Save Bridge Park

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Bridge Park (formerly Stonebridge Bus Depot) is more than a building—it’s a living testament to what communities can achieve when they’re actively involved in shaping the environment in which they live, work and play.

Designed by Harlesden residents for Harlesden residents, Bridge Park made history in the 1980s as the largest Black-led community enterprise centre in Europe, emerging as a national symbol of hope, resilience, and unity following the 1981 Uprisings.

Four decades on Bridge Park’s founding motto—“Let’s build, not destroy”—still resonates widely. Its future however hangs in the balance. While we wait for the outcome of our listing application redevelopment plans threaten the centre with erasure.

This platform exists to celebrate Bridge Park’s legacy and inspire a new generation of young urban activists by sharing a lasting blueprint for community-led change.
















It should be made clear at the outset that the Bus Depot Project is not proposing that the Council, Central Government and other agencies convert the Depot into a multi-million pound community centre and sports complex. The philosophy behind the Project is totally different. The starting point for the Project is the desire of the people of Stonebridge, as expressed by the Harlesden People’s Community Council and other local community groups, to improve local conditions through their own efforts and in their own way.

Stonebridge Bus Depot Project Report, 1981































A project like this is needed because the people of this community are deprived—a large percentage are jobless, they have nothing to do, no hope, no future. This project will build new hope for the people. They have to believe in something instead of giving up.

Leonard Johson, 1984



Listing


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In April 2025, we applied to Historic England to have Bridge Park listed as a national heritage site — not just to safeguard the building, but the movement it represents.

That movement began with young Black people from one of London’s most troubled housing estates. Unemployed. Labelled as problems. Living in a system stacked against them where crime too often felt like the only way out. And yet in 1981 when Britain’s cities burned they chose to build not destroy. They turned anger into action, an an old bus garage into Europe’s largest Black-led community centre, a simple principle into a way of life.

It's a story that resonates far beyond one moment or community. Bridge Park is proof that even in the face of adversity, hope can be built from the ground up. Demolishing the centre would erase the very message it was built to embody.


There could be no finer tribute to Leonard Johnson and Brent community activism than Bridge Park being granted listed status.

Lord Boateng, the UK's first Black Cabinet MinisterBridge Park must be listed — it is perfect positive history.

Lord Hastings, Chairman of SOAS and Vice President of UNICEFBridge Park is a historically significant building. Its founding at a time of significant racial tension in our cities in the early 1980s marks it out as a pioneering model of engagement with alienated young people.

Trevor Phillips, former Head of the Commission for Racial EqualityCharles Robert Ashbee, who can be regarded as the originator of the listing system, believed strongly that buildings were worthy of saving not just as bricks and mortar, but because of the way they are used, for their human and social functions. Bridge Park is an outstanding example of this. Such a listing would also be a timely acknowledgement of the historic contribution made to London’s vitality and prosperity by its Black residents.

Colin Thom, Director of the Survey of London

















Bridge Park is one of the most important developments I have seen in this country for some time. It is the most remarkable example of a community getting together and being determined with an inspired leadership to work against what must have been impossible odds to create this kind of centre for the community.

King Charles III, 1988