Our History

In the mid 1960’s an overhead motorway, the A40(M) was driven through North Kensington staked out on giant stilts. Westway Trust¹ was, and is, a response to the devastation caused by the building of the A40 and we still consider the Trust as a means of redress.

The flyover brought noise, disruption, destruction and pollution to a community that was already contending with economic hardship, a decaying inner-city environment and neglect. 

To make way for the flyover, homes were demolished and streets chopped in half or left stranded as little as twenty feet away, exposed to the noise of traffic and the nightly glare of headlights. The protests of local residents hit the headlines when the motorway opened in 1970. By then, a decade of community action networks had grown up in the fight for better housing and open spaces where children could play. Energetic activists set up grass root associations, organised on local issues and campaigned for improvements. 

Following a four-year campaign, in 1971 the North Kensington Amenity Trust, now Westway Trust was set up, in partnership with the local authority, as the custodian of the 23 acres of land under the Westway flyover to help promote positive use of the spaces for the benefit of the communities of North Kensington. 

The Trust’s remit was to improve the lives of the residents of the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea. Westway Trust was given a long lease² over 23 acres of land under the Westway (the Estate) where it passes through the Royal Borough. 

The Trust’s focus, as it was in 1971, is the communities who live, work and visit the local area. Previously, this commitment was informal and this statement places into policy the local focus that was part of the founding spirit of Westway Trust and remains central to our approach today. 

A condition of accepting significant grant funding from the Sport England Lottery Fund, to enable the Trust to build excellent sports and fitness facilities, was that we extend the area of benefit for sport to include the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea and the adjoining boroughs, so that a much larger audience could benefit from this public funding. 

The Trust agreed to these conditions in 1998. In 2014 we made the decision to widen our constitutional area of benefit for all charitable activity to match the area used to define our sports and fitness work. There were three reasons for this decision: 

• We needed to reflect the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea’s commitment to tri-borough working 

• It allowed us to bid for funding for projects benefiting the local community. 

• It enabled us to provide services where they are most needed close to the Estate. 

Regardless of the widening of the area of benefit, local residents and community groups remain the focus of our work. 

Today, the Trust is an example of what can be achieved through community-led change as we continue to create opportunities for local people and groups to grow and flourish — from funding grants and running learning programmes to providing spaces for work, play and connection. 

Notes

1. The Trust was established in 1971 as ‘North Kensington Amenity Trust’. The name was later changed to     ‘Westway Development Trust’. The Trust was incorporated as a charitable company limited by guarantee in 2008. The name changed to ‘Westway Trust’ in 2014. 
2. In 1971 the freehold of the land under the Westway was owned by the Greater London Council. The GLC gave a 99- year lease over the land to the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea who, in turn, granted a sub-lease over most of the land to Westway Trust. Over the years small parcels of land have been added to the Westway Estate and the lease term has been extended to 130 years starting in 1972. In 1997 Westway Trust bought out the requirement to pay an annual ground rent to RBKC with of a one-off payment of £280,000. The freehold of the land is now owned by Transport for London. 

Photograph from the exhibition ‘Playspace 67-69: Adam Ritchie’