HPCC LIVE STREAMING
SATURDAY, 4 October 25 | 7:30PM – 9PM
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Two Separate Petitions
Protect Bridge Park. Secure Its Listed Status.
Brent disregarded Bridge Park’s historic value, ignoring its cultural significance and community roots. Now they are trying to block efforts to secure listed status. This petition is your opportunity to preserve Bridge Park as a heritage site
Add your voice. Preserve history. Honour our legacy. Protect our future.
Save Bridge Park. Restore Community Ownership.
Brent Council took control through questionable means, dismissing decades of community effort and sacrifice. Now they plan to close Bridge Park. This petition is your chance to demand its return to community ownership and stop the closure.
Add your voice. Demand justice. Protect our legacy. Secure our future.
HPCC PRESS RELEASE
Bridge Park Betrayal:
The Fight for Truth and Legacy
This press release exposes the truth behind Brent Council’s decision to close Bridge Park. It highlights the contradictions, the disregard for community legacy, and the urgent need for public accountability. Bridge Park is not just a building; it is a symbol of empowerment that must not be erased.
BRIDGE PARK COMMUNITY RALLY
SUNDAY 20 JULY, 2PM – 6PM
As Chairman of the Harlesden People’s Community Council, I am honoured to present the Save Bridge Park campaign, a vital movement to protect one of our nation’s most historic and impactful community assets. This campaign is about more than preserving a building; it is about defending a legacy. We also pay tribute to the late Leonard Johnson, a visionary whose leadership helped transform a disused bus garage into the largest Black-led community enterprise in Europe. His unwavering commitment to justice, empowerment, and unity continues to inspire this generation.
Bridge Park has served as a beacon of hope, education, business, and youth development since the 1980s. Through the efforts of the Harlesden People’s Community Council, it offered business units, IT spaces, sports halls, and a hub for marginalised communities during times of unrest. It played a critical role in strengthening social cohesion and shaping local leadership. Its existence is a testimony to what community resilience can achieve. Today, Bridge Park is under serious threat. Brent Council has announced that the site is set to close on 31 July. However, final approval still requires confirmation from the GLA, and the site’s national heritage status is still pending. Despite a High Court ruling in 2020 that favoured Brent’s conditional sale to offshore developers, the fight continues. We believe this space is too valuable, historically and culturally, to be lost to commercial interests.
That is why we are calling on every supporter of justice to stand with us. Join us for the Bridge Park Community Rally on Sunday, 20 July, from 2 to 6 PM at Bridge Park, NW10 0RG. This will be an outdoor community event featuring music, refreshments, personal stories, and opportunities to learn more about the campaign. It is free and open to all. Let us come together in solidarity and raise our collective voice.
As Nelson Mandela said, “It always seems impossible until it’s done.” This is our moment to act. To honour the past. To fight for the future. And to protect the heritage that belongs to us all. For further details, visit our website at www.savebridgepark.org.uk or www.hpcc.live, or contact us at admin@hpcc.live or by phone on 07956 872 141.
Let us unite under the banner of Legacy • Justice • Unity • Action. The movement is alive. The mission is clear. Let’s save Bridge Park together.
Building a Dream tells the gripping, inspiring, and brutally honest story of how a visionary leader, Leonard Johnson, and a determined group of ordinary people turned a disused bus garage into Bridge Park – one of Europe’s largest Black-led community centres. Through faith, struggle, sacrifice, and relentless action, they raised over £10 million and transformed lives through training, youth empowerment, business incubation, and community resilience.
This book is more than history. It is a blueprint for community transformation and a prophetic warning. It exposes how power can shift, how institutions can betray, and how the legacy of a people can be erased if we do nothing.
As we fight today to stop Bridge Park from being sold off and stripped away from the very people who built it, this book reminds us: we built this with nothing but vision, grit, and unity – and we must now protect it with everything we’ve got.
💥 Why You Should Read It:
- Learn how an inner-city dream defied all odds.
- Understand the threats and betrayals that still threaten Black-led institutions.
- Be inspired to act – because Bridge Park is our legacy, and legacy must be defended.
HRH Prince of Wales opening Bridge Park in 1988
From left to right: HRH Prince Charles, Michael A Wilson, Leonard Johnson, Delaney Brown and Paul Boatang far right.
Mission Impossible
Thanks to Leonard Johnson and his team for achieving the mission impossible in 1981.
A project like this is needed because the people of this community are deprived. A large majority are jobless and have nothing to do, no hope and no future. This project will build new hope for the people. They have to believe in something instead of giving up.
