In today's edition we investigate art, science, conspiracy and just what did the councillors know?
On the outskirts of Harrow a clump of empty-looking sheds lurks mysteriously beside the ring road. What is this and why is it here and how is it related to the future of the council?
It looks important, heavily signposted in gleaming red letters from both Greenhill Way and Station Road. A chain of blue and green lights beckons through an alleyway between a cake shop and a chicken shop, while a sign on a lamppost lures you in with promises of STREET FOOD ART AND MORE. But beyond the skips all we found was a silent cluster of lockable units, adapted containers and pseudo-greenhouses, all connected via a chain of timber ramps because this tumbleweed corner is nothing if not accessible. Who precisely is accountable for whatever hasn't happened here?
This is Harrow Art Park, supposedly a "vibrant destination for culture" opened just last month by Harrow Council as part of the £7m regeneration of Harrow town centre. It launched with a bang, or at least a week of special activities hitching onto the coattails of the London Festival of Architecture. Our bet is that the live music and local food was better appreciated than the panel on incremental urbanism, especially on a Thursday evening. And yet a month later nobody is here, not unless they're walking through from the adjacent street market, and the empty units echo with the sound of misplaced investment.
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A deep dive into Harrow's Art Park fiasco is below.
But first — a quick look at the big London stories this week:
🔎 The Mayor is in Africa on a trade tour this week, rather than staying behind to deal with the real problem of Lime bikes on pavements.
🔎 A new M&S Food Hall opened in Leytonstone yesterday because that's proper news isn't it?
🔎 Eastbourne is to get a new train connection from London Bridge, but only once a day and not at weekends and not in the off-peak so don't get your hopes up.
🔎 Something else we saw some other outlet mention is that floating bus stops are to be banned, or paused, or ripped out we're not sure we didn't read that far down.
🔎 Two mice have been seen at The Ivy, presumably without a reservation.
🔎 The Palm House at Kew Gardens is to close for five years as part of a major renovation project, and quite frankly if we're the first people to tell you then you're not paying nearly as much attention to London's news media as you ought to be.
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The Cultural Lens
Our science correspondent rocked down to the Wellcome Collection on the Euston Road this week, only a month after the opening of their new exhibition Thirst! It's all about water and the lack of it, because we love to bring you the exclusives.
The exhibition's in the usual gallery on the usual floor and you walk round in the usual direction after entering through the usual door. According to a warning out front you might see a desiccated animal on your way round but we must have missed it so we were very cross. There are several themed areas, all water based, focusing on matters of scarcity and excess both in Britain and abroad. Several arid countries feature, which is excellent if you love a good wadi or if Beirut's fluvial trauma is something you've never previously considered.
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You get more out of the exhibition if you stop and wave your phone at a QR code on 11 separate occasions, then listen to five minutes of audio at each waypoint, but quite frankly who has time for that? We didn't stop to read everything either, just walked through and looked at the pictures so were out fairly quickly all told. The theme felt a bit loose and the art wasn't as engaging as it sometimes is, but the good bits were good and if retreating glaciers don't give you the willies you're probably ice-hearted. Thirst! continues until February 2026 which is basically forever, so it'll be worth a visit on a glum winter Saturday when you've run out of interesting things to do.
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Meanwhile in Harrow the new Art Park continues unabated.
One of the greenhouse things appears to contain a cactus, another is festooned with photos of the Art Park so feels a bit meta and the other two are empty. As for the surrounding units one has a clothes rail in it, one has become an offshoot of the rug shop on the market and another is being used by a cake decorator which isn't truly art. The most telltale sign that bugger all is happening is the map of the Art Park framed on the wall whose key is entirely empty, all the way from Units 1-14 to Galleries E-G. And yet it all started with such high hopes.
Councillors decided to replace 20 car parking spaces with an Art Park as part of "a bold new project dedicated to creativity, community and collaboration". It's a five year project overseen by Meanwhile Space on behalf of the London Borough of Harrow, the aim to "establish itself as a creative and social catalyst for Harrow's future". Beancounters should have run a mile when they read that the Art Park was to be "a hub of curiosity" but instead they paid up and this deadzone is the end result.
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The area's Labour councillor told the London Lens that the project highlighted Harrow Council's inability to plan and co-ordinate effectively, also that "hundreds of pounds in taxpayers' money is likely being wasted on keeping the lights on all day every day” which we're pretty sure is a ridiculous exaggeration. In response the Conservative council leader admitted it would take a few months to reach full occupancy as you'd expect with any new venue, then blamed Labour councillors for being too downbeat. "The Council is learning and adapting as we go along," he added, which to be fair did sound like a confession it was a bit rubbish at the moment.
The London Lens doorstepped the heart of the Art Park yesterday, keen to get to the bottom of things. We approached the central meeting space, a community hall with a grey ridged roof, and observed two shady characters lurking deep within. What secrets might they hold, what astonishing revelations might they reveal, and who on earth was paying them to spend Thursday morning awaiting visitors who would never come? As we stepped through the door and saw precisely what was laid out on the table inside, little could have prepared us for the unexpected truth we would discover by doing the proper journalism nobody else is doing. And in the centre of Harrow of all places!
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