Morland Gardens – an alternative solution (open email to Brent Council Leader)

 A guest post by Philip Grant in a personal capacity

 

1 Morland Gardens and the community garden across the Hillside junction, September 2022.

 

Martin has already highlighted the £18m in cuts/savings which is the main item for next Monday’s Brent Cabinet meeting, but another report, which was added to the agenda on Tuesday afternoon, may be just as important. 

 

The “Update on the supply of New Affordable Homes” is far more than its bland title suggests. I hope to write a separate post about that, but first I would like to share with you an open email which I sent on Wednesday afternoon to the Council Leader and Lead Member for Housing. It offers an alternative solution to that proposed in the report by Council Officers for the Council’s controversial, hugely delayed and badly flawed Morland Gardens project. I have added some relevant illustrations, to break up the email’s text:-

 

Dear Councillor Butt and Councillor Knight,

 

The report to next Monday’s Cabinet meeting, Update on the supply of New Affordable Homes, shows that there are problems with a number of the Council’s schemes, including Morland Gardens at para. 4.26. The problems with that project are even worse than admitted in the report. I am writing to suggest an alternative solution, which I hope that you, and Council Officers, will seriously consider.

 

The Morland Gardens paragraph from the Update Report to Cabinet.
[ SO = Shared Ownership.  OMS = Open Market Sale.]

 

The report admits that the current scheme is not viable, and offers ‘to value engineer the scheme during the PCSA process’ as a possible solution. What it does not admit is that the scheme is likely to lose the £6.5m GLA funding, which was part of the original basis for Cabinet approving it in January 2020. It will lose that funding because it will not be possible for the project to “start on site” by 31 March 2023. 

 

At the moment, the Council does not have a “site” there. 1 Morland Gardens and its grounds are legally occupied, until at least January 2023, by Live-in Guardians. The Public Realm outside the property, including the Harlesden City Challenge Community Garden, which would form part of the site, has not been appropriated for planning purposes. It cannot be appropriated unless a section of highway crossing it can be stopped-up, and the proposed Order for that is the subject of objections which will not be resolved until after 31 March 2023.

 

Alan Lunt’s email of 2 June 2021.

 

In an email of 2 June 2021, copied to you both, and which is in the public domain, the then Strategic Director for Regeneration, Alan Lunt, wrote: ‘I confirm that the demolition of “Altamira” [the locally listed heritage Victorian villa] will not take place until all of the legal pre-requisites are in place.’ No work can commence before matters such as the stopping-up are resolved, and that will be too late for the GLA funding deadline.

 

Converting some of the proposed 65 homes to shared ownership, or trying to squeeze more homes into the building, instead of affordable workspace, would both need planning consent. This would mean further delay and expense. It would be throwing good money after bad, just as Alan Lunt’s risk of awarding a two-stage Design & Build contract, which Cabinet approved last June, for a project which did not have a legal site was a waste of at least £1.2m (the estimated cost of the PCSA process).

 

This project has been flawed from its early stages. It breached the Council’s adopted heritage assets policy, which was only justified for planning purposes by the “benefit” of 65 affordable homes at London Affordable Rent. If there is any change to that “benefit”, then that justification no longer exists.

 

Councillor Knight will remember that, at the Planning Committee meeting on 12 August 2020, her colleague Cllr. Aden, on behalf of all three Stonebridge councillors, was neutral on the Morland Gardens application. Although he welcomed the prospect of 100% LAR housing, he was against the loss of the important heritage asset, the overdevelopment of the site to the detriment of local residents and the inadequate parking and servicing provision, which would cause traffic congestion at the busy Hillside / Brentfield Road junction.

 

Councillor Aden’s submission, from the Planning Committee minutes, 12 August 2020.

 

It is time to rethink this project, as I suggested even before the planning decision in 2020, in detail to Stonebridge Ward councillors in June 2021 (with copy to the Leader and then Lead Member), and again to you as Council Leader and Alan Lunt in January 2022.

 

Extract from my email to Stonebridge Ward councillors on 19 June 2021 (which Cllr. Knight replied to).

 

The main reason for the 1 Morland Gardens scheme was to provide the Brent Start college with more modern facilities than those provided in the 1990s in the sympathetically restored heritage building. That modern college facility does not have to be on the Morland Gardens site. £15m of CIL money was been set aside for it in 2020, with a further unspecified amount agreed at last month’s Cabinet meeting. 

 

By working with the developer, using Section 106 if necessary, that new college could be provided as part of the Unisys House redevelopment, still in Stonebridge and alongside the new Bridge Park community facilities. That would leave the question of what to do with Brent Start until the new college was available.

 

The college is currently in a temporary home in the Stonebridge Primary School annexe. It could stay there, but the better solution would be to move it back to the existing facilities at 1 Morland Gardens. Once the new college was ready, the Morland Gardens site could be developed for housing and/or community facilities, retaining the beautiful heritage building as part of the scheme (details of which could be worked out and agreed ahead of the college’s permanent move).

 

Moving Brent Start out of the Stonebridge Primary School annexe would allow the much-delayed Twybridge Way housing scheme to go ahead. That project, which is being blocked by the Council’s mistakes over Morland Gardens, will provide 14 family-sized houses, 13 smaller flats for rent and 40 new supported 1-bedroom homes for independent living. Sensible allocation of those “NAIL” homes could allow forty existing family-sized homes in the Stonebridge area to become available for families on Brent’s waiting list.

 

Brent’s current plans for 1 Morland Gardens have been ill-conceived since the time of poor advice from Council Officers in late 2018 / early 2019. Rather than trying to press on with a project which is badly flawed, please take this opportunity to make a sensible choice, and accept the alternative solution I have put forward. 

 

Thank you. Best wishes,

 

Philip Grant

1 Morland Gardens – yet another twist!

Guest post by Philip Grant in a personal capacity

 

“Altamira”, 1 Morland Gardens, with community garden in the foreground. (Photo by Irina Porter)

 

When Martin reported, just a week ago, that a call-in meeting of Brent’s Resources and Public Realm Scrutiny Committee had given the go-ahead for the contract for the Council’s Morland Gardens redevelopment scheme to be awarded, you might have thought that the fate of the heritage Victorian villa there was sealed.

 

The only thing that could scupper Brent’s controversial plans to demolish the locally-listed building might be the objections to the proposed Stopping-up Order for an area of highway between the restored garden wall of the villa and the community garden. Council Officers, with the encouragement of several Cabinet members, had decided in early 2019 that they could use this extra piece of Council-owned land, in order to build more homes as part of the development. They had failed to consider the consequences of that decision, or to take the necessary action to obtain the Order, which led to the call-in.

 

The “award-winning” building which Brent wants to replace “Altamira” with.

 

Alan Lunt, Brent’s Strategic Director (Regeneration and Environment), won his right to award the two-stage Design & Build Contract for Morland Gardens to Hill Partnerships Ltd on the evening of Thursday 9 June. But when the agenda for the Cabinet meeting on 20 June was published the following day, this was item 12:

 

‘12. Authority to Tender for the Design & Build Contract at 1 Morland Gardens, Stonebridge.

Following on from a call-in relating to the original contract award, this report requests approval to invite tenders by way of a direct award under the Network Homes Contractor Framework and approve the pre tender considerations as required by Contract Standing Orders 88 and 89.’

 

The Report for this item was “to follow”, and that was not published on the Council’s website until the afternoon of Thursday 16 June. What had gone wrong? This is the explanation given at para. 3.3 of the Report:

 

‘The council also sought to procure a contractor for the scheme in May 2021 and May 2022 but both tender opportunities were unsuccessful. The first tender opportunity did not elicit any bids. The second tender opportunity elicited three bids and the council recommended the award of the contract as detailed in the Key Officer Decision report of 20 May 2022. This decision was subject to “call in”, during which period the Framework under which the contract was awarded, expired and so the council is required to procure a contractor again under a further procurement process.’

 

It appears that Mr Lunt may be trying to blame the call-in for the missed opportunity to award a contract for the scheme, and the need for a third attempt ‘to procure a contractor’. In fact, he was given a second chance to find a contractor in August 2021, and the three bids under that procurement process were received in November 2021. The fact that Brent took until 20 May 2022 to decide which of the three contractors they wished to award the contract to is no fault of the councillors who called-in his decision. They did so because of the risk of awarding a contract for a project which involves land that Brent does not have the legal right to build on!

 

Brent’s Cabinet are being asked to make a big decision at short notice. Not only that, they are being asked to approve the finding and appointing of a new contractor in a very rushed process, set out in this table from the Report:

 

Extract from table at para. 3.6 of Cabinet Report.

 

The Report says that ‘the estimated contract value of the procurement is £38m.’ The bid the Strategic Director wanted to accept in May was £37,933,491, but that had been made in November 2021. There was another item on the Cabinet agenda (Watling Gardens) where the Report was also not available, and a Council Officer has explained to me the reason for that:

 

‘Item 16 was not available on that date because the need for the report has arisen unexpectedly because of the escalation in the costs of the project due to the current inflation situation.  You may recall the challenges this situation is causing for the council were mentioned by the Chief Executive at the recent call-in meeting.’

 

That “escalation in costs” will surely affect the amount that any contractor submitting a tender for the Morland Gardens project is willing to offer. And if they offer an amount within the Council’s “budget” for this scheme, what corners will they cut in order to build it and still make a profit? This could easily become another Granville New Homes, where what was on paper an award-winning design was so poorly built, in order to keep “within budget”, that it is now costing more than the original contract to remedy the defects.

 

Brent Council has made so many mistakes and bad decisions over 1 Morland Gardens, which is why they are in the mess they are now over it. Will they plough on, digging a deeper hole for themselves, or will they finally see sense and go “back to the drawing board”?

Philip Grant

 

Contract for 1 Morland Gardens – Brent’s response to an open letter

Guest post by Philip Grant in a personal capacity

Last month I sent an open letter to Brent’s Strategic Director for Regeneration, and Lead Member for Education, explaining why it would not be a good idea to award a Design & Build contract for the Council’s proposed redevelopment at 1 Morland Gardens. Notice of the intended decision to award a contract on 4 January 2022, dated 3 December, had appeared on Brent’s website.

 

The Key Decision had still not been announced on the Council’s website by the evening of 11 January, but I did receive a response to my open letter then. I will ask Martin to attach that at the end of this article, so that anyone who wishes to read it can do so. The response confirmed ‘that the council intends to proceed with the proposed scheme of works’.

 

Architect’s visual impression of the proposed scheme for 1 Morland Gardens

 

However (as is becoming common with Brent Council, if you can get a reply from them), the response raises as many questions as it answers. It does, of course, begin by referring to ‘the very many benefits that the scheme will provide.’ 

 

This ignores the fact that if Council Officers had followed Brent’s own, and national, planning rules over heritage assets at the start, they would never have come up with this scheme! It involves the demolition of an irreplaceable locally listed heritage building. And if the Planning Committee in August 2020 had been properly advised, they would have known that this heritage asset was too “significant” for them to decide that the “public benefits” of the proposals outweighed the importance of retaining the beautiful, architectural and historic Victorian villa.

 

Extract from Brent Council’s May 2019 Historic Environment Place-making Strategy

 

The response lists one of the benefits of the scheme as ‘65 social rented homes.’ Will these really be homes let to Council tenants at genuine social rent levels, or is this just another example of Brent officers (and Lead Members) misusing the term ‘social rented homes’ when they are actually referring to “affordable housing”? 

 

Brent originally told the GLA that the new homes at 1 Morland Gardens would be for “social rent”, but at the planning permission stage in 2020, the Council had changed this to 'all of the 65 units would be delivered at London Affordable Rent.' In a comment on an earlier blog, I pointed out that £6.5m of the cost for these homes was meant to be funded from the GLA’s Affordable Homes programme for 2016-2021. Even though the end date for that was extended to construction beginning by 31 March 2022, that £6.5m is unlikely to be available. Does a change back to “social rent” mean that some of Brent’s funding from the 2021-2026 GLA programme will now have to be used for this project?

 

Are you are wondering what is behind the "little dig" in the response ('I know from previous correspondence that you are concerned with the pace of delivery of social rented accommodation in Brent ....')? It refers to my attempts to get Cllr. Shama Tatler or Mr Lunt to explain properly why they propose that 152 of the 250 new homes on the Council-owned vacant former Copland School site at Cecil Avenue (Wembley High Road) should be built for a private developer to sell at a profit, rather than all 250 being genuine affordable rented housing for people in urgent housing need. I have yet to receive an answer to that!

 

Moving on to Brent’s responses to the six reasons why they should not award this contract, the “answers” to points 1, 2, 3 and 6 are similar. The Council has not yet done anything about the legal requirements over stopping-up orders, appropriation of land for planning purposes or the planning condition that it needs to “divert” (that is, dig up and move!) the water main in Hillside / Brentfield Road. 

 

It could have begun these tasks, which it admits are necessary to complete before construction can commence, at any time after receiving full planning consent in October 2020. Instead, it now says that ‘the council will complete the first stage of the two-stage design and build contract and finalise and obtain the necessary legal pre-requisites in order to begin any construction works.’ But there is no guarantee that at least one of these ‘legal pre-requisites’, the stopping-up orders, will be obtained! Why even pay for the first stage, when you don’t know whether the proposed construction work could go ahead?

 

The Victorian villa which Brent Council’s project would demolish. (Photo by Irina Porter)

 

Reason 4 was the effect of the proposed demolition on climate. As Brent Council has declared a “Climate Emergency”, you would think that Senior Officers and Lead Members would take that matter seriously. But here the response is: ‘Whilst the proposed redevelopment will emit CO2, the benefits the project brings can go some way to justify this.’ Have they quantified the climate damage, and measured the harm this will cause as compared to the alternative option, retaining the Victorian villa, which I have suggested? Or is this just another example of Brent Council making fine-sounding promises, but not following them in practice?

 

The response to reason 5, the Design & Build Contract itself, leaves a very important point unanswered. I had asked: ‘Why is it proposed that ‘the contractor is undertaking design work’ and ‘design liability’, when full planning permission was given for a detailed design by architects Curl la Tourelle Head?’ 

 

That point has been ignored. Is Brent Council proposing to pay the contractor to come up with a new design, or make significant changes to a detailed design it has already paid a firm of architects to prepare for it? And if there are any significant changes to the building plans that were approved in 2020, won’t that mean a new application for planning permission? Surely those are important questions that need to be answered!

 

The response tells me that: ‘The council has appointed technical consultants to ensure the designs by the contractor meet the council’s requirements ….’ How much will these consultants cost, and will that cost have to be met out of the budget for the project agreed by Brent’s Cabinet two years ago?

 

A bigger reason why I was concerned about the proposed two-stage contract was this: ‘If the contractor given the proposed D&B contract wishes to keep within Brent’s maximum price for the scheme, there is a severe risk that they would cut corners, both in modifying the design and carrying out the building work.’

 

Brent’s answer: ‘the technical consultants will be monitoring the contractor’s progress to ensure the build meets the requirements in terms of materials used, methods of construction and quality of finishes. It is expected that this monitoring will prevent any issues with the quality of the finished building and any issues can be dealt with under the defects liability (including latent defects) responsibilities set out in the contract.’

 

Do you have confidence in the Council’s expectations that there won’t be any “issues” with a ‘cross-laminated timber structure’ (one of the tallest buildings in this country to use that method), with ‘innovative hybrid steel reinforcement’ supporting external cladding? Or that if there are any “issues”, they will be dealt with by the contractor ‘under the defects liability’? Given Brent’s experience over Granville New Homes, I have a feeling that history might repeat itself, IF the Council continues its insistence on pursuing its flawed 1 Morland Gardens project.

Philip Grant

 

 

1 Morland Gardens – why Brent should not award a contract

 

 

 Guest post from Philip Grant in personal capacity

 

Despite being given many good reasons why they should not go ahead with their proposed redevelopment of the locally listed Victorian villa at 1 Morland Gardens, the current home of the Brent Start adult education college, notice has appeared on the Council’s website of the intention to award a contract for the work.

 

I have responded to that by sending an open letter to Brent’s Strategic Director for Regeneration, who can authorise that award, and to the Lead Member for Education, who should be consulted before that decision is made. I have asked Martin to publish my open letter, so that Brent’s residents are aware of the reasons why that contract should not be awarded:-

To: Alan Lunt, Strategic Director (Regeneration)
      Cllr. Thomas Stephens (Lead Member for Education)   

       From Philp Grant

      (copy to Neil Martin, Schools Capital Programme Team)

 

This is an Open Letter

                                                                                                              16 December 2021

Dear Mr Lunt and Councillor Stephens,

 

Proposed award of a Design and Build contract for work at 1 Morland Gardens NW10

 

I note from Brent Council’s website that Mr Lunt will be requested to decide, on 4 January 2022, to approve the award of ‘a contract to enter into a Two Stage D&B JCT Contract’ in respect of the Council’s proposed development at 1 Morland Gardens, Stonebridge.

 

There are a number of reasons why no such contract should be entered into, at least until several outstanding matters have been resolved. I would set these out as follows:

 

1. Stopping-up of highway and/or footpath:

 

There has been previous correspondence, and Freedom of Information Act requests, about this issue, yet Brent Council has still not sought to obtain a stopping-up order for the highway or footpath which runs in front of 1 Morland Gardens. Unless or until such an order is obtained, the land which that right of way runs across cannot be built over or obstructed with hoardings around a construction site.

 

This was confirmed by Brent’s Development Management Manager in an FoI response of 25 May 2021, when he said:

 

‘An application to formally stop up the highway has not yet been received. This would need to be submitted and approved prior to any development taking place on the areas that are currently adopted highway. Until the stopping-up process has been completed under S247 of the Town & Country Act 1990, works will not be able to start on the development insofar as it affects highway land.’

 

As the proposed redevelopment at 1 Morland Gardens is dependent on that highway / footpath being available to be built over, it seems reckless to award a contract for that development until it is clear that it is legally permissible to do that.

 

2. Appropriation of Land for Planning Purposes:

 

As with 1 above, it does not appear that either of the two parcels of land required for the proposed redevelopment have been appropriated for planning purposes.

 

The land and buildings at 1 Morland Gardens itself are currently used for educational purposes. That may well need to be appropriated for a mixed-use development to take place on the site.

 

The land in front of 1 Morland Gardens, as well as the highway / footpath, is open space used for a community garden. Its trees and gardens (although the Council has allowed them to fall into some disrepair) still provide an area of peace for residents, shielded from the busy traffic of Hillside and Brentfield Road, and a haven for wildlife. In a time of climate emergency, they also help to deal with air pollution and CO2 emissions. 

 

Can you honestly say that this land is no longer required for those purposes? If not, it cannot be appropriated for planning purposes. And as the plans for which the Council received approval depend on building over that land, the redevelopment could not proceed without appropriation, so awarding a contract for that work would be pointless (and costly).

 

3. Legal pre-requisites:

 

Both the stopping-up and the appropriation are legal requirements before the Council’s plans can go ahead. I would remind Mr Lunt of what he wrote in an email to me on 2 June 2021:

 

‘I confirm that the demolition of “Altamira” will not take place until all necessary legal pre-requisites are in place.’

 

The demolition of the locally listed Victorian villa, originally “Altamira” and now the Brent Start college at 1 Morland Gardens, is required if the proposed new development is to be built. If that cannot be demolished (and as a heritage asset, Brent’s own adopted policies should mean that it is not demolished!), there is no sense in awarding a contract reliant on that demolition.

 

4. Effect of the proposed demolition on Climate:

It is now well established that demolition and rebuilding on the same site emits far more CO2 than simply refurbishing an existing building, and the difference between the two figures is very large. Brent Council, having declared a Climate Emergency, should not be embarking on projects which contribute more to the harmful effects of Climate Change than is necessary.

 

I have argued before, and still believe, that Brent Start would be better served by building a new college facility as part of another redevelopment (such as that at Unisys / Bridge Park). That would mean the college only has to move once, and 1 Morland Gardens could them be the subject of a sympathetic redevelopment for social housing, which retains the historic parts of “Altamira”, and only demolishes the later additions. 

 

As well as being better for the climate, Brent’s acceptance of my proposed option would free up the Twybridge Way site, so that Phase 2 of Brent Council’s new housing plans for Stonebridge (including family houses and the much-needed independent living flats) can go ahead, rather than delayed for years by being tied to your flawed Morland Gardens plans.

 

Again, entering into the proposed contract would commit Brent to the current scheme, or incur substantial costs in getting out of it.

 

5. Design and Build contract:

 

In the “Authority to Re-tender Report” last summer, this type of contract was described as follows:

 

‘With a two-stage D&B contract, the first stage is the Pre-Construction Services Agreement (PCSA). The PCSA will define the services that are required of the contractor during the pre-construction phase and is generally similar to a consultancy agreement. It will make clear the contractor is undertaking design work, the design liability and what will happen to this liability if they are not appointed for the second stage. If the contractor operates within the GMP and approved budget, the Council triggers the second stage by entering into the D&B Contract and the building works then commence.’

 

Why is it proposed that ‘the contractor is undertaking design work’ and ‘design liability’, when full planning permission was given for a detailed design by architects Curl la Tourelle Head? That design was given an award in September 2020. 

 

The approved and award-winning design would have a ‘cross-laminated timber structure’ (and be one of the tallest buildings in this country to use that method), with ‘innovative hybrid steel reinforcement’ supporting external cladding. If the contractor given the proposed D&B contract wishes to keep within Brent’s maximum price (“GMP”) for the scheme, there is a severe risk that they would cut corners, both in modifying the design and carrying out the building work. 

 

That appears to be what happened over another award-winning innovative design, for the 2009 development called Granville New Homes in South Kilburn. You are (or should be) well aware of the problems and additional costs to Brent Council which that has caused! Awarding the proposed D&B contract for 1 Morland Gardens could well lead to similar results, and you should reconsider the situation very carefully before doing so.

 

6. Water Main:

 

Although the Officer Report to Planning Committee glossed over this point, Thames Water pointed out that because the footprint of the proposed building would take it within 5 metres of major water mains along Hillside and Brentfield Road, construction should not take place. This was “dealt with” by including a condition (No. 44) in the formal planning consent:

 

‘No construction shall take place within 5m of the water main. Information detailing how the developer intends to divert the asset / align the development, so as to prevent the potential for damage to subsurface potable water infrastructure, must be submitted to and approved in writing by the local planning authority in consultation with Thames Water. Any construction must be undertaken in accordance with the terms of the approved information. Unrestricted access must be available at all times for the maintenance and repair of the asset during and after the construction works.’

 

In other words, the water main under these roads, and at a very busy junction, must be “diverted” before any construction on the site can take place. Has this major work been done, or has Brent Council set aside the money for this work? If not, there is again a built-in delay before any construction could take place at 1 Morland Gardens. No contract should be awarded until that matter has been resolved.

 

I hope that you, Mr Lunt, and Cllr. Stephens (who should be consulted as Lead Member on this project), will consider the points I have raised very carefully, before reaching a decision on whether to award the proposed Design & Build contract for 1 Morland Gardens. 

 

If you feel that the reasons I have given, for not awarding the contract, should be ignored, I would be grateful if you would write to me to explain why. Thank you.

 

Best wishes,

Philip Grant.