651.-london-borough-of-brent-and-its-boundaries-with-barnet,-camden,-ealing,-hammersmith-and-fulham,-harrow,-knc-and-westminster

149. Hammersmith and Fulham, having conducted an opinion surveyof local residents, concluded that these residents valued theirlinks with Hammersmith, and believed that a transfer to Brentwould bring disadvantages in terms of effective and convenientlocal government. The College Park Action Committee noted thatour draft proposal .would leave within Hammersmith and Fulham arow of terraced cottages adjoining St. Nary's cemetery; itquestioned whether the interests of effective and convenientlocal government would be served by dividing these few propertiesfrom College Park.150. We acknowledged the strength of local residents' oppositionto our draft proposal; approximately 50% of residents signed thepetition opposing our draft proposal, and Hammersmith Council'ssurvey appeared to show a similarly high proportion of householdsto be against major change. We accepted that College Park wasunusually self-contained for an inner London community, and thatit could be said to have a distinct identity. However, it seemedto us that its case for remaining separate from Brent derived inpart from the apparent barrier effect of the Harrow Road. Wedoubted whether the Harrow Road was in practice such asignificant barrier. Although the road is a through-route, it isonly single-lane at College Park, and a pelican crossing has beeninstalled.151. We addressed the question of the terraced cottages in ScrubsLane, which would remain in Hammersmith and Fulham if our finalproposal' were implemented. We noted that the cottages wereadjacent to a trading estate which would continue to requireservicing by Hammersmith and Fulham. Although the cottages wouldbe isolated from other residential development, there were nogrounds for supposing that they would suffer, in terms of serviceprovision, if College Park were transferred to Brent. We alsoconsidered a suggestion from a member of the public that St.Mary's Roman Catholic Cemetery be transferred to Brent along withCollege Park. It was argued in favour of this suggestion that thechurch to which the cemetery was linked was situated in Brent,and that that Borough would be more committed to the upkeep ofthe cemetery. We doubted the validity of this last point, notingthat Hammersmith and Fulham had designated the cemetery a44