LETTER: Are Brent Council’s Planning Committee Meetings Really Fair????

Dear Editor,

The Purpose of the committee

This Committee deals with certain types of planning applications and related matters.

Membership

·       Councillor Matt Kelcher  (Chair) LABOUR

·       Councillor Saqib Butt  (Vice-Chair) LABOUR

·       Councillor Ajmal Akram   LABOUR

·       Councillor Rita Begum   LABOUR

·       Councillor Liz Dixon   LABOUR

·       Councillor Arshad Mahmood   LABOUR

·       Councillor Michael Maurice   CONSERVATIVE

·       Councillor Rajan-Seelan   LABOUR

Anton Georgiou   LIBERAL

 

Dear Editor,

Below is a response I received from the Governance Manager at the Assistant Chief Executive’s Department at Brent Council after I raised my concerns  about what I experienced at the November 16^th planning committee meeting and how  I thought this was a one sided biased system which would always result in one outcome.

 

‘Just a quick follow up to the email you sent earlier this week regarding the query you’ve raised about membership of the Planning Committee.

 

In terms of the balance of membership on the Committee, this is actually determined by applying the “political balance rules” prescribed by the Local Government and Housing Act 1989 and supplemented by the Local Government (Committees and Political Groups) Regulations 1990.  These rules are designed to ensure that the political composition of the Council’s decision-making committees including Planning, as far as possible, replicates the political composition and balance of the Full Council.

 

The Council is actually required to review the representation of political groups on relevant committees at the Annual Council meeting each year, with the last such review undertaken following the local elections in May 2022. As a result of the overall membership of the Council standing at 57 members, the breakdown by political groups as a percentage is as follows:

 

·     49 Labour Councillors (representing 85.97% of total council membership);

·     5 Conservative Councillors (representing 8.77% of total council membership);

·     3 Liberal Democrats (representing 5.26% of total council membership).

 

The total number of committee seats to be allocated across all relevant bodies and also according to the number of seats on each individual committee therefore has to reflect this overall breakdown in Council membership.

 

Given there are a total of 8 seats on the Planning Committee, applying the above calculation means we are required to provide 7 of those seats to the Labour Group and 1 to an Opposition Group member, which it was agreed at the Annual Council meeting would be allocated to the Conservative Group’.

Having attended Wednesday 16^th November planning committee meeting as a neutral, I sat in the gallery right through the whole proceedings. I wanted to get a feel for how these meetings work as my neighbours and I are fighting yet another ‘infill’ proposal in Newland Court where we reside. There were 2 cases that I was interested in finding out what the outcome would result in.

 

 

1.    Planning application 22/1282, located at 7A Sidmouth Road, London, NW2 5HH.

2.    Planning application 22/1386, located at Minterne Road, Harrow, HA3 9TA 

 

 

The Planning Committee in session

 

From what I saw it seemed like this was a one sided biased system which would always result in one outcome. The Labour councillors on the committee seemed to be all voting together and of course a majority outcome always in their favour. The planning application for both were approved. I also watched the full council meeting on Monday 21^st November at 6pm where I discovered even more about Labour run Brent.  

 

 

Even Cllr Michael Maurice who is a planning committee member and the only Conservative on the planning panel said at Monday’s full Council meeting, ‘Time and time again the planning committee approve private developments which fall short of social housing, unaffordable housing and don’t comply in regards to amenity space. And if Labour cabinet members don’t vote in favour with their other members, then they get thrown out’.

 

 

And then even Cllr Matt Kelcher, who is the chair of the planning committee, reiterates about the shortage of social housing and Brent Council’s target of building 2,500 council homes a year. So my question is whether as the leader of Brent Council.  Muhammed Butt said in defence of his Labour planning committee members, ‘Every Labour planning committee member will have read all the paperwork and make their decisions on the facts and evidence put forward to them’ ?

 

 

Well, I’m not too sure about that because from what I have already seen and experienced with those Councillors involved in all these new development proposals, Brent seem to have made up their minds about fast tracking all these ‘infills’ at any cost. At the detriment of their own existing residents who voted them in, including me. 

 

 

 Marc Etukudo

 

 

 

Rokesby Place – Brent tries to justify its planning malpractice

 Guest blog by Philip Grant, in a personal capacity.

 

Architect’s drawing of the two infill houses for the Rokesby Place car park.

 

I will try not to make this guest post too long, as I will ask Martin to attach two long letters at the end of it. But I hope that as many “Wembley Matters” readers as possible will take the trouble to read this, and the letters. This is a follow-up to my article earlier this month, which included my letter of complaint to Brent’s Chief Executive over alleged planning malpractice.

 

The letters are about the level of rent which the future tenants of two “affordable” New Council Homes on an infill scheme at Rokesby Place will have to pay. More importantly, though, they deal with the way in which Brent’s Planning Officers went against the rules meant to ensure that the Council’s own planning applications are dealt with impartially and transparently – and how they have tried to justify the actions they took.

 

Extract from the Rokesby Place planning application, 22/1400.

 

The planning application for Brent’s Rokesby Place “infill” housing scheme was made in April 2022, and was quite clear that the two houses would be for Social Rent. But when the Officer Report was prepared on the application, for the Planning Committee meeting in August, no mention was made of Social Rent, and the “affordable housing” condition in the draft consent letter said that the homes must ‘be delivered as London Affordable Rent units’. 

 

There was nothing in the published documents to show how or why Social Rent had been changed to the more expensive London Affordable Rent (“LAR”). I had to issue an FoI request to uncover that information. This led to the first part of my 5 September complaint, that there was no reason for, and no justification for, any change from Social Rent to LAR, and Planning Officers had been wrong to change it.

 

I received the reply to my complaint letter from Carolyn Downs on 16 September, but I believe it was probably drafted for her by the top officer(s) in Brent’s Planning Department. This was the reason given for why they recommended LAR, rather than the Social Rent level shown by the application they were asking Planning Committee to approve:

 

Extract from the letter of 16 September from Brent’s Chief Executive.

 

I have set out my response to that in my letter of 22 September below. Briefly, Planning Officers should not be changing what an application says just because they think it should be different, to do so for one of Brent’s own applications (although why, when it’s a Council application, was the Project Manager ‘the applicant’?) was not being impartial, and no ‘clarification’ was needed, because the application was clearly for Social Rent!

 

The action which Planning Officers took raises serious concerns for other Council housing schemes, especially a number of forthcoming “infill” schemes (Newland Court, Kilburn Square, Clement Close, to name just a few): 

 

·      Will they treat other applications for Social Rent housing (as recommended by the Brent Poverty Commission Report, and as supposed to be provided under the GLA’s 2021-26 affordable housing programme) as if they should be for LAR? 

 

·      Will they interfere with other details which have been published in the application documents, and recommend different conditions to Planning Committee, without disclosing that they’ve done so?

 

Even though they had failed the “transparency” requirement in the Local Government Association’s “Probity in Planning” guidance, by not telling Planning Committee that the application was for Social Rent, the Council’s view was that members, when making their decision, ‘were aware that the application was originally for the provision of Social Rented homes.’ I could hardly believe the reason they offered to justify this:

 

Second extract from the letter of 16 September from Brent’s Chief Executive.

 

This was the conclusion which Brent’s Chief Executive came to (on the advice of Senior Planning Officers) in response to my complaint(s):

 

The conclusion from the letter of 16 September.

 

I have not accepted that conclusion, for reasons set out in detail in my letter of 22 September. In case you don’t feel like reading it in full, here are some paragraphs from near the end of it which sum-up my position:

 

‘Planning Officers seem to take the view that as Social Rent and LAR are, on the present figures, ‘very, very similar’, then it does not matter whether the affordable housing provided is one or the other. That would not matter for compliance with policy BH5, but as I pointed out in my letter of 5 September, it would matter for the tenants of the two new homes at Rokesby Place. 

 

As you quoted, from the Brent Local Plan Glossary, these affordable homes will be ‘for those whose needs are not met by the market.’ They will be Brent families in housing need, quite probably on limited incomes. By charging them LAR rent levels, rather than Social Rent, even on present figures, they will have to pay £772.20 a year more. As the annual rent increases for these two types of affordable housing are linked to CPI, by the time the houses are built each tenant will have to find nearer £1,000 a year more if LAR is charged, rather than Social Rent.

 

If a planning application states that the affordable housing tenure will be Social Rent, that complies with policy BH5, and should not be changed without good reason. And if there are reasons for changing from Social Rent to LAR, they need to be set out transparently, both for the Planning Committee and the public. That was not done on this application, so even if Brent Council believes it achieved the “right” answer, the way it was achieved was wrong. So wrong that it needs to be put right.

 

I hope you can now agree that the new Brent Council affordable housing at Rokesby Place must be for Social Rent, as applied for on the Council’s behalf under application 22/1400.’

 

I’m putting this correspondence “in the public domain”, so that anyone interested can read it and make up their own minds. If you agree that something has gone wrong here, please feel free to write to your local councillors about it, with a copy to carolyn.downs@brent.gov.uk .

 

Philip Grant.

 The letters - click bottom right corner for full page version.

Philip Grant makes FOI request to Brent Council to try to get to the bottom of Rokesby Place tenure change

 Philip Grant, a frequent independent contributor to this blog, has submitted a Freedom of Information request on the tenure of the two new houses in Rokesby Place, following last night's Brent Planning Committee.

 Dear Mr Ansell and Brent FoI team,

I am addressing this email directly to you, as well as to Brent FoI, as you have been delegated the authority to make changes to yesterday evening's Planning Committee decision on application 22/1400 (Rokesby Place), including authority to vary conditions. I would request that you do not issue a consent letter on that application until this Freedom of Information Act request has been fully dealt with, as the answers to it may require an amendment to Condition 3, Affordable Housing.

The reason for this request is my concern about the change made to the type of affordable housing tenure for the two new four-bedroom homes at Rokesby Place, and how this came about, as there does not appear to be any justification for it in the documents for this application published on Brent's planning website.

The application form for 22/1400, submitted by Maddox Associates on 13 April 2022, clearly states for each of the two new homes:

 
'Tenure: Social Rent'.

 

The Planning Statement for this application, published on Brent's website on 19 April 2022, when describing the Proposed Development, states:

 
'Tenure
3.4 The houses are all proposed for social rent.'

 

Despite this, the proposed Condition 3 in the Officer Report to Planning Committee on 17 August was as follows:

 
'3. The residential dwellings hereby approved shall be provided as affordable housing in perpetuity, and shall be delivered as London Affordable rent units ....'

 

Freedom of Information Act Request: 

In order to establish why the tenure of the two houses was changed from Social Rent to London Affordable Rent, please let me have the following information and documents (in pdf format, please) in respect of the Rokesby Place planning application 22/1400, covering the period from 13 April 2022 to 17 August 2022:

1. On what dates in that period were there any communications (other than the Application Form and Planning Statement referred to above), in either direction, between the applicant (or its representatives) and Brent Planning Officers about the type of affordable housing tenure for the two proposed new homes at Rokesby Place?

2. Please let me have copies of all of the communications in 1 above.

3. If any of the copy communications requested under 2 above have names redacted, please provide details of the status, employer and job title of each person whose name has been redacted, if this is not shown on the copy where the name itself has been redacted.

4. If there are no communications of the type requested in 1 above, please explain when, how and why, and on whose authority, the proposed Social Rent tenure (shown in the April 2022 application documents for application 22/1400) was changed to the London Affordable Rent tenure proposed in Condition 3 of the Officer Report in August 2022.

Please acknowledge receipt of this email and FoI request. I look forward to receiving your full response to it at an early date. Best wishes,

Philip Grant.

Brent's Head of Planning has replied, saying: 'We will of course look at the questions you raise and respond shortly.'

Probity and Planning in Brent

 

With the far-reaching new Brent Local Plan now in place until 2041, Brent enters a new period of multi-million pound developments in its growth areas that will change the face of Brent, as well as the more routine planning applications that are often delegated to officers.

With its quasi-judicial role the Planning Committee is supposed to be free from any specific political interference although it operates within the Council's Local Plan and Planning Guidance.

There have been questions raised in the past about indirect political interference in Planning Committee, especially when Labour members who do not conform the expectations lose their position (and their additional allowance)  in one way or another.

It is important then that in order to ensure the public see the proceediungs as fair and above board that there is probity in the Planning Committee's structure and proceedings.

The Local Government Association has published advice on probity in planning HERE. They say:

Probity in planning is about ensuring that decisions on plan making and planning applications are undertaken, on behalf of communities, in a fair, impartial and transparent way.

What appears to be missing from this in the context of  a mainly one-party council is how the members of the committee are chosen.  In Brent the proportion of places allocated are on the basis of the local election outcome and there are seven Labour members of the Committee and one Opposition member.  Currently this is a Conservative. Cllr Michael Maurice. There is no Liberal Democrat although concern over new developments in the borough was one of their main campaigning  issues.

Labour members are appointed to the Committee by the leader, and perhaps deputy leader, rather than elected by the Labour Group.. 

It is important to note that there is no overt political whipping  of the Labour committee members on planning matters.

This adminstration's Planning Committee is listed above.  It is worth noting that the chair, Cllr Matt Kelcher, is the partner of the new Deputy Leader of the Council, Cllr Mili Patel.The  new Vice-chair is Cllr Saquib Butt, brother of Muhammed Butt, leader of the Council.  Both were on the previous Planning Committee.

New members of the Planning Committee include Cllr Ajmal Akram, who I understand is Muhammed Butt's brother-in-law, and Cllr Arshad Mahmood, widely alleged to be Cllr  M.Butt's cousin.

These connections, if true, would constitute half of the Committee, although they all, of course, may be fiercely independent with no family allegiance.

 

Cllr Saqib Butt

In addition to his position on the Planning Committee Cllr S. Butt has also been appointed to the Resources and Public Realm Scrutiny Committee that has planning and regeneration as part of its remit. He is also a member of both the Audit and Standards Committee and its advisory body.

New Wembley Hill councillor  Ajmal Akram goes straight into office as a member of both the Planning Committee and Resources and Public Realm Scrutiny Committee. New Kilburn councillor Rita Begum is on the Community and Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee as well as Planning.

Brent has two wholly-owned subsidiary housing companies First Wave Housing and I4B and Saqib Butt has been appointed the councillor director on both.

 

From First Wave Housing accounts

 

 

From I4B Holdings Accounts

 

Both companies report to the Audit and Standards Committee.