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
