Watling Gardens – a rushed (and incorrect) Report to Monday's Cabinet

 Guest post by Philip Grant in a personal capacity

 

Extract from the Affordable Housing Statement in Brent’s planning application 21/2473.

 

When Brent Council submitted their planning application for the redevelopment of their Watling Gardens estate they said: ‘Brent Council are fully committed to delivering these much-needed new affordable homes.’ Then suddenly, at the last minute, they want to change that, so that 20% of the homes there will not be genuinely affordable.

 

Less than 24 hours ago, I wrote a guest post about a Report on 1 Morland Gardens for the Cabinet meeting at 10am on Monday morning, which had only been published on Thursday afternoon. I mentioned that there was another Report for that meeting which had still not been published. Giving Cabinet members, other councillors and the public so little notice of important issues where decisions are to be made is bad for local democracy, and it can also lead to bad decisions.

 

The Watling Gardens Report was only published at around 3pm on Friday afternoon. It asks the Cabinet to approve the award of a contract ‘in the sum of £38,535,634. In order to make the Watling Gardens scheme viable, it also recommends that Cabinet: ‘Approve the tenure changes of 24 homes (19 x 1 bedrom homes and 5 x 2 bedroom) from London Affordable Rent to Shared Ownership.’

 

I had looked at the Watling Gardens planning application, and felt that something was not right with that recommendation, nor the “facts” given in the Report to support it. I had another look, then immediately sent an email to Brent’s Legal Director and the Strategic Director (Community and Wellbeing) who had signed off the Report. This is that email (sent at 4:14pm on Friday):

 

‘Misinformation in Report to Cabinet on Watling Gardens (item 16 on Monday's agenda)

Dear Ms Norman and Mr Porter,

 

The Report on item 16 (Award of Contract for Watling Gardens) for Monday morning's Cabinet meeting was only published at around 3pm today. 

 

I realise that this is an urgent matter (and that: 'Due to urgency, a waiver of call-in has been obtained in relation to the decision to be taken by Cabinet.'), but that does not excuse the Report containing what appears to be incorrect information, which might lead Brent's Cabinet to make an unlawful, as well as rushed, decision.

 

The misinformation I am referring to is at paras. 3.3 and 3.6:

 

'3.3 The planning consent gained for this site is for a 100% affordable housing scheme.'  

 

'3.6  Therefore, officers recommend the change of 25 of the 125 homes to be converted to shared ownership as in recommendation 2.1. There will be no change to the planning approval required as this is an affordable housing product, on which the council receive 25% capital receipt at the point of sale and staircasing receipts usually from year 5 onwards. The properties would be fulfilling a need within Brent for people unable to register for affordable rented housing but not able to access the open market due to salary levels.'

 

The planning consent is not just for '100% affordable housing.'

 

Planning Committee, when they approved the application, did so on the basis that the 125 homes would be a mix of Social Rent and London Affordable Rent.

 

The consent letter of 25 April 2022 contained a specific condition over what type of affordable homes had been consented to:

 

Condition 3 from planning consent letter of 25 April 2022 on application 21/2473

 

 

There is no indication on Brent's planning website that there has been any change in this condition under application 21/2473, so that making a decision, and awarding a contract, which converted 24 (or 25?) of the 125 homes to shared ownership would involve Brent Council breaching its planning consent for the Watling Gardens scheme.

 

 

This point needs to be put right, so that Cabinet members are aware of the correct position well before they are asked to make a decision on the Watling Gardens contract.

 

 

The Report says that it affects Mapesbury and Kilburn Wards, but as I am not sure which Ward the site falls into following the boundary changes, I am copying this email to councillors for Cricklewood & Mapesbury and Kilburn Wards. Yours, 

 

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

 

Wembley Matters readers make clear the Barham Park battle is not over yet

 The houses that could still be redeveloped

Sometimes comments are received on Wembley Matters stories some time after they have been published and I thought these two were worh publishing in their own right. They are reactions to the news that the Brent Cabinet, in the guise of their sole membership of the Barham Park Trust Committee, agreed to  a proposal to investigate the removal of the covenant on  776/778 Harrow Road so that development could take place LINK.

Anonymous wrote

I have found that there is a recording of the  Barham Park Trust Committee meeting on Brent's "livestreaming", which you can watch HERE:

I have watched it, and one of the most sensible things I heard said was a brief suggestion from Cllr Harbi Farah, asking if arrangements could be made for the committee members to visit Barham Park, and be shown round, and have the issues explained to them. [My observation: so that they might have some idea of what they were talking about!]

The main point that the members seemed to pick up on over the restrictive covenant was that their decision to let Officers negotiate over it was not a final one. Any recommendation to possibly amend it would have to come back to the Trust Committee for a decision.

Whether it was wise to even start on that road, because the restrictive covenant had been put in place to protect the park, was not considered.

The only reference to that aspect was Cllr. Butt saying that the Trust had to consider all options. This appeared to be on the basis that some money to fund the park could be raised by allowing a loosening of the restrictive covenant.

How much the process of actually trying to change the restrictive covenant would cost (whether "successful" or not), was not referred to in the Officer's Report, or by the Council Officers who advised the committee at the meeting. That question was not raised by Cllr. Butt, or any other members.

The terms of a restrictive covenant over 776/778 Harrow Road would not (legally) be a material consideration in any future planning application (although that wasn't mentioned either).

However, I can't imagine the current owner, or any other prospective developer, being willing to pay a significant sum to the Trust to get the terms of the restrictive covenant changed, if there wasn't a "side deal" over Brent Council being willing to accept a planning application that matched what the weakened covenant would allow them to build.

The Barham Park Trust Committee, now chaired by the Council Leader himself, have stepped onto a slippery slope. It could see them sliding down into conflict with the local community, and with the wishes of the benefactor who left his Sudbury Park estate for the benefit of the people of Wembley.

Paul Lorber said...

 

From the way the Trust Meeting was conducted it is clear that there was a pre meeting where they had detailed discussions and where they made their decisions in advance - in ignorance of all the facts.

The suggestion by one Trustee that they should inspect the buildings gives a clue as to how little they know. Anyone with any common sense would recognise that the site meeting should of course have taken before the decision making Trust meeting so that they could make decisions (rather than put them off) especially as the Trustees only meet once a year.

In terms of the issue of building on the Park and the covenant the comment by one of the Sudbury Councillors (at around 39 minutes into the recording) was also revealing of what residents can expect - he suggested that the two houses were outside of the Park. This is clearly NOT true.

The Covenant was put in place by Labour Councillors in 2011 when they made the decision to complete the sale of the two houses. One obvious question which should have been asked but was not was "why did we put the Covenant in place in the first place and why are we considering changing it just 10 years later?" The answer is simple - there was a recognition at the time that the houses should not have been there in the first place and that any enlargement or expansion should NOT be considered or allowed.

The two houses were built by Brent Council without permission some 50 years ago. For years the Council treated the Park and its buildings as its own forgetting their Charity obligations.

No one bothered to ask why the buildings were allowed to get into such a poor state of disrepair. The answer might have shocked them - as in 2011 the Trust paid £2,500 for a detailed condition survey into the state of the old buildings - some of which date back to 1780s - and yet 10 years later most of the priority repairs identified have still not been carried out.

Now we are also told that ACAVA, the tenant which Brent Council itself brought into most of the building after Labour Councillors closed the Council run Barham Library in 2011, in preference to Brent based organisations, have not paid their rent for almost 2 years and owed £76,000 as at 31 March 2021 - and presumably even more some 5 months later.

Brent Council does not bother to inform or consult local people about anything. There is no information about the closed Children Centre for example. It is hardly surprising that local residents feel ignored and have no confidence or trust in the Councillors in charge.

When I challenged and raised my concerns with the Brent Council's Chief Executive about the way the Council and its appointed Trustees were handling issues relating to the Park and its neglected buildings she told me that she would not discuss the issue any further. That is how Open Government works in Brent these days.

It is clearly down to local people to keep fighting for their Park. Our thanks need to go to Philip Grant for highlighting the issue, for Martin for publishing so as not to let Brent Councillors get away with things without proper scrutiny.

Brent Cabinet response to Scrutiny call for an independent review into Council's Euro2020 role falls short

The Resources and Public Realm Scrutiny Committee recommended an independent public review into Brent Council's role in the Euro2020 Final which saw scenes of public disorder. LINK

The Cabinet's response has now been published ahead of the September 13th Cabinet, two months after the recommendation was made. It appears to fall short of in terms of being both independent and public, and an internal  'assessment' rather  than a public review. It does does not appear to address the following request made by Cllr Mashari, Chair of Scrutiny:

Euro 2020 Finals at Wembley Stadium

Scrutiny Recommendation: To hold a public review into the Council’s actions taken before, during and after the Euro 2020 Final to establish the lessons learnt.

Executive Response:

The Wembley Safety Advisory Group (SAG) that is Chaired by the Council met on the 20th July to discuss the circumstances surrounding the Euro 2020 Final. All of the stakeholders attended, representing the following organisations:

· Brent Council
· Wembley National Stadium Ltd
· Wembley Park
· Sports Ground Safety Authority
· Metropolitan Police
· British Transport Police
· London Ambulance Service
· London Fire Brigade
· Transport for London
· Chiltern Railways
· SSE Arena

 

The discussion focused on how partners should respond. The key issue to come out of the discussion is that all partners agreed to participate in the independent review being led by Baroness Casey of Blackstock. It is expected that it will take 4 months for this to be completed. This will be one single overarching independent review commissioned by the FA that will bring in the actions of all partners. Officers met with Baroness Casey on 6th August and she has asked that Brent Council and the SAG fully commit to supporting the independent review and to helping oversee the implementation of any actions and priorities for change.

It is a really positive step that all partners intend to participate in this single review. The Council will participate fully and openly with the review and will respond to any recommendations that affect the Council’s role in the process moving forward. Baroness Casey specifically asked that the Council undertake its own assessment/review of all its activities around the Final so this can inform her process.

Cabinet Decision:

That Brent Council will:

 

i). Undertake an assessment of Council activities relating to its responsibilities around safety, licensing and enforcement at Wembley Stadium as part of the Euro 2020 Finals in order to support the overarching Review led by Baroness Casey;

ii). Fully support the Baroness Casey Review throughout;

iii). Consider fully any recommendations relevant to the Council’s duties that arise from the Review and;

iv). Oversee and implement any actions and priorities for change.

Implementation by: By July 2022

Cabinet Members: Cllrs Sheth and Knight
Lead Department: Regeneration and Environment
Lead Officer: Alan Lunt –Strategic Director for Regeneration and Environment

Cabinet approves most of Scrutiny recommendations on Carlton-Granville but activists fail to win more community space

Brent Cabinet tonight approved the Scrutiny's recommendations on the Carlton-Granville development with just one amendment. Cabinet agreed to alter 'ensure' to 'explore' in point 'a' about the provision of 3 or 4 bedroomed houses:

A series of speakers made the community's case for more community space in the development with the proposed housing built elsewhere. This would maximise the available space when tenants' halls have been closed and the population of the estate is increasing as the result of regeneration.

Their contributions were politely acknowledged but the new housing build on the site will go ahead and community space not increased.  Noise reduction will be addressed at the planning stage but local people are fearful that accommodating homes and a late night community venue on the site will lead to conflict.  There is likely to be some broadening of the Key Stakeholders Group but whether that will satisfy the community remains to be seen.

Matt Kelcher, chair of Resources and Public Realm Scrutiny Committee was unable to attend Cabinet and no one else from the Committee came forward to replace him - so the voice of Scrutiny was missing apart from the written report.

This is a video of community representations made at the Cabinet meeting:

Reaction this morning from the South Kilburn Trust which was criticised last night for being undemocratic and representing the Council rather than the community:

Will Brent be paying interpreters enough under the new contract?

Brent Cabinet will tonight award a new interpretating service contract to DA Languages Ltd. Although the report does not mention the rate the company pays to interpreters, and the information is not readily available on their website. However, I have ascertained they pay at the lower end of such provision, at £12 for the first hour and £10 per hour after that, paid at 15 minute intervals. If you take off costs of travel and travel time the rate is much lower.

The Council will also try and move the service to telephone rather than face to face, to save money, although it does not evaluate this in terms of the client's interests:

Whilst demand can be managed in some areas, for example by encouraging customers to be accompanied by family members who are able to interpret, there are many situations where this can’t be done, particularly in CYPS where an independent professional interpreter is needed. In this area, there is demand for interpreters for:

• Social work safeguarding assessments
• Family Court proceedings
• No Recourse to Public Funds assessments
• Assessments of Unaccompanied Asylum seekers

It is clear that this is skilled work where any errors could have a profound impact on clients' lives. The question is will the rates DA Languages pay be sufficient to attract the most highly skilled interpreters.

The Cabinet report states:

 Based on the volumes from September 2015 to August 2016, the annual cost of the new contract will be £224k, which represents a 6% saving of £14k. The cost of the contract over three years would therefore be £671k. This is less than the Council’s target procurement savings of 10% per contract. 


Spend through the contract can be reduced by encouraging use of the telephone interpreting service, which has no minimum charges, and no late cancellation charges. An interpreting appointment of less than 45 minutes will always cost less if telephone interpreting is used instead. 


Based on historic usage, 50% of spoken face to face appointments of 1 hour or less actually take 45 minutes or less. Moving these to telephone interpreting would save a further £6k. This would allow the Council to broadly meet its 10% procurement savings target on this contract. 


For comparison these are the fees paid by the Government from their website. LINK Note the much higher fee for the first hour and the travel expenses:  

Monday to Friday

First hour: £48 then:

• 8.01am to 6pm: £16 per hour
• 6.01pm to 8pm: £20 per hour
•  

Saturday

First hour: £72 then £26 per hour

Sundays and bank holidays

First hour: £72 then: £32 per hour

Minimum payment is for three hours. (You will only receive one minimum payment and one first hour enhanced payment in any 24 hour period.)

Telephone interpreting rates:

£10 for every 30 minutes 8.01am to 11.59pm

£20 for every 30 minutes midnight to 8am

Travel expenses

Car: more than 50 miles (one way): 23.8 a mile (for each mile in excess of 50 miles).

Actual car parking costs in all cases if most economical route has been taken to the office (to a maximum of £13 if short-stay car parking).

There are exceptions to the maximum car parking fee, for example airport car parking when air transport is a requirement.

We do not reimburse travel costs for interpreters whose travel from home to work and back falls within zones 1 to 6, as the cost of a return journey using an oyster card will be under £13.00 each day. (Interpreters are paid an enhanced first hour each day to cover the costs of any additional expenses incurred during your booking.)

Public transport: actual fare refunded in full if:

• tickets or receipts are provided; and
• most economical route taken; and
• fare (or season ticket if advanced bookings made in same period mean this is more cost effective) over £13.

Who was really responsible for the Granville Centre debacle?

Last week I published Cllr Duffy's interchange with Cllr Mashari in which he called for her resignation over the Granville and Carlton Centres in South Kilburn. LINK

Cllr Mashari claimed that the proposals for regeneration  of the sites came under the Property portfolio which Cllr Butt, leader of the council, holds, rather than Regeneration. Property covers council ownership of buildings and sites and Brent Council has a policy to realise the value of these assets to address their financial plight.

The Granville proposal was put to the Cabinet by Margaret McLennan, deputy leader, rather than Butt who chairs the Cabinet.  Other South Kilburn proposals on the agenda at that meeting, Phase 3a and Site 18,  were put by Cllr Mashari.

It has not been possible to find the full list of responsibilities of each portfolio holder including the leader and deputy, as up to date details do not appear to be available on the Council website.

The report about Granville was written jointly by the Strategic Directors for Resources, and Regeneration and Environment.

Philip Grant points out in a comment on the earlier post:

However, both of those Directors, Althea Loderick (Resources) and Amar Dave (Regeneration and Environment) were new to Brent, having taken up their posts in June 2016, having previously been in Waltham Forest and Essex respectively. So they probably knew very little about Kilburn, and may not even have visited the area from their new offices in the Civic Centre before they put their names to the report.

The contact officers for the report were:

Althea Loderick
 Strategic Director of Resources

Sarah Chaudhry
 Head of Property

Tanveer Ghani
 Project Manager

Dale Thomson
 Regeneration Manager

There is only a cursory reference to the Granville Nursery Plus (and not by name) in the report and none to the Granville Kitchen.

 Given the economic deprivation found on the South Kilburn Estate  and the presence of many protected groups the Equality Analysis attached to the report is clearly deficient - particularly the last sentence:

Appendix 4: Equality Analysis Stage 1 Screening Data

What are the objectives and expected outcomes of your proposal? Why is it needed?

The proposal covers the phased redevelopment the Carlton & Granville Centres, Granville Road, London, NW6 5RA to deliver new homes, an Enterprise Hub and additional community use space.

Who is affected by the proposal?

The proposal is relevant to residents in South Kilburn, small businesses in the area and the South Kilburn Trust. As the premises proposed for re- development are largely unoccupied and will shortly be vacated by the remaining users, there is no impact for existing users.

Could the proposal impact on people in different ways because of their equality characteristics?

The proposal will deliver new workspace accommodation for up to 30 small businesses as well as new housing for households in housing need. To the extent that some protected groups are over-represented among households in housing need or seeking employment opportunities, the positive impacts of the proposal may offer particular benefits to these groups.

Could the proposal have a disproportionate impact on some equality groups?
If yes, indicate which equality characteristic(s) are impacted

No, other than as noted above.

Would the proposal change or remove services used by vulnerable groups of people?

The proposal will provide new or improved services that may be used by vulnerable groups.

Does the proposal relate to an area with known inequalities?

Yes.

Is the proposal likely to be sensitive or important for some people because of their equality characteristics?

Yes – although the proposal is not seen as sensitive, it may offer important new opportunities for some protected groups and more generally.

Does the proposal relate to one of Brent's equality objectives?

The proposal relates to the following objectives:

            To know and understand all our communities 


            To ensure that local public services are responsive to different needs 
and treat users with dignity and respect 


Recommend this EA for Full Analysis?

No.

Although according to Cllr Duffy, recently  Cllr Butt and Cllr McLennan have met up with him, Kilburn councillors and  Granville and Carlton users, to discuss the situation,  some of the responsibility may rest with them for the original failure to recognise the needs of the community. The potential confusion between the Property and Regeneration roles of Cllr Butt and Mashari, and the involvement of recent Strategic Director appointees, may mean that the resulting consultation failure and furore, may have been more cock-up than conspiracy.

For reference here are the Minutes of the July 25th Cabinet Meeting: