Forum Topic

Carville Hall Park North redevelopment?

See Fifteen Years of Building Flats. http://www.brentfordtw8.com/default.asp?section=info&page=localplan001.htmAs a member of Spartans Youth FC committee I am horrified to see that there are proposals to include Carville Hall Park North in the proposals for redeveloping Brentford. Spartans is a charity providing positive and meaningful activity to (mostly) boys from the local area (Carville/Clayponds/Green Dragon Estates). We have bust a gut to get the pavilion on Carville Hall Park North back into use, spending over £25,000 so far and a further £40,000 in the pipeline. We have JUST been granted a ten year licence, without which we would not have been able to secure grant funding. We are planning new teams (as there is no more space in Boston Manor Park) and an event in the park to celebrate the club rooms reopening.How can Hounslow Council do this to us?

Karen Adams ● 4133d13 Comments

Yes Jim, but that image isn't from the local plan document, or fromanything else that's currently the subject of any public consultation exercise.

Adam Beamish ● 4127d

Maybe a few more pertinent questions should be asked of what Hounslow representatives offered developers at Cannes this year.From someone who was there, I've heard that Brentford was sold as a district prime for developers with a 'can do' authority.However even the GLA and surprisingly, the Mayor were rather critical of the ethics and intentions of the developers and investors present.

Anthony Waller ● 4127d

I see nothing wrong in residents and others with an interest making clear their opposition to any potential development on a site at the earliest opportunity, rather than waiting for firm proposals to emerge.That way the powers that be will be aware of any local opposition from the start and may factor this into their considerations when moving towards any next step.  No harm is done, and the local community is placed on alert.  Well done to WRAG I say - why is everybody who casts a critical eye on anything this local authority does being accused of "scaremongering" all of a sudden?

Phil Andrews ● 4127d

It's impossible to tell, Jim. On some of the consultation documents it's marked as an open space (and thus to be preserved) and on others it's not identified. I am contacting Sport England anyway to let them know our plans for re-opening. They are a statutory body for consultation on planning. I will get some advice from them and hopefully get the park protected.

Karen Adams ● 4128d

Hang on Adam... the orange blobs clearly show that Carville Hall Park North is being earmarked for possible redevelopment... is it not?

Jim Lawes ● 4128d

Good news, Jim, we just got the grant that will finally allow us to reopen it! Not from Hounslow Council, Sport England, the FA, Football Foundation or any other body whose outcomes we are helping to deliver. Now need our friends at Carillion to approve our application for a football fun day before we can publish the date.Credit due to the WRAG for trawling through the reams of deadly paperwork to highlight the risk.Will save the rant for how grass roots football is being starved of investment for another day. The FA wanted us to have a minimum of 25 years on a lease. Took us four years + to get 10 years.

Karen Adams ● 4130d

Bravo to you Karen for reporting on this possibility. Your words were not a waste of time in my view... or whatever Adam said.The current tsunami of development in TW8 is a wakeup call. It's better to be students of foresight... rather than being professors of hindsight. The wave of incomers to our area churning up our historic sites needs to be challenged. Blimey I was playing football on those pitches in the 1940s and 1950s... long before the gloomy M4 infrastructure was built... and the last straw would be to see the hallowed turf built on.Well done to you and best wishes. What worthwhile volunteering.

Jim Lawes ● 4130d

Personally I think that if Brentford town centre is ever going to improve, the only way that will happen is if the M4 corridor secures lots of investment, development and associated infrastructure.  I'm not saying that it will necessarily follow, there's clearly an argument to be made that the M4 corridor is too far away from the town centre to have any meaningful impact, the development of GSK, Sky etc. hasn't brought any significant benefits to Brentford town centre, but if we want to see the town centre improve there has to be some kind of catalyst/wider demand to achieve this.

Adam Beamish ● 4132d

Not a good word to be said last night at the local hustings regarding the local plan !Even the existing local councillors who were on the platform  hoped that it would be revised after the consultation ends this week. (Was that a hint to encourage Brentfordians to respond to it ?)There seemed to be a lot of chat that the previous Brentford Area Plan had had a lot of good community input and work put into it and it was now being scrapped under pressure from Boris for new development targets in his regional London Plan.

Tim Henderson ● 4132d

To be fair, rereading the WRAG posting again the author doesn't try to make any specific point about Carville Hall Park North, the posting contains general comments about the appropriateness of development within the corridor, so my earlier criticism of WRAG is somewhat unfair - although it is 'silly' to try to refer to material that isn't part of any current/ emerging planning policy document as part of a public consultation exercise on that specific document.

Adam Beamish ● 4132d

But your post actually confirms exactly what I said, i.e. that it is "difficult" to tell whether Carville Hall Park North gets included, because the pink blob is nothing more than an generalised indicator of what comprisies the M4 corridor.The devil is in the detail, and that detail will no doubt follow as part of the Golden Mile Masterplan which is yet to be published.But without that detail or accuracy there's nothing to specifically comment on relating to Carville Hall Park North  within this consultation exercise - making general comments about the appropriateness of development within the corridor is fine, but making comments based on supposition/something that isn't specified within the document which the consultation relates to, is an absolute waste of time.

Adam Beamish ● 4132d

Well as far as I am concerned praise is due to WRAG who have trawled through the numerous documents to pick this up!Difficult to tell, even after enlarging the documents, whether Carville Hall Park North gets included in the Green and Blue section. It's definitely a playing field as far as Sport England is concerned. 'Under threat' currently, but hopefully we can change that.As a local resident I have spent many, many, many unpaid hours (along with many others) getting together a business plan to help a grassroots football club survive during a time when the FA is losing funding because of the numbers dropping out of football, at a time when councils everywhere are not able to subsidise playing fields the way they used to. Considering the noises of approval we had from councillors, council officers, the council's agents, the national governing bodies for sport and their intermediaries (because we were very careful to do our homework before committing to taking on the liability), it's a bit of a wet fish around the chops to see this mad proposal, even in MIPIM-type sales puff. Incidentally I worked in commercial property for quite a long while. That makes me fairly certain that the impossible sometimes happens.

Karen Adams ● 4132d

The simple fact is that there's no such proposals on the table at the moment, and the comments of WRAG on the front page are based on nothing more than speculation and scaremongering.The Local Plan (which there is an open invite to anyone to make comments on as part of its public consultation exercise all such plans have to go through) makes no specific reference to any potential development on the site of Carville Hall Park North.  The "pink blob" showing the M4 gateway is not a defined development area, it's an indicative labelling exercise, in the same way the same figure within the plan shows a huge orange blob around the environs of Chiswick roundabout.What the Council might show privately to developers and what actually forms part of the Council's emerging planning policies are currently two completely separate things, and the latter is what carries legal weight, not the former.When the Council publishes its Golden Mile Vision and Concept Masterplan, which again has to go through public consultatation, independent examination etc., then would be the time to kick up a fuss if there's any strategic proposals on the tables as part of that plan to develop this specific site.I'm not saying that I'm for or against the content of the emerging Local Plan or the Council's vision of the Golden Mile, but always grates with me (personally, yes I'm a planning consultant but don't forget I act both for and against developments) when I see residents or residents groups scaremongering.

Adam Beamish ● 4133d