Hazel Road development, opposed by local residents, a local heritage historian and Queens Park ward councillors passed with just one Green councillor against

Front elevation showing the new building and nearby houses

 I watched the council's livestream of the Planning Committee earlier this week but the sound was so poor i could not hear the two presentations at the begining of the meeting. They just happened to be presentations against the controversial replacement proposals for the Victorian community centre in Hazel Road.

 

I tried the recording of the meeting but that was just as bad so I have asked the two speakers for copies of their presentation to publish. The public have a right to know what they said.

 

 Unofficial impression of the current building and the new

 Phil O’Shea’s spoke to the  Planning Committee on behalf of Kensal Green's Residents Association.

  

Good evening. I’m Phil O’Shea, speaking for Kensal Green Residents Association. I live on Hazel Road. 

 

There are clear reasons why this application has attracted 151[1] objections.

 

Even the committee report acknowledges that this proposal falls short of required standards. That alone means this is not the right development for this site. Hazel Road is in a two-storey Victorian neighbourhood. 

 

Brent’s Historic Environment Strategy is clear. Once much-loved heritage buildings like Harriet Tubman House are demolished, their value to the community is lost forever. 

 

The proposed glass and aluminium block is wholly out of keeping with a brick Victorian neighbourhood. At four storeys, it would be over-dominant and harmful to local character. 

 

The committee report misrepresents Brent Local Plan Policies which support contemporary design - where it respects and complements historic character and require development - to conserve and enhance heritage assets’.[2] This proposal fails those tests.

 

The demolition of our Community Centre - which supports playgroups, exercise classes, warm-space provision, counselling, arts, church groups, community christmas lunches - means more than a halving – a loss of over 53% - of dedicated community space – and once the new hallway and toilet are deducted – we’re left with a space 10 by 11 metres.[3] The suggestion that these groups can instead hire a training room, IT suite, or roof terrace from Making the Leap - is simply not viable.

 

The report tries to suggest that the scheme will improve local safety, yet the proposed Hazel Road frontage includes a covered porch and alcoves that are likely to attract anti-social behaviour after dark. 

 

Residents opposite the proposed block would suffer up to a 36.5% loss of daylight, including in homes occupied by some vulnerable people. The daylight consultant did not visit number 31a. Users of the proposed roof terrace would be able to look straight down through their skylight and onto their bed.

  

A large part of Hazel Road Open space will be lost during construction and  - Making the Leap - propose to “reclaim” an area of the parkland adjacent to the children’s play area. 

 

Network Rail objected to this proposal in January last year because the Bakerloo and Lioness lines run approximately five metres beneath the proposed development. That objection was withdrawn last month - without any publicly available explanation - and it is unclear what assurances or technical information were provided by the applicant. 

 

Taken together, the proposal causes clear harm to heritage, amenity, safety and community provision. For these reasons —residents believe this application should not be approved.

 

---

[1] 163 in total, 151 objections, 10 in favour, 2 neutral

[2] Local Plan Polices BD1, DMP1 & BP6 South East – and see KGRA 100226, how the Committee Report misrepresents DMP1 & BD1

[3] From 247 square metres to 115msq. The new community centre will have a hallway of 13msq, toilet & store of 15.5msq leaving 105.6msq

 

 

Application 25/0041 – Philip Grant’s heritage presentation to Planning Committee:

I only have time to outline the heritage objections. Please ask me for details at the end.

Part e) of policy BHC1 is key to deciding this application. It says: “proposals affecting heritage assets should … seek to avoid harm in the first instance. Substantial harm or loss should be exceptional, especially where the asset is of high significance.

Any proposed … loss of a heritage asset … should require clear and convincing justification, and can be outweighed by material planning considerations in the form of public benefits, but only if these are sufficiently powerful.’

This proposal would demolish a heritage asset, which my detailed February 2025 Alternative Heritage Statement showed has high significance. It also explained why the applicant’s main public benefit claim was no benefit at all!

I’d shown the proposals failed the part e) test, but the Case Officer wanted the application approved. He asked the agent to send a revised heritage statement, and when that wasn’t good enough, he spelt out what it needed to say. Consultation on this second revised version was invited on 10 June, but the document wasn’t published until 9 July!

The Heritage Officer’s November comments included a serious error, saying 28 Hazel Road ‘was not considered to have reached the necessary threshold for local listing.' If true, its significance score could be no more than five, and that was the score he gave it.

I drew this error to his attention, but the Committee Report still used the false claim. Now the Supplementary Report tries to “spin” its correction, but all the non-designated heritage assets identified in 2016 would have scored at least six. I believe the true score is nine.

The Report uses the agent’s claimed public benefits, but doesn’t mention my counter views. The proposal cuts community space in half, to just 115sqm, but the agent claims we should treat it as 450sqm. That includes training rooms which might occasionally be hired out. The proposed Access Plan condition would only cover use of one small community room.

The heritage asset IS of high significance, and the public benefits are NOT ‘sufficiently powerful’ to justify its demolition. The application should be refused.

Philip Grant’s thoughts about the Planning Committee consideration on Hazel Road:

I realise that I could be accused of bias, because I was at the meeting as an objector, but I have tried to make my thoughts about it objective.

 

One feature of how the case was handled by Planning Officers is that they did not show any images, apart from the site plan, when introducing the application at the meeting, and there were none apart from the site plan in the agenda pack which members had. Committee members had apparently had a site visit, so would have seen the existing street and building, but they had not seen any drawings of the proposed building.

 

The Development Management Area Manager (South Team), who introduced the application, spoke mainly about what a good modern design the proposed building was. He clearly had no feeling for heritage buildings, or the Victorian character of the Hazel Road area!

 

Phil O’Shea of Kensal Green Residents’ Association spoke about the application and its effect on the Hazel Road neighbourhood, pointing out where it went against several Brent planning policies. I presented the heritage case explaining why the application failed the Local Plan heritage policy tests, so should be refused, then answered several questions from committee members fully and honestly.

 

Two Queen’s Park Ward councillors, Lesley Smith and Neil Nerva, then spoke against the application, reinforcing the views of local residents that the proposed building was not suitable for the scale and character of the area.

 

The Chief Executive of Making the Leap then spoke in favour of the application, emphasising the valuable work his charity does in training young people, mainly from BAME backgrounds. He wanted them to be able to learn in a modern building, like the ones they aspired to work at in Central London, rather than in one that is now not up to standard. His planning agent and architect help answer questions from committee members.

 

Committee members then put questions to Council Officers. Among these, Brent’s new Heritage Officer maintained his view that the former Victorian mission hall had only low to medium significance, and in his opinion would not have qualified for Local Listing.

 

The Development Management Manager for the whole of Brent, who led the Planning Officers' response to members questions, did her best to justify the application. She claim that the four-storey building would not look out of place, as there were other buildings of a similar height nearby on Harrow Road (the two Queens Park councillors sitting beside me were shaking their heads in disbelief, as Harrow Road is separated from Hazel Road by an open space and bank, and is at least five metres lower down the slope).

 

She also gave a long (and unnecessary) explanation of the different types of heritage building for planning purposes, suggesting that even though 28 Hazel Road was treated as a non-designated heritage asset, it did not mean it deserved as much protection for planning purposes as Statutory Listed buildings (I had never claimed that it did, only that it needed to be properly considered in line with Brent’s policy BHC1).

 

Towards the end of Officer questioning, Cllr. Iman Ahmadi Moghaddam asked Officers to show some images of the existing street and the proposed building. Because of delays in finding those pictures, the Chair said that they would carry on with questions, and the images were only shown, for a few seconds each, while members were dealing with other matters. The image below was the only one, shown briefly, of the proposed building. This was on the bigscreen, opposite Cllr. Robert Johnson, and he was the only member who I saw looking at it.

 

The front elevation of the proposed building and nearby homes in Hazel Road.

 

When it came to a vote on whether members agreed with the Officers recommendation to approve the application, Cllr. Johnson abstained, on the grounds that he was concerned about the scale of the proposed building. You can see why! That may be why Officers didn't want members to see it.

 

In summing up the Officer’s comments, the Development Management Manager said that what members needed to decide was whether the application did more good than harm (and I’m sure she was not just referring to the heritage policy question). She did not mention the different policies which objectors had pointed to as reasons why the application should be refused, despite planning decisions supposedly being based on planning policy!

 

The ”more good than harm” argument has been used before by Brent Planning Officers to sway committee members’ decisions, when objectors have shown that the application which Officers wish to see approved goes against Brent’s adopted planning policies. One which immediately comes to mind is the 776/778 Harrow Road (the Barham Park former park-keepers homes) case in 2023. After that I challenged Brent’s then Head of Planning to show what planning policy contained the ”more good than harm” principle, and did not get a straight answer.

 

As the time was around 7.30pm, with two more applications still to be dealt with on the agenda, the Chair, Cllr. Matt Kelcher, called for a decision on the application, indicating that he thought the application had definite benefits. He, and Vice Chair Cllr. Saqib Butt, voted to accept the Officers’ recommendation to approve the application, along with three other Labour councillors (Akram, Begum and Chappell) and one Conservative (Cllr. Jayanti Patel). Green Party member, Cllr. Iman Ahmadi Moghaddam, who had been the most active questioner, voted against, and Labour’s Cllr. Robert Johnson abstained.

Greens: End Palantir's vice like grip on the government

Green MPs have written to the Cabinet Secretary to demand that the government scrap its NHS and MoD contracts with spy tech firm Palantir. The MPs have also called for an independent inquiry into Peter Mandelson’s involvement in contracts between the UK Government and Palantir, and to review the extent of UK dependence on private contractors such as Palantir to secure the UK’s digital sovereignty.

Green MP, Sian Berry, said:

Palantir’s vice-like grip on our Government, and the role played by disgraced Peter Mandelson in brokering it, must be investigated urgently and, meanwhile, all government contracts with this Trump-supporting spy tech company suspended immediately.

The Prime Minister has questions to answer about how this military surveillance outfit, with clear ties to Mandelson’s own lobbying firm, has been handed record-breaking multi million pound contracts from public money without competition.

It would be unbelievably inappropriate for any member of this Government to attend  Wednesday’s red carpet party for this company. It already was, given how much we know about how Palantir has facilitated genocide in Gaza and been complicit in fascist deportations in the USA. But in the light of these contract revelations, these social contacts become even more unacceptable.

The letter states: Palantir technology has reportedly been used by U.S. immigration authorities to profile and target migrants and has been used by the Israeli military in Gaza – it has no place in our NHS or any of our public services… Palantir is now deeply embedded in the NHS and Ministry of Defence – and the longer they are in place, the harder and more expensive it becomes to remove them and the more the risk of poor value for money increases.

Green MPS are calling on the government to:

• Conduct an internal and independent inquiry into Mandelson’s involvement in contracts between the UK Government and Palantir and publish the findings, including whether Mandelson shared privileged information with Palantir and the extent to which he used his role in Government for personal gain
• Scrap its NHS and MoD contracts with Palantir at the earliest opportunity 
• Review UK dependence on contractors such as Palantir to secure the UK’s digital sovereignty

Wembley Park Green Party Councillor backs locals in opposing the building of a hotel on the Market Square-Samovar Public Space close to Wembley Stadium

 The petition LINK against building on the Savovar-Market Square Open Space currently has 314 signatures

 Quintain's Proposed hotel

   

Brent Green Party councillor Iman Ahmadi Moghaddam has come out strongly in support of Wembley Park residents who are campaigning for the retention of the Samovar Space and Market Square in the heart of the Wembley Park Quintain development.

  

He said:

 

I join with Wembley Park residents in opposing the building of a hotel on the site of the Samovar Space and Market Square beside the Brent Civic Centre and in front of the Wembley Stadium steps.

 

The space has become an integral part of Wembley Park. Residents, visitors, shoppers, concert goers and sports fans have all made it their own and it has become an organic part of the Wembley Park experience.

 

As densification of the area becomes more intense it is important to keep a breathing space at its centre, it is as important for safety during events as it is for leisure, entertainment, and its markets,

 

I believe the original reasons that Brent Council gave in 2020 for reaching a deal with Quintain on maintaining a public space on NW04 are stronger than ever. Quintain and Wembley Stadium got the stadium steps out of the deal and the steps of course remain – so should the Samovar Space and the Market Square.

 

Too often, residents are left with the impression that decisions have already been made, which is deeply frustrating. Both the council and developers must do far more to listen to residents, engage transparently, and treat public space as something to be protected, not traded away.

 

Here we go again! Controversial plans for 7 Randall Avenue back at planning Committee tomorrow

 

The site in the garden behind 7 Randall Avenue

 The detailed plan

 

My some counts there have been 8 applications for building on the back garden of 7 Randall Avenue including refusals and appeals.The plans involve the demolition of a garage and 3 sheds on the site and the buidling of a 3 storey plus basement house,  It returns again to the Brent Planning Committee on Wednesday with officers arguing that changes made to the appealed application now makes it acceptable. 

 The 49 objectors registered on the planning portal so far would not agree. The officers claim that this is 23 individuals with soome posting multiple objections.

 Their case rests on changes made to the application, including bringing back a proposal for a basement:

 

In sometimes tortuous language the officers' report sets out their case:

  

[The last application was refused] by reason of its scale, bulk and design would result in a visually dominant, excessive development that is incongruous to the surrounding suburban locality.

 

This is contrary to policies DMP1 and BD1 of the Brent Local Plan.

 

[The Appeal Decision]  noted that even know (sic) the proposed dwelling under the appeal scheme would be in a similarly central location within the site to that as per the outline consent, that the overall scale and massing would be noticeably greater that the dwelling previously permitted, resulting in a prominent form of development in an area with an open character.

 

Both the Outline Consent (22/0175) which has now expired as well as the dismissed appeal scheme (23/1875) had a similar layout to the proposed scheme, in that access was from Randall Avenue and the siting of the buildings were broadly central within the site.

 

Although it is clear that the proposal would not be identical to the main typology within the adjacent Homestead Conservation Area (HCA) or the common two-storey, semi-detached form found elsewhere in the immediate vicinity, the overall roofscape, bulk, scale and form of the proposed building is not considered to be out-of-place to the detriment of the established character, when it would be viewed from surrounding vantage points.

 

Furthermore, the roof forms of closest building to the application site forming its immediate context have sufficient variations for the proposed roof not to appear out of place or overly prominent. For the same reasons and given the limited views from public vantages and separation distance, the proposal would not result in harm to the setting of the HCA and the proposal would preserve the character and appearance of the HCA .

 

In summary, although the footprint would be larger than the outline consent and the dismissed appeal, the increase is not considered significant, particularly given the citing (sic) and separation to boundaries. This taken with the revised roof form (similar to the outline scheme) and the reduction in height compared to both the outline and dismissed appeal is such that the proposed development is not considered to result in adverse harm to the character and appearance of the site or surrounding area.

 

Conclusion

 

The proposal is considered to accord with the development plan and adopted Supplementary Planning Documents, having regard to all material planning considerations, and the application should be approved subject to conditions.

 

Weight has been given to the planning history, including the dismissed appeal scheme as a material planning consideration.

 

It is considered that this scheme has overcome the previous reasons for the dismissed appeal. 

The proposal would deliver one family sized home and would contribute modestly towards Brent’s housing targets.

 

A late supplementary report has been submitted dealing with a challenge to the applicant's claim that this is a self-build project and therefore exempt from some conditions.  LINK

Was St Raph's community centre lock-out politically motivated?

 

Bias by Brent Planning Officers over Hazel Road application listed for Committee next week – TWO open emails to Brent’s Director of Law.

 Guest post by Philip Grant in a personal capacity

 

Hazel Road and the Mission Hall now, and what is proposed.

 

Readers may remember a guest post from last September “EXPOSED! – Improper bias by Brent’s Planners over the Hazel Road application.” It may appear to have gone quiet since then, but things have been happening behind the scenes. Now matters are coming to a head!

 

Kensal Green Residents’ Association, whose FoI request had uncovered the evidence used in my previous article, sent a pdf document copy of my exposé as part of a complaint to Brent Council. The reply they received, from Brent’s Head of Planning, first summarised the issues raised, then responded in general terms to the summary (without referring to any of the detailed evidence of wrongdoing by the Case Officer) and concluded that there had been no bias! (That is typical of the way Brent has dealt with various complaints I have made over the years.)

 

In between various other, more pleasurable, heritage activities, I had put together a very detailed, evidence-based objection comment about the bias by Planning Officers, which I finally submitted to Brent’s planning website for application 25/0041 on 26 January. Brent’s Planning Code of Practice requires Officers and Members to consider and decide applications ‘in a fair impartial and transparent manner.’ Because I felt that there had been a clear breach of the Code, and a failure by the Council’s Head of Planning to address the concerns raised, I sent this open email to Brent’s Director of Law on 2 February:

 

‘Bias and perceived pre-determination by Brent Planning Officers in dealing with application 25/0041

 

This is an open email

Dear Ms Henry,

 

I am attaching a pdf document copy of an objection comment which I submitted on 26 January in respect of the planning application ref. 25/0041 (26 & 28 Hazel Road, London NW10). It contains detailed evidence of irregularities by Brent Council Planning Officers, which I would bring to your attention in both of your roles.

 

1. As Monitoring Officer:

There has been a breach of Brent's Planning Code of Practice by the Case Officer dealing with application 25/0041 (I will not name the Officer in this open email, but you can easily identify him internally), and potentially by other Planning Officers who have dealt with this application.

 

Paragraph 1.2 of the Code makes clear that Officers, as well as Members, must ‘consider and decide planning matters in a fair impartial and transparent manner.’

 

In cases such as this, where there had been pre-application advice and discussions, involving the Case Officer and other Officers, paragraph 8.4 of the Code states: 'It is vital that such discussions are conducted in accordance with this Code so there can be no suggestion of actual pre-determination or bias, or any perception of pre-determination or bias, or any other procedural impropriety.'

 

As I have shown in the attached document, there is a very strong perception of pre-determination in favour of the applicant in this case, and very clear evidence of bias by the Case Officer, so that his consideration of the application, in particular (but not exclusively) over the heritage aspects of it with which I was involved as an objector, was neither fair nor impartial.

 

You will need to consider the attached document in full, but the key points on the heritage side are:

 

·      the Case Officer had already sent the applicant's agent a copy of the Alternative Heritage Statement ("AHS") which I had submitted in February 2025, and invited the submission of a revised heritage statement ("RHS") on behalf of the applicant (which I do not object to);

 

·      after reviewing the RHS, submitted in April, and finding that it did not undermine the case made in my AHS, which showed that the application failed to comply with Brent's Local Plan heritage policy BHC1, the Case Officer not only asked the agent to prepare another revised heritage statement ("RHS2"), but spelt out in an email of 2 May 2025 what that statement should say. This instruction was clearly designed to enable the Case Officer to claim that policy BHC1 had been complied with (as if the application did not comply, Planning Officers could not recommend its approval to Planning Committee);

 

·      the RHS2 was sent to the Case Officer on 27 May 2025, and because a more senior Officer decided that this should trigger a new public consultation period, the Case Officer issued letters and notices about the consultation on 10 June;

 

·      however, the RHS2 document, which the consultation was meant to be about (with a closing date of 10 July) was not published on the Council's planning webpage for application 25/0041 until 9 July 2025. This did not seem to have been accidental, as I had emailed the Case Officer on 10 June saying that the revised heritage statement on the website was the April RHS (I was not aware until late July that there had been an RHS2!).

 

Although I believe that the Case Officer has breached the Planning Code of Practice, I would only ask that, if my complaint is upheld, he should be given a formal reprimand, not anything more serious. This is because, from past experience, I believe that problems over how adopted planning policy and practice are dealt with at Brent Council are not just down to this single Officer.

 

If you agree, on reviewing all of the evidence provided in the attached document, that the Planning Code of Practice has been broken in this case, I would ask that a written warning be given to Brent's Head of Planning, to be passed on to all of the Officers in his Department, that any future case of failure to consider and decide an application fairly and impartially will be treated as a misconduct offence, with serious consequences.

 

2. As Director of Law:

 

My wider concern, and hopefully yours as well, is that when the evidence which I have included in the comments document attached was presented to Brent's Head of Planning last October, in a complaint made by Kensal Green Residents' Association, his response was summarised in the words: 'I do not consider that the local planning authority has acted in a biased manner.' The details about this are set out at section 4 of the attached document.

 

I realise that a Head of Department is likely to try to protect his Officers, and the reputation of his Department, but in order to do so he has either failed to look at the detailed evidence provided, or has decided to ignore it, and try to deflect attention away from it in his response (an email of 24 October 2025 to Kensal Green Residents' Association, which they forward a copy of to me).

 

That approach undermines the credibility of any Report to Brent's Planning Committee put forward in respect of this application, if that Report is prepared or presented by Officers who have been involved in any way with the clear bias and perceived pre-determination which I have uncovered and commented on.

 

If such a Report, which would almost certainly recommend approval of the application, were to be made, and the Planning Committee were to accept the Officers' recommendation, then there would be strong grounds for an appeal against the decision to the High Court by objectors. Would you, as Director of Law, wish to take that risk?

 

The alternative that I can see, if the application is to be considered by Brent's Planning Committee, is that Brent Council should engage an independent planning consultant, perhaps nominated by a body such as the Royal Town Planning Institute, to review all of the planning application documents and comments on the application, and prepare a report and recommendation which is not influenced by the "procedural improprieties" which I have drawn attention to.

 

I look forward to receiving your response to this email, before any further action is taken by Brent Council (as local planning authority) over application 25/0041. Thank you. Best wishes,

 

Philip Grant.’

 

I had not received any acknowledgement to that email when I wrote a second time, after learning that application 25/0041 had been listed for a decision at the Planning Committee meeting next Wednesday, 11 February. Having read the Officers’ Report, on which Committee members are expected to base their decision (which is usually to approve the application, as recommended by Brent’s Planning Officers), it continued the bias previously complained about. This is what I wrote on 5 February:

 

Bias by Brent Planning Officers in their Report to Planning Committee on application 25/0041

This is an open email

 

Dear Ms Henry,

 

Further to my email to you on Monday 2 February, about bias and perceived pre-determination by Planning Officers in this case, I have been advised that application 25/0041 has been listed for determination at the Planning Committee meeting on Wednesday 11 February.

 

Having read the Officers' Report, it is clear that the bias By Planning Officers in favour of the application, and against those objecting to it, has continued in that Report. As a result, it is unlikely that there could be a fair and impartial consideration of the application, and I would strongly urge that application 25/0041 (26 & 28 Hazel Road, London NW10) be adjourned from next week's Planning Committee meeting, and only returned to the agenda when a Report and recommendation has been commissioned and prepared by an independent planning consultant, as suggested at the end of my 2 February email.

 

Because of my request for an adjournment, I am copying this email to the Chair and Vice Chair of Planning Committee, and to the Governance Officer for that meeting, for their information. I am also copying it to the Chief Executive, who may well be concerned by its contents as Brent's Head of Paid Service.

 

I realise that this email involves serious allegations, so I will seek to justify them, by reference to the Officers' Report to Planning Committee.

 

The Report's "summary of concerns raised" does include a mention of the detailed comment document which I included with my 2 February email, which it describes as: 'Planning officers being bias and pre-determining application.' However, the "Officer Comment" on this concern does not deal with the detailed evidence which I had provided, showing that there had been clear bias by the Case Officer. Instead, it suggests that any such bias would be immaterial:

 

'All planning applications are required to be determined in accordance with planning policies set out within the development plan, unless material considerations indicate otherwise. The assessment of the planning application would also consider any comments received from the public or internal/external consultees, when forming a recommendation on a proposal.'

 

I agree entirely that planning applications should be determined in accordance with Brent's adopted Local Plan policies, but those policies have not been set out in the Report 'in a fair impartial and transparent manner’, which is a vital requirement for both Officers and Members in considering and deciding planning applications.

 

In addition to showing that application 25/0041 did not comply with Brent's heritage policy BHC1, my Alternative Heritage Statement ("AHS") comment of February 2025 listed three other Local Plan policies that the application breached. This is the relevant extract from para. 4.5 of the pdf document version my AHS that was emailed to Planning Officers:

 

  

That objection, highlighting the application's failure to comply with three identified Local Plan policies, is not included in the Report's "summary of concerns raised". That is a serious omission when applications need to be determined in accordance with planning policy, and another example of the bias by Planning Officers in favour of the application which they want to see approved.

 

The Report's list of "Key policies of the Brent Local Plan 2019-2041" does not even include policy BP6 South East, which is the specific development management policy covering the Kensal Green area of the borough. When dealing with the other two policies in the body of the Report, Planning Officers have been very selective with the parts they refer to. This is a screen shot from the Report:

 

 

Para. 40 of the Report fails to include the requirement in policy DMP1 that 'complements the locality' includes the requirement to 'conserve and where possible enhance the significance of heritage assets.' Para. 48, at the end of that section of the Report, actually claims: 'The proposed contemporary design is therefore considered as high quality and would comply with policy DMP1.' But the character of the locality which policy DMP1 states the proposed development needs to complement is a street of two-storey Victorian terraced homes. A square modern four-storey office block (in place of a Victorian heritage building) would detract from the locality, rather than complement it.

 

Para. 41 of the Report does admit that policy BD1 states: 'innovative contemporary design will be supported where it respects and complements historic character,' then goes on to seek to negate that requirement by adding: 'but is also fit for the future.' It is not disputed that the proposed building has an 'innovative contemporary design', but it does not respect the historic Victorian character of Hazel Road. That requirement of Brent Local Plan policies DMP1, BP6 South East and BD1 should mean that application 25/0041 IS NOT recommended for approval, but Planning Officers have failed to represent those policy points fairly in their Report.

 

The section of the Report dealing with the heritage aspects of the application "copies and pastes" extensively from the Further Heritage Comments document prepared by Brent's Principal Heritage Officer ("PHO"), which was published in November 2025. However, the PHO was quite new to Brent, and had not known or had misunderstood several important points from the borough's Historic Environment Place-making Strategy ("HEPMS"), a 2019 supporting document for the Local Plan.

 

One misunderstanding was his view that because 28 Hazel Road had not been added to the Local List after a 2016 project, it did not merit being on that list, and so should have a heritage significance score of no more than 5 (and his assessment gave it that score, out of 12). I wrote to him on 25 November, explaining with supporting evidence how he had misunderstood the HEPMS, and showing him that as 28 Hazel Road was included on the list at Schedule 3 of the Strategy document, it was considered to qualify for addition to the Local List, with a score of at least 6 out of 12, even though none of the 100+ properties on that list have been formally added yet.

 

The PHO replied to me on 27 November with this email:

 

As can be seen, the PHO thanked me for bringing the misunderstanding to his attention, and said that would share the information 'with the relevant planning case officer.' However, the Report does not take into account that information, and still includes the original, and false, claim: 'It must be emphasised that, following LB Brent’s 2016 round of the local list review process, that the site building was not locally listed, as it was not considered to have reached the necessary threshold for local listing.'

 

The Report also continues to claim that the former Victorian mission hall has a heritage significance score of 5 out of 12, despite the fact that if it had a score that low the HEPMS would not have treated it as a non-designated heritage asset! This is yet another example of the bias shown by Planning Officers against genuine grounds for objection by myself and many other Brent residents in their consideration of this planning application.

 

The application should not be allowed to proceed to a decision at next week's Planning Committee meeting, and I look forward to hearing that it has been withdrawn from the agenda, pending an independent Report which can be relied on to be fair and impartial, rather than the current Report by Brent Planning Officers which cannot. Thank you. Best wishes,

 

Philip Grant.’

 

Is it worth all this effort, trying to oppose the Brent Council “machine”? I believe it is, and that ordinary citizens, like us, sometimes have to make a stand on important issues. If what I have uncovered is happening on this application, how much trust can residents have that Brent's Planning Officers will deal with any application fairly and impartially?

Philip Grant