Redeveloping South Kilburn

On Thursday 30th September, the FoL site visits programme went to South Kilburn. The site visit group met at the offices of the South Kilburn Partnership (SKP) where we given a short presentation by Mike Wilson, Chief Executive of SKP and Andy Rowland from London & Quadrant, one of the leading development partners on the regeneration project. The South Kilburn Partnership programme was born out of the South Kilburn New Deal for Communities. In 2000 £56 million came to South Kilburn for socio-economic regeneration. £20 million of this funding pot was set aside for housing. This is the NDC’s final year and the South Kilburn Neighbourhood Trust will lead the succession strategy and continue to carry the masterplan forward.

After a lively discussion amongst the group, we toured the area. Construction of the first phase of the masterplan is well underway. Continual community engagement has produced a close bond between the contractors and the local residents and the disruption to the residents is aimed to be kept to a minimum during development.

The existing over engineered Carlton Vale roundabout on the boundary of the masterplan area, bordering Brent and Westminster will be innovatively redeveloped for housing by London & Quadrant as an ‘early win’. The proposal will realise the high land value of one of the sites within the NDC area. Underground combined heat and power located beneath a local pocket park is proposed on the site of an existing housing block. We learnt that Alison Brooks Architects have been secured to design 45 mixed tenure flats on the site of the existing Ely Court. Alison Brooks won the Stirling Prize in 2008 for the Accordia development in Cambridge.

The Partnership has also learnt from their mistakes. A relocation of a new pocket park currently located behind the award winning Granville homes by Levitt Bernstein is proposed because attracts anti social behaviour due not being overlooked by the new homes. More community infrastructure is proposed in the later phases of the project to transform the regeneration area into a vibrant community and to ‘put the heart’ back into the area.

Shelley Browne
LB Waltham Forest