It’s a good question that nicely focusses what is happening here, 'Gentrification' or redevelopment. Gentrification implies returning run down areas to their historical glory, as has happened in many parts of London where Georgian and Victorian houses have been returned from bedsits to single family dwellings. Redevelopment though implies knocking out the old and building new. Unfortunately Brentford has high rise re-development and no gentrification, except I think for one house in the Butts that has recently been returned from council use to a single home. Brentford development is highly skewed to small apartments for professionals and little or no family housing. Overall then my opinion of what’s happening in Brentford is bad, very Bad, leading to a complete change in the demographic of the population and erasing centuries of history, character and context from what used to be the County Market Town.Are the redevelopments (I.e the high street, the waterfront etc) a positive thing for Brentford?Again, in my opinion, No, when they so easily could have been incredibly positive. Every single development is over height, over bulk and solely focussed on fitting in as many small ‘executive’ apartments as possible. We have a free-for-all invitation to property developers that is supported and encouraged by the Local Council. The Council even has a department whose sole purpose is to draw in as many developers as possible and appears to bend the rules to whatever a developer wants to do. I suspect this department is run by the kind of people who want to make a name for themselves and then move on regardless of the effects it has on the area they leave behind. This focus is utterly wrong; there is enough money to be made in Brentford re-development by doing it sympathetically and in context. We are not some run down region of Hartlepool or Middlesborough, we are a desirable location that does not need to prostitute itself to developers. In addition, running so many developments in quick succession overwhelms the public ability to react. No sooner have you finished complaining about one than there’s another, and then anotherOverall then, Brentford is being changed from a town that had the potential to be returned to a lovely market town on the outer fringes of London to something that is a replica of Croydon. And it’s all being done with the encouragement of the Local Council.
Lorne Gifford ● 3468d