Brentford High Street Development
Dear Members,
I’m writing regarding the future of Brentford’s business community and development proposals for the South side of Brentford by Ballymore Holdings.
I would like to draw your attention to the forthcoming meeting at St Paul’s Church on the 21st November – from 6pm, which I do hope many of you will be able to attend.
You may have been involved in the workshop process over the past 18 months, fronted by Soundings on behalf of Ballymore, and I would urge you to come along to voice your opinions and to see the updated plans.
As you will have seen in recent Hounslow Chronicle headlines and on BrentfordTW8.com website, The Brentford Chamber of Commerce whilst eager to encourage the redevelopment, feels that the current format and architectural visualisations fall very far short of our vision for the future of Brentford.
For many of us who have given up our free time to help develop the ideas, disappointment only begins to describe our feelings.
But we are equally fighting apathy and require your involvement at this crucial time. We are particularly eager to hear from any business which supports the proposals, so please make these known to us.
We must work together with Ballymore in order to propose radical changes now, in order to salvage some of the original ideas we all put forward and to make the planning application work successfully for all concerned.
At present we believe the plans have no wow factor, or unique selling point, to encourage business to re-locate, or for new start up enterprises. There is also no encouragement for business to let their specific build requirements be known in order to encourage their migration. let alone thought or due process for build specific relocation for existing and profitable businesses.
We consider it vital that the High Street Development provides the right mix of residential, commercial, retail and entertainment so that Brentford has a town centre it deserves and has been asking for decades ago. It will only work with the right mix and the right look. What we do not want is a new development with boarded up shop windows showing its failure.
In order to remain unilateral, we would like to ask for your individual response as a member, so that the Brentford Chamber of Commerce can speak on behalf of all its members at the forum meeting.
We request that you respond by the 19th November, using the questions below or on survey monkey as a means to see your overall views of the impending development and so that we can submit the collated responses at the meeting. If you are intending to come to the meeting please let us know as well.
Yours faithfully
Suzie Betlem
President – The Brentford Chamber of Commerce
Questions
1. Have you seen the plans? Yes/No
2. Do you support these plans? Yes/No
3. Would you consider relocating your business? Yes/No
4. Do you consider these plans to have a sufficient mix of retail and other business space? Yes/No
5. Do you consider these plans will provide a shopping centre that is attractive both to businesses and to customers? Yes/No
6. Have you had any direct communication with Ballymore to discuss your business needs? Yes/No
7. Any other comments