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News detail Our efforts to spread this bad news and stop planning approval to demolish the church have been aided considerably by the publication in the local newspaper the Brentford Chiswick & Isleworth Times. The article achieved position 2 on the front page and continued as item 1 on page two. This was somewhat surprising as the current controversial planning item, the Scottish Widows Kew Bridge site, had just been granted Conservation Area status, though that article still achieved front page presence. That aside this will certainly increase awareness of the planning application on the church as it was certainly not getting much coverage before this. Here is the article in full:- Grave concerns over plans for listed church Plans to develop a listed Brentford church and former burial site into luxury flats have angered residents who are urging the council to help stop what they see as a barrage of insensitive riverside development. Luxury housing developers Barratts applied for permission last week to build 19 flats on the site of St George's Church, on Brentford High Street. They say the church is crumbling beyond repair and are in the process of creating a new building for the Musical Museum, which is currently housed by the church. However, neighbouring residents on Barratt's last riverside scheme - the towering Capital West development - say they intend to fight the plan, which is currently being consulted on by the council. They are worried about the impact on the town's cultural heritage of losing another historic building, and are also deeply disturbed at research suggesting that more than 2,000 bodies once buried in the grounds could still be there. Church of England diocesan records show that the current church site accommodated approximately 2,300 burials in marked and unmarked graves during the period 1828 to 1861, prior to the construction of the current church buildings. While the Church Commissioners' agents, Biscoe Craig Hall, have previously suggested that unmarked remains were removed from the site and re-buried prior to the construction of the present church buildings - in 1887 - local archives indicate that human remains continued to surface at ground level as recently as the early 1960's, after which the area outside the church was extensively paved. Mr Stephen Browne, secretary of Holland Gardens Residents Community - which represents 170 residents, said: "We would strongly urge the borough council to establish the proper and correct burial status of the 2,300 graves recorded in the church site. "Clearly, it is imperative that any remains still below ground are exhumed in accordance with current Home Office statutory regulations. "We will also be following up on this issue directly with the Church Commissioners in light of its sensitivity." A spokesman for Barratts said that "as far as we know it is not classed as a burial site", but added that technicians would be carrying out surveys over the next couple of weeks. The church building is mentioned in Hounslow's Planning Guidance (Unitary Development Policy) as a locally listed landmark. It also stands next to a statutory Grade II listed Georgian building called the Green School' which is thought to have housed one of the first ever Sunday schools in England after it was built in 1762. While the Green School is not set for demolition, there are fears both that it would be dwarfed by the surrounding buildings, and could be harmed in the process - as happened when the adjacent Travelodge was built. The news appears to contribute to what some residents have labelled an onslaught of development' on Brentford's historic buildings. Mr Browne continued: "Within a one-mile stretch along the A315 running along the river Thames over 1,500 new residential units are either completed, under construction, or planned. "Any further expansion must be seen as an unnecessary concentration of dwellings, "...especially where this involves the demolition of a heritage building with considerable historical and architectural interest for the sake of a small number of new dwellings." A spokesman for Barratts said: "Our proposals for the Brentford High Street development are under consideration by the planning authorities at the moment and will be subject to the normal planning and consultative process. "We would be happy to discuss our plans with anybody who may have concerns." St George's continued as a church until 1959. It stands at the east end of Brentford and forms what the residents say is an "equivalent landmark" to the Grade I listed St Lawrence's Church at the West end of Brentford. Source: Brentford Chiswick & Isleworth Times
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