Monday's Brent Cabinet approved the pause in purpose built student accommodation in the Wembley Growth Area. Cllr Grahl brought up the Matalan student housing development in her ward and supported her residents' misgivings particularly in view of the local housing housing crisis. She suggested that the pause could also be applied in other parts of the borough.
Leader of the Council, Muhammed Butt, in a rather confusing statement said the Council should 'share the love' across the borough which seemed to suggest support for student accommodation elsewhere in the borough but also looked forward to changes in the Local Plan regarding housing issues.
You can hear the discussion in the above video.
Lets hope they also pause granting licences for gambling premises and premises wanting alcohol licences too!
ReplyDeleteIf you look at Imperial College's expansion site near Westfield, they have new learning facilities and labs as well as the student accommodation. If Hammersmith and Fulham can negotiate for a university as part of its growth, why not Brent?
ReplyDelete'Share the future slum housing love'
ReplyDeleteBrent “Work[s] tirelessly to balance the needs of residents” more like meet applicants behind closed doors (pre app advice) and then ignore resident concerns as well as the local plan. LOL
ReplyDeleteSome of what Grahl said was quite true. Who are we building for?
ReplyDeleteButt's waffle was worrying
ReplyDeleteMo Butt has been waffling for years. It is worrying, and his fellow Labour councillors should have have got rid of him as Leader.
DeleteHis only leadership skill is leading them, and all of Brent, up the garden path!
Viability Butt says, what he means is massive profits for developers. Meanwhile, sod the current residents.
ReplyDeleteI think its called 'social gain' by decision makers, in the not neighbourhood-by- design/ post welfare state towers of Brents permanent development tenanted extraction industry zones.
ReplyDeleteClimate change crisis as a business opportunity to grow inside such zones/ the very opposite of conservation area climate change resilience policies.
By coincidence, I learned recently (from Cllr. Butt's immediate predecessor as Leader of Brent Council, who he managed to oust when he was previously Deputy Leader in May 2012) that the reason student accommodation was included as part of the development "mix", when Brent's previous planning Core Strategy was developed, was that the then Chief Executive, Gareth Daniel, had thought it would be good for the borough.
ReplyDeleteI doubt whether Gareth Daniel envisaged student accommodation being allowed to become such a large proportion of new developments in the borough. He was a long-time, sensible and well-respected Chief Executive of the London Borough of Brent, who helped to rebuild the borough's reputation, after the "Balmy Brent" era of the 1980s into 1990s.
If you don't know what happened to Gareth Daniel, here is a little reminder. Just a few months after Muhammed Butt became Leader, there was a strong disagreement between him and the Chief Executive. One of them had to go and it was Mr Daniel (with a payoff of around £200k, if I remember rightly). In a farewell message to Council staff in September 2012, he wrote: '‘I believe that personal integrity is the foundation for good governance, and without it everything else is lost.’
[I would have quoted that in a Deputation to a Full Council meeting in September 2015, if I had been allowed to present it, but that was blocked. You can read the text of my deputation, entitled "The importance of high standards of conduct in carrying out the functions of Brent Council", if you wish to, at:
https://wembleymatters.blogspot.com/2015/09/brent-labour-support-gag-on-deputation.html ]
I believe the disagreement in 2012 which lead to Gareth Daniel's departure was "manufactured" by two Council Officers close to the Leader. One of the two was initially suspended, but then left with a pay-off of over £140k. The other was the acting Head of HR, who was instrumental in helping to recruit a "temporary" Chief Executive, more to the Leader's liking, who between them (in my opinion) they managed to keep in post for nearly three years.
That second person should have been dismissed by that "temporary" Chief Executive for gross misconduct in 2014, but left the Council with an (initially secret) pay-off of over £150k in 2015.
This comment has strayed far from the subject of student accommodation, but it does give, perhaps some clues as to how Brent Council has got into the, at times, sorry state we are in now, with too much student accommodation and far too little affordable housing being built.
Permanent development zoned.
ReplyDeleteDeputy Leader Mili Patel on TV tonight saying Labour run Brent Council are powerless to stop gambling premises opening because they can't afford the legal fees to fight the companies in the courts if they refuse permission - why haven't they actively campaigned against this before, why only now???
ReplyDeleteNo money yet Labour run Brent Council gave £17.8 million of our CIL/NCIL money to multi-billion pound developer Quintain to build their vanity project steps outside Wembley Stadium - that money could instead have been spent on local projects to help gamblers fight their addiction.