Wednesday 9 November 2022

Morland Gardens – an alternative solution (open email to Brent Council Leader)

 A guest post by Philip Grant in a personal capacity

 

1 Morland Gardens and the community garden across the Hillside junction, September 2022.

 

Martin has already highlighted the £18m in cuts/savings which is the main item for next Monday’s Brent Cabinet meeting, but another report, which was added to the agenda on Tuesday afternoon, may be just as important. 

 

The “Update on the supply of New Affordable Homes” is far more than its bland title suggests. I hope to write a separate post about that, but first I would like to share with you an open email which I sent on Wednesday afternoon to the Council Leader and Lead Member for Housing. It offers an alternative solution to that proposed in the report by Council Officers for the Council’s controversial, hugely delayed and badly flawed Morland Gardens project. I have added some relevant illustrations, to break up the email’s text:-

 

Dear Councillor Butt and Councillor Knight,

 

The report to next Monday’s Cabinet meeting, Update on the supply of New Affordable Homes, shows that there are problems with a number of the Council’s schemes, including Morland Gardens at para. 4.26. The problems with that project are even worse than admitted in the report. I am writing to suggest an alternative solution, which I hope that you, and Council Officers, will seriously consider.

 

The Morland Gardens paragraph from the Update Report to Cabinet.
[ SO = Shared Ownership.  OMS = Open Market Sale.]

 

The report admits that the current scheme is not viable, and offers ‘to value engineer the scheme during the PCSA process’ as a possible solution. What it does not admit is that the scheme is likely to lose the £6.5m GLA funding, which was part of the original basis for Cabinet approving it in January 2020. It will lose that funding because it will not be possible for the project to “start on site” by 31 March 2023. 

 

At the moment, the Council does not have a “site” there. 1 Morland Gardens and its grounds are legally occupied, until at least January 2023, by Live-in Guardians. The Public Realm outside the property, including the Harlesden City Challenge Community Garden, which would form part of the site, has not been appropriated for planning purposes. It cannot be appropriated unless a section of highway crossing it can be stopped-up, and the proposed Order for that is the subject of objections which will not be resolved until after 31 March 2023.

 

Alan Lunt’s email of 2 June 2021.

 

In an email of 2 June 2021, copied to you both, and which is in the public domain, the then Strategic Director for Regeneration, Alan Lunt, wrote: ‘I confirm that the demolition of “Altamira” [the locally listed heritage Victorian villa] will not take place until all of the legal pre-requisites are in place.’ No work can commence before matters such as the stopping-up are resolved, and that will be too late for the GLA funding deadline.

 

Converting some of the proposed 65 homes to shared ownership, or trying to squeeze more homes into the building, instead of affordable workspace, would both need planning consent. This would mean further delay and expense. It would be throwing good money after bad, just as Alan Lunt’s risk of awarding a two-stage Design & Build contract, which Cabinet approved last June, for a project which did not have a legal site was a waste of at least £1.2m (the estimated cost of the PCSA process).

 

This project has been flawed from its early stages. It breached the Council’s adopted heritage assets policy, which was only justified for planning purposes by the “benefit” of 65 affordable homes at London Affordable Rent. If there is any change to that “benefit”, then that justification no longer exists.

 

Councillor Knight will remember that, at the Planning Committee meeting on 12 August 2020, her colleague Cllr. Aden, on behalf of all three Stonebridge councillors, was neutral on the Morland Gardens application. Although he welcomed the prospect of 100% LAR housing, he was against the loss of the important heritage asset, the overdevelopment of the site to the detriment of local residents and the inadequate parking and servicing provision, which would cause traffic congestion at the busy Hillside / Brentfield Road junction.

 

Councillor Aden’s submission, from the Planning Committee minutes, 12 August 2020.

 

It is time to rethink this project, as I suggested even before the planning decision in 2020, in detail to Stonebridge Ward councillors in June 2021 (with copy to the Leader and then Lead Member), and again to you as Council Leader and Alan Lunt in January 2022.

 

Extract from my email to Stonebridge Ward councillors on 19 June 2021 (which Cllr. Knight replied to).

 

The main reason for the 1 Morland Gardens scheme was to provide the Brent Start college with more modern facilities than those provided in the 1990s in the sympathetically restored heritage building. That modern college facility does not have to be on the Morland Gardens site. £15m of CIL money was been set aside for it in 2020, with a further unspecified amount agreed at last month’s Cabinet meeting. 

 

By working with the developer, using Section 106 if necessary, that new college could be provided as part of the Unisys House redevelopment, still in Stonebridge and alongside the new Bridge Park community facilities. That would leave the question of what to do with Brent Start until the new college was available.

 

The college is currently in a temporary home in the Stonebridge Primary School annexe. It could stay there, but the better solution would be to move it back to the existing facilities at 1 Morland Gardens. Once the new college was ready, the Morland Gardens site could be developed for housing and/or community facilities, retaining the beautiful heritage building as part of the scheme (details of which could be worked out and agreed ahead of the college’s permanent move).

 

Moving Brent Start out of the Stonebridge Primary School annexe would allow the much-delayed Twybridge Way housing scheme to go ahead. That project, which is being blocked by the Council’s mistakes over Morland Gardens, will provide 14 family-sized houses, 13 smaller flats for rent and 40 new supported 1-bedroom homes for independent living. Sensible allocation of those “NAIL” homes could allow forty existing family-sized homes in the Stonebridge area to become available for families on Brent’s waiting list.

 

Brent’s current plans for 1 Morland Gardens have been ill-conceived since the time of poor advice from Council Officers in late 2018 / early 2019. Rather than trying to press on with a project which is badly flawed, please take this opportunity to make a sensible choice, and accept the alternative solution I have put forward. 

 

Thank you. Best wishes,

 

Philip Grant

12 comments:

Philip Grant said...

FOR INFORMATION:

I have already received this brief reply from Cllr. Promise Knight:

'Noted Philip.

We will be in touch shortly with a response.

Cllr Promise Knight
Stonebridge Ward
Lead Member for Housing, Homelessness, and Renters’ Security'

When that response is received, I will share it with "Wembley Matters" readers.

Anonymous said...

Well said Philip, but we all know that Butt and Tatler are deaf as well, plus their egos are bigger than their wards

Philip Grant said...

FOR INFORMATION:

This evening, I've received this response from the Council Leader:

'Mr Grant

Thank you for your email.

Cllr Knight and the officers will be working together on the plans so that we can look to deliver our vision to deliver the council homes for Brent.

Regards

Muhammed

Cllr Muhammed Butt
Leader of Brent Council.'

Anonymous said...

'We can look to deliver our vision to deliver the Council homes for Brent'???

You appear to have forgotten the word affordable, cllr. Butt!!!

Anonymous said...

It's the "our vision" that is really scarey, presumably that's the same vision that is destroying Brent and contributing to it becoming the poorest borough in London, and with some of the highest rents and the most Student Accomodation allowing central London accomadation to be sold off. Brent was once one of the premier boroughs of outer London. Well done Butt and Co your legacy will be mocked even more in the future, you can't live in an echo chamber for ever.

Anonymous said...

Well said Mr Philip Grant but as someone has already mentioned. The Egos running Brent Council are so big . I am afraid that they will not even consider any good and reasonable suggestions as they have to have their way no matter what. Take a lesson from Liz Truss and admit your mistakes Brent Leaders and resign instead of digging your heals in to get your way even though it is not the best for the Borough’s residents.

Anonymous said...

Basically saying we will do what we like!!! Regardless of sensible suggestions.

Anonymous said...

Could it be that money will have already have been spent?! On this??

Philip Grant said...

You may well be right, Anonymous (11 November at 10:30), but I won't give up trying to save the beautiful Victorian villa, part of an 1870s development by a well-known architect which gave the name Stonebridge Park to this area, from its senseless demolition by Brent Council.

Their own Heritage policies, part of the Local Plan which the Council adopted in February, say:

'Once a heritage asset is demolished it cannot be replaced. Its historic value is lost forever to the community and future generations and it cannot be used for regeneration and place-making purposes.'

I'm actually fighting to get Brent Council to respect their own policies! Am I mad, or are they?

Anonymous said...

Don't forget all the council officers making these planning recommendations - we've yet to meet any who actually live in Brent

Anonymous said...

Thank you for pursuing this issue and keeping fingers crossed that you succeed.

Philip Grant said...

FOR INFORMATION:

I was beginning to think that Brent had forgotten about replying to my open letter to the Council Leader and Lead Member for Housing, but this afternoon I received the response.

I will set out below the full text of the email I received, and of my reply to it:

'Dear Philip,

Thank you for the points you have raised.

You will be aware that the Update on the Supply of New Affordable Homes report was approved at Cabinet on the 14 November 2022.

Officers are now reviewing each scheme within the New Council Homes Programme to determine any changes required. The impact of any proposed changes to tenure will of course be taken into consideration.

I appreciate you putting forward your suggestions and can assure you any decisions made by the Council are focused on delivering the homes Brent residents need and the facilities that support everyone to succeed.

Best wishes

Emily-Rae Baines (She/Her)
Head of Affordable Housing & Partnerships | Resident Services'

My reply:

'Dear Ms Baines,

Thank you for your response to the open email which I sent to Cllrs Muhammed Butt and Promise Knight on 9 November.

I appreciate that Brent Council has a focus on delivering homes, and that your role is to make that happen. But there are also questions over quality of life for all of the borough's residents, which the Council should be addressing as well.

I will be happy to assist in developing proposals for 1 Morland Gardens, which retain the heritage Victorian villa, when the Council decides that it can no longer proceed with its current plans. Best wishes,

Philip Grant.'