Wembley Housing Zone – Estate Management Company and The Pages. Will the arrangement leave Brent Council at risk?

 Guest post by Philip Grant in a personal capacity

Work in progress on the Cecil Avenue site (aka The Pages Wembley), 9 June 2025.

 

I was in the High Road on Monday, and discovered that the Council’s Wembley Housing Zone (“WHZ”) development at Cecil Avenue is now being marketed as “The Pages Wembley”. More on that later, but Cecil Avenue is also on the agenda for next week’s Brent Cabinet meeting, over an Estate Management Company.

 

Readers may remember that although Brent Council owns the Cecil Avenue site, and received full planning consent for the development there in February 2021, it was not until March 2023 that it entered into a WHZ partnership agreement with Wates. Work did not actually start on site until February 2024, and by that time I’d found out (through a Freedom of Information Act request) that under this “partnership”, 150 of the 237 homes would be for Wates to sell, and of the 87 Brent Council homes, only 56 (half of them family size units) would be for letting at London Affordable Rent level. Of the other Brent Council “affordable” homes, 28 would be for shared ownership and 3 would be sold at a discount from market price.

 

These are the main recommendations in the Report to Brent’s Cabinet, and the “Cabinet Member Foreword”, which gives the Council Officers’ “spin” on why they want our top elected councillors to agree the recommendations they have made:

 

 

 

All of the WHZ Council flats in Ujima House and the Council’s London Affordable Rent homes at Cecil Avenue will come under Brent’s Housing Revenue Account, but the Estate Management Company (“EMC”) will also require payment of service charges from tenants living on that site. As the services provided by the EMC are quite broad, and it appears that it will hire a managing agent to carry out some or all of those services, tenants at the Cecil Avenue site are likely to face quite high service charges on top of their “genuinely affordable” rent.

 

 

As ‘Wates have experience of setting up similar companies’, Brent will let them take the lead on setting up this EMC, but once Wates have sold all 150 of the 237 homes at Cecil Avenue (which our Council allowed them to have under the 2023 partnership agreement) they will walk away from the EMC. ‘Brent Council will then have full control, ownership and responsibility for the Company’, which in turn means that the Council will have full responsibility ‘for repair and maintenance of the structure’.

 

I may be a pessimist and a cynic, but I can’t help feeling that this will leave Brent Council, through its by then wholly-owned EMC subsidiary, at risk of a situation similar to that experienced when it had to bail out its First Wave Housing subsidiary over Granville New Homes. Those homes had been built through a partnership between Brent and the developer, Higgins. (Disclaimer: I am not suggesting that Wates workmanship is on the same level as that of Higgins on that 2009 South Kilburn project!)

 

 

Turning to “The Pages”, when I was in the High Road, trying to take photographs of the Cecil Avenue site hoardings across the street (through the traffic tailed back from road works at the Ealing Road junction!), a visitor to Wembley asked me if I knew why the development had been given that name. Was it because it used to be a printing works, or something like that? I said it was the first time I had seen “The Pages Wembley” name, that there used to be a school on the site, and my guess was that it might be a reference to the Page family, who were major landowners in the area several centuries ago.

 

Sure enough, when I searched for "The Pages Wembley” online, I found that: ‘The name is a nod to the Page family, who became major landowners in Wembley in the 16th century.’ I also found that Savills are already marketing the private homes here on their website. This is a small sample of what is on offer:

 

Composite of images from a Savills video and Savills sales website.

 

It is interesting that the top image, from the video, shows that it was issued by Savills International Realty Limited, and the black letters under the Savills name in their logo appear to be in Chinese characters! Echoes of Brent’s “partnership” development at Willesden Green Library? The video showcases Wembley as a “world class location”, and most of its filming appears to have been done at Quintain’s Wembley Park development, with just a handful of CGI pictures of what “The Pages” is meant to look like when it is completed, which should be in late Summer or Autumn 2026 (not March/April 2026, as implied in the video)!

 

The opening line of Jane Austen’s novel “Pride and Prejudice”. (Image from the internet)

 

I can’t help thinking that the link between Brent Council’s development at Cecil Avenue and the Page family is ironic. The last of the wealthy Wembley Pages were four brothers, who were contemporaries of Jane Austen (the 250^th anniversary of whose birth is being celebrated by the BBC at the moment). As I showed in Part 2 of The Wembley Park Story, in 2020, they seemed to have overlooked the important truth that rich families needed to produce an heir, to pass on their wealth to. The will signed by the final Page brother left all of the family’s wealth to his solicitor (or so the solicitor claimed – he went on to live in one of their mansions in Sudbury, and became a governor of Harrow School). 

 

It is a truth (almost) universally acknowledged that a London Borough has thousands of people in want of an affordable home to rent. And if you look at some of the signs on the hoardings outside “The Pages” in the High Road, that is what you would think Brent Council was building there.

 

When Brent’s Cabinet made its formal decision on the WHZ development in August 2021, they knew what the borough’s housing needs were. These had been spelt out in the Brent Poverty Commission report, whose recommendations (including borrowing when interest rates were low to build more Council homes, especially those for social rent level, which was all that many local people could afford) the Cabinet had accepted less than a year before. 

So what was ‘the Wembley Housing Zone Vision’ which they were delivering? I think that the deal they signed with Wates has “swindled” many Brent residents in housing need out of a home that they could have had (and could have had by 2024, if the Council had not gone down the “developer partner” route). What do you think?

Philip Grant.

 

Carpenders Park graves reinstated following Islamophobic attack

 From Brent Council

A memorial service took place yesterday for the families of loved ones whose graves were desecrated in a hate crime attack.

Councillors paid their respects, honouring the families’ loved ones, during the memorial ceremony. Brent Council owns Carpenders Park Lawn Cemetery in Watford where 61 children’s graves were vandalised back in April. Police investigated the incident as a hate crime.

Cllr Harbi Farah, Cabinet Member for Safer Communities, Jobs and Skills, said: 

We promised that we would do everything we could to support the families. Today, we were able to honour and respect them and their loved ones by reinstating the graves and signs.

We are continuing to work with the police and the community to ensure that Carpenders Park Lawn Cemetery is a safe burial ground for those who are laid to rest here.

Brent is working with the police to increase security measures at the cemetery.

Three Rivers Chief Inspector, Kio Bozorgi, said: 

It is important that we continue to do everything we can to listen to and understand the needs of our Muslim community; we want them to have the confidence to approach the police directly to report hate crimes or incidents when they occur.

We continue to work closely with Brent Council, which owns the cemetery site, to offer recommendations on how to increase security in the area and prevent a terrible crime like this from happening again.

 

Development of Willesden Green police houses and police station at Planning Committee next week

 

The present police houses and police station (concealed by tree)

 

The proposal
 

A revised planning application for the ex-police houses and police station in Willesden High Road will be heard at Brent Planning Committee next week (Wednesday June 11th 6pm).

An appeal by the developer was turned down by the Planning Inspectorate on various grounds but the developer now claims that these have been addressed in the new application. In their report to the Planning Committee, Brent planning officers concur but 60 objectors to the proposal strongly disagree.

 

 

The proposal is for  demolition of the police house and some outbuildings and replacement with a 4 storey building that wraps around the police station. There would be 25 flats and a commercial space in the retained police station.  The landmark sycamore tree would stay but have its crown reduced.

The garden area has come in for criticism as it contains something called a Mound but with no specifics on size and height. 

 

Perhaps it is an aspect that the developer will happily remove to assuage the objectors - not a hill that they would want to die on!

After revision of the Viability Assessment four social homes are proposed out of the 25 planned but that provision could be replaced by a contribution of £1.1m to be used for social housing elsewhere.

Trees have a high profile at present as the council has launched its new Strategy for consultation. This application serves as an example of how trees on a development site are currently treated by Brent planning officers:

A total of 7 trees (T6 to T12) and one group of trees (G13) are proposed to be removed from the site to accommodate the development. These have all been categorised as C trees (Trees of low quality with an estimated remaining life expectancy of at least 10 years, or young trees with a stem diameter below 150mm) and not of sufficient quality to present a constraint to development 

 

The submitted report notes that G13 are low quality shrub like planting located within the current front garden. Brent’s Principal Tree Officer was satisfied with their removal subject to their replacement as part of the landscaping scheme. The scheme proposes 9 new trees within the site, 7 of which are located within the communal garden and 2 within the frontage on High Road.

 

To facilitate the development works are proposed to two of the retained trees, T1 Sycamore and T3 Birch. T3 Birch would also require minor access facilitation pruning to allow erection of protective fencing and site hoarding. This is not considered to be a major issue.. It is proposed to further construct walls and patio areas within the RPA of T1 which is the Sycamore Tree located to the frontage on High Road, Willesden. It is proposed to Crown Reduce the Sycamore tree (T1).

 

The bulk and density of the new building and its impact on the character of the area are two of the main concerns of objectors. Cllr Maurice (Kenton ward) and Cllr Long (Willesden Green ward) have objected to the scheme.

One objector uses refreshingly straight forward language that contrasts with the dry language of the officers' report:

 

I Strongly object to this nonsense.

A mound? A bloody Mound?! This is Willesden, not the Peak District. What a cynical, disingenuous ruse by the developers to pretend it is for amenity and play space. They are too cheap to get rid of their demolition debris properly and respectfully and so propose to bury it. It would effectively be a slag heap - a waste tip - an invasion of privacy and amenity and an insult to intelligence. This cannot be a serious suggestion - the developers haven't even bothered with size or scale (a molehill would not require permission, so how big a mountain do they want?). Please do not allow this precedent to be set. To paraphrase the Basques, 'If you tolerate this, then your garden will be next.'

The ignominy does not stop there:

The developers are proposing to inflict on the immediate neighbours (and new residents) 5m2 balconies directly overlooking gardens and bay windows into bedrooms and living rooms (where is the privacy, also, for the balcony users and pedestrians?) There is no precedent for this in any of the surrounding streets.

Why propose siting a loading bay on a quiet residential road, when one already exists on the High Road around the corner (a far more suitable space)?

Why pretend (again!) that the view from the window of the nearest house is just of a brick wall? The Inspectorate specifically stated that, despite being told that by the developers, she went into the room and saw for herself it was not true. Why are they perpetuating that same untruth and continuing to suggest blocking the same precious light?

Why are the developers plans and documents so shoddily put together that they take an age and numerous attempts to navigate?

Brent Planning Committee. No, please. Just no.

The planning officers' report uses the familiar argument that the benefits of the scheme outweigh any negatives including the scheme not meeting natural light and amenity space guidelines and recommend that the Planning Committee approve the application:

The proposal is considered to accord with the development plan, having regard to all material planning considerations, and that the application should be approved subject to conditions and a Section106 Agreement to secure the planning obligations.

 The assessment has given significant weight to the appeal decision as a material consideration, and it is considered that this scheme has overcome the previous reasons for the dismissed appeal.

 The proposal would deliver 25 new homes towards Brent’s housing targets, of which 28% would be family sized which would contribute to an identified need in the borough.

 Whilst the proposal would result in less than substantial harm to the Willesden Green Conservation Area, such harm is significantly outweighed by the benefits of the scheme. Furthermore, the retention of part of the non-designated heritage asset, along with the delivery of an appropriate commercial town centre use (which has the potential to be employment generating) in a sustainable location is considered to outweigh the absence of securing an employment use as outlined in the site allocation and the and the limited conflict with policy would be outweighed by the planning benefits.

LINK TO AGENDA ITEM 

 

 

 

 

 

Brent Council to lease out King Edward VII Park bowling green for 10 years. Representations to be made by June 5th.

 

The red star marks the bowling green

 Brent Council announced in the Brent and Kilburn Times that it is to grant a 10 year lease on a Brent public open space, the former bowling green in King Edward VII Park, Park Lane, Wembley. The green has not been used for more than a decade and the bowling green club pavilion has been occupied by property guardians.

Residents can make objections or representations no later than 12pm on June 5th.

I understand that the lease is for the use of a local community group that responded to a request for expressions of interest late last year. It includes the bowling green and the pavilion on the site - centre left in the image above (not the pavilion in the centre of the park ear-marked for development by Stonebridge Boxing Club - they are still seeking funding).

The name of the community group cannot be disclosed until the lease is signed.

 

 

Brent Council apologises to tenants after Social Housing Regulator delivers judgement that the Council has 'serious failings' in ensuring tenants' health and safety

 

The Regulator of Social Housing has delivered its judgement on Brent Housing after the Council's self-referral. LINK

The have graded the council at C3 (see above) which means the council has serious failings in the delivery of consumer standards and significant improvement is needed.

Brent Council owns and manages around 8,800 homes in London. Most homes are under direct management by Brent and there are an additional 4,000 leasehold homes in blocks owned by them.

Summary of findings (my highlighting)

 

The Safety and Quality Standard requires landlords to identify and meet all legal requirements that relate to the health and safety of tenants in their homes and communal areas, and to ensure that all required actions arising from legally required health and safety assessments are completed within appropriate timescales. The standard also requires landlords to have an accurate, up to date and evidenced understanding of the condition of their homes that reliably informs the provision of good quality, well maintained and safe homes for tenants, and to ensure that their tenants’ homes meet the requirements of the Decent Homes Standard.

 

Through our responsive engagement with LB Brent, we have found serious failings in its ability to meet these requirements and that these failings have negatively affected service outcomes for tenants.

 

The self-referral received from LB Brent highlighted that within the last year, around 12,500 actions arising from fire risk assessments had been closed. Following a spot check, LB Brent identified that where actions had been closed, evidence of the completion of the actions was not available in all instances and that some actions had not been completed at all. Most actions are of a high and medium risk and are currently being treated as overdue until evidence to confirm their completion can be obtained.

 

A key component of effective health and safety management is data integrity. Our engagement with LB Brent has highlighted that the data for fire safety, smoke and carbon monoxide safety, asbestos management and water safety cannot be reconciled, and LB Brent is not able to determine which legally required checks and assessments have been completed. We also have concerns about the data validation process that took place prior to LB Brent implementing its new asset management system and will be reviewing its efficacy as part of our ongoing engagement.

 

In relation to the quality of homes, although LB Brent is reporting that it has 95% of its stock condition data, our engagement with LB Brent has highlighted that almost half of its homes have not had a recorded survey. As a result, it is unclear how LB Brent is assured of the condition of its homes. We will be exploring this further with LB Brent.

 

LB Brent has engaged positively with us since making its self-referral and has plans in place to understand the wider impact of its current position. Those actions include work to understand the root causes of the presenting issues, reviewing the completion of all closed fire safety remedial actions through a risk-based approach and working to develop a suitable action plan to resolve the issues.

 

We will continue to engage with LB Brent as it seeks to address the issues that have led to this judgement. This includes evidencing that it is taking reasonable steps to mitigate risks to tenants as it creates and delivers its improvement plan. We are not proposing to use our enforcement powers at this stage but will keep this under review as LB Brent seeks to resolve these issues.

 

Reacting to the judgement, Councillor Fleur Donnelly-Jackson, Brent Cabinet Member for Housing and Resident Services, said:

 

We take our responsibilities as a landlord very seriously and the council accepts that we have let tenants down in the areas outlined by the Regulator and for this we apologise unreservedly. In this instance, we have fallen short of our responsibilities as a landlord and failed to meet the expectations of our tenants.

The council is determined to improve the quality of council homes. We have made real progress in recent months – from launching a new damp and mould squad to action days where teams blitz through repairs that are needed on council estates - but we know there is still much more to do.

We will continue to work proactively, positively and in an open and transparent way with our residents and with the Regulator to fix the issues identified. Council tenants are at the heart of this improvement work through the new Housing Management Advisory Board. By listening to their experiences and ideas, we can make better decisions and build a housing service that residents can trust.

Reacting to Cllr Fleur Donnelly-Jackson's statement, Pete Firmin,  Chair of Alpha, Gorefield and Canterbury Tenants and Residents Association said:

The statement from the Cabinet member is a joke. I can't believe she wrote it without her tongue firmly in her cheek. We have been waiting months and even years for all sorts of repairs around just our 3 blocks. What does that say about Brent as a whole. And she writes "We will continue to work proactively, positively and in an open and transparent way with our residents." Continue? They never have done yet.

In what they have sent to tenants, Brent says ""While all required safety checks have been completed, there were weaknesses in how we recorded and followed up on these checks. This includes inconsistent record-keeping on things like fire safety, smoke and carbon monoxide alarms, asbestos and water safety." This is complete nonsense, we know they have NEVER checked whether leaseholders flats have smoke etc alarms.

 

The emptying schools of Brent as families forced to move out due to high rents and lack of affordable housing

An article in the Guardian by Anna Minton entitled 'A new kind of gentrification is spreading through London – and emptying out schools' rang a bell with many in Brent over the weekend.

In one passage Minton says:

  …the decline is much starker in cities such as London, which are experiencing the most extreme gentrification: research showed that while the capital’s overall population is rising, the numbers between the age of 25–39, the typical age of housebuying and family formation, has recently dropped by 4%, with London Councils, the body representing the city’s 32 boroughs, attributing it to the shortage of family housing.

Brent Council has of course advised families on its waiting list to move out of London to housing that they can afford, despite the disruption this causes to schooling, family support and community cohesion. 

In the South Kilburn regeneration there is no overall increase in the amount of social housing planned and much of the social housing will be more at more expensive housing association rents, rather than council housing rent. 'Viablility' issues means that the single developer, soon to be appointed, will try and reduce the amount of 'affordable housing' in the schemes still to be built.

In Southwark the Harris Federation is seeking to sack teachers as school rolls reduce. LINK

In Brent some primary schools are over-subscribed (have more applications for Reception places than the PAN - Planned Admission Number) but others have plenty of empty spaces. Unfilled places result in budget reductions as schools are funded per pupil.

The figures for the first round of offers to parents reveal many schools that have only filled half or less of their places. They may recruit more pupils in subsequent rounds as those who failed to get their first choice apply elsewhere but the situation will remain serious. Brent Council is likely to press for further reductions in the PAN of some schools so that they  have fewer classes in each year group.

These are the schools that filled half or less of their places (offers/PAN) in the first round:

Brentfield 41/90

Carlton Vale 9/60 (soon to amalgamate with Kilburn Park in a new building)

Christchurch CofE  13/30

Elsley 50/120

Harris South Kenton 31/150 (previously Byron Court forced to academise)

Newfeld 20/60 

Preston Park 61/120

St Mary's CofE 18/45

St Mary's RC 14/30

Stonebridge 20/90

Some of these are schools that expanded with new build and classrooms when primary numbers rose before Brexit.  

The full list of oversubscribed and undersubscribed schools is below (hover over foot of table to enlarge):

1 Morland Gardens – Councillor Benea’s reply to my open letter – why are the Council dithering over the heritage Victorian villa?

 Guest post by Philip Grant in a personal capacity

 

The Italianate-style belvedere tower of “Altamira”, beyond the community garden.
(Photo by Margaret Pratt, May 2023)

 

Earlier this month, Martin published an open letter, “Brent’s Morland Gardens development, and the future of the heritage Victorian villa”, which I had sent to two key Cabinet members, ahead of a decision which is due to be made on 16 June. On 21 May, I received this reply from Councillor Teo Benea, the Lead Member for Regeneration:

 

‘Dear Mr Grant,

 

Thank you for your open letter to myself and Cllr Donnelly-Jackson dated 8 May 2025.

 

I have spoken to officers regarding 1 Morland Gardens and a decision on the site use options will be proposed for Cabinet’s consideration at the meeting on Monday 16 June 2025. No decision has been made on retaining the locally listed Altamira building and Cabinet will only be asked to consider the proposed site use(s) for Morland Gardens as part of developing a complementary vision for the Hillside Corridor.

 

I will ensure that officers consider your letter and content as part of ongoing work to progress the Cabinet approved site use option.

 

Thank you.

Kind regards,

Teo Benea
Cllr for Sudbury ward
Cabinet Member for Regeneration, Planning & Property’

 

It was in January 2020 that Brent’s Cabinet approved a recommendation for the redevelopment of their 1 Morland Gardens site, to provide updated facilities for the Brent Start college (which had been there since 1995) and Council homes. Planning Committee approved the plans (by five votes to two) later that year, including the demolition of the locally-listed Victorian villa at the heart of the college. But the scheme was so flawed, and so many mistakes were made in trying to implement it, that the planning consent expired at the end of October 2023, without construction having begun.

 

I was told in a letter from Brent’s Director of Property and Assets in November 2023, under the heading “An urgent rethink on original proposals”, that:

 

‘We are always reviewing and updating schemes across the board as part of our usual governance arrangements, and we are doing that with even more rigour given the underlying economic conditions. Following the expiration of the planning permission, the Council is reviewing its options for the Morland Gardens site, including the Altamira building.’

 

Despite the supposed urgency, nothing further was heard, until I sent an open letter to Brent’s Chief Executive at the end of March 2024, which I shared in a post - Is Brent Council “busy doing nothing”? In response, Brent’s Head of Capital Delivery said: ‘the Council is continuing to review its options and proposals for the Morland Gardens site. As soon as the Council has completed the review, it will place the item for decision onto the Council’s Forward Plan and seek Cabinet’s consideration of the same.’

 

This is a Council-owned site, which has been vacant since early 2022 (apart from six months when it was occupied by Live-in Guardians). At least they were providing some security for the building, but ever since they left, nearly two and a half years ago, Brent Council has been paying a security firm to guard the empty building. 

 

Notice on the security fence around 1 Morland Gardens. (Photo by Margaret Pratt, May 2023)

 

 

As part of their long-running review, Brent have been given plenty of evidence of the high historic and architectural value of the Victorian villa, and how retaining this locally-listed heritage asset as part of their redevelopment plans is both a practical proposition and in line with the Council’s adopted planning policy and historic environment strategy. How can Officers not yet recommend to Cabinet that this landmark building, part of the original estate that gave Stonebridge Park its name 150 years ago, should be retained? I expressed that view in my “open email” reply to the Lead Member for Regeneration:

 

‘Dear Councillor Benea,

 

Thank you for your email, and for updating me on what will be put to Cabinet on 16 June in respect of Morland Gardens.

 

I have to say that I am surprised that 'Cabinet will only be asked to consider the proposed site use(s) for Morland Gardens.'

 

Council Officers started to consider proposals for the future of the former Brent Start college site at 1 Morland Gardens in November 2023. I understood then that they expected to put their recommendations to Cabinet by around this time in 2024.

 

By November 2024, they had already decided to recommend that the site should be used for new Council homes and community facilities, and they put this out for consultation then, as part of the Bridge Park and Hillside Corridor exercise:

 

 

By March this year, as a result of that consultation, the proposal had been refined to be 'new Council homes and youth facilities'. I find it hard to believe that all Brent's Officers can submit to Cabinet, another three months further on, and more than eighteen months after they started their review, is a recommendation to confirm that the proposed site use should be new Council homes and youth facilities!

 

Given all of the information and views put forward since November 2023, including as part of the December 2024 consultation exercise, where there was clear support from community members for the heritage Victorian villa at 1 Morland Gardens to be retained, I would hope that Council Officers could also recommend that the future redevelopment plans for this Council-owned site should include retaining the locally-listed building.

 

A decision on such a recommendation, by Cabinet on 16 June, would give Officers clearer guidance to progress their Hillside Corridor plans as they move forward. I hope that you, as Cabinet Member for Regeneration, will ask Officers to include that in their Report. Thank you.

 

I am copying this email to Kim Wright, Chief Executive, who could also ask the relevant Officers to do that, in order to help avoid further unnecessary delay over this site. Best wishes,

 

Philip Grant.’

 

If you agree that the Victorian villa, “Altamira”, should be retained, there is still time (until 26 May 2025) to sign the Willesden Local History Society petition calling on Brent Council and its Cabinet to do that. You can add your signature, if you have not already done that, HERE. Thank you!

Philip Grant.

Planning Inspectorate to hear Gaudiya Mission's appeal against Brent Council's refusal of Cranhurt Road development

 

 27 Cranhurst Road

The Gaudiya Mission has submitted an appeal to the Planning Inspectorate following Brent Council's refusal of planning permission for significant changes to its premises at 27 Cranhurst Road, Willesden Green.

Representations must be received by June 24th 2025.

Brent Council outline the process below:

The appeal relates to an application at 27 Cranhurst Road, London, NW2 4LJ

The application proposes, Partial demolition of existing kitchen and temple room and proposed basement extension with rear lightwell and railing, single-storey side-to-rear extension, rear dormer extension, alteration to side fenestration, single-storey outbuilding in rear garden and installation of 2x front rooflights, refuse storage to front and cycle storage to rear to mixed use place of worship and dwelling

 

GAUDIYA MISSION has recently made an appeal to the Planning Inspectorate. The appeal is against the Council's decision to refuse the application. The Council's reasons for refusal are:

 

1. The accommodation proposed at loft floor level does not align with the space standards as outlined under policy D6 of the London Plan (2021) and consequently would not provide an adequate standard of accommodation and internal amenity for future occupants. As a result, the proposal is therefore contrary to policy DMP1 of Brent's Local Plan (2019-41) and policy D6 of the London Plan (2021).

 

2. The proposal by not offering sufficient natural daylight to the basement of the premises is deemed to offer a poor level of internal amenity for future occupiers, contrary to policies DMP1 & BD1 of the Brent Local Plan (2019-2041) and the guidance contained within Basement Supplementary Planning Document (2017).

 

3. The proposal by reason of the insufficient provision of information regarding soft landscaping and planting fails to demonstrate how that the scheme will achieve a satisfactory urban greening factor on the site and provide sustainable urban drainage. The proposal would therefore be contrary to policy policies BD1, BGI1 & BGI2 of Brent's Local Plan (2019-2041) and policies G5 and G6 of the London Plan (2021).

.

The Planning Inspectorate will now consider this proposal under the appeal process of written representations. The Planning Inspector appointed to determine the appeal will consider any written comments received. Oral comments, audio and videotapes will not be acceptable.

 

If you wish to make comments, or modify/withdraw your previous representation, you can do so online at https://acp.planninginspectorate.gov.uk/ using planning appeal reference no APP/T5150/W/25/3365907

 

If you do not have access to the internet, you can send your comments to:

 

The Planning Inspectorate

Temple Quay House

2 The Square

Bristol

BS1 6PN

 

Please ensure that you quote the planning appeal reference no APP/T5150/W/25/3365907

 

All representations must be received by 24/06/2025. Any representations submitted after the deadline will not usually be considered and will be returned. The Planning Inspectorate does not acknowledge representations. All representations must quote the appeal reference.

 

Please note that any representations you submit to the Planning Inspectorate will be copied to the appellant and this local planning authority and will be considered by the Inspector when determining the appeal.

 

The appeal documents are available at https://pa.brent.gov.uk. Please search by application number.

 

You can get a copy of one of the Planning Inspectorate’s “Guide to taking part in planning appeals” booklet free of charge from GOV.UK at

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/taking-part-in-a-planning-listed-building-or-enforcement-appeal - or from us.

 

When made, the decision will be published online at https: acp.planninginspectorate.gov.uk

 

The full appeal document is on the Brent Planning portal LINK the conclusion is below:

 

The appeal site is within a sustainable and accessible location and has provided an historic community mission in the form of a Mandir since the mid 1950’s onwards when the property was donated to the Mission from a local patron.

 

As such the Mandir and his service to the community it serves and wider community as an open facility as formed part of Cranhurst Road for decades.

 

The proposed works which include a modest increase in residential space and the modest ground floor extensions with a basement will provide a more user-friendly experience for visitors to meet modern needs with better internal layouts and arrangements.

 

The Mission needs to modernise facilities to serve its existing needs and visitors and this cannot be readily done within the existing building floor area. An alternative would be to relocate the mission to another area but that would upend the historic roots of the Mandir and Mission from its local connection and force users to travel to another location and also with significant costs to move.

 

The proposal seeks to balance the needs of meeting the needs of the Mandir in 2024 rather than when it was first created but through modest extensions and modest costs that would enable it to maintain its historic presence in the existing setting whilst still operating under controlled planning rules that govern opening times, days and fire regulations that govern the occupancy and use of the building.

 

The development will continue to safeguard the amenities of neighbouring properties in terms of their own amenities, daylight and privacy.

 

The site is within walking distance to bus and tube services and does not rely on private car access for visitors to it.

 

The Council appreciates the community value the Mandir has and its established history in the area and should balance the significant community benefits of the proposal and ensuring a viable and user-friendly Mandir is maintained in its current location against any minor harms it has identified.

 

The proposal will accordance with the London Plan 2021, the Brent Local Plan and the National Planning Policy Framework 2024.

 

The Inspector is requested to allow this appeal and grant planning permission subject to conditions.