10:59am Thursday 17th July 2003
THE renovation of Harrow and Wealdstone station is good news for commuters. For far too long, the station has been a forbidding place, dark and unpleasant, and it was well overdue the £4.5 million facelift, the completion of which was officially marked on Friday last week.
That the station, a listed building, has become much more accessible and user-friendly, while retaining its historic features, is to be welcomed, and the project deserves the national award it has attracted.
But stand outside the main entrance to the station and look down High Street and you see a very different picture. The heart of Wealdstone has deteriorated to such an extent that it barely looks as though it belongs in the same borough as other, nearby neighbourhoods.
High Street traders are again railing against Harrow Council's long-term failure to tackle a major problem, which is largely of the authority's own making: pedestrianisation and a disastrously daft road realignment are largely to blame for a drastic decline in business.
The traders say that Wealdstone is the borough's "forgotten town", and one can understand why. But the complaint is not entirely fair: Harrow Council has never really forgotten the area, it has just proved spectacularly inept in coming up with solutions to its problems that actually work.
In the six years since this newspaper was launched, we have reported on one Wealdstone initiative after another, bright idea after bright idea. But nothing seems to have worked.
While the people of Wealdstone, residents and traders alike, have worked against the odds to generate community spirit and a pride in the place, and have achieved many small victories, business continues to slide slowly downhill.
The latest hope is that the New Harrow Project, the pilot scheme for which has been heaped with praise by the audit commission, is due to spread north, from South Harrow, through the town centre and Marlborough, and into Wealdstone.
But as helpful as this might be, Wealdstone will need a major project all of its own to reverse years of stagnation, and the council seems bereft of one.
Meanwhile, there are rumblings that North Harrow is following Wealdstone downhill .
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