Abuse of Power? Complaint over party political content of a Council report – Brent’s reply and Philip Grant's response to it.

 

 

Guest post by Philip Grant in a personal capacity

 

Last Friday, Martin published an Open Email which I’d sent to Brent Council’s Corporate Director of Governance, complaining about a Cabinet Member Foreword included in the report illustrated above. I received a reply from that Senior Council Officer on Monday morning, and sent my response to it just before lunchtime on Wednesday. 

 

It may seem as though I am making a fuss over a relatively minor matter, but when those in power at our local Council seem to be abusing the power that they hold, I think it is important to point it out, and to do so publicly. If they allowed to get away with one abuse, the next one may be bigger, and so on.

 

If the way that “Democracy in Brent” is conducted is of interest to you, the full text of the Council’s reply to my email of 5 April, and of my response to it, are set out below.

 

Email from Brent Council’s Corporate Director of Governance at 9.03am on 8 April:

 

Dear Mr Grant

 

Thank you for your email.

 

I have looked at the section of the report to which you refer and also had a discussion with the Chief Executive.

 

Although, as you rightly say, it forms part of a report addressed to Cabinet signed off by an officer, the Cabinet Member Foreword in the report is separated from the main body of the report and clearly provided by the councillor and not by the officer who has signed off the report.

 

Leaving aside the question of whether there would otherwise be an issue in relation to the publicity related provisions to which you refer, I would point out that they arise under Part II of the Local Government Act 1986.  Section 6 (7) of that Part of that Act states:

 

(7) Nothing in this Part shall be construed as applying to anything done by a person in the discharge of any duties under regulations made under section 22 of the Local Government Act 2000 (access to information etc.)

 

These are regulations relating to publication of papers for, and admission to, meetings of the council’s Executive (Cabinet) and its committees and related matters.

 

The purpose of the introduction of the Cabinet Member Foreword was to provide an opportunity for the council policy context of decisions to be made explicit in reports to Cabinet by the Cabinet Member who is accountable for initiating and implementing council policies within the relevant portfolio. 

 

I am happy to remind officers signing off reports of this intention.

 

Best wishes

 

Debra

My response to that email at 11.50am on 10 April:

 

This is an Open Email

 

Dear Ms Norman,

 

Thank you for your email on Monday morning, 8 April.

 

I have considered it carefully, and have studied the legislation and Statutory Instruments arising from the main point you made on Section 6(7) LGA1986.

 

1. Your claim that ‘the Cabinet Member Foreword in the report is separated from the main body of the report’ does not stand up to scrutiny. Yes, it is headed Cabinet Officer Foreword, but it is subsection 3.1 of section 3 “Detail” in the middle of a document which, as I pointed out, is the ‘Report from the Interim Corporate Director of Communities & Regeneration’.

 

2.0 I admit that I had not considered the possible effect of Section 6(7) LGA1986 on the points I raised in my complaint email to you on 5 April. For that, I apologise. You appear to have used this to justify avoiding any answer over the content of the Cabinet Member Foreword being political material. But is Section 6(7) the “loophole” which allows that otherwise prohibited material to be published?

 

2.1 For ease of reference, I will copy that paragraph again here, but I have emphasised some of the key wording:

 

‘(7) Nothing in this Part shall be construed as applying to anything done by a person in the discharge of any duties under regulations made under section 22 of the Local Government Act 2000 (access to information etc.)’

 

Those regulations are set out in The Local Authorities (Executive Arrangements) (Access to Information) (England) Regulations 2000 (S.I. 2000/3272) [“the Regulations”]. Under the Regulations, the executive (in this case, Brent’s Cabinet) is the “decision making body”, an individual member of the executive can be a “decision maker”, and the duties of decision makers, either collective or individual, are to make “executive decisions”.

 

Paragraph 11 of the Regulations, “Access to agenda and connected reports” begins by stating:

 

‘(1) Subject to paragraph (2), a copy of the agenda and every report for a public meeting shall be available for inspection by the public at the offices of the local authority when they are made available to the members of the executive or decision making body responsible for making the decision to which they relate.’

 

Subsequent sub-paragraphs make it clear that providing those reports, and managing public access to them, is part of the duties of officers of the Local Authority.

 

2.2 This is also reflected in Brent’s own Constitution. Paragraph 3 in Part 1 illustrates the clear distinction between the roles and duties of Cabinet members and Council officers, and states:

 

‘The Cabinet is responsible for putting policies, which Full Council has approved, into effect. The Cabinet is the part of the Council which is responsible for most of the Council’s day-to-day decision making not delegated to officers.’

 

Standing Order 13 in Part 2, “Meetings and Decisions of the Cabinet and Cabinet Committees”, includes these provisions:

 

‘(e) Any decision taken by the Cabinet or by Cabinet Committees shall be taken following the consideration of a written report and after having taken into account all legal, financial and other relevant implications, the responses to any consultation and the comments received from the relevant Scrutiny Committee and any previous meeting of Full Council where the matter the subject of the decision was considered.

 

(f) Any decision of the Cabinet or Cabinet Committees shall be taken in accordance with all current legislation, these Standing Orders and the other applicable rules contained in the Constitution.’

 

The report which the Cabinet must consider is written by Council Officers, and signed off by the Corporate Director responsible for the Department which deals with the report’s subject matter. That is done ‘in the discharge of’ that officer’s duties. 

 

2.3 It is not part of a Cabinet member’s duties, even a Lead Member’s duties, to write part of such a report. Their duty is to consider the written report, which provides all of the information they need in order to make their decision. For that reason, I do not believe that Section 6(7) LGA1986, applies in this case, so that the Cabinet Member Foreword in the report is still subject to, and breaches, Section 2 LGA1986.

 

3.0 I wrote that I could see no valid reason for Cabinet Member Forewords in Officer Reports to Cabinet. You have provided the following explanation:

 

‘The purpose of the introduction of the Cabinet Member Foreword was to provide an opportunity for the council policy context of decisions to be made explicit in reports to Cabinet by the Cabinet Member who is accountable for initiating and implementing council policies within the relevant portfolio.’

 

3.1 However, section 3.2, “Contribution to Borough Plan Priorities & Strategic Context”, of the very report we are considering here, sets out the council policy context explicitly. It also does so far better, and without the party political bias of Cllr. Tatler’s foreword.

 

3.2 The Report is about Strategic Community Infrastructure Levy funding to deliver a new publicly accessible courtyard garden and a community centre at the Council’s Cecil Avenue development, part of the Wembley Housing Zone. It is not about the housing project as such, but para. 3.1.3. of the foreword, in particular, concentrates on housing, beginning: ‘The housing crisis did not begin yesterday ….’

 

3.3 In this part of her foreword, the Lead Member for Regeneration, is putting forward views which appear to be different from the adopted Council policy she is meant to promote and deliver. Brent Council’s housing policy, is set out in Strategic Priority 1, “Prosperity and Stability in Brent”, of the Borough Plan 2023-2027. The key references are:

 

‘We will create more accessible and genuinely affordable housing. We want to be the leaders in London for inclusive housing development that works better for everyone. This means buying houses; building new social, accessible and affordable homes and improving our existing estates. We will also continue working with partners to increase the supply of private rented accommodation.’

 

‘DESIRED OUTCOME 2: Safe, Secure and Decent Housing - We will continue with our pledge to deliver 1,000 new council homes and be leaders in London in building inclusive and genuinely more affordable homes. This includes our pledge to deliver 5,000 new affordable homes within the borough, of which 1,700 will be directly delivered by the Council, by 2028.’

 

‘What Success Will Look Like - More council homes and more temporary accommodation provided by the council. More genuinely affordable and accessible homes available to families and residents.’

 

3.4 Cllr. Tatler’s version of the Council’s housing policy is:

 

‘We have a moral imperative to do all in our power to build more housing and communities that last long into the future. The regeneration that underpins the Wembley Housing Zone, is exactly that – an effort to build a better Brent, a place where home ownership is a reality, not just a dream.’

 

I’ve used bold type again to emphasise what she is championing in her Cabinet Member Foreword. Whereas the Council’s policy is to deliver new genuinely affordable Council homes, Cllr. Tatler’s agenda appears to promote homes for sale. 

 

Sadly, that is what the Brent Council development, under her “Regeneration” guidance, on Council-owned land at Cecil Avenue is actually going to deliver, with 150 (out of 237) of the new homes there being built for private sale, and only 56 as Council homes for genuinely affordable rent.

 

4.0 My email to you of 5 April suggested that the inclusion of Cabinet Member Forewords in Officer Reports to Cabinet should be reviewed, because I could see no valid reason for them. I think that our correspondence has confirmed that view (see 3.0 and 3.1 above), and I hope that you and the Chief Executive, to whom I am copying this, will initiate that review and publish its results.

 

4.1 Another reason why such Forewords are unnecessary, given in my email of 5 April, was because: ‘the Lead Member has the opportunity to make any additional comments she/he may wish to when introducing the agenda item at the Cabinet meeting.’

 

Cllr. Tatler proved this point at the Cabinet meeting on 8 April, when in introducing item 9 she read out large extracts from her Cabinet Member Foreword, including the claim about ‘a Labour pledge met.’ The evidence is on the webcast, published on Brent Council’s website.

 

4.2 If ‘the Cabinet Member who is accountable for initiating and implementing council policies within the relevant portfolio’ wishes to put their view on what those policies are to her or his colleagues, in writing and in advance of the formal Cabinet meeting, they can circulate their own document to their Cabinet colleagues. Those views should not be included in a Report by a Council Officer, on which the Cabinet is being asked to make a decision.

 

4.3 That is especially true if the Cabinet member has included political material, which the Council is prohibited from publishing, as part of their “Foreword”.

 

In view of the above, hope you will be happy to advise officers signing off reports to Cabinet that they should not, in future, include Cabinet Member Forewords in those reports.

 

I look forward to receiving your confirmation of this. 

 

Best wishes,

 

Philip Grant.

 

Brent Council to contribute up to £11.23m to Wembley Housing Zone's community space and community centre

 

 

Wembley Matters contributor, Philip Grant, has been assiduous in following the proghress (or lack of it) of the Wembley Housing Zone in Wembley High Road/Cecil Avenue. The main theme is the lack of truly affordable housing with the amount diminishing over the years when Brent could have acquired much more. See LINK for one of the main articles and the adjacent search box for more. (Search for Wembley Housing Zone).

Now the mainly private development (and the developer through increased value of the development) will benefit from plans for a courtyard and community centre/centres on the site to be paid for by Brent Council.

 

There are very few details about the community centres (there are two options) in the documentation. The developer Wates would contribute Strategic Community Infrastructure Levy monies to Brent Council but Brent Council would use this to enhance the scheme through outside community space and a community centre. Additional monies woud be needed from SCIL  for the more expensive option:

The proposed capital contribution of up to £11.23m SCIL is necessary to deliver the infrastructure elements of the scheme. The Wembley Housing Zone development is itself estimated to generate £5.267m Brent CIL receipts and Wates are liable to pay this sum. Therefore the net additional SCIL ask to the Council to fund the infrastructure elements of the scheme for Option#1 is £2.6m and for Option#2 is £5.96m. The Council has sufficient Strategic CIL reserves to meet this request.

 

As reported to Cabinet in August 2021, the Council can retain and lease the commercial and community space on the WHZ scheme, or dispose of it for a one-off capital receipt. Requested costs at Appendix 1 present two options, both of which would deliver the publicly accessible courtyard. Option #1 at £7.87m would also designate one flexible community and commercial space for the new community centre. Option #2 at £11.23m would however designate both flexible community and commercial spaces for a larger new community centre. Marketing of the commercial and community spaces will determine the range of occupiers interested in the WHZ scheme, and on what terms. Whether or not it is in the Council’s best interest to pursue Option 1 or Option 2 will depend on market demand and the balance of socioeconomic and financial outputs that can be delivered.

This is a substantial sum of money from  SCIL but the Officers' report states there are sufficient funds in the account to cover the cost:

There is a foreword to the Officer's Report by Cllr Shama Tatler which in my view amounts to a Brent Council party political broadcast during an election period (or parliamentary candidate pitch)  but has been defended by the Brent Council CEO as clearly separate from the officers' contribution. See the Report and Foreword  HERE,

Extract from Shama Tatler's Foreword:

Working in partnership with Wates Construction and the Mayor of London,

Brent Council is delivering on its longstanding commitment to revitalise the

eastern stretch of Wembley High Road. This report sets out how we will embed

community use at the heart of our regeneration plans for the Wembley Housing

Zone, with a landmark £11.23m investment into a publicly accessible courtyard

garden, alongside new community facilities. A Labour pledge met to continue

using public assets for public good – balancing regeneration projects in the

interests of the many in search of a new home, not the few that decry change.

 

The economic regeneration of Wembley is clear for all to see, from the world-

class Stadium to the re-developed public realm – thousands more Londoners

now also call the area home, and the area is attracting more inward investment

than ever before. This has been made possible thanks to long-term public and

private partnership, leveraging resources, expertise and crucially, investment.

Through the Wembley Housing Zone we have another opportunity to create

another powerhouse, driving positive change along Wembley High Road.

 

The housing crisis did not begin yesterday, and it will not finish tomorrow. It is

therefore vital that we create plans which respond to the economic drivers as

they are not as we wish them to be. We have a moral imperative to do all in our

power to build more housing and communities that last long into the future. The

regeneration that underpins the Wembley Housing Zone, is exactly that – an

effort to build a better Brent, a place where home ownership is a reality, not just

a dream. Supply of housing, of all tenures is vital to this, after all in the United

Kingdom we have some of the lowest ratios in Europe for housing stock to

people. Taken together with the toxic headwinds of inflation, prices are being

pushed everywhere and house prices are now at their most unaffordable,

relative to earnings since 1876.

 

Of course community centres are much needed and more community space essential and welcome in the increasingly  dense Wembley High Road but could Brent Council have got a better deal from one of their favoured developers?

Wembley Housing Zone – Brent’s Cecil Avenue development downsized!

 Guest post by Philip Grant in a personal capacity

 

Revised East and South elevation drawings for Brent’s Cecil Avenue development.

 

It may not look any smaller, but as disclosed in the Affordable Housing Supply Update report to December’s Brent Cabinet meeting, the number of homes to be built on the Council’s Cecil Avenue development has been reduced. The reason is the need for second staircases, because of new fire regulations introduced as a result of the Grenfell Tower tragedy.

 

I mentioned this in a guest post last month, Brent’s Affordable Council Housing – open and transparent?, when I wrote: ‘the report does not say how many of the new figure of 237 homes will be for private sale, and how many of those left for the Council will now be for “genuinely affordable” rent, rather than shared ownership. A lack of openness, which I will try to remedy!’ 

 

I’ve now received a reply to a Freedom of Information request, and can provide the answer. Cecil Avenue is part of a wider Wembley Housing Zone (“WHZ”) project, together with Ujima House, on the opposite side of the High Road. Brent Council’s contract with Wates in March 2023, said each would have half (152 out of 304) of the WHZ homes. However, all of the Wates homes, for private sale, would be on the more desirable Cecil Avenue site. 

 

The revised split of the Cecil Avenue homes, from Brent’s 8 January FoI response.

 

These figures show that although there will now be thirteen fewer homes on the Cecil Avenue development, those going to Wates will only be 2 less, while Brent Council loses 11. This is partly compensated for by the revised proportion of family-sized homes going in Brent’s favour. The Council will now have 71.4% of the family-sized homes, rather than 68.75%, but the total number of family-sized homes at Cecil Avenue has been reduced from 64 to 42, as part of rearranging the unit sizes to fit in the staircases.

 

Surely these changes would need planning permission? They did! An application was submitted on 21 August 2023, but Brent’s planners treated it as “non-material” amendments to the original consent given in February 2021, so that it was not publicised or consulted on. The application was approved by the Delegated Team Manager on 30 October 2023.

 

The heading to the Delegated Planning report, October 2023.

 

The report on this application (23/2774) makes clear that despite the WHZ involving two sites and a combined building contract, for planning purposes the Cecil Avenue application must be looked at on its own. Brent’s planning policies require that large housing schemes, such as this one, should provide 50% affordable housing. These revised proposals only provide 36.7% (and only 48.5% if the whole WHZ scheme is taken together). If it had been 50% at Cecil Avenue, there should have been at least 118 affordable homes on the site, not just 87 out of 237.

 

Brent’s affordable housing planning policies require a tenure split of at least 70% of the affordable housing to be “genuinely affordable”. The 56 homes at London Affordable Rent (“LAR”) out of 87 “affordable” Council homes is only 64.4% (62.4% over the WHZ scheme as a whole). Despite not meeting either of Brent’s planning policy percentages for affordable homes, the amended application was accepted. 

 

The only “good news” this time is that 21 of the 28 family-sized homes for Council tenants at LAR (down from 35 family-sized, on the figures supplied to me last July) will be 4-bedroom homes, with private gardens. There is currently a desperate need for these large family homes for affordable rent in the borough. It is unfortunate that, because of more than two years delay by Brent Council, in going down the “developer partner” route, it will be nearly three years before these homes are actually available! And LAR rent figures exclude service charges, which could bring the total bill up to as much as 80% of local open market rent level.

 

Extract from the approved documents for the amended application 23/2774.

 

35.6% of the “affordable” Council homes at Cecil Avenue will be what is known as Intermediate homes. This is a summary of what these 31 homes comprise:

 

Extract from the approved documents for the amended application 23/2774.

 

As shown in the information provided to me above, 28 of these homes will be for shared ownership (despite there being a surplus of these in the borough, it not being affordable to most people in housing need – a household income of £60k a year required to afford a 1-bedroom flat - and shared ownership being a “scam”!). What about the 3 “other affordable” homes? The planning application documents show that these Brent Council homes are intended to be sold, by Wates, as Discount Market Sale (”DMS”) homes.

 

The DMS homes must be ‘offered to Eligible Purchasers for sale at a price that is no more than 80 (eighty) per cent of Open Market Value, with the Council retaining and holding the remaining equity under an equitable charge’. To be an eligible purchaser for one of these 1 or 2-bedroom flats you would (on current figures) need to have an annual household income of no more than £90k. Affordable?

 

It is not just the number of homes (and affordable homes) which has been downsized in the amended plans for the Cecil Avenue development. In his reply to an email I had sent him about the Council’s Cecil Avenue development in February 2022 (that’s nearly 2 years ago!), Cllr. Muhammed Butt spoke proudly of ‘a new publicly accessible open space during this latest development. A positive outcome for the residents of Brent.’

 

My guest post including his reply did concede that: ‘The approved plans for the Cecil Avenue site include a courtyard garden square. This would mainly be for the benefit of residents, but there would be public access to it, through an archway from Wembley High Road.’ All of the tower block developments, existing and planned, along this stretch of the High Road, will bring thousands of extra residents within a short walk of this ‘publicly accessible open space.’ However, that too has been downsized:

 

Paragraph from the Delegated Planning Report on application 23/2774.

 

The amended external amenity space may just ‘exceed the minimum requirement’ for play space needed by the reduced number of future occupants at Cecil Avenue, but there will be little to spare for the other ‘residents of Brent’. 

 

Delay and downsizing. What more can go wrong for a Brent Council housing scheme, on Council-owned land, which received full planning consent on 5 February 2021? If only Brent had got on and borrowed the funds to build it, at the very low interest rates at then, and hired a contractor straight away, they could have had 250 (or at least 237) affordable Council homes at Cecil Avenue available in 2024, rather than 87 in late 2026.

 

Philip Grant.

Brent’s Affordable Council Housing – open and transparent?

Guest post by Philip Grant in a personal capacity

 

I’ve already written about the Morland Gardens parts of the Affordable Housing Supply Update report to next week’s (11 December 2023) Cabinet meeting, and Martin has also posted a blog about the temporary accommodation proposals in its South Kilburn section. In this article I will cover some of the other points that caught my eye from that report.

 

I am not seeking to underestimate the “challenges” which the Council faces over meeting current housing needs, particularly over the shortage of Central Government funding, rising construction costs and higher interest rates since the disastrous mini-budget during the short-lived Truss premiership. Brent has aimed to do more over housing than many other London Councils, and the recommendations in this report include to ‘approve the use of usable Capital reserves to fund’ the New Council Homes Programme (“NCHP”), and to provide extra resources to tackle the current temporary accommodation crisis. 

 

A recent feature of such reports is a “Cabinet Member Foreword” (though whether these are written by the Lead Members, or for them by a Council Officer, is unclear). I was struck by these words from this Foreword’s para. 3.5: ‘this report emphasises the importance of being open and transparent with all ….’ I agree that openness and transparency are very important, but does this report deliver on those words?

 

In the report, are the Council being honest about what they have achieved so far? The Cabinet Member for Housing says: ‘we are on track to meet our target of 5,000 homes by 2028’. When the NCHP target was first launched five years ago, the aim was 5,000 affordable homes built in the borough between April 2019 and March 2024 inclusive. As part of that aim, the Council set itself ‘a strategic target of delivering 1,000 new council homes at genuinely affordable rent by 31 March 2024.’ So, they’ve missed that target, and replaced it with another!

 

 

Table 1 in the report (above), which should be accurate because the “numbers” have been “cleansed”, shows that 3,901 affordable homes will have been finished in the borough in the five years to March 2024 (although the “by tenure” column totals 3,943! - see my corrections in red). 812 of those are shown as delivered by Brent Council. But only 560 (those described as “General Needs”) of the new Council homes will be “genuinely affordable”, and of those 235 were for existing Council tenants being moved from older blocks due to be demolished. 

 

The affordable homes provided by RPs (Registered Providers of social housing, such as Housing Associations) make up 3,089 of the 3,901 total, but only 940 of those homes appear to be “genuinely affordable”. That is just over 30% of the total, with the rest being “intermediate” homes, such as shared ownership. Although most of these will have received planning consent before Brent’s Local Plan came into force in February 2022, that is the opposite of the tenure split for affordable housing which is now supposed to apply: 70% genuinely affordable and no more than 30% “intermediate” affordable housing.

 

More details about the types of “affordable housing” can be found in an article, Brent’s Affordable Council Housing – figuring out Cllr. Butt’s reply, which I wrote after a previous Cabinet update in November 2022.

 

The report has a section headed “Schemes on site and in main works contract”, and there are two schemes in particular from this that I would draw attention to. The first of these is Watling Gardens, the Council’s positive publicity over the start of work on which was mentioned in another article on Brent’s Council housing in October.

 

 

While the report says that this scheme ‘is currently on track’, it would cost more than the £38.5m which Brent’s Cabinet approved as the contract award price in June 2022. Brent’s answer is to issue an instruction that the project must be “value engineered”. What does that mean? It means that it will still have to built as planned, but using some materials which are less expensive than those originally intended. Previous examples of “value engineering” which come to mind are the use of reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) in some public buildings during cost saving measures in the 1960s to 1980s, and the £300k “saved” by using cheaper cladding when Grenfell Tower was being refurbished!

 

The stage and TV drama, where all the words were taken directly from Inquiry transcripts!

 

I’m not trying to suggest that the cost saving at Watling Gardens would result in anything as life-threatening as Grenfell Tower, but in the interests of transparency the public, and particularly future residents of the development (including those whose homes were demolished with the promise of a replacement there), deserve to be told what cheaper materials will be used as part of this “value engineering”.

 

I have written about Brent’s Wembley Housing Zone project on a number of occasions, including about the extra GLA funding it received, and about the 152 out of 250 homes on the former Copland School site at Cecil Avenue which Brent’s “developer partner” will get for private sale, rather than being Council homes for Brent people in housing need. The report now says there will be less than 250 homes, because of the need for extra staircases, as a result of fire safety changes following the Grenfell Tower Inquiry.

 

 

I’m pleased to see that Brent appears to have learned one lesson from Morland Gardens (the need to begin work before planning consent expires), but why has it taken nearly three years to get to this stage? However, the report does not say how many of the new figure of 237 homes will be for private sale, and how many of those left for the Council will now be for “genuinely affordable” rent, rather than shared ownership. A lack of openness, which I will try to remedy!

 

You need to read to the end of the report, on page 21, to find out what it means by ‘the importance of being open and transparent’, which I quoted near the start of this article. It appears that, to Brent Council and its Cabinet, this is more to do with the messages it gives out, rather than a commitment to being genuinely open and transparent about everything:

 

 

In other words, it is the usual “spin” that Brent Council puts out, either only sharing “good news” stories (usually with the Leader and/or one of his Cabinet colleagues getting the credit for something positive) or giving the reasons (excuses?) for why they can’t do what they had originally promised to deliver.

Philip Grant

 

Brent’s Wembley Housing Zone – 'Some' Good News! (But what is Brent Council's policy now on unaffordable Shared Ownership?)

Guest Post in a personal capacity by Philip Grant 

 

Architect’s view of Brent’s 250 home Cecil Avenue development.

 

On 14 March this year, Martin’s post “Wembley Housing Zone: Never mind the gloss – what are the details?” shared with us a Brent Council press release, about its deal with Wates to finally build the 250 homes at Cecil Avenue, which it had received full planning consent for in February 2021. The blog included “links” to several of the guest posts I’d written since August 2021, urging the Council to include more genuinely affordable homes for rent in the project, especially homes at Social Rent level which the 2020 Brent Poverty Commission said should be the priority.

 

My “parody” Brent Council Homes publicity photograph (from November 2021).

 

Since 2021, Brent’s plans had been to allow its “developer partner” to sell 152 of the homes on the former Copland School site privately, with only 37 of the 250 for London Affordable Rent, and the other 61 as “intermediate” Council housing (either shared ownership or Intermediate Rent level). 

 

You would have thought that when they arranged additional funding from the GLA, to allow for more affordable homes to be delivered as part of this Wembley Housing Zone project, Brent would have celebrated with another press release, telling us about this “good news” story. Instead, I only discovered it when I spotted an item on the Forward Plan page of the Council’s website, as I was checking whether another item had been included there. It was about a Key Decision made by the Corporate Director, Communities and Regeneration, in April 2023:-

 

There was a “Officer Key Decision Report” on the website, but (true to form) the appendices to it were both “exempt”, so that the press and public were not allowed to find out ‘information relating to the financial or business affairs of any particular person (including the authority holding that information)’. The Report did, however, give an outline of what the amended agreement with the GLA involved:-

 

 

My various attempts, since August 2021, to get Brent to include more genuinely affordable homes at Cecil Avenue, using additional GLA funding where possible, have been ignored, dodged or blocked. I was told that anything other than what the Council already planned would be impossible, because the scheme would not be viable. Now they had an extra c.£10.5m, how many extra affordable homes would they be able to provide? 

 

I had to submit a Freedom of Information Act request to find out, but “Wembley Matters” can (at last) share the Good News!

·      Instead of only 37 of the Cecil Avenue homes for London Affordable Rent, there will now be 59. 35 of these will be family-sized (3 or 4-bed) homes.

·      36 of the Cecil Avenue Council homes will be for Shared Ownership (of which 9 will be family-sized).

·      3 of the Cecil Avenue Council homes will be “Other” affordable homes. (Does that mean at Intermediate Rent?)

·      As before, 152 of the homes being built by Brent Council at Cecil Avenue will be for private sale by Wates (including 20 family-sized).

My title does say ‘Some Good News’. The other part of the Wembley Housing Zone project, across the road at Ujima House, was meant to have ALL of its 54 flats for London Affordable Rent to Council tenants. The revised figures for this block are now:

·      32 for London Affordable Rent (including all 8 family-sized flats).

·      22 for Shared Ownership.

So, the original proposed number of Wembley Housing Zone London Affordable Rent homes was 91 (37 + 54), and the revised number is 91 (59 + 32). Perhaps that is why Brent did not want to draw attention to the extra funding they’d negotiated from the GLA!

The only improvement from the extra GLA funding, and that is genuinely to be welcomed, is that more of them will be family-sized homes for affordable rent, and more will be delivered earlier (Ujima House still only has the outline planning permission approved in February 2021).

Of the original proposed 61 “intermediate affordable homes”, 58 have now been positively identified as being for shared ownership. But didn’t Brent’s Cabinet, just last week, decide to sell off the 23 shared ownership homes it had acquired at the Grand Union development,  because the Council does not have 'the knowledge, experience and the capacity to effectively sell and manage' shared ownership homes?

 

Placard from a demonstration against Shared Ownership.

 

The Report to the 17 July Cabinet meeting clearly showed that shared ownership is well above the affordability level of most families in Brent, and admitted:

 

‘… the market and demand for Shared Ownership, particularly in the latter quarter of 2022 was and has remained turbulent. This is both in terms of too many shared ownership homes available in the market and appetite and demand for these homes reducing.’

 

In a November 2022 guest post, I set out the reality of Brent’s Affordable Council Housing programme, and why they should not include any shared ownership homes. But the decision makers at the Civic Centre are still pressing on with their flawed policies!

 

Cllr. Shama Tatler fronting a publicity photo at the Cecil Avenue site in March 2023.

 

Brent’s March 2023 press release about its Wembley Housing Zone deal with Wates began by claiming: ‘More much-needed housing will soon be a reality following an agreement to build 304 new homes in Wembley.’ From the hard hats and “high-vis” jackets in the photograph that came with it, you might believe that heavy machinery was already at work on the Council-owned Cecil Avenue site, which has been vacant for at least three years.

 

 

The Cecil Avenue site from the top deck of a bus, 26 June 2023.

 

In the extract from the April 2023 Key Decision Report above, it says that ‘start on site [was] recorded on 27 March 2023’. When I went past on the last Monday in June, there was no machinery, no workers and no progress on the Cecil Avenue site, just two portacabins. My recent guest post, 1 Morland Gardens – an Open Letter to the Mayor of London, explains what is required for a “start on site” for GLA funding, and it appears this has not yet happened.

 

It appears that the ‘will soon be a reality’ actually means ‘by 31 December 2026’. Some eventual good news, but I still believe that Brent could have done so much better than 59 “genuinely affordable” homes for rent to Council tenants as part of its 250 home Cecil Avenue development.

 

Philip Grant.