Brent Cross plan comments are one-sided (From Times Series)

Brent Cross plan comments are one-sided

10:01am Friday 5th March 2010 in

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In response to Mrs J Wicke’s letter about the impact of the Brent Cross Cricklewood regeneration (‘It will bring dust and disruption, Your Views, February 25) I would encourage all readers to visit www.brentcrosscricklewood.com to understand the plans for themselves and read our document setting out what the benefits of the scheme will be for local people.

Mrs Wicke’s comments about Clitterhouse Playing Fields are particularly strange.

I don’t think anyone would agree with her that laying a path through a park is ‘dissecting it’, or that a pavilion and café would ruin views of the sunset — it will provide a place to sit and relax and for people to change and store equipment on what is after all, playing fields. Parks up and down the country have paths and cafés and they are all the more successful for it.

It is also quite right some of the new facilities we will create are shared with the local schools. Our plans will lead to a significant rise in sports participation and that can only be a good thing.

The comments about transport are similarly one-sided. As part of the plans, we are spending hundreds of millions of pounds on improving the roads and transport network in the area.

This includes two new junctions, from the Edgware Road to the west of the area, and from the A41 to the east, so people no longer have to go via Claremont Road or the North Circular to gain access to the area. We are also remodelling the junction with Cricklewood Broadway and Cricklewood Lane to remove the dog-leg and hence allow this junction to function better.

Together with other changes and the new bus and train stations we will deliver, local people will find the situation much improved on what happens now.

Finally Mrs Wicke’s comment about dust and disruption is always made by people against change.

Nothing can ever be built without some disruption, but we will manage this and have strict controls in place upon us as well.

If London is to provide new homes and jobs for its people, improve the road network and public transport and invest in its green spaces, then schemes like Brent Cross Cricklewood are absolutely vital and it will be local people who will feel the benefits of this investment for many years to come.

Jonathan Joseph, Brent Cross Cricklewood Partners