Cargiant: London Communications Agency finally communicates

To: Grand Union Alliance members, friends and contacts

"Following the presentation of Car Giant and QPR development proposals at a non-public session of the last Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation (OPDC) meeting, Car Giant is organising some public consultations events. These are set out below.

"In addition, regarding the event on Saturday 20th June at the Thames Harriers Clubhouse at the Linford Christie Stadium, the developer and key members of their development team, will provide: a presentation to GUA members, friends and contacts (in a separate room at 11am), a question and answer session and refreshments (as requested at the last GUA meeting).

"Car Giant consultation events:

• Thursday 18 June (3:30-7:30pm): Cumberland House
• Friday 19 June (4-7pm): Cumberland House
• Saturday 20 June (10am-4pm): Thames Harriers Clubhouse, Linford Christie Stadium
• Thursday 25 June (3:30-7:30pm): Harlesden Methodist Church
• Saturday 27 June (10am-4pm): Harlesden Methodist Church
• Thursday 2 July (3:30-7:30pm): Holiday Inn London West
• Saturday 4 July (10am-4pm): Holiday Inn London West

"Eva Psychrani
Project Worker
London Tenants Federation"

Evening Standard: "Boris Johnson backs hub plan to make London the green tech capital of Europe"

Link to web site

"London is set to become Europe's green tech capital under bold proposals being drawn up by environmental chiefs.

"Mayor of London Boris Johnson is backing the plan to create a clean tech hub in west London following the startling success of Tech City in the east.

"An outline plan will be delivered to the London Sustainable Development Commission on how to attract hundreds of start-up and larger eco-firms to Park Royal and the Old Oak Common area as it is redeveloped with the arrival of Crossrail and the HS2 rail line."

Architects' Journal: "Boris accused of leaving London 'mayorless'"

"Mayor of London Boris Johnson has been accused of ‘clearing his desk a year early’ after stepping down as chair on two major regeneration projects in the capital.

"Johnson wrote to the London Assembly in the week of the General Election, informing them that he would be standing down from his positions at the London Legacy Development Corporation and the Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation.

But the move has been slammed by the London Assembly with Labour member Onkar Sahota saying Johnson was 'focusing his energies elsewhere' since becoming an MP and was leaving the capital 'mayorless'. A spokesman for the mayor said Johnson remained 'very much in charge'. 

He said:

"The mayor remains very much in charge and will continue to oversee the delivery of regeneration projects across London, including the work of the London Legacy Development Corporation and the Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation.

"This is about streamlining of portfolios and, with their vast experience, Neale Coleman and Edward Lister are perfectly placed to take on the chairmanship of the two MDCs and deliver the mayor’s vision for these two important areas of the capital."

"But Sahota, the assembly member for Ealing and Hillingdon where the Old Oak Common regeneration project is based, said it was 'the latest chapter of Boris Johnson’s long goodbye from City Hall'.  

He added:

"The mayor seems intent on clearing his desk a year early and focusing his energies elsewhere since his election to parliament, leaving Londoners increasingly mayorless.

"These two regeneration projects are massively important and make many controversial decisions.

"Handing over the reins to civil servants like this will remove an important layer of democratic accountability."

Thurs 21 May: First meeting of OPDC Planning Committee

Link to first planning application

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A40 improvements

"The OPDC Board has established a Planning Committee to ensure that decisions on planning applications are made in an open, transparent and impartial manner. The Planning Committee will either make the decisions on the applications submitted to the OPDC or delegate decisions to Officers of the OPDC’s Planning Team.

"The members of the Planning Committee are:

William McKee (Chair)
Gordon Adams
Cllr Wesley Harcourt (LB Hammersmith & Fulham)
Colin Haylock
Cllr Sarah-Louise Marquis (LB Brent)
Stuart Robinson
Cllr Hitesh Tailor (LB Ealing)

"The first meeting of the OPDC Planning Committee will be held on Thursday 21 May at City Hall, in Committee Room 4&5 at 18:00. More information about the upcoming meeting of the Planning Committee, including the agenda, can be found here.

"Members of the public can attend the public session of Planning Committee meetings and obtain copies of the public papers. Agendas of business that will be discussed at a meeting and the reports on each topic for discussion (except any which contain confidential, personal or financial information) can generally be viewed on the website five days before the meeting. Minutes of the decisions taken at the meeting will also be available on the website once they have been agreed."

Sir Edward Lister: A big cheese, but of a smaller diameter, to replace Boris as chair of the OPDC

AGENDA

Confirmation Hearings Committee

Wednesday 20 May 2015

3.00 pm

Chamber, City Hall, The Queen's Walk, London, SE1 2AA 

Copies of the reports and any attachments may be found at

www.london.gov.uk/mayor-assembly/london-assembly/ConfirmationHearingsCommittee

[which is not linked to correctly.]

Most meetings of the London Assembly and its Committees are webcast live at www.london.gov.uk/mayor-assembly/london-assembly/webcasts where you can also view past meetings.

Members of the Committee

Len Duvall AM

Jenny Jones AM

Caroline Pidgeon MBE AM

Valerie Shawcross CBE AM

Steve O'Connell AM

Joanne McCartney AM

Andrew Boff AM

Richard Tracey AM

Tom Copley AM

A meeting of the Committee has been called by the Chairman of the Committee to deal with the business listed below.

Mark Roberts, Executive Director of Secretariat

Tuesday 12 May 2015

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Link to the details.

Link to 'Air Miles Eddie'.

Geograph: North Pole Depot, Old Oak Common sidings (and there's also [currently] another 43 photos)

Photo: David Hawgood under Creative Commons Licence

North Pole Depot, Old Oak Common sidings:
"View through boundary fence of Old Oak Common. If HS2 and Old Oak City go ahead, these sidings will be replaced by a strip of residential and commercial buildings. The Great Western Main Line is beyond the sidings. The buildings seen beyond are around North Acton tube station."

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Old Oak Common railway depots: 

"Old Oak Common has a large area of railway depots and sidings. The Great Western Railway developed the site from 1906. In 2011 one area is used as a Traction Maintenance Depot by First Great Western and Heathrow Express for rolling stock based in Paddington. Another area recently used by EWS (English Welsh & Scottish) formerly known as Coronation Sidings and The Factory is being developed as a depot for Crossrail. Eurostar trains were maintained here. High Speed Two (HS2) is planned to go though this area, with a major interchange station, and a base for tunnelling into central London."

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Wormwood Scrubs (from nearly the same location as above)
Photo: David Hawgood under Creative Commons Licence

OPDC Board and Committee meetings (and, oh yes, Boris Johnson MP resigns [two days early!] as OPDC Chairman, to spend more time with his constituency)

OPDC Board Meeting 18 May 2015 (Boris is gone under item 5)

OPDC Board and Committee meetings are open to the public except for when confidential, personal or financial information matters are being discussed. [Or the meeting continues anyway. Pip! Pip!]

These items will be marked on the agenda. Members of the public can attend the public session of each Board and Committee meeting and obtain copies of the public papers.

Agendas of business that will be discussed at a meeting and the reports on each topic for discussion (except any which contain confidential, personal or financial information) can generally be viewed on the website five days before the meeting. Minutes of the decisions taken at the meeting will also be available on the website once they have been agreed.

Members of the public can also inspect background papers relating to a report.

Committee Meetings are currently held at City Hall, unless otherwise indicated on the agenda.

There is access for people with disabilities.

Board meetings

Future Board meeting dates for 2015 are as follows and will take place in City Hall:

• Monday 18 May, Committee Room 2, 16:30
• Thursday 25 June, Committee Room 2, 15:00
• Tuesday 28 July, Committee Room 4, 14:00
• Tuesday 15 September, Committee Room 3, 15:00
• Thursday 26 November, Committee Room 3, 15:00
• Monday 25 January, Committee Room 4, 15:00
• Tuesday 8 March, Committee Room 1, 14:00

For more information about the next meeting of the Board and Board papers, please visit here.

Read more about our board.

Planning Committee

The OPDC Board has established a Planning Committee to ensure that decisions on planning applications are made in an open, transparent and impartial manner.

The Planning Committee will either make the decisions on the applications submitted to the OPDC or delegate decisions to Officers of the OPDC’s Planning Team.

The interim Chair of the Planning Committee is William McKee. Members of the Planning Committee are in the process of being appointed and will be announced in advance of the first meeting of the Planning Committee.

Future Planning Committee meeting dates for 2015 are as follows and will take place in City Hall:

• Thursday 21 May, Committee Room 4&5, 18:00 - 21:00
• Wednesday 17 June, Committee Room 5, 18:00 - 21:00
• Wednesday 15 July, Committee Room 4, 18:00 - 21:00
• Wednesday 2 September, Committee Room 4, 18:00 - 21:00
• Thursday 17 September, Committee Room 5, 18:00 - 21:00
• Wednesday 21 October, Committee Room 3, 18:00 - 21:00
• Tuesday 17 November, Committee Room 4, 18:00 - 21:00
• Thursday 17 December, Committee Room 4&5, 18:00 - 21:00

More information about the next meeting of the Planning Committee, including the agenda when it becomes available, can be found here. [If the link existed.]

Transparency

We are committed to being open and transparent about our decision making and the money we spend to meet our objectives and commitments.

On the Transparency page, you will find links to information about our accounts as well as details of senior staff salaries, expenses, gifts and hospitality and our register of interests.
Transparency information will be available in due course.

Harlesden Bypass proposals, and Grand Union Alliance members' various responses to the Opportunity Area Planning Framework

HARLESDEN BYPASS (download the PDF and then flip backwards and forwards)

(Map data is copyright of Geographers' A-Z Map Company Limited)

2015-04 MR+to+Draft+Old+Oak+and+Park+Royal+OAPF

BBC: "Could a UK politician ever vow to bring down house prices?"

Link to web site

"Once, British politicians promised to keep property prices low. Now, homeowners expect the value of their houses to move ever upwards. Are Westminster governments of whichever party now obliged to let house prices always rise?

"In 1966 the Conservative party manifesto made a promise. A Tory government would 'get the houses up, and keep the prices down'.

"... And yet the idea that either a Conservative or Labour government would pledge to hold down prices today would be regarded by virtually everyone as far-fetched."

A40 - Old Oak Common Lane junction, 1930

Er. that's it.

Boris: Now stuck in The Wilderness Years, hoping for The Gathering Storm

Good morning all!

It will not have escaped your notice that there has been a general election and that I am now also a serving MP. I have seen one or two vaguely pessimistic remarks about this from commentators so I wanted to issue some immediate reassurance.

This will in no way diminish my appetite to get things done for London and for Londoners.

I believe the GLA has contributed to some enormous improvements in our city over the last few years – both under Ken and in my time. But the challenges are still huge.

We have a fast growing population, and pressure on all our services – above all housing. We need to get on with delivering the record numbers of affordable homes. We need crime to keep falling. We need to give young people better skills, more apprenticeships, better prospects of employment. We need FAR more companies to be paying the London Living Wage – though I am very pleased, obviously, with what has been done so far.

We must make irreversible all kinds of wonderful projects that are now underway:

• Crossrail 2
• New river crossings (ornamental or not)
• Tube extensions
• Cycle Superhighways
• New road tunnels
• And many, many more.

We should drive on all our programmes for environmental improvement: planting trees, cleaning up the air, leading the UK with our ULEZ. We must continue to support our young people with Team London, the Music Fund, the educational and cultural initiatives and so much more.

I want by next year to have made decisive progress with Olympicopolis, with the Old Oak MDC and all the other opportunity areas. [Doubtlessly, not the corrupt Brent Cross planning consent, though.]

I am immensely proud of everything we have achieved in the last seven years. I am hugely grateful to everyone in City Hall.

But we have a massive amount still to do – and just the right amount of time to do it in. A year is a hell of a long time in politics, folks.

Let's put the pedal to the metal.

See you later on.

Best wishes,

Boris

"Local residents insist Ealing Council keeps skyscrapers OUT of Acton Central, W3"

Link to Friary Park Residents Association

To: Mr Martin Smith,
Chief Executive, Ealing Council:

"The residents of Acton protest at the proposal by Catalyst Housing to build a 20-storey block of flats on Friary Park estate, which lies in the suburban, residential area of Acton Central.

"The proposed high-rise tower is ill-matched and out-of-keeping with Acton's suburban area of semi-detached and Victorian houses.

"We call upon Mr Martin Smith, Chief Executive of Ealing Council to: STOP the proposal for these tower blocks of 20, 14, 10 and 8 storeys.

"... Catalyst tell residents that this ambitious and unpopular regeneration is the only way to finance the refurbishment of the 240 existing homes. This proposed 'urban' regeneration, three times the size of the existing estate, is unwanted, totally unnecessary, completely inappropriate and out of keeping with the suburban residential vicinity. We believe it is motivated by financial gain, due to the estate's proximity to the new Crossrail link, yards away."

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Link to web site

ActonW3:
"Housing association plans to bulldoze and rebuild estate"

"Major plans are underway to completely rebuild the Friary Park estate in Acton with proposals to include a new 'landmark' tower block which could be up to 29 storeys high.

"Catalyst Housing (formerly Ealing Family Housing Association) bought the estate - close to Acton Main Line station - in 1987 and want to demolish the current housing stock and replace with between 500 and 650 new homes.

"...  The top end of this range would make the main tower West London's tallest building if it was completed before the skyscraper planned at the Carphone Warehouse site in Park Royal. The building would loom over much of Acton including some of the area's most expensive streets. Those backing on to Emanuel Avenue will be the lowest, with the tallest next to the railway and station."

"How Amsterdam became the bicycle capital of the world"

"In the 1960s, Dutch cities were increasingly in thrall to motorists, with the car seen as the transport of the future. It took the intolerable toll of child traffic deaths – and fierce activism – to turn Amsterdam into the cycling nirvana of today"

Link to The Guardian

"Anyone who has ever tried to make their way through the centre of Amsterdam in a car knows it: the city is owned by cyclists. They hurry in swarms through the streets, unbothered by traffic rules, taking precedence whenever they want, rendering motorists powerless by their sheer numbers.

"Cyclists rule in Amsterdam and great pains have been taken to accommodate them: the city is equipped with an elaborate network of cycle-paths and lanes, so safe and comfortable that even toddlers and elderly people use bikes as the easiest mode of transport. It’s not only Amsterdam which boasts a network of cycle-paths, of course; you’ll find them in all Dutch cities.

"The Dutch take this for granted; they even tend to believe these cycle-paths have existed since the beginning of time. But that is certainly not the case. There was a time, in the 1950s and 60s, when cyclists were under severe threat of being expelled from Dutch cities by the growing number of cars. Only thanks to fierce activism and a number of decisive events would Amsterdam succeed in becoming what it is, unquestionably, now: the bicycle capital of the world."

Tue 12 May: New London Architecture: "Is West the new East?"

Tuesday 12 May 2015
09:00 – 16:00 (registration from 08:30)
Wood Lane Studios, 80 Wood Lane, Imperial West Campus, White City W12 0BZ

Old Oak Common, the ‘Canary Wharf of the West’, will become one of the best-connected places in the UK when HS2 and Crossrail arrive in 2026, and is set to deliver 24,000 new homes and 55,000 jobs for London.

This NLA full-day On Location event will focus on the development opportunities and investment and planning strategies around Old Oak Common and Park Royal, as well as Earls Court and White City - also major development opportunities in West London - and will mark the launch of the Old Oak Common OAPF and Mayoral Development Corporation. 

A morning conference hosted on the Imperial West campus will hear from key public and private sector stakeholders for these three key areas of West London, and will be followed by a networking lunch and afternoon site visits to these major areas of regeneration.

Timings:

08:30 Arrivals and networking breakfast
09:00 Morning conference
13:00 Networking lunch
13:45 Walking tours depart
16:00 End

Delegates can attend one of the following tours:

Tour A – Old Oak Common (led by Michael Mulhern, Head of Planning, Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation)
Tour B – White City (led by Alexandra Reitman, Principal Strategic Planner, GLA)

Speakers

• William McKee, Planning Committee Chairman, Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation
• Victoria Hills, Interim Chief Executive Officer, Old Oak & Park Royal Development Corporation
• Professor David Gann CBE, Vice-President (Development & Innovation), Imperial College
• Anette Simpson, Director of Planning & Development for Earls Court, Capco
• Alistair Shaw, MD - Television Centre, Stanhope
• Laura Kidd, Head of Architecture, HS2
• Alex Williams, Director of Borough Planning, Transport for London 
• Mike Cummings, Regional Director for Park Royal, SEGRO 
• Simon Earles, Head of Surface Access Strategy, Heathrow
• Paul Monaghan, Director, AHMM 
• Alexandra Reitman,Programme Manager, Old Oak and Park Royal Develompent Corporation
• Peter Murray, Chairman, NLA (Chair)

Ticket Information

Ticket Cost £299 +VAT - click here to book 

NLA members are entitled to discounted rates at NLA On Location conferences.
For all booking enquiries please contact Molly Nicholson or call 020 7636 4044