New academy trust Wembley Secondary SEND School at Planning Committee tonight

 

Brent Council is keen to save money by reducing the need for paying for places outside of Brent and the associated travel costs to provide for the borough's special educational needs pupils and those with disabilities.

Conservative government legislation means that councils cannot build and run new schools themselves (they favour academy trusts) so the council's need has fitted in neatly with the expansionist aspirations of the Rise Partnership Trust LINK, with its own CEO,  that currently runs Manor School and Avenue School.

The school name on the planning application going to Planning Committee tonight is Wembley Manor which confusingly was the name of the infant and junior schools in East Lane changed after merger and expansion to Wembley Primary.

The school would provide 150 much needed secondary places in a site tucked away at the end of London Road and the foot of Ark Elvin playing fields:

The application site is situated at the eastern end of London Road. The northern end of the existing site contains the Ansar Youth Centre (formally known as the Wembley Youth Centre) and its associated car parking and open space. The east of the site contains a large area of hardstanding previously used as car parking and the now demolished Dennis Jackson Centre. The central and eastern elements of the site previously formed a part of the Copland School site, but were fenced off and hard surfaced for parking many years ago and did not form a part of the Ark Elvin playing fields when this was redeveloped.

 

The immediate surrounding area is predominantly terraced residential dwellings, the site is to the north of the Wembley Brook watercourse, which separates the subject site from the railway to the south. The land surrounding the brook is designated as a wildlife corridor as well as a Site in Nature Conservation (SINC). It is not within a conservation area and there are no listed buildings within the site’s curtilage. The site adjoins the Ark Elvin School playing field to the north and east.

 

The site is accessed from the existing access point from London Road, there is a well established footpath that provides access at two different points from the site which have links to the High Road and further down towards Stonebridge Park.

The area is controversial locally because of the loss of the open space, known as Copland Fields, after the academisation of Copland School, to public access. It is now fenced off with the land also going to Elsley and St Joseph's schools. The site is close to the railway bridge used by Elsley, Ark Elvin and Lyon Park pupils (and still in a terrible statement despite campaigns by local councillors and parents).

Previous history of the open land:

https://wembleymatters.blogspot.com/2015/10/ark-elvin-land-grab-to-be-decided-at.html

https://wembleymatters.blogspot.com/2015/10/does-butts-interference-with-ark-elvin.html

https://wembleymatters.blogspot.com/2020/06/loss-of-copland-fields-mourned-as.html

The new school would also be on what was previously open space, some of which had been converted to hard space by the previous school. (see plan above).

The development of the school will mean the significant  loss of mature trees and the officers' report for the Committee goes into that in some detail and worth setting out here for the record (my emphasis) :

The combined canopy cover of the lost trees is 1650sqm, which is proposed to be replaced on site with a total of 23 new trees to be planted. On the assumption that the replacement trees are extra heavy standard trees (14-16cm trunk girth), the canopy radius will be approx. 1.0m (so 2.0m across) which equates to an area of approx. 3.142m2 at time of planting. This would mean that to replace the total canopy loss that the scheme would need to plant around 525 trees to compensate the canopy area lost as a result of the development. Given the constraints of the site, it would not be possible to plant this number of replacement trees. The policy also highlights that another option is for a financial contribution for off-site tree planting of equivalent canopy cover will be sought.

The typical cost of planting an off site tree is around £2,500. Therefore this would account to an off site contribution of around £1.3m. Such a cost is likely to significantly impact on the delivery [sic] of delivering the new school. Nevertheless, the applicant is proposing to plant 8 trees off site within the southern end of the Ark Elvin Playing Field. Such details could be conditioned any forthcoming consent as Brent owns this land.

Given the significant benefits of the proposal to provide much needed SEND school places within the Borough, the benefits associated with the proposal are considered to outweigh the harm as a result of the loss of the trees

 

 There is a cottage on the site that is surrounded by trees and accessed from London Road. The resident claimed in an objection to the scheme that this access road was private but officers state it belongs to Brent Council. 

That is the only objection recorded on the portal although the officers' report does make reference to a previous plan to build 170 units of housing on the site. See Wembley Matters article HERE. However, as the land was designated for educational use because of the youth clubs, permission to build on it would have to be given by the Department for Education, which is unlikely given the rising demand for special school places.

 

 The proposed building

 

Planning officers recommend approval of the application:

 

Following the above discussion, officers consider that taking the development plan as a whole, the proposal is considered to accord with the development plan, and having regard to all material planning considerations, should be approved subject to conditions.

 

The proposal would result in the provision of a new SEND secondary for which there is a significant identified need within the Borough. The new school building would be on land designated as open space which forms a part of the former Copland School site and is not publicly accessible open space, but other open areas are proposed within the grounds of the new SEND school. The proposal would result in the loss of existing trees within the site and while more trees will be planted than will be lost, the canopy at planting will not meet or exceed the canopy size of existing trees. The proposal also results in the demolition of community buildings.

 

However, a community access plan will be secured and new community facilities are also to be provided by Council at the Wembley Housing Zone site on the corner of Cecil Avenue and the High Road. Overall, the impacts associated with the proposed development are considered be outweighed by the planning benefits associated with the proposal and it is recommended that planning permission is granted.

 

 

Who closed off a Wembley Public Right of Way?

 

Nearly two weeks ago I took the above photograph at the entrance to PROW (Public Right of Way) Number 87 on High Road Wembley. It goes between Elizabeth House and Wembley Place and around the former Copland Fields (now the grounds of Ark Elvin Academy) and joins footpaths to the south to Tokyngton Way (also a safe cycle route from close to Stonebridge Park Station)  and north to London Road and Lyon Park Avenue.

The footpath was the source of controversy as it had previously allowed Wembley residents to use the Copland Fields as open space but now has 6 ft fencing either side of the tarmacx path. An enclosure of former public land according to some campaigners.

Follow the right of way as it is now on video LINK.

Local resident Jaine Lunn got on to Brent Council when I contacted her about the blocking up. I said that I could see absolutely no work in progress and wondered what work could be taking place.

Yesterday Jaine received this somewhat surprising reply from Brent Highways Management:

 

Dear Jaine Lunn,

 

Thank you for bringing this to my attention, unfortunately we have found no records on our system of any contractor applying for a works permit or Temporary Traffic Order to close footpath PROW 87 leading from High Road to London Road, which is what should have been done legally.

 

However since we have no information regarding the closure or whom to contact, what we can do in the meantime is to get someone from our Enforcement Department to go to site and re-open the path to the public.

 

I will also suggest that the footpath in question is monitored for any unforeseen works activity, furthermore just in case whomever is responsible decides to return again.

 

You will be updated as soon as it gets done.

 

This was followed up by a further message this morning:

 IRC-16547-Q0N6D2 Closed Public Footpath between Elizabeth House and Wembley Place around Coplands Fields

 

Thank you for your enquiry regarding the closure of the above foot path.

 

I requested that our Public Rights of Way officer attend the location recorded as PROW 87 regarding your enquiry.

 

The foot path leading from  High Road to London Road was found to be closed at both ends with Heras Fencing. It has been closed for over 2 weeks without public notice, permit or Temporary Traffic Order and currently we have no idea who is responsible as there are no signage attached to the fencing.

 

As this is an unauthorised closure, we have passed this onto our Highways Enforcement Team to investigate further and take any action they deem as necessary.

 

Our urban public rights of way are as important as those jealously guarded by the Ramblers Association in more rural areas.  As we move towards prioritising walking and cycling as part of much needed reduction in car journeys, and for the sake of clean air and healthy exercise, we need to protect these routes which are often of ancient origin.  A map of of Brent's 16km of public rights of way is available here:

https://legacy.brent.gov.uk/gis-maps/prow-map/

 

Wembley Housing Zone – is this an answer to Brent’s affordable housing needs?

  Guest Post by Philip Grant (in a personal capacity)

One year ago, the Brent Poverty Commission report by Lord Richard Best was published. The Commission reported that: ‘1 in 6 households (17%) live below the poverty line, doubling (to 33%) after housing costs are taken into account. More than 1 in 5 (22%) of children live in poverty, doubling to a startling 43% after housing costs.’ The report identified: ‘an acute shortage of social housing which has forced people into the private rented sector where rents are two or even three times higher.’

 

 

The following month, Brent’s Cabinet gave its full backing to the report’s recommendations, including those based on the key point that the Council needed to put ‘more investment in social housing’, and ‘build even more affordable homes.’

 

 

Next Monday (16 August), Brent’s Cabinet has the opportunity to put those recommendations into action, when they consider a report on implementing the Council’s proposals for the Wembley Housing Zone. I will set out briefly what is proposed, and why Cabinet members may wish to question how what Council Officers are proposing might be improved, to take better account of the Poverty Commission’s findings.

 

The Wembley Housing Zone (“WHZ”) was set up in partnership with the Greater London Authority, to speed-up the delivery of new homes. £8m of GLA funding was received, and part of this (£4.8m) was used by the Council to buy Ujima House in Wembley High Road. The other site (already Council-owned) which now forms part of the WHZ is across the road, where Copland School used to stand (whose buildings were demolished after Ark Elvin Academy moved into its new school further down the slope).

 

 

A detailed planning application for the site on the corner of the High Road and Cecil Avenue, and an outline application for Ujima House, were made towards the end of 2019. Although these were approved by Planning Committee in March and June 2020 respectively, the formal consents were not signed off until February 2021. 

 

It had been decided that the two WHZ schemes would be treated as one for “affordable housing” purposes, and Cabinet is now being asked to ‘approve the preferred delivery option for the regeneration of the sites’. The two sites between them will provide 304 homes, and it is proposed that 50% of these should be affordable homes. I will give a short outline of what is proposed for each site.

 

The planning approval for Ujima House (19/3092) would demolish the existing building and replace it with a ten-storey block. There would be workspace and a café on the ground floor, with 54 residential flats on the floors above. The 28 1-bed, 18 2-bed and 8 3-bed (only 15% of the total) homes would all be for rent by Brent Council at London Affordable Rent levels (not social rents - see below). 

 

 

The more detailed application for the cleared site at the corner of Cecil Avenue and the High Road (19/2891) would build blocks, between five and nine storeys high, containing 250 flats and maisonettes. 64 of these homes would be either 3-bed or 4-bed (26%). However, only 39% of the homes in this development would be “affordable”, and only 52 of the 250 are proposed to be for rental, at London Affordable Rent levels.

 

 

[These blocks would not be as grim as they look in the elevation drawings, as the plans include a courtyard in the middle!]

 

The affordable element for this larger site was set out in an “Approved Plan”, which was made a condition of the February 2021 planning consent. More than half of the London Affordable Rent homes (28) would be 3 or 4-bed. The plan also set out that the other 36 “affordable” homes (21 of which would be 2-bed) should be either Shared Ownership or Intermediate Rent (which would be cheaper than private rents, but not within the means of those on the housing waiting list).

 

 

There appears to be a discrepancy. The 52 + 36 affordable homes for the Cecil Avenue / High Road site in the planning consent make a total of 88. However, the WHZ report to Monday’s Cabinet meeting says that 152 affordable homes will be delivered (50% of 304), and to reach that figure 98 of the homes from the larger site would need to be affordable, not 88.

 

Fifty percent of affordable homes may sound good. But if only 106 of the 304 new units are to be for rent, and all of those at London Affordable Rents, how does that meet the Cabinet’s commitment to the recommendations of the Brent Poverty Commission?

 

London Affordable Rent levels are set by the GLA. They use a formula based on rent figures decided in 2017/18, which are then increased each year by the previous September’s Consumer Prices Index increase plus 1%. The 2017/18 figures used were around 50% of open market rents at the time, but were between 30% and 50% higher than the average “social rent” levels for the same sized homes charged by housing associations and London boroughs. 

 

An analysis available on the GLA website makes clear that London Affordable Rent should not be confused with social rent levels, and says: ‘social rent is the only housing type really affordable to lower income Londoners.’ That is why the Poverty Commission report said that Brent should seek to make more of its new “affordable” housing genuinely affordable, at social rent levels.

 

It appears that the Council Officers making these WHZ proposals to Cabinet are either unaware of, or have chosen to ignore, the recommendations on housing in the Brent Poverty Commission report. Their proposals would ‘bring the Cecil Avenue and Ujima House sites to the market together’, through the Council undertaking the construction on both sites, but “procuring” ‘a developer partner to share private housing sales risk.’

 

The Officer report to Cabinet says that their proposal is a “medium risk” strategy:

 

‘The Council takes and manages construction risk, which it has experience of doing through its housing and schools capital programmes, but a developer partner is sought to take and dispose the private sales housing, of which the Council has no experience. By financing construction, the Council can use lower public sector borrowing rates and reduce finance costs.’

 

One of the “risks” of following this route would be:

 

‘A developer may seek to influence the final scheme, compromising the overall place making vision and regeneration benefits for the area.’

 

If the Council is going to undertake and manage the construction on the two sites, why not make ALL of the homes it builds “affordable housing”, providing 304 Council homes for people (especially families) on its waiting list? Ideally, these should all be for social rent, for those most in need, as recommended in Lord Best’s report. If that is not financially viable, an alternative could be 50% let at social rent levels, with the other 50% (presumably the better ones on the Cecil Avenue site, which a developer would have wanted for “private sale”) at London Affordable Rent.

 

I can’t make any detailed suggestions on the finance side, as six of the seven Appendices to the Officer report are secret, because they contain “Information relating to the financial or business affairs of any particular person (including the authority holding that information)". It appears that the press and public may also be excluded from Monday’s Cabinet meeting while these matters are discussed!

 

 

However, it is clear from the report which is available that there are ongoing discussions with the GLA over funding for the scheme, about ‘increasing the amount and affordability of affordable housing’:

 

‘Reviewing WHZ financial viability, the GLA have also agreed in principle an additional £5.5m grant to deliver the scheme, but which is subject to confirmation.’

 

If the Council would go back to the GLA, and its 2021-2026 Affordable Housing Programme, with proposals for the Wembley Housing Zone to provide 100% affordable housing, that could provide the answer.

 

I believe that this suggestion is worth serious consideration, so I am sending a copy of the text of this article to all of Brent’s Cabinet members (sent Friday 13 August at 4:23pm). I hope that at least some of them will raise questions based on it, especially about the need for social rent homes to be considered, at the meeting on Monday.

 

I will also send a copy to the Council Officers involved, and to the Chief Executive, for their consideration, and so that they can either provide answers, or at least agree to go away and look at this matter again. 

 

The Wembley Housing Zone provides a major opportunity to meet some of the housing need identified by the Brent Poverty Commission. That opportunity should not be wasted!

 

Philip Grant.

FREE football sessions for boys and girls (Aged 9-13) with Queens Park Rangers (QPR) Football Club

 

FREE football sessions for boys and girls (Aged 9-13) with Queens Park Rangers (QPR) Football Club.

 

2pm - 4pm Every Saturday from 3-April

Ark Elvin Academy (Old Copland School)

Cecil Avenue, Wembley, HA9 7DU.

 

Everyone and all abilities welcome - Just turn-up and play!

 

Sign-up here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/.../super-kickz-tickets...

(All sessions are Covid compliant as per Government and Middlesex Football Association guidelines)

QPR coaches deliver free Saturday football sessions for Brent youngsters at Ark Elvin

From Zaffar Van Kalwala

I’m organising free football sessions for Brent boys and girls aged 9-13 years old with Queens Park Rangers. 

Please could you also include the link below.

Really pleased to be organising  Free football sessions for children in Brent with Queens Park Rangers Football Club.

Please sign-up HERE - Open to all boys and girls aged 9-13 years old (regardless of ability) living in Brent.

Just turn-up and play!

Delivered by qualified QPR coaches, sessions will take place on 3G astroturf (children should wear appropriate footwear and clothing).

A big thank you to London Blues for supporting the project.

Wembley Winter Wonderland Sunday December 22nd

Reminder: Comedy at Ark Elvin Saturday April 7th

Wembley Futures: Comedy Night at Ark Elvin April 7th

This is a 'not for profit' event for Wembley Futures

BRILLIANT BRENT! Winners of Brent Schools' 'Speak Out' Challenge - empowering youth

Aisha Abdirahman of Ark Elvin Academy in Wembley (formerly Copland High School) was the winner of Brent's Regional Final of the Jack Petchey 'Speak Out' Challenge! with a speech entitled 'Apologies'.

Tykayla De-Gale of Capital City Academy was runner up at the 2017-18 “Speak Out” Challenge! Brent Regional Final with a speech entitled ‘Gone Too Soon’



Kaliyl Morris of Queen's Park Community School took third place at the 2017-18 “Speak Out” Challenge! Brent Regional Final with a speech entitled ‘Black History Month’

What would a Victorian Gentleman think about Wembley now?

Guest blog by local historian Philip Grant
 

Wembley History Society recently received an enquiry. A lady from Surrey had a miniature painting of a Victorian gentleman, noted on the back as being “John Turton Woolley of Wembley House, Wembley. Great uncle of H Arnold Woolley.” She wanted to know where “Wembley House” was, as it did not appear to exist now. Luckily, past research by members of the Society provided the information.

John Turton Woolley of Wembley House, Wembley.

There was a “Wembley House” mentioned in documents as far back as 1510, the chief home of the Page family who created a grander mansion at Wembley Park in the 18^th century. The Victorian Wembley House was on the south side of the Harrow Road, about halfway between the present day Park Lane and Wembley Hill Road (Wembley Triangle) junctions. In 1817, it was the home and business premises of a wheelwright, but the mainly agricultural district of Wembley began to become gentrified after a station (Sudbury and Wembley, now Wembley Central) was opened on the London and Birmingham Railway in 1844. Wealthy professional men could now live with their families in country homes, away from the grime and squalor of central London, but still commute easily to the City. 

In 1850, Wembley House was occupied by a doctor, and by the 1870’s John Woolley had made it his home. He was a stockbroker, and as well as the house he also owned the adjacent 27 acres, which were run for him by a farm manager as a dairy farm, with pigs and poultry. Either side of Wembley House, in large grounds, were Wembley Orchard to the west (with its own stables and coach house) and another former farmhouse to the east. This was renamed “Rhampore” in 1882, when it became the residence of His Highness Rajah Rampal Singh (one of the founder members of the Indian National Congress Party, who started “The Hindusthan” newspaper while living here, before returning to India as ruler of Kalakankar in 1885).  

It was probably John Woolley who added several Victorian “gothic” features to Wembley House, including a tower and turret looking out over extensive gardens, with a broad path running through them down to a duck pond.

 

Wembley House from
its grounds, c. 1900

When Woolley left, or died, in the 1890’s, Wembley House passed into the hands of Colonel George Topham. By the early 20^th century Wembley was starting to be developed for housing, and Topham decided to lay out most of his farmland as the Wembley House Estate. Some homes in Cecil and Lonsdale Avenues had been built before the First World War, although most were built in the 1920’s. 

Wembley House itself was acquired in 1915 for use as a private school, with both “Boys” and “Ladies” sections. A Council school for both primary and secondary pupils was built next door in the 1920’s, and in the late 1930’s Wembley House was acquired by Middlesex County Council, and demolished, with a view to extending this. As it was, Wembley Hill School was badly damaged by a V1 flying bomb in 1944, so a brand new secondary school was built on both sites in the early 1950’s, opening as Copland School in 1952, on the corner of Wembley High Road and Cecil Avenue.

In 2014 the school became Ark Elvin Academy, which is in the process of erecting new buildings on part of its playing fields. The existing school, on the site of Wembley House, is due to become an informal landscaped area once demolished, but how long before this valuable High Road frontage is rebuilt again for more high-rise homes? 

Ark Elvin Academy, with new buildings under construction, from the diverted footpath across its fields, and with Brent House and the High Road in the background, October 2016.

 

If John Turton Woolley were to return, 120 years on, what would he think of the view from the bottom of his garden? Would he see the desecration of a beautiful country home, or (with his stockbroker hat on) a potential source of profits for his investor clients?