London Borough of Brent

London Borough of Brent
—  London borough  —
Coat of arms Council logo
Motto: Forward Together
Brent shown within Greater London
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Constituent country	England
Region	London
Ceremonial county	Greater London
Status	London borough
Admin HQ	Forty Lane, Wembley
Incorporated	1 April 1965
Government
• Type	London borough council
• Body	Brent London Borough Council
• Leadership	Leader & Cabinet (Labour)
• Mayor	Aslam Choudry
• MPs	Barry Gardiner Glenda Jackson Sarah Teather
• London Assembly	Navin Shah AM for Brent and Harrow
• EU Parliament	London
Area
• Total	16.70 sq mi (43.24 km2)
Area rank	284th (of 326)
Population (2010 est.)
• Total	256,600
• Rank	48th (of 326)
• Density	15,000/sq mi (5,900/km2)
• Ethnicity	30.9% White British 5.7% White Irish 9.4% Other White 1.0% White & Black Caribbean 0.7% White & Black African 1.1% White & Asian 1.1% Other Mixed 18.1% Indian 4.3% Pakistani 0.6% Bangladeshi 4.8% Other Asian 9.4% Black Caribbean 7.7% Black African 1.4% Other Black 1.3% Chinese 2.6% Other
Time zone	GMT (UTC0)
• Summer (DST)	BST (UTC+1)
Postcodes	HA , NW
Area code(s)	020
Police force	Metropolitan Police
Website	www.brent.gov.uk

The London Borough of Brent ( pronunciation ) is a London borough in North-West London, UK and forms part of Outer London. The major area is Wembley.

It borders Harrow to the north-west, Barnet to the north-east, Camden to the east and Ealing, Hammersmith and Fulham, and Kensington and Chelsea to the south, and Westminster to the south-east. Most of the eastern border is formed by the Roman road Watling Street, now the modern A5.

Brent has a mixture of residential, industrial and commercial land. Wembley is the major town of Brent, which is home to Wembley Stadium and Wembley Arena.

Brent is in the HA and NW postcode areas. Brent postcodes include: HA0, HA1, HA3, HA9, NW2, NW6, NW9 and NW10.

The Brent Cross shopping centre is not located in Brent, but in the London Borough of Barnet. It takes its name from the River Brent which runs through the site.

Areas

• Alperton
• Brent Park
• Brondesbury
• Brondesbury Park
• Church End
• Cricklewood (note: part of Cricklewood is in Camden and London Borough of Barnet)
• Dollis Hill
• Harlesden
• Kensal Green
• Kenton (note: part of Kenton is in Harrow)
• Kilburn (note: part of Kilburn is in Camden)
• Kingsbury
• Neasden
• North Wembley
• Park Royal (note: part of Park Royal is in Ealing)
• Preston
• Queen's Park
• Queensbury (also partly in Harrow)
• Stonebridge
• Sudbury (also partly in Harrow)
• Tokyngton
• Wembley
• Wembley Park
• Willesden

History

Brent was formed in 1965 from the area of the former Municipal Borough of Wembley and Municipal Borough of Willesden of Middlesex. Its name derives from the River Brent which runs through the borough.

For more on the history of Brent, visit the Brent Archives website.

Politics and Local Government

Wards

Brent is divided into 21 Electoral Wards. Some wards share a name with the traditional areas above, others include Barnhill, Dudden Hill, Fryent, Mapesbury and Welsh Harp.

The Brent borough includes three parliamentary constituencies: Brent North, Brent Central, and Hampstead and Kilburn, which also includes part of the London Borough of Camden. Before the 2010 United Kingdom general election it was divided into three constituencies contained wholly within the borough - Brent South, Brent East and Brent North.

Political composition

Labour regained control of the borough at the Council elections held on Thursday 6 May 2010. The political composition of Brent Council following the 2010 local elections was:

• Liberal Democrats: 17
• Labour: 40
• Conservative: 6

The leader of the Council is Labour Councillor Ann John OBE.

See also: Brent local elections

Information technology

In 2007, the council set an objective for Brent to become a centre of excellence in the use of structured and unstructured information. This has brought strategic focus onto two areas:

• Information Management (using new data governance/security security models, data sharing and an IPSV based taxonomy);
• Client Index (the deployment of Customer Data Integration and Data quality software to create and maintain a single view of Brent's customers).

The Client Index contains more than 1.2 million records concerning some 230,000 people. It links data from back-office systems that support the council's services (Council Tax, Housing, Benefits, Electoral Registration, Social Care, CRM, Schools, Libraries and Complaints). The single view of customers is maintained using Initiate Identity Hub software with data cleansing provided by dn:Director software from Datanomic.

A study by the Data Connects group (a collaboration between local authorities) estimated that the use of this technology could result in savings of £1.4m per annum. Tony Ellis, Head of IT at Brent, claimed that improvements in the quality of data delivered improvements in customer service, reduced the cost of contacting customers and reduced instances of fraud.

Demographics

Population
Year	Pop.	±%
1801	2,022	—
1811	2,690	+33.0%
1821	3,074	+14.3%
1831	3,991	+29.8%
1841	5,416	+35.7%
1851	5,646	+4.2%
1861	14,749	+161.2%
1871	23,852	+61.7%
1881	32,955	+38.2%
1891	67,674	+105.4%
1901	105,613	+56.1%
1911	164,833	+56.1%
1921	202,448	+22.8%
1931	248,656	+22.8%
1941	277,842	+11.7%
1951	310,457	+11.7%
1961	294,804	−5.0%
1971	280,009	−5.0%
1981	251,249	−10.3%
1991	248,569	−1.1%
2001	263,463	+6.0%
Source: A Vision of Britain through time

In 1801, the civil parishes that form the modern borough had a total population of 2,022. This rose slowly throughout the 19th century, as the district became built up; reaching 5,646 in the middle of the century. When the railways arrived the rate of population growth increased. The population peaked in the 1960s, when industry began to relocate from London.

In the 2001 Census, the borough had a population of 263,464 – of whom 127,806 were male, and 135,658 female. Of those stating a choice, 47.71% described themselves as Christian, 17.71% as Hindu, 12.26% as Muslim and 10% as having no religion. Of the population, 39.96% were in full-time employment and 7.86% in part-time employment – compared to a London average of 42.64% and 8.62%, respectively. Residents were predominantly owner-occupiers, with 23.17% owning their house outright, and a further 31.33% owning with a mortgage. 10.59% were in local authority housing, with a further 13.29% renting from a housing association, or other registered social landlord.

Economy

Diageo has its head office in Park Royal and in the London Borough of Brent, on a former Guinness brewery property. The brewery was closed in 2004; it had produced beer since 1936. Diageo planned to move its head office to Brent from Central London when the lease on the Central London office expired in 2010.

The Air France-KLM European Sales and Service Centre, which is a sales channel for 15 European countries, is located in Wembley in the London Borough of Brent.

There is an IKEA store in Neasden, which is one of four in London and acts as the West London outlet.

Brent is the joint fourth-worst Borough in London for levels of child poverty. Save the Children reported in 2011 that 11,000 children are impoverished.

Amenities and Culture

Education

Main article: List of schools in the London Borough of Brent

Brent Street Dancers

Brent won the country's Street Dance Award held in the spring of 2009.

Compulsory recycling

Recycling has been compulsory in the borough of Brent since 2008.Through a green box collection scheme the borough aims to improve on the 25 per cent recycled waste it already achieves.

London Fire Brigade

The London Borough of Brent has three fire stations within the borough: Park Royal, Wembley and Willesden. Brent has a mixture of residential, industrial and commercial land. Most notably, Wembley National Stadium is within the area - on match days the safety of over 90,000 people is the responsibility of the London Fire Brigade. Wembley covers the largest area in the borough, 19.1 km^sq. Two pumping appliances, a fire rescue unit and an aerial ladder platform are based there. Willesden, for its relatively small, in comparison to Wembley, station ground (10.5 km^sq), responded to over a thousand incidents in 2006/2007. Two pumping appliances reside there. Park Royal, with its one pumping appliance and an incident response unit, has one of the smallest station grounds; just 8.1 km^sq.

Within the borough, 4,105 incidents occurred in 2006/2007.

Transport

The numerous National Rail, London Underground and London Overground stations in the borough are:

• Alperton tube station
• Dollis Hill tube station
• Harlesden station
• Kensal Green station
• Kenton station
• Kilburn Park tube station
• Kilburn tube station
• Kingsbury tube station
• Neasden tube station
• North Wembley station
• Northwick Park tube station
• Preston Road tube station
• Queen's Park station
• South Kenton station
• Stonebridge Park station
• Sudbury Town tube station
• Wembley Central station
• Wembley Park tube station
• Willesden Green tube station
• Willesden Junction station

Landmarks

• Wembley Stadium
• Wembley Arena
• Neasden Temple, a Hindu Temple
• Central Mosque Wembley
• Brent Town Hall

Parks and open spaces

Main article: Brent parks and open spaces

• Roe Green Park
• Queen's Park
• Roundwood Park
• Tiverton Green
• Gladstone Park

External links

• Brent Council website

Video clips

• Brent Council YouTube channel