“They’re profiting off our problems” – Inequality in Brent

On a bright October morning, our London Organiser Maeve joined members of Brent London Renters Union, and their families and friends, outside Wembley Park station. Home to the Quintain development and Brent Civic Centre, Wembley is the epicentre of power and inequality within the borough and, as a local resident told Maeve, many can no longer afford to travel to Wembley, let alone live there. Despite being one of the most diverse boroughs in London, it’s also home to ongoing celebration and memorialisation of British imperialism – including 22 commemorations to the 1924 British Empire Exhibition, which is one of Britain’s most recent human zoos. 

34,000 thousand families are on the waiting list for housing in Brent, with more than half needing a bigger home. Many who have been on it for more than 10 years, in overcrowded temporary accommodation. Wembley Park is one of London’s biggest development schemes, but the luxury units around Wembley Stadium by US-based developer Quintain have come alongside rents and house prices rising faster than the London average. The disparity between the money poured into developments like Wembley Park and the reality of unaffordable, undermaintained homes for many in Brent is stark.

This is what spurred the local community into action. Equipped with banners and loudspeakers, and led by a group of children chanting “we can’t afford the rent in Brent!”, they marched through the Quintain development towards their office, finishing at the Brent Civic Centre. The marchers were calling for action on rogue landlords, social housing, and rent controls, and attempted to hand in a letter on behalf of Brent London Renter’s Union to the Quintain office – but were met with locked glass doors (although the children managed to slide the letter through the doors to considerable cheers from the crowd)

At Brent Civic Centre, protestors created a visual queue, chanting “we are the waiting list” and holding a banner saying ‘Public Housing Not Private Profit’. Speakers outside the Civic Centre included children of London Renter’s Union members, growing up in temporary housing, and Nabil of the campaign ‘Decolonising Wembley- Naming Pains’ (who have a petition here to decolonise Wembley). The ‘Naming Pains’ campaign seeks to confront and diminish the imperial nostalgia prevalent among urban professionals and stakeholders who have been instrumental in shaping Wembley. 

‘Can you hear me now? They are profiting off of our problems. It is immoral, it is inhumane. We need homes, it is a human right and they are making money off of it. It is not right. The future generations are growing up in temporary accommodation, in houses that contain mould. It is not right, it is inhumane. Our elderly people are living in homes that they cannot stay in, it is not right for them, it is not safe…we need to fight, we need to stand together.