Brent Council belatedly publishes its Infrastructure Funding Statement for 2024-25 - Receipts at end of year £157m SCIL and £21m NCIL

 

The Infrastructure Funding Statement (IFS) is a vital document providing transparency and accountability and is required by law.  The Brent IFS for 2024-25 failed to appear when other local authorities' statements were published. When I asked Brent Council why it had not been published they responded, 'because it's not ready.'

In Monday's Cabinet report they now state:     

The requirement to produce an annual Infrastructure Funding Statement is set out in the amended CIL regulations (2019). The Council must prepare an IFS for 2024/25 and publish it online. The IFS should have been published on the Brent Council website before 31st December 2025 per the CIL regulations but was delayed. For these reasons it is advised the IFS 2024/25 is published as soon as practical, and no alternative options have been considered.

Still no explanation for the delay of 7 months for an annual report but I publish extracts below. The next IFS is due before December 31st 2026 and will contain information relevant to the pre-election spending bonanza.

A further query was over an update of the borough's Infrastructure Development Plan (IDP). The last IDP was published seven years ago in 2019 and a lot has changed since then.

Brent Council says:    

The Council will continue to focus the spending of CIL and S106 receipts on essential infrastructure to support the level of growth outlined in the Local Plan and the projects identified in the IDP. It will do this jointly with partners through effective and ongoing engagement, ensuring key infrastructure is delivered at the right time and in the right place to support growth and development. As reported to Cabinet in May 2025, Brent’s current IDP was published in 2019 and is due to be reviewed and updated over 2026-27.

 

SCIL funds have matured over several years; prudent financial practice and good future infrastructure planning demands that the fund is judiciously allocated over time. This allows for important infrastructure coming forward in the future to be funded. In view of this, the Council is due to update its IDP to help with the future planning of infrastructure across the borough, ensuring it aligns with the growth anticipated to come forward in the Local Plan and Borough Plan priorities. This provides transparency to residents, members, infrastructure providers and the wider development industry on the type of infrastructure required to support long-term growth and development of the borough.

 

Transparency and accountability over SCIL was demanded by opposition parties at the July 6th Full Council.

 

First the sums of Strategic and Neighourhood CIL at the end of 2024-25:

 

The amount of SCIL and NCIL collected in 2024-25:

So what was Strategic CIL spent on in 2024-25?

 

To put these figures into perspective Monday's Cabinet will be asked to approve £39m SCIL to go towards the burgeoning costs of the Bridge Park Complex project.

 

NEIGHBOURHOOD CIL 

 

The IFS usually contains details on the funding of Neighbourhood CIL projects but in 2024-25

The NCIL bidding process was paused during 2024/25 due to a review of the NCIL application and bidding process and no further funds were awarded.

This cleared the way for the mainly centrally directed pre-election spending earlier this year.

Two projects of over £100,000 each required Cabinet approval in 2024-25 and that was granted:    

Step Up Hub: Community Safety Community Leadership Programme

The aim of this social infrastructure project is to improve the quality of life for disadvantaged people impacted by development by providing support to further equality, social justice, social mobility, and community cohesion.

The programme combines academic learning, with practical tasks, helping learners address real-world problems. The structured course will be supplemented by mentoring and coaching support. Course content will focus on community cohesion and crime reduction and include delivering interventions to address anti-social behaviour which has increased with the increase in development.

 

Tenterden Pavilion

This project will provide funding for a new football pavilion at Tenterden Sports

Ground in Kenton, suitable for a grassroots level football club (Forest United (1973) Youth Football Club Limited). The project is required to obtain match funding, and no NCIL funds will be released without evidence of the additional funding, as agreed by Cabinet.

 

 SECTION 106 AGREEMENTS

Brent Council explains:

The Council enters into Section 106 (S106) obligations with developers - a mechanism which makes a development proposal acceptable in planning terms. S106 obligations are focused on site-specific mitigation of the impact of development such as securing affordable housing or requiring improvements to an access road. CIL, on the other hand, is designed to raise funds for infrastructure needed generally as a result of an increase in development in an area and is spent on community infrastructure projects across the borough.

This has increasingly been used to provide affordable housing where a  developer is unable to do so on their development:

 Other S106 allocations:

 I recommend reading the full Infrastructure Funding Statement  202-25 with accounts of projects and their funding. READ IT HERE

 

 

 

 

Amidst over-development, a place to breathe and grow - South Kilburnites say 'SAVE OUR REC!'

The meeting at the Rec

 

 

From Save Our Rec
 

We hosted councillors from across the political spectrum, bringing together representatives from both Camden and Brent at the Granville Rec to amplify the #SaveTheRec campaign.

 

Leslie Barson met with Cllr Amer Agha (the Mayor of Brent), Cllr Matt Kelcher (Cabinet Member for Regeneration), and several Labour, Conservative, Lib Dem, and Green councillors.

 

Leslie highlighted why plans to demolish the Rec as part of the Hereford & Exeter regeneration project in South Kilburn must be urgently reconsidered.

 

*Loss of Public Space & Essential Amenities:*

Regeneration continues to erode crucial public and open spaces, leaving the Kilburn community with fewer vital local amenities.

 

*A History of Broken Trust:*

Decades of Brent Council failings in South Kilburn have severely damaged community trust, making transparent and genuinely accountable decision-making essential.

 

*Inadequate Replacement Site:* 

The proposed replacement site is simply not an equivalent alternative for a whole host of reasons.

 

*Lack of Community Participation:*

Meaningful consultation and true community participation have been consistently sidelined throughout this process.

 

Environmental & Wellbeing Impact:

 

🌱 *Community & Food Sovereignty*: It is an active community garden run by Granville Community Kitchen, providing local food growing, City & Guilds horticultural training, and educational workshops.

 

*🧠 Mental Health & Wellbeing:* It offers a calm, essential green sanctuary for local school pupils, young people, and residents.

 

🐝 *Vital Biodiversity:* It is a mature, irreplaceable urban ecosystem, not a space that can simply be replaced by concrete or artificial landscaping.

 

⚠️ WHAT YOU CAN DO

 

There is a Brent Councillors’ Members Briefing tomorrow. 

 

We are calling on *all* local residents concerned about the loss and overdevelopment of our green spaces to take action NOW:

 

1️⃣ Email your Ward Councillors: Ask them directly to attend tomorrow’s briefing and stand up for South Kilburn’s green infrastructure.

 

2️⃣ Send an Email / Message: If you believe in saving the Rec, contact:

 

 Cllr Rubin (Cabinet Member for Action on Climate)

 

⁠Cllr.Jake.Rubin@brent.gov.uk⁠

 

Cllr Kelcher (Cabinet Member for Regeneration)

 

⁠cllr.matt.kelcher@brent.gov.uk⁠

 

 

 

Useful Links & Petitions:

 

📌 Sign the Petition & Read More: https://granvillecommunitykitchen.org.uk/community/save-the-rec/

📌 Brent Green Party Campaigns: https://brent.greenparty.org.uk/campaigns/

 

Please share this message with your local Kilburn and Brent networks, street groups, and neighbours! 💚✊

Stop Waymo from taking our jobs and livelihoods.

 James Rossi sets out concerns over the impact of automated vehicles

 

Reflecting concerns over the potential impact of autonomous (driverless) vehicles in terms of safety and drivers' jobs, a peaceful demonstration will be held at the Waymo office, Willen Field Road, Park Royal on Tuesday 4th August from 9.30am until 6pm.

The organisers say:

We’re asking important questions about the future of automated vehicles, concerns about safety and the potential impact on jobs and livelihoods. This event is an opportunity for people to come together, hear different viewpoints and take part in a respectful discussion. Speakers will include James Rossi, Green Party Trade Union Liaison Officer for Brent and possibly others in the community. If you share these concerns, join us, bring your questions and make your voice heard. We look forward to seeing you there.

Proposed Frogmore Data Centre represents all that is wrong with the priorities of Brent and Ealing Labour controlled Councils

 Campaigning against the Frogmore Industrial Estate Data Centre

   

Guest Post by  Cllr Suzanne Gallagher (Brent Green Party, Kilburn Ward)

As local representatives, our primary duty is to protect the health, wellbeing, and living standards of our communities. That is why I, alongside my Green colleagues across Brent and Ealing, have submitted a formal, rigorous objection to the Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation (OPDC) planning committee regarding the reserved matters application (ref: 26/0107/PAOPDC) for a massive new data centre at Frogmore Industrial Estate on Acton Lane. 

While outline permission for a data centre was granted back in 2022, the specific layout, scale, and environmental strategy currently being proposed are fundamentally unacceptable. Standing in solidarity with the residents of the nearby Wesley Estate, we cannot allow this development to move forward in its current form. 

Living in the Shadow of Tech Expansion

The immediate physical impacts on the Wesley Estate are severe. The applicant is proposing massive structures reaching up to 37 metres in height, positioned just 19 metres from people’s front doors on Wesley Avenue, Harold Road, and Newark Crescent. 

At this extreme proximity, residents will suffer a devastating loss of daylight, privacy, and visual amenity. To make matters worse, the landscaping plans offer only "token planting" rather than the substantial, mature green buffering our communities deserve. Add to this the threat of heavy traffic on Acton Lane, a vital lifeline for emergency vehicles accessing Central Middlesex Hospital, and a local water grid that Thames Water explicitly warns cannot support this demand, and it becomes clear that local residents are being expected to absorb all the disruption. 

The Microclimate Crisis: Park Royal’s Extreme Heat Island Effect

While the loss of daylight and traffic pressures are reason enough to object, as a Green councillor, I am deeply alarmed by the severe climate consequences of cramming yet another data centre into our corner of West London. 

We have all felt the brutal reality of the climate crisis right on our doorsteps. London has been hammered by extreme, record-breaking heatwaves, smashing temperature records and pushing public health services and infrastructure to the absolute limit. This isn't a distant threat; it is our lived reality.

Looking ahead, the Met Office’s climate modeling shows a terrifying trajectory: sustained heatwave scenarios in the coming decades could push peak temperatures in England to an astonishing 45°C.

Against this backdrop of extreme warming, approving this proposal would mark approximately the twelfth data centre operating in the Park Royal and North Acton area. We are not looking at an isolated building; we are looking at an overwhelming, compounding heat engine. 

Data centres generate immense industrial heat. Empirical research from Cambridge University reveals that concentrated clusters of data centres generate a distinct, artificially elevated local "heat island effect," raising surrounding neighborhood temperatures by average levels of 2 degrees. We’ve already seen ground temperatures at a parking lot adjacent to the Slough data centre cluster hit 45 degrees during severe weather, 6 degrees higher than nearby Windsor. 

As summer heatwaves grow longer and more punishing, turning Park Royal into a localised heat engine is a direct threat to urban climate resilience. Forcing families on the Wesley Estate to live inside an artificially intensified microclimate, where cooling down during tropical nights becomes virtually impossible, is an unacceptable environmental injustice. 

Local Failures: A Complete Lack of Extreme Heat Preparedness

What makes this proposal even harder to swallow is our glaring failure at a council and regional level to prepare our local area for the extreme heat ahead. We are simply not ready.

Just recently, Kilburn Library had to shut its doors during extreme heat, a tragic irony given that it recently received £1.1 million in funding for a major renovation, yet remained completely vulnerable to rising temperatures.

Across our ward and the wider borough of Brent, there is a severe shortage of designated "cool spaces", public, accessible buildings where vulnerable residents can seek refuge and experience lower temperatures during dangerous heat spikes. Our community gardens, which are a respite from extreme heat with their cool shade and soft breeze, are under threat. For example, the Granville Rec in South Kilburn is reaping its final harvest this year before the volunteers tending to its garden hand the keys over to Regeneration.

Because the UK does not yet have embedded climate adaptation and resilience build standards, the Rec will likely be replaced by homes with inadequate design and control measures in place to ensure they are built to be truly climate-resilient against extreme heat as predicted by the Met. Approving a heat-generating data centre while our residential and public infrastructure buckles under extreme temperatures is ironic beyond measure.

The "Green" Promises

The applicant attempts to frame the development as environmentally friendly by linking it to future waste-heat reuse networks and backup generator fuel promises. But when you look closely at the details, these claims fall apart. The applicant points to the HEMIKO/OPEN district heat network, but this system is non-operational and won't be fully delivered until between 2028 and 2040. In the interim, vast amounts of waste heat will simply be dumped straight into our local atmosphere. Furthermore, industry analysis (including from Kao Data) confirms that AI workloads create extreme volatility in heat output, making colocation data centres an unpredictable, unreliable source for district heating. 

Residents Must Come First

We cannot allow the compounding, cumulative impacts of North Acton and Park Royal’s industrial tech expansion to erode the basic living standards of Brent and Ealing residents. 

The OPDC planning committee must put the climate resilience and wellbeing of our community ahead of corporate convenience. We are calling on the committee to reject this layout, enforce substantial setback distances, demand iron-clad environmental monitoring, and ensure our local microclimate is protected. 

The formal objection was submitted on behalf of the Brent Green Group (Cllrs Suzanne Gallagher, Stephen Malonga, Paul Ryan, Mary Mitchell, Amandine Alexandre, Keith Perrin, Nisha Vakani, Iman Ahmadi Moghaddam, and Najib Warsame) and the Ealing Green Group (Cllrs Clare Welsby, Natalia Kubica, Andrew Walkley, Marijn van de Geer, and Husam Alharahsheh).

 

 

Hover over foot of page 1 to find magnifier.

Guest Post: ‘Why Land Value Tax is the key to real devolution’ by Murad Qureshi

 

Source:  

https://www.landvaluetax.co.uk/about-lvt/what-is-lvt

 

 

The advent of Andy Burnham as Labour Leader and Prime Minister, has brought Land Value Tax into the spotlight as a way of addressing the iniquities of Council Tax. It is a tax favoured by some in the Labour Party and the not very prominent policy of the Green Party. The latter may change as politicians across parties try to address the crisis in local government financing.

 

Murad Qureshi, former chair of the London Assembly Environment Committee, has given Wembley Matters  kind permission to reproduce his timely article first published in London List LINK. I publish it as a Guest Post.

 

   

In [a]  previous piece for LabourList, I argued that Britain’s broken, regressive property tax system demands bold, systemic reform. Council Tax, frozen in 1991, economically damaging Stamp Duty, and punitive Business Rates do nothing but entrench inequality and stifle local growth. For a Labour government aiming to build an economy that works for the many, Land Value Tax (LVT) represents the most rational, growth-friendly path forward.

But the case for LVT extends far beyond national Treasury spreadsheets. If we are serious about shifting power out of Westminster, LVT is the foundational tool required to make regional devolution a reality. This reality was brought into sharp focus by Andy Burnham’s major policy speech at the People’s History Museum in Manchester.

Championing a philosophy he terms “Manchesterism,” Burnham laid out a sweeping vision for his forthcoming administration, headlined by a “No. 10 North” to coordinate regional growth and a radical overhaul of business rates. While his immediate focus is on practical adjustments—like slashing hospitality rates and penalising giant online distribution warehouses—these proposals directly align with his long-standing advocacy for LVT. Burnham has consistently argued that “land is under-taxed”. By blending his fiscal localisation strategy with the principles of LVT, we can fundamentally supercharge UK devolution in three key ways.

 

Smashing the “Whitehall Cap” with Financial Autonomy

True devolution cannot exist on an allowance. Currently, metro mayors and local councils are trapped, heavily relying on central government grants or highly regressive, outdated tax systems. As Burnham rightly points out, it is absurd that a modest family home in Blackpool can face a comparable tax burden to a multimillion-pound property in London due to outdated Council Tax bands.

To fund local infrastructure, leaders shouldn’t have to “beg” Whitehall. Transitioning toward an LVT—or a Proportional Property Tax as a stepping stone—allows local authorities to capture revenue directly from the unimproved value of the land itself. Because land value is largely created by the community through infrastructure, schools, and jobs, capturing this wealth locally grants regions stable, independent funding. This breaks the financial leash, giving areas like Greater Manchester the genuine autonomy to invest in their own futures.

Ending the “Housing Trap” and Spurring Regeneration

In his Manchester address, Burnham prioritised lifting Britain out of a chronic “housing trap” by accelerating council house building and revitalising empty town centres. Our current system penalises progress; if a developer improves a site, their taxes rise, but if they leave a storefront vacant or a plot empty, they face little penalty.

An LVT flips this incentive structure. By taxing the underlying value of the land regardless of what is built on it, land banking and speculation become financially unsustainable. Speculative landlords can no longer hoard vacant sites in hope of unearned windfalls. This creates a highly productive form of taxation that forces development, empowering combined authorities to reclaim brownfield sites and transform them into affordable homes.

Rebalancing Wealth Across the Postcodes

Devolution only succeeds if regional economies possess the baseline wealth to sustain themselves. Because land values are exponentially higher in London and the South East, LVT naturally shifts the national tax burden onto these high-value areas.

This shift provides a massive financial breather to middle and lower income postcodes across the North, Midlands, and coastal towns. By freezing or reducing the tax burden on working families, we free up local household income. This keeps wealth circulating within the regional economy rather than draining back into the capital, fostering what Burnham calls “good growth in every postcode.”

The Rational Path Forward

Burnham’s call for a “No. 10 North” and immediate business rates reform shows that the appetite for radical decentralisation is there. But temporary tweaks to business rates are just the beginning.

To permanently shift civil service power and economic gravity away from London, we must alter the tax foundation beneath our feet. As the Labour Land Campaign has long championed, LVT is not a radical fringe theory; it is a market-efficient, progressive mechanism backed by modern digital mapping and Land Registry data.

If Labour wants to deliver on the promise of national renewal, it should look to the trailblazing vision emerging from the North. By backing Land Value Taxation, the party can provide leaders like Andy Burnham with the permanent fiscal teeth needed to make devolution a lasting success.

 

EDITOR'S ADDITIONAL NOTES 

www.economicsobservatory.com notes that tax proposals from the Greens include a land value tax and more aggressive carbon pricing. Land value taxes – which have a long intellectual tradition going back to founding fathers of economics Adam Smith, David Ricardo and John Stuart Mill – attract unusually wide-ranging support, with the New Economics Foundation, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) and the Institute for Economic Affairs among those in favour of the policy, as well as academics such as John Muellbauer (2023)

   

The case for a land value tax is overwhelming Martin Wolf Financial Times 

Labour Land Campaign 

Briefing Paper for Motion: The GPEW Manifesto 2024 and Economics

 

 

Key questions remain unanswered about the Health & Wellbeing Hub in Gladstone Park

 

The proposed building

The proposed Health and Wellbeing Hub  in Gladstone Park has aroused some strong feelings on either side with debate on Wembley Matters and Next Door. In particular read the comments as well as the Letters:    LETTER: We have not been told the whole story about the Gladstone Park Health Hub and  LETTER: Gladstone Park Medical Centre - Is there a Phase 2? What is it?

Cllr Mary Mitchell, Green councillor for Willesden Green ward where the Hub is planned to be situated, has been carefully considering the issues involved.

Cllr Mitchell writes:  

As Brent Council prepares to consider plans for a new Health and Wellbeing Hub in Gladstone Park, I have written to the Leader of the Council, Cabinet Members and the Chair of the Planning Committee to set out a number of concerns that I believe should be addressed before the application is determined.

To be clear, I support the expansion of local GP services and recognise the need for improved healthcare provision across Brent. However, I am not yet convinced that building on Metropolitan Open Land is the only way to achieve this.

My letter calls for greater transparency over how the site was chosen, fuller assessment of alternative locations, clearer evidence of the project’s environmental and community impacts, and a more informed public consultation before decisions are taken on the use of protected public land and nearly £3 million of public funding.

I hope the letter contributes constructively to the debate and helps ensure that residents have access to the information they need as this important planning application progresses.

Full text below:

 

To Cllr Muhammed Butt, the Leader of the Council, Cllr Saqib Butt, the Chair of Brent Planning Committee, Cllr Matt Kelcher, Lead Member for Planning and Regeneration, and Cllr Liz Dixon, Lead Member for Community Safety and Public Health.

 

As we imminently expect the submission of the full planning application for the proposed Willesden Health and Wellbeing Hub in Gladstone Park, I wanted to set out my concerns, building on those I raised in my emails of 26 March and 28 April to the former Cabinet Member for Regeneration.

I fully recognise the need to expand GP provision in Cricklewood, Willesden Green and across Brent and support these efforts. However, there are a number of significant concerns that this plan raises, which I hope can be addressed through the provision of additional information to support the planning process, and made public to residents to ensure adequate transparency and scrutiny.

 

I believe that the Planning Committee should seek the following information before determining the application.

 

1. Confidence in the assessment of alternative sites

 

The proposed site is the former Gladstone Youth and Community Centre at 162 Anson Road, adjacent to the children’s playground. Although buildings currently exist on the site, it is designated Metropolitan Open Land.

 

Metropolitan Open Land benefits from the highest level of planning protection in London with Policy G3 of the London Plan affording MOL the same level of protection as Green Belt. Any proposal seeking to override that designation on the basis of “very special circumstances” must therefore be supported by compelling evidence and subject to exceptional scrutiny. Although every planning application must be determined on its own merits, approval of development on MOL in this instance would inevitably be cited in future proposals affecting similarly protected land.

 

At a time of increasing biodiversity loss, urban heat stress and surface water flood risk, it is essential that this designation is only overridden where the justification is clear and robust. It is therefore essential that the evidence underpinning site selection is robust, up to date and available for public scrutiny.

 

The Committee should require publication of a more recent NHS Estates options appraisal demonstrating why this site is the only viable location. The most recent feasibility work referenced dates from 2023 and, importantly, Brent Council confirmed on 14 May by email that it “does not hold the full NHS/applicant site-wide assessment or options appraisal.” It is difficult to conclude that the “very special circumstances” test has been met if the underlying evidence is unavailable.

 

The Council should also demonstrate that it has independently assessed alternative locations rather than relying solely on the NHS Estates process. If it is prepared to provide public land to facilitate the relocation of Willesden Green Surgery, it should be able to evidence that no other suitable site exists to serve residents in the Church End, Neasden Stations and Staples Corner growth areas.

 

In particular, I would welcome an explanation of why this flagship Integrated Care Centre cannot be accommodated within one of Brent’s designated regeneration areas. 

 

For example, Site Allocation BSSA2 within the Church End Growth Area Masterplan already identifies provision for a 1,855m² health facility. Likewise, the Council should explain why existing assets, such as the former Neasden Library within the Neasden Growth Area, have not been considered appropriate alternatives.

 

The Committee should also clarify why a single flagship practice serving upwards of 20,000 patients is considered preferable to a distributed “hub and spokes” model using smaller premises, potentially including Council-owned buildings such as 395 Chapter Road, a designated health centre that currently stands empty. Such an approach could reduce travel distances for patients while aligning with the Government’s “Health on the High Street” agenda.

 

2. Transparency about the scale and type of the proposed development, and the decision-making process that has led to this partnership between the Council and the Willesden Green Surgery

The Committee should receive full transparency regarding the process through which this site was selected and the basis upon which a 150-year peppercorn lease is proposed, enabling a private enterprise to profit from public land.

 

Given the value of both the public land being given to the GP practice with no yearly rental costs, and the proposed £2.97 million Strategic Community Infrastructure Levy allocation, residents are entitled to understand on what basis this offer was made, and whether this financial subsidy was also offered to other GP practices to enable their growth.

 

The patient catchment should also be clarified. Residents should note that the consultation catchment was amended only two days before the close of the initial consultation period, on 30 March, to include a 1.5-mile catchment area. This inevitably affects how residents interpret the scale and impact of the proposal.

 

Wider detail of how this site has been assessed and fits into the wider healthcare picture for Brent would increase transparency and help to provide confidence in this plan. Is this Hub designed to be a Neighbourhood Health Centre (with a minimum patient roll of 30,000 patients)? Guidance from NHS England on Neighbourhood Health Centres (NHCs) in April 2026^[1] states that where new build centres are proposed, locations including town and local centres and high streets should normally be preferred.

Where a new NHC is proposed away from an existing community focal point, a local authority assessment may be provided. There are requirements for Integrated Care Boards to propose a pipeline of NHCs and how they are organised across the footprint to deliver effective clinical strategies. If these activities have taken place, they have not been made public.

 

Furthermore the ongoing financial management and governance of the NHC should be made available, so as to assess the Council’s role in financially supporting it. It is noted that there is no reference to the establishment of an NHC in any public papers from the Brent Health & Wellbeing Board, Brent Primary Care Executive Group, or the North West London Integrated Care Partnership board meetings as would reasonably be expected.

 

3. A full assessment of impact

 

Before determining the application, the Committee should require a comprehensive Travel Plan demonstrating how patients from Church End, Staples Corner and the wider catchment will access the site. This should assess public transport, walking routes, parking demand and traffic impacts. 

For some patients, particularly those with mobility issues, attending appointments may require multiple bus journeys despite the proposal being intended to improve access to healthcare.

 

The application should also include a robust assessment of footfall on the park and the local area and knock-on impacts such as littering. The proposal represents a significant change in the use of the site, from recreation and community use to a healthcare facility operating seven days a week, employing between 50 and 100 staff and potentially attracting up to 1,000 visitors each day.

 

Although the building is intended to achieve a high BREEAM standard, this should not substitute for assessing the wider environmental impacts of the development itself. Construction impacts, biodiversity, urban heat, carbon emissions and surface water flood risk all require careful consideration, particularly as the site is identified as being at high risk of surface water flooding.

 

4. An updated and comprehensive view of community benefit

 

The proposal also involves the permanent loss of an existing community site on open public land. While the current buildings are no longer fit for purpose, this reflects decades of underinvestment rather than an absence of community need. The former community centre, with estimated repair costs of around £410,000, could potentially have been refurbished or repurposed to meet any of the very real community needs residents in Willesden Green and Cricklewood have, including youth services and recreation. This proposal should therefore be considered in the wider context of Brent’s continuing loss of community assets, including libraries and community centres.

The Committee should seek updated proposals for the café and first-floor community space, reflecting the feedback received during consultation. Although Cabinet has already approved £2.97 million of Strategic Community Infrastructure Levy funding, the planning process should still consider whether the community facilities genuinely reflect identified local need.

 

Residents are entitled to understand why this represents the best use of almost £3 million of developer contributions when alternative investments across Willesden Green and Cricklewood, including youth provision, crime prevention initiatives and the refurbishment of existing community facilities, could potentially deliver greater community benefit at significantly lower cost.

 

5. A new consultation process

 

Finally, I hope the Planning Committee will ensure that residents are able to comment on the application with all the relevant evidence before them. Without the Travel Plan, assessments of footfall and environmental impact, and with the patient catchment only expanded towards the end of the original consultation period, it is difficult to conclude that residents participating in the first stage of engagement were fully informed.

 

If Brent Council continues to support this scheme, including through the allocation of £2.97 million of Strategic Community Infrastructure Levy funding and the proposed grant of public land through a long-term peppercorn lease, I would encourage those who have championed the project including the Leader of the Council and the Cabinet Member for Regeneration and Planning to engage directly with residents during the planning process. To date, much of the public advocacy has fallen to the Willesden Green Medical Practice. Those responsible for the Council’s decisions concerning public land and public funding must be prepared to explain and defend those decisions openly.

 

I remain fully supportive of expanding healthcare provision for Brent residents. However, I am not yet persuaded that the Council has demonstrated why this development must take place on Metropolitan Open Land, why alternative sites have been discounted, or why this proposal represents the best use of both scarce public land within the boundaries of a much used and much loved local park and £2.97 million of Strategic Community Infrastructure Levy funding.

 

I hope these issues will be addressed before the application is determined, and I look forward to continuing to engage constructively throughout the planning process to ensure that Brent delivers both the healthcare facilities and the public spaces that our growing communities need.

 

Yours sincerely

 

Councillor Mary Mitchell

 

Ward Councillor for Willesden Green

Guest Post: Tech Giants, the CNI "Loophole," and the Battle for Park Royal’s Environmental Future

 

Image from actonw3

   

Guest post by Olivia Law-Zygadlo

A major planning battle is brewing on the borders of Brent and Ealing that should concern every resident who cares about local democracy, corporate transparency, and the air we breathe.

This Friday, July 17th, residents from North Acton’s Wesley Estate will protest a proposed mega-data centre at the Frogmore Industrial Estate (NW10 7NQ). Modern data centres are notorious energy drains, requiring immense power grids and cooling systems that create persistent noise and strain local infrastructure. Residents are rightfully demanding that the Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation (OPDC) enforce strict environmental protections and mandate transparent air quality monitoring from Brent and Ealing councils.

However, this local planning application highlights a broader national issue.

The CNI "Shield"

Increasingly, tech infrastructure operators are using Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) designation to bypass standard planning scrutiny. Since the government designated the UK data centre sector as CNI in September 2024, operators have leaned on this status to secure smoother planning treatment.

If planning authorities treat sector-wide CNI status as a reason to lower environmental scrutiny, it sets a dangerous precedent. When operators like Kao Data invoke "national security and vital infrastructure," they effectively create a against local accountability. Our message to the OPDC and the national government must be uniform: there should be no CNI-linked planning advantage without mandatory green standards. If the sector is critical enough to sit alongside water and energy providers, protecting local air quality and the climate must be a non-negotiable condition.

The Role of the OPDC and Cllr Matt Kelcher

Because this development sits within the multi-million-pound Park Royal regeneration zone, the ultimate planning and development authority does not rest with standard council planning boards. It rests with the Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation (OPDC). 

This brings us to a familiar face in Brent politics: Councillor Matt Kelcher.  

   

Not only is Cllr Kelcher  Brent's Cabinet Member for Regeneration and Planning, overseeing major local development portfolios, but he was a long-serving voting member of the OPDC Planning Committee, representing the interests of the London Borough of Brent, where portions of the OPDC boundary fall, during the critical early stages and milestone planning decisions for these major local developments

 

A key question from residents is whether Cllr Kelcher will declare and recuse himself from regeneration and planning decisions given his professional role at TheCityUK. While TheCityUK represents the financial and professional services sector rather than the data centre industry itself, its membership consists of the UK’s largest consumers of digital infrastructure, who rely heavily on data centres to manage risk, host digital services, and process high-volume financial transactions. Residents are asking whether this close alignment between his professional focus and the heavy reliance of his members on data capacity creates a perceived conflict of interest with his impartial responsibilities on the OPDC planning committee.

 

CAMPAIGN WEBSITE