In the mid 1960s an overhead motorway, the A40 (motorway), was built through North Kensington, the most northern district of the inner Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. The other highways already bisecting the area were historic routes into and out of London, and communities had naturally grown up around them. Staked out on giant stilts, the motorway monolith, ‘the largest continuous concrete structure in the country', now sped cars in and out of the city centre over the lives of the people of North Kensington. It brought blight, noise and disruption to a community already contending with economic hardship, a decaying inner city environment and local government neglect. 

As this modern engineering feat encountered North Kensington's stock of nineteenth century housing, homes were demolished, streets chopped in half or left stranded as little as twenty feet from the new raised highway, exposed to the constant noise of traffic and the nightly glare of headlights. The protests of residents of Walmer Road and Pamber Street hit the international headlines when the motorway opened in 1970. By then a decade of community action networks had grown up in North Kensington in the fight for better housing and open spaces where children could play. Energetic activists set up grass roots associations, organised on local issues and campaigned for improvements. 

Out of a four-year campaign, North Kensington Amenity Trust was set up in partnership with the local authority in response to two demands. The mile strip of land under the motorway which lay within the borough's boundaries should be used to compensate the community for the damage and destruction caused by the road. And the 23 acres should be held in trust to ensure that local people would be actively involved in determining its use. 

The story of the Westway Development Trust is one of conflict, for it was born out of bitter clashes between an angry local community and the two planning authorities that gave consent to the motorway intruder - the GLC (Greater London Council) and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. But it is also a story of hope. Over 20 acres of derelict land have been reclaimed. Today, a diverse portfolio of commercial developments, occupying one fifth of the land, contribute to the local economy and fund the Trust's charitable activities. Community facilities range from landscaped gardens to charity offices and from sports and fitness centres to lunch and social clubs. The Trust began life with a Council grant of £25,000. Today it is a self-sufficient charity with an annual turnover above £6 million and assets estimated at over £20 million. It now has the ability to make grants to community organisations and to help set up projects beyond its immediate boundaries. 

But getting the Trust established has been a hard 20 years. Arguments have been fierce on the key issues. Long drawn out fights in the early days centred around local community as against Council control. Community representatives argued for funding from the rates, the Council for commercial development of the land – the debate on where the balance should be struck persists. Developer, landlord and property manager - the roles the Trust has grown into have been at odds with most people's expectations of a local charity. The 'people's trust' has become an entrepreneur, an organisation with a bureaucracy. But because of it the Trust has succeeded, in large measure, in delivering local people's ideas of what should be done with the land. 

There is now national interest in the contribution that locally-run development trusts can make to their neighbourhoods. The award-winning North Kensington Amenity Trust (now known as Westway Development Trust) is cited as a pioneer and an example that can be replicated elsewhere. What has attracted interest is the Trust's success in finding ways to fund and sustain its developments; in bringing new resources into the area; in building assets that are retained in the community and in generating surpluses to meet new needs. With another hundred years still to go on its ground lease, the Trust and its community look well set to outlast the motorway above – and to continue a lively engagement.