KIlburn Square campaigners: 'We are mildly relieved - and hugely frustrated'

Despite being the largest develeopment application tabled, Kilburn Square was the last item on the Agenda at Brent Planning Committee on Wednesday and discussion was abandoned when a leaking roof led to audio problems.  Wembley Matters contacted  campaigners for an update on how things stand now.

Keith Anderson, Chair of Kilburn Village Residents’ Association, which includes Kilburn Square estate and six surrounding streets,  has been coordinating a dialogue with Brent for two and a half years. He says in the aftermath of Wednesday’s unexpected outcome:

 

We are mildly relieved – and hugely frustrated:

 

·         Frustrated that Brent has pressed ahead to Committee with this non-viable, all-Council-rent version of the scheme – refusing, despite our Official Complaint, to amend the Tenure Mix to reflect the seemingly inevitable switch of over a quarter of the flats to outright sale, to make the sums work 

 

·         Relieved that the Chair’s attempt to restart the meeting at approaching 9pm – normally the target finish time – was thwarted by the continuing AV problems; we felt the Committee would be too tired to do our scheme justice after intense debates on the two previous Agenda items. But…

 

·         Frustrated that we were even listed last on the Agenda; one of the Officers acknowledged privately that this large and controversial scheme deserves at least an hour and a half, if not longer 

 

·         Frustrated that the Affordable Housing team, in their remote offices and without even engaging with the Board of the Housing Co-op (who manage the estate for the Council) concocted the original wildly over-ambitious “Mini Master Plan”, proposing 179 extra flats - 80% more households vs 2019 - on a reduced physical space

 

·         That scheme was announced three years ago; had the team stayed with what is in the Local Plan’s Kilburn Square Site Allocation (100 new flats - by 2037!)… and the 80-100 units outlined in a March 2020 Cabinet report, they could have had construction almost finished by now

 

·         Frustrated that, when comprehensive rejection from estate residents and neighbours pushed the Policy Coordination Group into agreeing a smaller scheme was needed… the reduction offered was only around 20% 

 

·         Frustrated that in that second phase the project team tried a Divide and Rule approach, with a tokenistic and controlling approach to seeking estate residents’ consent and a message to close neighbours that they should withhold their thoughts until the Planning Application arrived

 

In January 2021, Brent’s Housing Director told the Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee: “We will not force homes on anyone…we have developed only with the support and encouragement of local residents” so, how did that play out for our scheme..?

 

The PA was filed a year ago (!), with a long list of tick-box pre-engagement activities; but NO evidence of resulting community support for the scheme…

 

… whereas the Application has attracted: 

·         Around 120 individual Objections

·         A suite of 20 detailed submissions from KVRA on specific topics 

·         Supporting emails from our MP, the Green Party at City Hall, CPRE, Brent Parks Forum

·         Three Collective Objections (petitions in Council-speak) from surrounding streets, with 300 signatures

·         Three COs from Blocks on the estate, including the two most affected by the problematic Blocks C and E (the Committee Report curiously acknowledged only one…)…

·         …and a mere three supporting comments

 

So, one might have expected that, combining that with key policy breaches in areas like Climate Strategy, Amenity Space and Overshadowing, the Officers’ Committee Report would have recommended sending the scheme back to the drawing board (a smaller scheme could gain community support)?

 

But no: KVRA, working with three neighbouring RAs and the Kilburn Neighbourhood Forum as the Kilburn Square Stakeholder Group, were airbrushed out of the picture, and the outcome of the ineffective engagement process was largely dismissed

 

Martin already published the Supplementary Agenda report issued on Tuesday. Here it is, with our Riposte in red LINK. I’ll  update readers in another post on our detailed Response to the full Committee Report

 

Expect a lively discussion when our scheme comes back to Committee – now planned for first up on the November 15 Agenda!