1 Morland Gardens – an Open Letter to Brent’s Chief Executive – it is time to pause and reflect

 Guest post by Philip Grant in a personal capacity

 

1 Morland Gardens behind a corner of the community garden, 26 June 2023.

 

It is nearly three months since my last guest post about 1 Morland Gardens [“Brent’s latest NON-development (and a planning complaint)”], but that doesn’t mean that nothing has been happening.

 

My blog on 4 April said that Brent Council had lost its £6.5m GLA grant funding because no “start on site” had taken place at Morland Gardens. I’ve since found out, from the GLA, that Brent Council claimed it had achieved a “start on site” in January 2023, as part of applying (successfully) for an increased grant for the affordable homes it was building there!

 

Following several Freedom of Information Act requests to the GLA and Brent Council, I can now say categorically that Brent’s Morland Gardens redevelopment DID NOT “start on site” (as defined in its funding agreement with the GLA) in January. Nor was the Victorian villa demolished in March 2023 (you can see it in the photo from last week above!) as Brent claimed in January that it would be.

 

There is still no Stopping-up Order for the highway land in front of 1 Morland Gardens, so with a continuing delay before Brent could actually start their development, and the serious risk that Brent could lose its GLA funding for the housing element of the scheme, I sent an open letter to Brent’s new Chief Executive, Kim Wright, on 26 June. I will ask Martin to attach a copy of my letter at the end of this article, so that is “in the public domain” for anyone to read should they want to.

 

As Ms Wright will not know the full story of this flawed project, I have set out the main points from its history. I have asked her ‘to cast fresh eyes over the project, with a view to initiating a “whole case review” of whether the Council should still press ahead with it.’ 

 

It is a long letter, so I will set out some “highlights” in this article. I will deal with the detail over why Brent have not achieved a “start on site” when I share a second open letter, to the Mayor of London, with you.

 

In the Affordable Housing Update Report to Brent’s Cabinet last November, Officers admitted that the Morland Gardens project was not viable. I wrote a guest post then, with an open email I’d sent to the Council Leader. My suggestion for an alternative way forward was ignored.

 

In January, Brent asked the GLA for increased funds (there was still spare money “in the kitty”, as some other schemes, e.g. Kilburn Square, would not be able to “start on site” before the deadline of 31 March 2023). The GLA asked (in black) for some information, and Brent added their answer (in red) in an email of 23 January – this is an extract from it:

 

The amount of Brent’s £43m budget for Morland Gardens already spent is redacted, but I would guess at between £3m and £4m (including at least £1.5m on moving the Brent Start college to a temporary home, which has blocked any work on the Council’s 67-home Twybridge Way housing scheme).

 

The GLA’s Affordable Housing Programme Review Board considered Brent’s application at the end of January, and agreed to replace the original funding of £6.5m (£100k for each of 65 proposed homes) with a larger new grant (amount unknown, because it was redacted) under a Project-by-Project agreement. But as this grant was also from the AHP 2016-2023 scheme, the Morland Gardens 2 project still needed to Start on Site (“SOS”) by 31 March 2023.

 

Brent had already claimed to have achieved that “milestone”, based on details set out (again in red) in an email response to GLA questions on 20 January:

 

 

The claims that work had already begun on the site, that demolition would take place in March and that the “main build” construction works would begin by the end of April were vital for showing that the project had not only started but would continue ‘without a fallow period’, which was another requirement for the funding. Those claims were confirmed when Brent Council Officers held their quarterly meeting with the GLA’s area housing team on 7 February. Here is the Morland Gardens entry from Brent’s minutes of that meeting:

 

And it was not just minor Brent Council officials supporting these (what turned out to be false) claims to the GLA. This is the list of attendees from that minutes document (with names redacted to protect their identities, though most could be named from their job titles!):

 

Although an answer in the 20 January email said the stopping-up order (still with GLA planners) ‘won’t delay the progression of SOS’, the 7 February minutes acknowledged that there were still ‘challenges with the stopping-up order objections’. Those challenges were about to increase, as although Brent had told the GLA planners that all of the objection points raised by the objectors had already been dealt with during the planning application process in 2020, the GLA planners, that same day, had asked for copies of the original objections, not just Brent’s summary of what they were!

 

Anyone who read my guest post, “1 Morland Gardens – is proposed Stopping-Up Order another mistake?”, on 28 April 2022 will know that the harmful effects of the proposed development on air quality for pedestrians was not considered as part of the planning process, and there was a whole section on that in the objection comments I submitted in May 2022. That failure to consider the increased exposure to air pollution which the stopping-up would cause was the main reason why the (Deputy) Mayor of London’s decision letter to Brent Council on 20 March said that an Inquiry was not unnecessary:

 

 

More than three months after that decision, I have still heard nothing about when an Inquiry will be held, or who will be conducting it. Council Officers have not replied to requests for information on this, so I’ve had to submit an FoI request just to find out those details. Ridiculous!

 

Brent’s long delays over the Stopping-up Order they would need for their proposed Morland Gardens development to go ahead, and attempts to mislead the GLA over “progress” on the project, have put their plans at serious risk of failure. My open letter to Kim Wright spells that out, but also suggests some alternatives. One of these could be to leave the Brent Start college, permanently, at the Twybridge Way site.

 

That site was supposed to be Phase 2 of Brent’s Stonebridge new homes scheme, and could have been nearing completion by now if Brent’s Cabinet, on the advice of Officers, had not agreed in January 2020 to use it as a temporary home (from August 2020 to August 2022!) for Brent Start while the Morland Gardens redevelopment took place.

 

The opening paragraph from “Your Brent News”, 5 May 2023.

 

There was no mention of Stonebridge Phase 2 when the Council Leader publicised his visit to some of the Phase 1 homes (recently completed by Higgins) with the Mayor of London two months ago. But perhaps there was a hint that Cllr. Butt might be ready to accept that his plans for Morland Gardens need to be reconsidered in this paragraph, further down in the same report:

 

‘While I was in Stonebridge, I also stopped by the new Brent Start Adult Education Centre on Hillside to see its new home, say hello to the Team and meet some of the students. New homes may be the foundation for families to build their lives upon, but skills and learning are the bricks that will make that foundation stronger and open up a wave of new opportunities for local people so I’m thrilled that Stonebridge residents have this new and improved centre right on their doorstep.’

 

Brent Council certainly needs to pause and reflect on its proposals for 1 Morland Gardens, and I hope they will take the opportunity to do that, and choose a more sensible path.

Philip Grant.