Draft Local Heritage Listings Consultation

As this was only the second community event I’d been to since I joined OPDC in January 2018, it was great to see that everyone in attendance shared such a keen interest in conserving the assets and buildings that have shaped the history of Old Oak and Park Royal.

To begin with, we learnt about the two types of Local Heritage Listings that would be the focus of the consultation: Locally Listed Assets and Buildings of Local Heritage Interest. It’s worth adding at this point, that similar policies such as Conservation Areas and Local Character Areas are subject to separate consultation processes and National Statutory Listings are designated by Historic England.

We then looked at the draft Local Heritage Listings for the area which include:

• National Statutory List: 1 existing asset, designated by Historic England
• Local List: 3 existing assets and 41 proposed assets, designated by OPDC (the local planning authority)
• Buildings of Local Heritage Interest: no existing assets and 18 proposed assets. Although this category is deemed to be less significant in heritage terms than a Locally Listed Asset, they are still an important part of the Old Oak and Park Royal story, and often hold a lot of sentimental value to residents and businesses

The community was then informed about the role of Locally Listed Assets and Buildings of Local Heritage Interest. Essentially, they act as an encyclopaedia for local heritage. Once listed, they provide information, but not guidance for non-designated heritage assets. The assets that are successfully listed will go on to help inform the character of new future development.

This section of the event was really engaging, as members of the local community spoke passionately about some of the local heritage assets that are most important to them. All stimulated by a map of the area that highlighted the ‘12 Places’ as set out in the draft Local Plan. From this overarching map, we then looked at seven examples of the proposed heritage assets.

The team went on to explain that they had researched and looked across different councils for best practice and came up with a more detailed, transparent and open format that provides solid and open information for each asset.

The fields that are included on the assets list document are:

• the heritage significance of the asset (architectural, historical, townscape, social/cultural)
• its status in being made an asset
• a description of the asset, its location, historical images (where possible) and what the asset looks like today

The seven proposed Local List examples that we looked at were:

1. Former Rolls Royce Factory, in Old Oak North
2. The Torpedo Factory, in Old Park Royal
3. 308-310 Elveden Road, in Park Royal West
4. Willesden Junction electricity sub-station, in Willesden Junction
5. The Castle Public House, in North Acton
6. Railway Cottages with Old Oak Lane Conservation Area, in Old Oak Lane and Old Oak Common Lane
7. Scrubs Lane Overbridge, along the Grand Union Canal

These examples are all available to view in the presentation shown below.