Kilburn is full of great people, businesses and organisations. We cannot let a minority destroy our neighbourhood
What a week for Kilburn!
Sadly our great neighbourhood is degrading rapidly and nobody seems to care!
We will look first at what authorities have a responsibilty for Kilburn and what will change with the new parliamentry consituencies, then look at crime and general disrepair, and finally give some pointers as to what we can all do to make our neighbourhod better. So please read to the end and tke some of the actions suggested.
So let’s look at who is responsible for Kilburn and its residents and businesses.
We have 3 Councils covering Kilburn High Road:
- Camden- the whole length of the East side of Kilburn High Road
- Brent- from Oxford Road up to Cricklewood on the west side of Kilburn High Road
- Westminster- South of Of Oxford Road, West side of Kilburn High Road.
Images below taken from the ordnance survey Election maps.
We have 3 Police BCU’s covering Kilburn High Road
- Central North BCU on the East side
- North West BCU on the west side down to Oxford Road
- Central West BCU on the West side from Oxford.
We have countless Borough Wards.
- Kilburn (Camden)
- West Hamsptead (Camden)
- Forune Green (Camden)
- Cricklewood and Mapesbury (Brent)
- Brondesbury Park (Brent)
- Kilburn (Brent)
- Maida Vale (Westminster)
One (almost) Parliamentary Constituency
The only unifying representation is currently the parliamentary constituency apart from the very South of Kilburn or the very North West of Kilburn, “Hampstead and Kilburn”
What is striking is that the reponsibility for a major Town centre, Kilburn, is highly fragmented and more importantly that Kilburn sits at the very edge of large areas, be it for the police or the local authorities. No wonder Kilburn has been neglected, as we are not in the centre of gravity of these institutions. Furthermore, there seems to be some signs of political complacency, as we all know that a Labour vote is almost guaranteed in Kilburn thus our politcal representatives do not need to work hard to get re-elected. Our political representatives mostly don’t live in Kilburn. Out of the many Councillors “representing” Kilburn only 2 live in Kilburn.
The fragmentation of Kilburn is about to get even worse…
Today The Boundary Commision for England published their final proposals for parliamentary consitituencies boundary changes.
This is not good news for Kilburn!
The word “Kilburn” has totally disappeared and the representation in Parliament for Kilburn will be split across 3 Members of Parliament at the next General Election.
Kilburn has been diced up again.
See below the list of wards for each of the new Parliamentary seats.
Hampstead and Highgate
The East of Kilburn will be part of a constituency going far North East, to Highgate in Haringey.
Queen’s Park and Maida Vale
The West of Kilburn up to Brondesbury Station will in the same constituency as Little Venice to the South!
Brent East
Anywhere to the west of Kilburn High Road, from Brondesbury Station will be in the same constituency as the Welsh Harp!
If you stand outside Brondesbury Station you will be at the border of 3 parliamentary constituencies.
Impact on our neighbourhood of this lack of attention form authorities. “Broken Window”
The last 7 days saw a disturbing level of violence. We had 3 violent assaults with the use of knives since Monday 19th June. Not one single person of authority comdemned the violence. No additional Police presence has been spotted.
Incident in Palmerston Road on 19th June. Please contact the Police using CAD number CAD5539/19th June, if you have any information.
Incident by Brondesbury Station on 25th June. Please contact the Police using CAD995/25JUN, if you have any information. It took the authorities more than 24 hours, and several reports for the extensive blood stains to be cleaned.
Incident on Kilburn Bridge on 28th June. Please contact the Police using CAD1376/28JUN if you have any information.
Additionally a woman was assaulted on the Kilburn Station platforms on 23rd June
We have received numerous Direct Messages from people fearing for their safety on Kilburn High Road! It doesn’t have be like this.
We all know the organised shop lifters and drug dealers in the area. Yet the Police do not seem to know them. Whenever a crime happens, people don’t ever bother reporting as it has become the norm and they just walk pass carrying on with their business. People are inconvenienced by crime because the High Road is closed temporarily. I couldn’t believe what abuse the Policemen guarding the crime scene on Sunday 25th June had to go through. “I don’t care if there is crime scene, I have to go to Church”, “I need to go through to shop at Hilal as I have run out of lemons” etc…
Our local Councils mostly do not perform their statutory duties to keep the Highway (that includes pavements) free of obstructions. The pavements on Kilburn High Road have become a stained obstacle course, dodging bins, goods from shops that are spilling onto the pavements, illegally parked vehicles. Vehicles parked in bus lanes and on double yellow lines at all times with no repercussion and the “no loading” signs are mostly ignored.
Our councils do not repair dangerous paving slabs, broken street furniture, or street drainage. Who hasn’t been splashed by passing vehicles by Bus Stop P in front of Kilburn Square? Who has had to jump “lakes” of water when trying to cross the road at designated pedestrians crossing points when it is raining? It took Brent Council 4 months and mulitple reports to fix these island signs for example. There are at least still 3 Island signs that remain broken.
The councils do not proactively remove fly posting nor graffiti, making the area look even more unkept. If reports are made they are rarely actioned, so people stop reporting…
We have been promised repetitively improvements to the Kilburn High Road, in fact since at least 2012. A succession of failed, poorly written, bids to TFL and the Levelling Up fund. Promises never delivered and yet Kilburn High Road is an accident hotspot and one of the most polluted roads in London. This is what was presented in July 2019, almost 4 years ago. More recently Danny Beales announced £155000 to “create and deliver improvements for Kilburn High Road”. We have not seen any improvement in Kilburn High Road although the money from the GLA had to be spent by March 2023, have you?
Kilburn is suffering from the “Broken Window” syndrome and nobody seems to be interested in sorting out the basics. See the image below as a quick summary of the “broken window” theory.
So what can we all do about it?
We have to ask better from the authorities and ensure that the Community takes back control to break this “Broken Window”‘s downwards spiral.
Please report any crime you see. The quickest way is by sending a DM on Twitter to @metCC. You can also contact 101, if it is not an emergency or 999 if there is an immediate danger to life or property. Always request a crime number, to ensure your report has been logged. Here is a definition of what a crime is, if you are unsure. ALL crimes should be reported even if the Police don’t show up. If there are no reports, there is no crime and the police scarce resources won’t be deployed to our area.
Enquire about joining your local Safer Neighbourhood meetings/panel. If you are unsure who they are, please see here, you just need to enter your postcode.
Report street issues , graffitti, fly-posting, fly tipping, broken street lights, blocked drains,broken street furniture, litter etc…
Most issues on both sides of Kilburn can be reported via FixMyStreet. If your reports are not actioned please continue reporting. That’s what our Local Authorities have been doing: not acting on reported issues so that people stop reporting. Statistics from these reports are used within the Council, so “no report, no issue”. On the Camden side cleansing issues and bin issues need to be reported via LoveCleanStreet. If you want to make anonimous reports, create a new email address just for this purpose like “Enoughisenough@gmail.com”
Write to your Councillors and your MP
If you don’t know who they are, here are a some links:
Councillors if you live in Brent. Just enter your postcode, click on the images for contact details.
Councillors if you live in Camden. You need to know your election ward. Click on the picture to get contact details.
Your MP is likely to be Tulip Siddiq. Her email address is Tulip@tulipsiddiq.com. You will need to add your name and address details for your message to be considered.
Follow us on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook and react to our posts to show that you care, agree/disagree. Loads of important people follow us and Social Media is a great way of bringing in change.
Join us by sending us a message or let us know about an issue that you would like addressed. We also welcome any positive news about what good things are happening in Kilburn.
Volunteer locally. Please contact us if you would like pointers as to where you can volunteer. Volunteering locally is a great way of creating connections.
Share the tips above with your neighbours. Spread the word.
Please continue using the High Road. It can be tempting to avoid kilburn High Road. The High Road will only thrive with your custom and we have some amazing businesses!
We can all do our bit to break the downwards “Broken Window” trend, so please do.
Kilburn is full of great people, businesses and organisations. We cannot let a minority destroy our neighbourhood.
Thank you fro reading till the end.