Regeneration at Scrutiny meeting – The truth about Brent’s Wembley Housing Zone land

Guest post by Philip Grant in a personal capacity-

 

The Scrutiny page on Brent Council’s website includes the following question and answer:

 

From: https://www.brent.gov.uk/the-council-and-democracy/council-meetings-and-decision-making/scrutiny#Whatisscrutiny

 

For the Scrutiny system to operate effectively, the information given to Scrutiny Committees by Cabinet members and Council Officers needs to be truthful. Within the Brent Members’ Code of Conduct, this is spelt out: ‘you must comply with the seven principles of conduct in public life set out in Appendix 1.’ The seven principles include “Honesty”, and “Accountability” which is defined as: 

 

‘You should be accountable to the public for your actions and the manner in which you carry out your responsibilities, and should co-operate fully and honestly with any scrutiny appropriate to your particular office.’

 

Martin posted a blog article, “Cllr Tatler taken to task on regeneration issues”, following the Resources and Public Realm Scrutiny Committee meeting last Tuesday (23 April 2024). It included a video, taken from the Council’s webcast of the meeting, which I watched with interest.

 

I have tried several times, since January 2022, to get proper scrutiny of the August 2021 Cabinet decision to allow a developer to sell at least half of the homes at Brent’s Wembley Housing Zone (“WHZ”) development (including most at the more favourable Cecil Avenue site) for private profit. WHZ was in the first of the regeneration growth areas dealt with in the Officer Report to the Scrutiny Committee meeting:

 

 

 

When I heard what Cllr. Shama Tatler said about WHZ when addressing the meeting, I could hardly believe what I had heard. I submitted a short comment, saying: ‘I'm sure I heard Cllr. Tatler claim that Brent did.not own the Wembley Housing Zone land, which is why it was not viable to build more affordable housing there.’ I finished my comment with: ‘Was Cllr. Tatler being "economical with the truth"?’

 

After further research, I submitted a follow-up comment, which Martin has agreed to post as a separate item on Wembley Matters. This is what I wrote:

 

‘I asked above: 'Was Cllr. Tatler being "economical with the truth"?'

 

This was in relation to the Wembley Housing Zone, where I have been campaigning for more genuinely affordable housing, and writing guest posts about it, since August 2021.

 

I have gone back to the webcast, and transcribed what Cllr. Tatler said. Martin kindly sent me a document from a Brent Executive meeting in April 2014 on proposed land rationalisation at Copland Community School and adjacent lands.

 

This is the relevant extract from the webcast of Tuesday's Resources and Public Realm Scrutiny Committee meeting, with Cllr. Tatler addressing the committee on Brent's regeneration schemes:

 

'With the Wembley Housing Zone, we didn't own the land. We had to purchase the land. That impacts viability as well. And we are looking at how we deal with affordable housing on the scheme. Ideally we would want to deliver 100% social housing on any of our land ....'

 

This is the key paragraph from the April 2014 Report to Brent's Executive (now Cabinet), whose recommendations were approved and put in place. CCS is Copland Community School, which had been served with an Academy Order by the Secretary of State, and the IEB is the Interim Executive Board, which Brent Council as Local Education Authority had put in place instead of CCS's previous governing body, to run the school until it was taken over by the Ark Academy group.

 

'CCS is a foundation school and therefore the land and buildings are mainly in the ownership of the school itself, the responsibility for which is vested in the IEB. The IEB has expressed agreement to transfer the freehold of the site which it currently owns to the Council instead, in order for the Council to rationalise the ownership and use of the site overall, ensuring an optimum footprint for the school. The ARK would under these proposals be granted a 125 year lease on the final school site.'

 

In the "Financial Implications" section of the Report, these were the key points from the proposals (which were approved and put in place):

 

'2. The IEB transfer to the Council the freehold interest in the CCS site at nil consideration.

3. The Council accepts a surrender of CCS’s leasehold interests at nil consideration.

5. The Council grants the ARK a short term lease of the existing CCS buildings at peppercorn rent.

7. The Council will grant the ARK a 125 year lease of the new school siteat a peppercorn rent.

8. The ARK will surrender the lease to the existing school at nil consideration.'

 

So, Brent became the freehold owners of all of the original Copland School site and playing fields in 2014, granting ARK a temporary lease of the original school buildings from 1 September 2014. 

 

When the new school was built on the playing fields behind the original school buildings, Brent then granted ARK a 125 year lease for the new school site, BUT retained the freehold of the original Copland School land, now the Wembley Housing Zone Cecil Avenue site, at no cost to the Council.

 

The other, smaller, part of Brent's Wembley Housing Zone scheme, for which it received an £8m grant from the GLA in 2015, is Ujima House. Brent bought that office building in 2016, using £4.8m of the initial £8m GLA funding. It has since received further GLA funding to be used on affordable housing as part of the WHZ.

Cllr. Tatler DID mislead the Scrutiny Committee when she said that Brent did not own the Wembley Housing Zone land and had to purchase it!’

 

Map showing the land around Copland School and its ownership, prior to the rationalisation.
(From an Appendix to the Report to the April 2014 meeting of Brent’s Executive)

 

If there was any doubt about Brent Council’s ownership of the former Copland School site, the freehold of all the land hatched in green on the map above was transferred to Brent in 2014. The only land that Brent had to purchase for its WHZ scheme was the much smaller Ujima House site (which will provide 54 of the 291 WHZ homes, scheduled for completion in 2026).

 

Back in November 2021, Cllr. Tatler, in answer to a public question I had asked ahead of a Full Council meeting, said: ‘it is not financially viable to deliver all 250 homes at Cecil Avenue as socially rented housing.’ [Her scheme only delivered 37 affordable rented homes there then!]

 

Yet neither she, nor anyone else at Brent Council, has been willing or able to answer my question of why it would not be viable to build far more of the Cecil Avenue homes for genuinely affordable rent to Council tenants (see my January 2024 guest post for the latest figures), when the vacant site to build them on was already owned by Brent, they could have gone ahead with the development themselves as soon as they received full planning consent in February 2021, and interest rates were very low (and did not shoot up until autumn 2022).   

 

 Philip Grant.

Too much concealed in Copland plans to make a judgement

The Brent Cabinet on August 26th will receive an update on plans for a new school on the Copland site following its takeover by Ark Academies.  Frustratingly, many of the references in the report to detail in appendices are unavailable due to the following statement:

Note for publication ('below the line')
Appendices 2 (EFA option plan), 3 (Brent option plan) and 4, 4A and 4B (commercial matters) are Not for Publication.

The EFA Option (Appendix 2) is the plan for a new school from the Education Funding Agency and Appendix 3 is Brent Council's own plan.

The fact that they are confidential means that backbench Labour and opposition councillors are unable to compare the plans and reach an informed view, and the same goes for local residents, the local press and this blogger.

The report states that a new school could be provided within the current school's footprint but claims, 'this could result in a sub-optimal solution and will entail considerable disruption to the learning environment during the two year construction period'.

It adds, 'The EFA's objectives have firmly focused solely on delivering a new school at minimal development costs, whereas Brent officers have been keen to ensure delivery of the Wembley Area Action Plan and a sustainable locally well integrated new school design with connectivity to the local community'.

Officers claim that the EFA design option (which we are not allowed to see) is inferior to the Brent Council option (which we are not allowed to see) because it ignores the 'financial benefits of an improved regeneration area'.

The Brent design would mean loss of playing field space which would require the approval of the Secretary of State and relocating a public right of way that currently dissects the school playing fields.

The report says that the EFA option would result in a reduction of redevelopment/regeneration land at the High Road and claims that the Brent option would give the benefit of a..

...new and expanded (additional one form of entry) secondary school and an expanded primary school (Elsley will double in size to 4 form entry) along with new homes (including affordable housing) retail, commercial and community floor space in line with the ambitions of the Wembley area Action Plan. The transactions may generate a capital receipt that will help offset the costs of this proposals as outline in appendix 4 (which we are not allowed to see), some of which will be incurred irrespective of whether the freehold transfer proceeds or not.

A new school building is certainly required at Copland, and has been for at least a decade,  and so of course is affordable housing. However the link with commercial development, office and retail along the High Road, leaves me a little uneasy. Is the commercial tail wagging the educational dog?


Full report on Cabinet Agenda HERE

Further strike action planned as Copland staff fight ARK Academy takeover

Press release from union members at Copland Community School

Staff from the three teacher unions voted unanimously at a well attended meeting yesterday at Copland Community School to take further strike action over plans by the Interim Executive Board (IEB) to hand over the school to the ARK academy chain. The 'consultation' which they have announced including a public meeting is a sham.

Councillor Pavey, who was elected as lead member for Children and Families on the basis he was opposed to academies and free schools[1], has made it clear he supports ARK taking over Copland. He justifies this by saying that Copland 'is different' but cannot provide any supporting evidence for his decision regarding Copland. Redbridge Council which is Conservative has defended democratic, locally-run education and prevented Snaresbrook Primary being forced to be an academy

It is inflated hype about the academic ‘success’ of the Wembley Ark Academy. They have only just started their Year 10 intake. Copland is already improving as was shown by their exam results this summer.

Of course ARK will have the benefit of the new school building at Copland which has already been agreed. The spin doctors are trying to make it sound that ARK will be responsible for this.

Hank Roberts, Brent ATL Secretary said:

The consultation is a joke. They have already decided that the head of the ARK academy will be the joint headteacher of both schools and they have already decided it will be an ARK academy. They have offered no choice, and will seek to go ahead whatever the 'consultation' results. We are united in opposition to this. 

Tom Stone, Acting NASUWT said,:

It is quite scandalous how the pupils and staff are now being treated at Copland School. They have suffered enough. Their ex Head teacher is a convicted criminal and now their combined souls are being given over to an Academy chain that has no real interest in them, but is VERY interested in the future profit they can make from the school and their site.

Lesley Gouldbourne, Joint NUT Secretary said:

Brent Council and the IEB claim that converting to an academy will improve results. There is absolutely no evidence  for this and increasingly in fact the opposite. The tide is turning against academies. For example Sweden which used to be quoted by Gove is now dismantling them.

 As reported widely and in the Independent on 8/11/13:

More than 30 academies have been warned they must pull their socks up - or their sponsor could face the sack, the Government disclosed today.

[1]          Quote from Cllr Pavey on his blog 29.5.13 “I dislike the Academy system. There is no evidence that Academisation leads to improved educational outcomes. Academies fragment educational provision – when it should be based on local co-operation. And worst of all, Academisation is a step towards marketisation of education”.

Not:e The Chair of Ofsted (which condemned Copland to forced Academy status) is Dame Sally Morgan. Dame Sally Morgan is also an ‘Advisor’ to Ark Academies.

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