UPDATE: Is the proposal to build 60 social rent infill homes on garage sites on Chalkhill Estate what it seems?

 

 

Is a Cabinet Report LINK about delivering 60 homes for Social Rent at Chalkhill what it seems?

Item 11 on the agenda for the Cabinet Meeting on 11 March is headed: ‘Proposal to deliver 60 homes for Social Rent on the Chalk Hill (sic) Estate.’ That’s great news, surely? But you have to read the Report to find out what it really means.

Social Rent is the most affordable of the “genuinely affordable” rent levels. It is the rent level at which the 2020 Brent Poverty Commission Report recommended the Council should build as many homes as possible, because most local people in housing need could not afford anything more expensive. And the Council has, so far, failed to build new homes for this rent level, unless they are existing tenants being moved from homes to be demolished.

But, hang on, does Brent own the Chalkhill Estate? Well, no. In the Report’s “Background” information section, it confirms that Brent Council transferred it to Metropolitan Housing Trust in 1996.

[It also claims that ‘Chalkhill was one of the major estates constructed in the borough by the Greater London Council in the 1960’s.’ Either current Council staff don’t know their local history, or they are trying to rewrite history, to distance themselves from the problems that led to the late 1960s “Bison” blocks being demolished only 30 years after they were built!]

In fact, it is now owned by Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing Association (“MTVH”), and it is their scheme which the Cabinet Report is considering. Cllr. Promise Knight’s “Cabinet Member Foreword” still maintains that: ‘we committed to deliver 5,000 affordable homes in the borough and are on track to achieve this.’

Her Foreword goes on to say: ‘This report sets out an opportunity to work closely with one of our strategic partners MTVH Housing to unlock 60 new social homes for residents by repurposing garage sites.’ [Note that these are now ‘social homes’, no longer ‘homes for Social Rent.’]

So, it is another infill scheme (something which Brent has not been particularly successful with so far - see my October 2023 guest post: Council housing – Does Brent know what it is doing?). But this time it is a Housing Association infill scheme, so why is Brent Council involved?

The part of the Chalkhill Estate involved in this scheme is the low-rise brick-built “Scientists” area at the eastern side of the 1960s estate. The land that MTVH want to build on ‘is subject to several outstanding third-party interests’.

It is Brent Council which has the statutory powers to over-ride these “third-party interests”, using compulsory purchase orders and stopping-up orders. As the Report puts it: ‘the scheme will be delivered by MTVH but the Council’s support will be necessary to enable delivery.’

If the proposed infill scheme does go ahead, it may produce ‘around sixty’ new homes. Although these will not be Brent Council homes, the Report does say ‘it is proposed all new homes delivered as part of the regeneration proposal on the Chalkhill Estate will comprise social housing, and the Council will hold nomination rights.’ Possibly some good news for the future.

 

UPDATE:

 This, from the Council's website, is what was decided at Cabinet on March 11th:

'Cabinet RESOLVED:

(1) To approve in principle the Council working with Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing Association (MTVH) to support the development objective of delivering new social housing within the Chalkhill Estate.

(2) To approve in principle to make Compulsory Purchase Orders of land interests within the Chalkhill Estate as identified on Plan 1 under Planning or Housing legislation to bring forward the development objectives, subject to a further specific resolution of Cabinet in respect of the making of each order.

(3) To agree advancing the preliminary stages of the compulsory purchase process on the Chalkhill Estate, including, but not limited to, land referencing, issuing section 16 of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976 notices (section 16 notices), engaging, consulting and negotiating with landowners, and preparation of documentation and undertake all matters that the Council might need to undertake to inform a further report to Cabinet to make, confirm and implement the CPO, if required.

(4) To approve in principle to appropriate, subject to planning,the land identified on Plan 1 under section 203 of the 2016 Housing and Planning Act, subject to a further specific resolution of Cabinet in respect of the making of each appropriation.

(5) To approve in principle to make stopping up orders using planning or highways legislation for any land identified on Plan 1 and comprising public highway.

(6) To note the potential for the delivery of new social housing illustrated by MTVH’s current design proposals and that the current proposal will be subject to further consultation, design refinement and following that be subject of an application for planning permission to the Local Planning Authority.

(7) To delegate authority to the Corporate Director of Resident Services, in consultation with the Cabinet Member for Housing, Homelessness and Renters Security to enter into an indemnity agreement with MTVH to indemnify the Council for all costs associated with the compulsory purchase process on Chalkhill Estate.'