Tag Archives: cricklewood

Crown Pub Reopening

The new owners of the Crown Pub in Cricklewood sent us this information about the reopening last week.

The Crown London Hotel is excited to announce the opening of The Crown Pub & Grill. The iconic and historic Crown Pub was inaugurated by the Honourable Mayor of Barnet, Councillor Alison Moore. The event was attended by over 100 influencers including local MPs, local Councillors, and business leaders.

A terracotta, Grade II listed Victorian structure the Crown Pub was first constructed by the architects Shoebridge & Rising in 1899. The Crown Pub is part of the prestigious London Regional Inventory of Historic Pub interiors. The Crown Pub historically acted as a coaching tavern, lying on a local route that accommodated carriages passing between London, Elstree, Watford, and St Albans. In the 1880s, the London General Omnibus Company selected The Crown Pub as a terminus for their horse-drawn double-deckers operating between Marble Arch and North London.

The Crown Pub adjoins The Crown London Hotel, a unique, modern, and Victorian-style hotel that is an ideal base for touring some of London’s well-known attractions. Part of the exclusive World Hotels Distinctive Club, from Best Western, the hotel features 152 bedrooms and suites, conference rooms, and leisure facilities. It also offers a wealth of dining options in its stylish Grill Restaurant including modern-day British classic dishes with a strong focus on grilled meats and fresh fish options cooked to perfection. The Crown London Hotel and the Crown Pub are part of the fast-growing hospitality company, AG Hotels Group.

Learn more here. Or for more information, please contact Himanil Bose (himanil@aghotels.co.uk)

Concrete Batching in Cricklewood – Please Object

The Railway Terraces Residents’ Association has drawn our attention to a planning application by Capital Concrete for a concrete batching facility next to the railway line in Cricklewood just off the Edgware Road. The consultation period ends on 12 November – so please register your objection as soon as you can.

You can see the application and comment on it by following this link https://publicaccess.barnet.gov.uk/online-applications, entering the reference 20/4817/FUL at the bottom of the page and clicking Search. If you would like to comment privately you can instead email planning.consultation@barnet.gov.uk and the Barnet case officer, Chloe Jenkins, chloe.jenkins@barnet.gov.uk, quoting the application reference number 20/4817/FUL; if you do email your objection please also copy in your local councillors (full contact details on the Useful Links page).

Residents of the Railway Terraces are very concerned about this proposal. It will site heavy industry in what was supposed to be simply a rail freight transfer terminal. Concrete batching is a dirty polluting industry that has no place very close to a heavily populated area. Similar plants owned by Capital Concrete and others on the Claremont Industrial Estate have, over many years, blighted land around Brent Terrace with dust and noise pollution.

The only hope of preventing the application being approved appears to be massed and concerted action by concerned residents of Barnet and Brent. We hope that you will be willing to join the campaign.

Below is a map of the proposed location. To see it in Google Maps, click this link: https://goo.gl/maps/deUXM6SXFXgJ6cRy7. As you can see, with the prevailing westerly wind this is bound to cause more dust in the Golders Green Estate area.

The main points to note are:

  • The height of the proposed facility is just under 17 meters tall. This will affect fundamentally the nature of the skyline in the surrounding area.
  • The noise generated by the facility will be significant and there has been inadequate mitigation of this in the proposed plans.
  • The facility will mean that hazardous materials are IMPORTED by road onto the site for the first time with the added risks of pollution and contamination (cement is needed to make concrete and is currently not delivered to the site. The building waste that currently is imported by road is non-putrescible non-hazardous waste that is graded off site before being imported).
  • The air pollution modelling has not been based on samples taken at an analogous site but on purely hypothetical models.
  • The use of existing facilities have led to mud and dirt being tracked in/out of the facility. The inability to contain the egress of waste is concerning in the context of concrete/cement being handled on site.
  • The introduction of heavy industry into this part of NW2 is unprecedented. Previously there has been light industry only on this site and manufacturing/retail/ light industry in the surrounding area.
  • The environmental assessment has treated the sensitivity of the site currently occupied by Matalan as retail (and so therefore not a particularly sensitive site). In fact the area is going to be developed as flats (height of development yet to be confirmed) and so the assessment has a gap in it.
  • The consultation process has been patchy and the consultation period too short for a significant development such as this.

Cricklewood Station Mural

Cricklewood Station now has a colourful mural honouring the area’s rich aviation heritage

Alistair Lambert artist with Alan Dowsett, Handley Page apprentice and Handley Page Association editor, at the unveiling.

David Lang, resident, and also a Handley Page apprentice and Handley Page Association member could not attend due to health reasons.  We owe much to him for keeping the aeronautical heritage of Cricklewood alive and we are delighted that this mural makes it evident.

Cricklewood Tower Block?

Our sister organisation, NorthWestTWO, has drawn our attention to a proposal to build a 15-storey tower block in Cricklewood. The deadline for comments is 7 December.

The full details can be found at https://www.northwesttwo.org.uk/1-13/ where you will also find a link to Barnet’s planning site if you would like to comment.

Ben Tansley from NorthWestTWO writes …

The plan is to tear down the rather sad 3-storey block at 1-13 Cricklewood Lane (where the Co-op, Lucky 7 and others are) and the one behind it where the health centre is. They’ll be replaced by two 6-storey blocks and one 15-storey tower block.

Obviously this block would tower over everything around it and be totally out of keeping with the rest of Cricklewood. The developers’ answer is that the B&Q site and a lot more besides will all be redeveloped with about 20 new buildings! All that will hide their tower block and make it look small.

But they don’t own the B&Q site or the rest, nobody’s put in planning applications for it and Barnet council haven’t produced any master-plan for it. This is something the developers have dreamt up to justify their tower block. Of course, if this building’s approved, it will blight the land around it and limit the options for anyone thinking of building on it. Extreme-density, high-rise development will be that much more likely.

There’s a lot more wrong with this application – we haven’t even mentioned the transport issues, the lack of affordable housing, or so much else. You’ll find some of it on our website.

We don’t know yet when the planning committee will meet. They’ll only be able to accept or reject the application; they can’t strike a deal. If they reject it, the developers can appeal and then come back with a better plan. So if you want the Co-op building redeveloped but you don’t want a tower-block, do object to this application.

It’s worth remembering that this isn’t part of Brent Cross Cricklewood. The waste transfer station and the rail freight facility that were approved this year already had outline approval. A lot depended on them. This is different. The committee can reject it without endangering anything else; indeed, it’s the other way round. Local councillors Zinkin and Clarke have sat side-by-side and confirmed it has cross-party opposition. Six local residents associations stand together in opposing it.

To show to the committee how unacceptable this is, more voices are needed.