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.
28 comments:
Lets hope they also pause granting licences for gambling premises and premises wanting alcohol licences too!
If 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?
'Share the future slum housing love'
Brent “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
Some of what Grahl said was quite true. Who are we building for?
Butt's waffle was worrying
Viability Butt says, what he means is massive profits for developers. Meanwhile, sod the current residents.
Mo Butt has been waffling for years. It is worrying, and his fellow Labour councillors should have have got rid of him as Leader.
His only leadership skill is leading them, and all of Brent, up the garden path!
I 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.
Climate 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.
I 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.
Are you saying that it cost us c.£500k in payoffs just so Butt could get rid of a Brent CEO he didn't like?
Deputy 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???
No 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.
Interesting comments by Philip. However, this labour administration has allowed tower blocks upon blocks and it’s been the current councils leniency (and the precedent they have set regarding height) that has allowed tall student accommodation tower blocks to contribute to the greater amount of units and exacerbate the issue. Atleast they’re acknowledging the issue though.
How many students will be pulled into gambling addiction with all the gambling premises in Brent?
Gareth Daniels was proud of never having visited South Kilburn. He would not visit this social housing estate of 6,000 during its 'sink estate' phase of total neglect and fail better from 1979-2001. Didn't want to own it and take the responsibility I guess.
Thank you for your comments in reply to mine above.
Interesting point, Anonymous (15 October at 10:21). I didn't know that. No wonder people in the south of the borough believe that Brent Council has always been "Wembleycentric"!
Conservation area centric Brent more and more in C21. Queens Park is south of the borough, but a freehold family houses de-growth zone, rather than an estate of forever development/ income maximalisation zone.
The Growth Area student towers are short--term lets, while the leaseholds are baked-in to be highly precarious long-term tenancies. Social rent no longer gets a policy maker look- in in these roaring 20's. The House of (Land)Lords well past its sell by date.
Brent Council have never been Wembley Centric under Labour - they've let Wembley High Road die a slow death from number 1 shopping destination to mainly gambling premises and fast foot outlets!
What a load of waffle
Meanwhile back in the real world, Brent has given permission for 998 Student Accommodation on Wembley High Road, directly opposite Cecil Ave site, which has less than 25% Social Housing. Demolition was over a year ago and work has not started as construction of 17 and 22 Tower Blocks are still awaiting approval from Building Safety Regulator permission deposited earlier this year. Yes Mo, you definitely "sharing the love" much to the disapproval of your residents. No Council Tax payers to boost the coffers but then I don't suppose Wetherspoons/Takeaways/Gambling venues will be complaining they must be rubbing their hands with glee of all the Student loan revenue that will be spent.
Absolutely correct. The Alperton Master Plan on which local people were consulted identified areas (ex B&Q site) suitable for taller buildings and a height limit of 12 to 14 was set. The Blue blocks opposite Sainsbury's are lower as a result. This created sustainable and acceptable development in the area.
As soon as Labour took control Mo Butt and Labour Mayors of London (Livingstone & Khan) demanded very much higher building. Without any consultation with local people Labour scrapped the height limit and pushed for 28 storey tower blocks. Many of these are faulty with dangerous cladding and created a blight on Alperton and surrounding areas with major traffic congestion and parking problems. Existing residents were sacrificed to meet London wide targets and it is they who are paying the price of the irresponsible and short sighted actions of Labour politicians who do not have to live with the problems they created.
Brent is short of 3 bed family homes for local people on the housing waiting list but little of the new build provides these and as a result the waiting list and homeless numbers are rising with enormous extra costs the burden of which falls on Brent Council Tax payers.
Only this week the Labour Cabinet was told that their budget (fixed just 6 months ago) for homeless accommodation is overspent by another £5 million. The Labour Government does not help and this is why Brent Labour Councillors are cutting all other services to the bone.
I had many arguments with Gareth Daniel when I was opposition Leader in Brent. One thing you could not fault him on however was his determination to weed out wrong doing and corruption. A former Labour Chair of Planning Committee was kicked out (and this was covered up while Labour were in control) I did not find about this until I became Leader.
It was probably his stand on the corruption issue and willingness to stand up to the Labour Leadership that eventually cost him his job.
Mot waffle at all - do your research before discussing other people's comments!
A need decision makers to stand back from the new tower walls of Brent and to then consider what 'conditions of life' and assisted living' support infrastructure can be planned into these permanent development zones of car-free housing population growth.
Conservation areas of freehold family houses population de-growth should not be the welfare state resilience investment focus that they clearly remain under a Labour Government. And of course climate resilience also needs to be designed into tower wall zones, rather than be designed- out (increased service charges tenants must pay)- the brutal 'bad growth' case up to now.
Is the solution to stop funding the homeless problem? By trying to sort one we’re compromising loads of other things
I don't know whether Anonymous (18 October at 17:47) intended their comment to be taken seriously. I hope not!
Just in case they did, I don't think that, by law, Brent Council can refuse to help qualifying people who become genuinely homeless in the borough.
However, I do think that it is wrong that most of the financial burden of helping homeless people in our area should fall on Brent's Council Taxpayers. There should be much more of the cost met by Central Government, which can share the load across the country through general taxation.
Homelessness is more of a problem in boroughs like Brent because we have, on average, a poorer population and higher private rents.
Part of the answer should be proper rent control, like the old "fair rents" system. That is something Central Government should introduce.
But Brent Council over recent years has also added to the problem itself, by not following the recommendations of the Poverty Commission, that it set up. It should have been building, and ensuring that developers built, more genuinely affordable housing, including homes for rent at Social Rent level.
One example of a major missed opportunity (and a deliberate mistake by the then Lead Member for Regeneration, aka Towerblock Tatler, supported by the Council Leader) was not going ahead with the former Copland School site as an all Council homes development when they received planning consent for it in February 2021. Instead, they wasted at least two years, finding a "developer partner", who will now get 150 of the 237 homes being built there, to sell privately once they are finished in about a year's time.
And even then, not all of the 87 "Council" homes will be for rent to Council tenants at affordable rents. Some will be for Shared Ownership, and two are due to be sold at a discount of up to 20 percent as so-called affordable housing to residents whose household income is not more than £90k a year.
Wembley Town, is like Kilburn Town neglect. Brent among London's worst boroughs at enhancing and rejuvenating its old towns in C21.
Kilburn is next to Oxford Street Central London, Wembley is inside the Great West Tower City as is Harlesden. When will social exclusion policy be removed from Brent Local growth strategies?
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