Working with the community at Scrubs Lane

Last year, Fruition Properties had to make the difficult decision to remove the tenant, a Church, from our property on 2 Scrubs Lane in Willesden. Although, it was an action we hoped we would never have to take, unfortunately, their outstanding debt of over £250,000, and failure to vacate the building to allow us to implement our planning permission, made the situation untenable.

During this process, we realised that the Church were in fact sub-letting the building to a number of other organisations. Highly conscious that the circumstances were not the fault of these many community groups, we started working with them directly. We were able to quickly establish a direct dialogue with Comunidade Pentecostal de Londres, a Portuguese Church, who had been one of the main users of the building for almost 11 years.

We have worked closely with them since last year and they have been using 2 Scrubs Lane for the past 6 months. In addition to their regular Church services, they now also offer English classes in collaboration with Brent Council, host weekly band rehearsals, a women’s choir and are hoping to start a youth school program. Fruition Properties is in the process of donating around twenty laptops for use by children in their after-school clubs.

Saulo Leandro de Arauju, trustee of Comunidade Pentcostal de Londres, commented:

“Fruition Properties have been of great help to our church and community over the last year by donating free time in the hall for our choir and providing free space for our many support groups. We were unaware at the time that although we paid our rent to the previous Church it hadn’t been passed on so were grateful that when they realised we were not at fault we were able to work together to maintain and grow our services”.

The previous Church had also run a foodbank, which in this current cost of living crisis had become a vital service to the community. This service has continued to run throughout the past year with the original Church on a licence basis. Understanding the importance of this service, Fruition Properties, in conjunction with Comunidade Pentecostal, City Harvest and Organising Food for London plan to expand this in the near future to include a hot food service.

We are currently in dialogue with two other sub-tenants and are confident that they will also be able to deliver their services through the building. Although these organisations will not be able to use the building during the construction phase, we are hoping that the new consent will deliver a flexible commercial space which can benefit all these organisations and become a real asset for the local community. The new building will also house a nursery and of course provide much needed housing.

To find out more about the proposed plans for the development please click here.