Guest post by Philip Grant in a personal capacity.
The former Brent Start college at 1 Morland Gardens in October 2023.
In a comment under my 6 October guest post, Morland Gardens – Brent responds to my query
over “Why no progress?”, I listed two
follow-up questions I’d asked Brent’s Head of Capital Delivery. Here is the
first of those questions, and the answer I received:
Q: I hope that
Brent Council can get some funding from the GLA's SAHP programme to help
finance genuinely affordable homes to rent for local people in housing need,
but I was concerned to read that your bid for 1 Morland Gardens has included
'65 social rent homes, the same number as was proposed for the previous scheme
at the site.' The failed "previous scheme" included construction of a
block of flats on land outside 1 Morland Gardens (the Harlesden City Challenge
Community Garden) which Brent did not have the legal right to build on, and the
demolition of the Victorian heritage building. Please explain why, in these
circumstances, a figure of 65 homes at 1 Morland Gardens was chosen for
inclusion in the Council's submission to the GLA.
A: The council
chose this as an arbitrary figure to include in the GLA SAHP funding
application. This figure happens to be the figure that was from the previous
scheme. The actual number of homes on the site will be
dependent on the suggested quantity of housing the feasibility work identifies
is achievable based on the options that are being looked into.
Arbitrary? An English dictionary definition of that word is: ‘based on
chance rather than being planned or based on reason.’ I wondered whether that
figure of 65 homes was also what the Council was seeking from the consultants,
Mott MacDonald, who they’d commissioned to carry out a feasibility study, so I
submitted a Freedom of Information Act request. I’ve now received the
information (everything I had requested, unlike some where Council Officers
seek to hide things they don’t want you to know, claiming that it is not ‘in
the public interest’ to disclose that information!), and here is my update on
Brent’s Morland Gardens project.
Brent’s initial approach to Mott MacDonald to carry out the feasibility
study.
Brent’s initial approach about the study was on 12 May (above), just
after the local elections, and you will see from the final line that Mott
MacDonald (“MM”) were already the Council’s consultants for its Bridge Park
proposals. MM submitted their response as a ‘Feasibility Stage Fee Proposal’ on
24 June, with the amount of fees redacted but with the billing provision:
‘Monthly drawdown sums to be agreed prior to contract execution / start of
appointment.’ (I will mention some actual fee payments at the end.) Agreement
must have been reached, as a “Kick-off Meeting” between Council Officers and
the MM team took place on 19 August.
Extract of key points from MM’s notes of the 19 August 2026 “Kick-off
Meeting”.
The study would look at the feasibility of three design options, with
the first retaining and reusing the locally listed Victorian villa
(“Altamira”), and the other two based on its demolition. All three options include
‘residential accommodation of up to 65 units’, with point 4.7 of the notes
stating ‘additional homes may be possible if building heights are increased’!
The youth facilities note at 4.8 discloses that the youth organisation
Brent is working with here is the Young Brent Foundation (it was suggested last
year that the Barham Park Trust may wrongly have allowed this organisation to occupy part of the former
Brent library building at Barham Park rent free for four years). They
apparently wish to use part of the Morland Gardens buildings for ‘educational
and life skills activities, including technology, financial literacy and
cooking.’
When Brent’s Cabinet agreed the future use of 1 Morland Gardens in June
2025, it was for affordable housing and a youth facility. There was no mention
of any change from that use in the Bridge Park (with brief mentions of the
other “Hillside Corridor” sites) Report to the July 2026 Cabinet meeting. But
now the proposals also include a SEND (“Special Educational Needs and
Disabilities”) facility. Note 4.9 above showed separate spaces for both primary
and secondary pupils, but that was soon reduced to a facility for 15 primary
pupils with SEMH (Social, Emotional and Mental Health) needs.
MM’s schedule of accommodation details and space requirements for the 15
primary pupil facility.
The schedule above does not include the rooms for staff use and offices,
or circulation space. The total internal floor area needed for the proposed
SEND facility at Morland Gardens is calculated as 871 square metres, plus a
minimum of 450 square metres of outdoor space. The sympathetic classroom
extension to the north side of the restored Victorian villa, when it was
converted to become Brent’s adult education college in the mid-1990s, seen
beyond the tree in the photograph below, is an excellent example of how this
could be done, with the open area in front of it providing the outdoor space
(fenced off for the safety and security of the students).
The Victorian villa, with 1990s classroom extension to its right,
pictured in June 2023.
If that suggestion was followed, and the heritage building retained, the
rooms in the main part of the Victorian villa, as adapted for the college in
the 1990s, would provide the necessary space for the proposed youth facility
needs. But the site would still need to provide ‘up to 65 homes’! When Brent’s
Head of Capital Delivery replied to my first question on 9 October he wrote: ‘The
actual number of homes on the site will be dependent on the suggested quantity
of housing the feasibility work identifies is achievable ….’
Email from Brent to MM on 1 September 2026.
However, in an email to MM on 1 September, referring to Option 1, the
same Council Officer wrote that Option 1 was: ‘retain the locally listed
building for SEND and youth facilities and build the 65 homes around the
locally listed building.’ This suggests that 65 homes is not just an
“arbitrary” or an “up to” figure, but what the Council actually wants delivered
on the 1 Morland Gardens site. If that is the case, the findings from the Mott
MacDonald study will say that Option 1, retaining the Victorian villa, is NOT
feasible.
Providing that many homes at 1 Morland Gardens while retaining the
Victorian villa is unlikely to have been feasible even when affordable homes
plus a youth facility was the proposal. Adding a special educational needs
facility to the mix has made it virtually impossible. I hope I’m wrong, but
trying to squeeze too much onto the site was the mistake which Brent made in
2019, which led to the flawed 2020 scheme. That scheme failed. Are they going
to make the same mistake again, nearly eight years later?
Philip Grant.
P.S. I said I would mention fee
payments at the end. As work began on the feasibility study in August, I
expected to see at least some fees included on Brent’s July to September 2026
payments Excel spreadsheet, which can be viewed under “Transparency” on the Council’s
website. The two payments shown for Mott MacDonald Ltd in that quarter include
£4,222 charged to “SEND expansion”, which probably relates to work on the
Morland Gardens study. It could be that the non-SEND work is being included in
MM’s payments for their services in the “Bridge Park” category. MM received
£83,838 from Brent in the quarter under that heading.
