Quillam, the Brentford High Street Steering Group, and the Isleworth & Brentford Area Committee (IBAC) which gave a capital grant of £25,432 to enable the relocation and restoration work to take place.

At the library the Mayor led a moving service which was well attended by local people, and by ward councillors from the two wards, Brentford and Syon, which the project involved.