Soprano Pipistrelle (Photo: eurekalert.org.)
Writing on behalf of Newland Court, Wembley Park, residents, Marc Etukudo has submitted an email to Brent Council officers and councillors that raises serious issues of possible environmental law breaking:
I would like you to accept this email as a formal objection being submitted amongst others submitted against Brent Council’s proposal to build 7 townhouses at Newland Court garages, planning application reference 22/3124. It has been brought to my attention that out of all the ‘infill’ proposals submitted by Brent Council's agent* on behalf of the Council's New Council Homes Team not a single one has been refused planning permission and every single one has gone to a planning committee meeting and all have been approved. Can you please confirm if this is correct?
BAT ACTIVITY AND ROOSTING
I have been informed by the Bats Conservation Trust that if I think a wildlife crime has been or is being committed I should report it to the police. Once I have done that I have to ensure I get a reference number and then let them know about the incident by emailing investigations@bats.org.uk. They will then be able to assist the police, bat workers, members of the public and professionals by giving advice and information about bats, roosts and the legislation.
So, as I feel that a crime is about to be committed at Newland Court garages by Brent Council in terms of the removal of trees where at least 2 species of bats are active and may roost, I intend to file a report at Wembley Police Station against Brent Council if the proposal is approved in its present form*. The reason being is that although the ecological report from Waterman’s survey does show two species of bats active along the line of trees, their survey is unreliable, because only one surveyor carried it out, at the wrong time and without covering the line of trees properly.
The survey was done more than two weeks after it should have been carried out to check whether there was any bat roost in the garage building they identified as a low possibility roost site. Furthermore, carrying out bat surveys when street lightning could influence an inaccurate reading as bats would only normally be seen in dark conditions as they are sensitive to bright lights. Hence the survey reported a sighting of a soprano pipistrelle that was recorded 28 minutes after sunset and 11 passings of the common pipistrelle were recorded 55 minutes after sunset proving that the whole survey wasn’t conducted properly and therefore unreliable.
The same can also be said of the survey on birds. The survey reports sightings of starlings, bullfinches, dunnocks, sparrows and song thrushes. I believe that this is an inaccurate survey recorded as it was taken from a reference grid recorded between 2002 and 2018. If a proper survey was conducted then sightings of robins, magpies, pigeons, crows and even parakeets would also have been sighted and recorded because those are the birds we see out our kitchen windows on a daily basis therefore also acknowledging that the bird survey is also flawed and inaccurate.
DESIGN GUIDE
In the design guide document which was
approved by Planning Committee and Brent's Executive (now Cabinet) in 2013, the
boundary shown in the Design Guide, which includes the site of the Newland Court
garages within the Barn Hill Conservation Area, must be treated as the correct
boundary since 17 June 2013. Yet Brent Council’s agent has
submitted a different conservation map boundary showing Newland Court garages
outside the conservation boundary lines which is yet more evidence they continued to submit misleading information on their
planning application to fast track this proposal through at any cost.
*
The evidence is there in the Design Guide itself, which states:
'This Guide was produced by the London Borough of Brent and adopted by its Executive on 17 June 2013. On 16 January 2013, the Planning Committee agreed to consult publically on a draft Barn Hill Design Guide which had been prepared in discussion with the Barn Hill Residents Association. Letters were sent to all owner/occupiers in the Barn Hill Conservation Area and Ward Councillors on 28 January 2013, giving 28 days to comment on the draft Design Guide. A ‘drop-in session’ for residents was held at Brent Town Hall on 12 February 2013 to give residents an opportunity to discuss the proposals with Officers. On 17 April 2013 the Planning Committee considered the consultation responses and the resulting proposed changes and agreed that the revised Design Guide be reported to the Executive for adoption. Executive agreed to this on 17 June 2013.'
HERITAGE REPORT submitted by the Heritage Officer states that:-
Section 72(1) of the Planning (Listed Building and Conservation Area) Act 1990 (as amended) requires that with respect to any buildings or other land in a conservation area, special attention shall be paid to the desirability of preserving or enhancing the character or appearance of that area. NPPF. Paragraph 189 recognises that heritage assets are an irreplaceable resource and seeks to conserve them in a manner appropriate to their significance.
This statement reveals reasonable doubt from the Heritage officer in regards to whether this proposal will preserve or enhance the character and appearance of the area. This is also taking into consideration that all the officers’ reports (Heritage, Transport, Tree) have been done on the assumption that Newland Court garages do not fall within the conservation boundary. This is yet another misleading application submission by Brent Council planning officers.
TRANSPORT OFFICER
The Transport Officer's report also states that ‘At the current time, the application cannot therefore be supported, given the large volume of parking that would be likely to be displaced from the site onto surrounding narrow streets’. This is even probably after he had seen the parking survey which I have already previously noted as being flawed and misleading.
TREE OFFICER
Even Brent council’s own Tree Officer, Julie Hughes has significant concerns relating to the impact that this development will have on protected trees. She also goes on to say that she has some significant concerns regarding the increased pressure that will be placed on the Council to permit lopping, topping or felling the trees within the rear gardens of Grendon Gardens, and the impact that this will have on both the visual amenity of the local area, and specifically the adjacent Barn Hill Conservation Area.
Below is a Topographical Survey map sheet of the coverage area from the canopies of the trees that overhang above the Newland Court garages from the gardens of the residents of Grendon Gardens. They show the extent of the tree canopies of the trees in the back gardens of Grendon Gardens much more clearly than the site plans submitted before to Brent Council. I believe this is the reason why the garages at Newland Court are within the boundary of the Barn Hill Conservation area. The diagram below shows that the canopies and roots of the trees cover most of the garages in Newland Court. It would mean that one half of all the trees would have to be chopped off if this proposal were to go ahead. If this doesn’t kill the trees, then the trees would then need constant pruning and lopping every few months as the pruned branches continue to re-grow.
With all these mitigating factors:-
- The fact that Brent is breaching a lot of their planning guidelines to fast track this proposal.
- The overlooking rule for one in which you and I measured and found Brent's measurements inaccurate.
- Misleading information on the garages being within the boundary line of Barn Hill Conservation Area
- Unclear clarification of the boundary wall between Grendon Gardens and Newland Court.
- The removal of or damaging protected healthy trees in the Barn Hill conservation area.
- Misleading information supplied by planning officers on the parking survey.
- Misleading information on the ecological report made by Watermans.
- The systemic discrimination on existing Newland Court residents.
- The reduction in residual bins for existing Newland Court residents.
- The removal of 40 car parking spaces and reducing it to 12.
- The site not being suitable for the proposed development.
- The Heritage Officer having concerns on this proposal.
- The Transport Officer having concerns on this proposal.
- Brent's Tree Officer having concerns on this proposal.
Even MP Barry Gardiner after seeing the facts and not normally one to get involved in planning issues wrote to the Chief Executive voicing his concerns on the way the planning officers were treating the existing residents of Newland Court over this proposal. With all the objections and facts that you have before you regarding this particular proposal, I’m sorry but there is no way that this planning application should be granted. That is, if every single detail in the form of objections and real facts that you and your team now have before you which should form a serious case for refusal. But if it doesn’t then there is something also very seriously wrong.
* Note an earlier version of this blog has been edited to remove inaccuracies in the original email to Brent Council for which Marc Etukudo has apologised.
Although I agree with much of what Marc has written, I must correct him on one point.
ReplyDeleteWhen commenting on a number of reports which form part of the Newland Court garages planning application (22/3124), Marc says:
'This is yet another misleading application submission by Brent Council planning officers.'
It is not Brent's Planning Officers who have submitted these documents, it is the planning agent on behalf of Brent's New Council Homes team.
The role of Brent's Planning Officers is to consider such planning applications, and the various documents submitted in support of them. They have a duty to consider applications made by Brent Council (as the prospective developer) 'impartially and transparently'.
Planning Officers have been alerted to misleading information and false conclusions in a number of the reports submitted in support of this application, including by specialist Brent Council Officers on Transport, Heritage and Trees.
It is to be hoped and expected that they will draw attention to the misleading information and false conclusions in any report they make to Planning Committee.
I WOULD LIKE TO PUT THE RECORD STRAIGHT....
ReplyDeleteIt has been drawn to my attention by Philip Grant to the fact that me saying 'This is yet another misleading application submission by Brent Council planning officers.' is not accurate as it is not Brent's Planning Officers who have submitted these documents, it is the planning agent on behalf of Brent's New Council Homes team. So for that I do apologise to GERRY ANSELL to whom my email was addressed to as I assumed that it was also officers who were part of this planning process on this proposal that submitted the planning application to his department.
Philip has also advised me that 'Brent's Planning team, with Gerry Ansell as Head of Planning, are not the people behind this application. They are the Local Planning Authority who are considering the application, and they have not recommended it for acceptance (at least yet). If they do, they will probably include conditions in the suggested consent letter which would seek to ensure that Brent Council, as developer, does not break the law as far as bats are concerned.'
Dear Anonymous (28 December at 22:54),
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comment, much of which I would agree with. However, as with Marc's original blog above, there is one point on which I have to advise that a correction is needed.
In your comment you wrote:
'It is very disappointing to see that the Barn Hill Conservation Guide (map- marked in red) has also been wrongly amended to allow for this development to be approved, which is unethical, deceptive and misleading... How has this been overlooked?'
The map of the Barn Hill Conservation Area WAS NOT wrongly amended to show that the proposed development site was outside of the Conservation Area.
The map used in the planning application by Brent's New Council Homes team is the original map showing the Conservation Area boundary from 1990, which is still included as the Barn Hill Conservation Area map on Brent Council's website.
That was the map used for the application, and that was the map that I based my original objection comments on, so I was just as mistaken as the Council!
However, Marc discovered that as part of the updating of the Design Guide for the Conservation Area in 2013, a minor change had been made to the boundary, to make the edge of the Conservation Area between Grendon Gardens and Newland Court simpler to understand.
Instead of following the irregular line of the fences of the back gardens in Grendon Gardens, the revised map shows a straight line along the Newland Court road.
Although this was a minor amendment, it makes a huge difference to the planning application, because it puts the garages which Brent wants to replace with seven houses INSIDE the Conservation Area, rather than outside of it.
This is unfortunate (to say the least) for the New Council Homes team's planning application, but I don't see how they can continue to get away with claiming that their plans would not have an adverse effect on the Barn Hill Conservation Area.
The amended Design Guide was considered and accepted by Brent's Planning Committee on 17 April 2013, and put referred to Brent's Executive with a recommendation that it should be adopted. Brent's Executive (since 2014 renamed the Cabinet) did adopt the Design Guide, including the map with the revised boundary, on 17 June 2013.
So, congratulations to Marc for spotting this change (which I had missed).
I hope that Marc's efforts on behalf of residents will be rewarded by Brent Council withdrawing their flawed application to build seven infill homes on the Newland Court garages site, or that if they do not withdraw it, that the application will be refused.
Well done Mr Marc Etukudo for continuing to highlight inaccurate information. At Rokesby Place the same and other similar issues were highlighted re the wildlife flora and fauna reports were more than 2-3 years old. Sadly the planning officers disregarded and left out a lot of the vital objections: information in their report to the planning committee members. Seems the whole point is to push through the applications regardless of the law being broken. One of the planning officers was heard saying they are under tremendous pressure. Reading between the lines it seems they are being leaned on. Keeping fingers crossed that Newlands Court application is rejected.
ReplyDeleteThe planners have stayed in the past that grass playing fields have no wildlife value and allow the introduction of unrecyclable pladtic and carsonagenic tyre crumb which creates a wildlife desert that has health hazards for all living beings.
ReplyDeleteBrent remain silent about the bat colony they destroy in South Kilburn Public Open Spaces woodland area (new proposal for schools and three 8 storey housing blocks instead).
ReplyDeleteTwo existing schools sited on 0.86 hectares of land are Brent proposed to be both schools relocated onto 0.3 hectares and that with three 8 storey housing blocks and a north south legal protected public right of way also on this same 0.3 site?.
Both schools said yes to building on the neighbourhood woodland and yes to massive education land reduction? Strange days.......
Importance of trees made clear here: https://amp.theguardian.com/environment/2022/dec/02/a-uk-tree-provides-hundreds-of-pounds-of-benefits-a-year-report-finds
ReplyDeleteYet Brent doesn't care about our local environment 😔
I don't know if anyone happened to see and read the article in The Brent and Kilburn Times newspaper a few months ago about the current CEO, Carolyn Downs intention to resign in April 2023?
ReplyDeleteI was left feeling dumfounded to see how much she talked up the current council and described them as a ''fantastic team'' despite the obvious contradictions to be found and seen in so much of what they do throughout the borough.
Dear Trevor (2 January at 14:06),
ReplyDeleteThe article you refer to in the local newspaper was just quoting straight from a press release issued by Brent Council's communications team.
This is all part of a deliberate policy by Brent Council to only issue positive publicity about itself. If you believe the communication team's propaganda (definition: 'information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote a political cause or point of view'), Brent is a Council which does no wrong, never makes a mistake and is wholly focussed on bettering the lives of all of its residents.
Both Council Officers and councillors sign up to Codes under which they commit to uphold the seven principles of conduct in public life, which include honesty, objectivity and integrity. But do they actually believe in and follow those principles?
The Senior Officers, who control what is said about the Council, have a vested interest in saying what a good job Brent Council, and their own teams within it, is doing. That information goes in their favour when they are applying for better jobs elsewhere (or if they are retiring, reflects well on their "legacy").
The Leader and his Cabinet are also keen to play this game, because it makes them look good, and helps them to win elections, and stay in power.
I'm not as dumbfounded as you over what was printed, but I'm bitterly disappointed by the lack of truth in much of what comes out of Brent Civic Centre!
Dear Phillip,
ReplyDeleteThanks for taking the time to clarify the point I made about the Brent council's ''press release.''
I'll also use this opportunity to explain why I felt ''dumbfounded'' by it.
The first thing was it was too positive, not to suggest that's a bad thing.
It's just that on the ground, where you, I and other residents reside, the ''positivity'' stands in stark contrast to the often-harsh (negative) realities to be found in Brent.
I don't think it's necessary for me to list some of those things because it's highly unlikely that you'll be blissfully living in the unrealistic parallel borough as described by the outgoing CEO, Carolyn Downs, in which, for example, she made a bold-faced assertion that the shortage of affordable, (truly decent) council housing is being addressed successfully,
in spite of the fact that it's never long before an article is printed in the local newspaper about residents living in run down accommodation throughout Brent.
I'm no professor, and I didn't study at Oxbridge, but I have learned to discern the differences between fact and fiction, modesty and exaggeration.
Therefore, when I read the article in question, I wasn't blinded by the vain and futile attempt on the part of Ms Downs to distort the reality about the way that Brent council operates.
I was (as previously stated)''dumbfounded'' by the lack of humility and contrition in the ''press release.''
Given how much the long-suffering residents who loyally support the Labour cabinet have been put through during her time in office, I think that the least she should have done was to acknowledge the clear lack of progress and consistency on the part of the council to provide solutions to the ever-growing problems which tend to have a damaging effect on the physical and mental health of the most vulnerable residents.
Rather than painting a clearly doubtful, unrealistic and arguably insulting picture of the relationship between residents and the current council cabinet.
Indeed, I view a ''press release'' of that sort as being nothing less than disrespectful and inconsiderate to the intelligence, dignity and feelings of long-suffering Brent residents who support Brent council and are treated like fools in return.
A good example of Brent's propaganda and self praise is ex-councillor McLennan's MBE for her work on Digital Inclusion (I doubt she did anything, but it sounds good) and being the Deputy Leader and the Regeneration Lead for a while, you know when the problems with Granville New Homes first emerged.
ReplyDeleteReally!! Digital inclusion. What a laugh. What happened to their expensive virtual receptionist at the Civic Centre? Very quietly buried the shelving of it. Didn’t Brent recently get criticised for not having a robust record keeping system?
ReplyDelete