New plaque for Muriel Agnew - neighbourhood champion of Mozart estate

Published: 21 May 2010
by JAMIE WELHAM

HOUSING bosses have promised to replace a plaque that went missing from a Queen’s Park estate weeks after the death of the neighbourhood champion it was erected in tribute to.

Once synonymous with crack cocaine and petty criminals, the Mozart estate was symbolically exorcised of its demons in 2004 when the plaque was screwed to the side of a red brick wall by Muriel Agnew following a £30million regeneration.

But shortly after Ms Agnew died in January, aged 90, the plaque ­mysteriously vanished from the wall. 

A spokeswoman for Citywest Homes said a new plaque, thanking Ms Agnew and the ­community she helped mobilise under her watch on the tenants’ association, would be back on show by the end of the month. 

Ms Agnew spent three decades fighting for improvements on the estate after moving there with her five children in 1973. 

She formed a thriving tenants’ association that helped build the Avenues youth centre and ­pressured Westminster Council to accept responsibility for repairs and improvements. 

Ms Muriel was involved with the landmark regeneration of the estate and was honoured with an MBE in 2006.