Wembley Housing Zone – Brent’s “hush hush” contract decision

 Guest post by Philip Grant in a personal capacity

 

It may be a coincidence, but two days after I had posted a comment about Brent’s failure to start work on its Cecil Avenue (former Copland School site) housing development, a decision to start work on a tender contract appeared on the Council’s website. My comment referred to this vacant Council-owned site having had planning permission for 250 homes since February 2021, and how Brent proposed to let a developer sell 152 of these privately, and only have 37 for affordable rent (with none at social rent levels). [If you are wondering how 37 (14.8%) relates to the 39% so-called affordable in the image below, the balance is 61 homes for shared ownership or intermediate rent level, unaffordable for most Brent families in housing need!]

 

Extract from “Soft Market Testing” details for prospective developers, April 2021.

The timing of this decision is of some concern. Part of the purpose of notifying intended decisions in advance is so that members of Brent’s two main Scrutiny Committees can see whether there are points which they wish to consider before a decision is actually made. But those two Committees had their last meetings of the current Council in March, and the details on the Council’s website show that the final Officer decision is scheduled to be made on 4 May, the day before the elections for the new Brent Council. This will effectively prevent any detailed Scrutiny of the decision, as the new committees will not be formed until the Council’s Annual Meeting on 18 May.

 

Details of the proposed decision from Brent Council’s website.

 

Of course, it could be argued that this decision is being made under delegated authority, given by Brent’s Cabinet in August 2021. However, as I showed in a recent guest blog (are Cabinet meetings a Charade?), the decision to include a private developer as part of the Council’s Wembley Housing Zone (“WHZ”) housing development goes back much further than that. And it involves meetings of the “off-public record” Policy Co-ordination Group (“PCG”) of Cabinet members and Senior Officers.

 

In another guest post, in January, I showed how the “soft market testing” of the present proposals, was put to five developers in April 2021. Their support for the opportunity has been used to justify allowing a developer to profit from the sale of 152 homes (which could have been used to house local people in housing need). That market testing was so “soft” that it was always going to appeal to them. 

 

It then turned out, from a report to a PCG meeting in July 2020 (which I obtained under FoI), that a previous WHZ proposal had also been “market tested” in February 2020. But that only found favour with 2 out of 5 developers it was put to. Council Officers and the key Cabinet members involved do seem determined to allow a developer to profit from this Brent Council housing scheme!

 

Extract from the WHZ report to Brent’s Policy Co-ordination Group, 16 July 2020.

 

I have been trying since August last year to find out why Brent isn’t building all 250 of the homes at Cecil Avenue for rent to Council tenants, with as many of them as possible at social rent levels, which was the priority recommended by the 2020 Brent Poverty Commission. In a written answer to a Public Question for the November 2021 Full Council meeting, Cllr. Shama Tatler said: ‘it is not financially viable to deliver all 250 homes at Cecil Avenue as socially rented housing.’ 

 

No evidence has been made public to justify this claim over financial viability; but how could it NOT be viable to make all of the homes Council housing, even if they might not all be at social rents? In a local newspaper article the same month, seeking to justify Brent’s plans for “infill housing” on land at Kilburn Square, Cllr. Ketan Sheth wrote: 

 

‘The value and cost of land in London is at an all time high: therefore, building on land already owned by the council means the building costs are lower and all of the new homes can be let at genuinely affordable rents.'

Cllr. Ketan Sheth’s article in the “Brent & Kilburn Times”, 18 November 2021.

 

If that is true for green spaces on existing Council estates, why isn’t it true for the vacant “brownfield” Council-owned former Copland School land? Residents in Wembley Central, where the Cecil Avenue development will be built and where he is standing as a Labour candidate for the 5 May local elections, may wish to ask Ketan Sheth that question!

 

I have tried since January to get one of Brent’s Scrutiny Committees to examine the Council’s alleged justification for allowing a private developer to sell 152 of the 250 homes to be built at Cecil Avenue, without success. I did manage (after a struggle) to be allowed to present a deputation to the Resources & Public Realm Scrutiny Committee meeting on 9 March, on the housing aspects of the “Poverty Commission Update” report which was on the agenda. 

 

The Report tried to conceal the fact that Brent had, so far, not invested in social housing, as recommended by the Commission. My presentation to the meeting (which had to be submitted in writing because of [unexplained!] technical problems) included this plea to the councillors: 

 

‘You, as a Scrutiny Committee, need to challenge that, and demand that Brent Council does better.

 

You can recommend that in meeting its Poverty Commission commitments, it should invest in more social rent housing as part of the New Council Homes programme, including at its Cecil Avenue development.’

 

I was promised a written response to my deputation from the Lead Member for Housing, Cllr. Eleanor Southwood. I am still waiting for that, despite two reminders. I mentioned that in the comment I posted on 10 April (see opening sentence). By coincidence (?) the following day I received an apology for the delay from Scrutiny Chair Cllr. Roxanne Mashari, who told me: ‘A written response is being prepared [and] will be with you as soon as possible.’

 

My parody Brent publicity photo for the Council’s Cecil Avenue housing development.

 

When, or if, I finally receive it, I will ask Martin to share it with you. Cecil Avenue, though a housing scheme, is not directly Cllr. Southwood’s responsibility. The Lead Member for Regeneration, Cllr. Shama Tatler, is the one working on this, along with Senior Officers (and, no doubt, the Council Leader). You can see all three portrayed in my image above.

 

Everything about this Cecil Avenue development, and the way it is being progressed without proper scrutiny, of decisions made behind closed doors by a small number of Cabinet members and Senior Officers, highlights the need for a more balanced Council. Only then will potentially “dodgy” decisions be challenged, and decision-makers properly held to account. 

 

The people of Brent have the chance to vote, for change for the better, on 5 May. I hope that you, and as many of our fellow citizens as possible, will vote, and vote wisely.

Philip Grant.