Willesden Junction Station Public Realm – public consultation drop-in

We've received the following message after protesting about the lack of consultation and the shocking waste of money being proposed.

OPDC is preparing to deliver public realm improvement around Willesden Junction Station. We would like to invite you to a public consultation event to find out more about our proposals, share your views and give us your feedback to influence our plans. 
Date: Friday 29th November
Time: 15:30 – 19:00 (drop-in anytime), or join our organised site walks setting off at 16:00 and 18:00
Location: All Souls Church, Station Road, Harlesden, NW10 4UJ
 
The link to book your space at this event can be found here. Please do share – we also welcome walk-ins, so if you don’t get the chance to sign-up, don’t feel that you can’t drop by.
 
Project background
OPDC has secured roughly £500,000 from the Mayor of London’s Good Growth Fund to deliver public realm improvements at and around Willesden Junction Station. We have commissioned 5th Studio, architecture and urban design consultants, to design improvements to deliver immediate, tangible benefits for the community. OPDC is working in partnership with London Borough of Brent, station operators, Arriva and the station freeholder, Network Rail to deliver this project.
 
The proposed improvements aim to:

• Make the spaces around Willesden Junction station more welcoming, safe and accessible
• Enhance the station’s position as a gateway to both Old Oak and Harlesden town centre
• Reveal and celebrate local heritage to enhance local pride and identity

What to expect at the consultation
Earlier this year, to capture the views of station users, we carried out surveys at Willesden Junction station. Building on the findings, this event is an opportunity to meet with OPDC and project team representatives to understand how the project has progressed and give your feedback on the plans, ahead of the next stage of design. To bring the project to life, we’ll also be holding walking tours of Willesden Junction station and the key public realm areas that could benefit. The walks will be setting off at 16:00 and 18:00 from All Souls Church. If you would like to join these walks, please arrive at least ten minutes early to ensure the walks can leave on time. As part of the consultation, we will also be making our proposals available online to review and feed in to the plans if you can’t make it on the day and we will be accepting feedback for a further two weeks after the event. 
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Promoting the events
We will be sending out a newsletter tomorrow (Friday 15th November) to our wider community network, and the Engagement team will also be out and about in the local community delivering flyers and putting up posters, as well as publicising on social media. As a community representative please feel free to share the details of this event widely – everyone is welcome. If you would like some flyers or posters, please let us know and we can either send you online or hard copies.
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Despite having recently declared a Climate Emergency, Brent Council will this week remove eight mature trees from Furness Road in Brent as part of a pavement renewal project. Five of the trees are outside Furness Road Primary School. The trees are all healthy and the pavement is undamaged. This is the response one resident got from Brent Councillor for the Environment Krupa Sheth:

I nor the council want to remove trees unless they absolutely need to be removed. Yes if there are issues where we would be liable for insurance claims then we do have to remove the trees as the insurance pay outs worth thousand of pounds from the council’s already diminishing budget would not be the wisest choice for the residents nor the council. We do our best to look after and preserve our trees and are constantly looking for funding including Brent’s CIL funding to plant more trees as well ... we will look into this and get back to you.
There has been no further comment and signs have gone up on trees for removal tomorrow. This is a truly reckless and shocking programme of tree removal being undertaken by to council to cut costs.

Clean Air Brent - Tuesday 12 November  7.30 - 9.30 at Queens Park Community School
Speakers are: Dr Ian Mudway of King’s College, London, a leading expert on air pollution and its impact on health,  Rosamund Kissi-Debrah, the mother of Ella Roberta, who died aged 9 in 2013 after a severe asthma attack, Cllr Thomas Stephens who chairs Brent Council's Air Quality Scrutiny Task Group and Humphrey Milles, a local resident who has been driving a national ad campaign on awareness of pollution issues.

Harlesden Area Action- Saturday 16 November 10.30 am at the Royal Oak Pub. 
Guest Speaker is Grace Nelson, Harlesden Town Centre manager

SNT ward panel meeting - December  Newman College.

Consultation on Brent Local Plan - 
Deadline Thursday 5 December 17.00. Brent has published the Local Plan. This plan sets out the policies to guide decisions on developments for the next 20 years, including on affordable housing, employment and town centres, open space, community facilities, transport, sports and leisure facilities. You can respond to the consultation on line on Brent website.

Neighbours Day feedback:
I know it is a long time since we had our Neighbours Day in Furness Pocket Park. Definitely a long time since the Summer In spite of the rain for part of the day - we had a lovely time.  Music, food, freshly pressed apple juice, face painting, bouncy castle, coconut stall, etc. We particularly appreciated being able to close the road. Children drawing on the freshly built Furness Road Junction was a pleasure to see. to edit.