Brent Cross Cricklewood : residents must pack up and move

Published: 10:01 AM December 4, 2009 Updated: 1:27 PM October 14, 2020

LAST week the application for outline planning for the Brent Cross Cricklewood area was approved, in spite of many objections by local people. We are especially concerned about the effects on the people who will have to move out of their homes. There was

LAST week the application for outline planning for the Brent Cross Cricklewood area was approved, in spite of many objections by local people. We are especially concerned about the effects on the people who will have to move out of their homes.

There was a lot said about the waste station and traffic problems, but no one seemed to be interested in the fact that the Whitefield Estate, consisting of shops, flats and the Rosa Freedman Centre, is going to be demolished, leaving the residents and tenants having to pack up and move.

Yes, they will be accommodated in new units and given a certain amount of compensation, but no amount of compensation can recompense you when you have been living in a house or flat for, in some cases, 40 odd years. Some of these people are in their seventies, eighties and nineties.

The offer that has been made to the residents is a certain amount to compensate them for the actual move, and the market price for their property at the time.

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But the property they will be moving into will be more expensive, and not as good as they have now. The council tenants will be offered alternative housing but not necessarily in the area. Everyone will have their lives disrupted.

We know that you cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs, but this disruption is too much. We need regeneration that will be beneficial to all the residents and tenants, not just an exercise in making money and disrupting people's lives.