40 Years as an asset for our community

March 04, 2011

This year the Trust is 40. Founded after years of campaigning by local residents who had first opposed the building of the Westway and then campaigned to ensure the space underneath it did not simply become car parks and bus garages as originally planned. Westway was a pioneer of the idea of a community-owned asset, a local charitable development trust, delivering for its community in what initially seemed the most un-promising circumstances.

Throughout the year we will be taking the opportunity to reflect on our history and on how 23 acres of rubble became the array of community resources that nestle under the flyover today.

If you were involved or have a story to tell from the period of conflict and protest that led to Westway Development Trust being created, please let us know.

In the meantime here are a few then and now pictures - first Thorpe Close in 1970 after the road was built and the land was simply fenced off and now on a busy market saturday.

Next the Westway White City junction first when the roundabout was being built in the late 60's, then as it is now with our iconic Westway Sports nestling inside and under the junction:

This night shot shows the climbing centre glowing beneath the flyover. Amongst the twoer blocks the junction now looks like a glowing UFO full of strange and wonderful sporting life!

Perhaps more than anything this image shows that to take on the brutal mass of the Westway you need an imagination and a scale of operation which challenges the scale of the road; and from humble beginnings, amongst the rubble of the 1970's, Westway Development Trust now faces up to that challenge as we enter a period of re-development and re-investment to take us forward into the next 40 years...