Brent’s Affordable Council Housing – the promises and the reality

Guest post by Philip Grant in a personal capacity.

This image is a screenshot from a video featuring Cllr. Promise Knight, Brent’s Cabinet Lead Member for Housing, Homelessness and Renters’ Security, which was produced by a PR company to promote the Council’s “infill” housing scheme for Clement Close. The video was shared in Martin’s blog about residents’ opposition to Brent’s plans, in July 2022.

 

My use of images from that video in this guest post is not intended as a personal attack on Cllr. Knight. Her words in the video are official Brent Council housing policy, which she may have been reading from an autocue, and I don’t doubt that she believes them to be true.

 

I’m writing this blog as a follow-up to one last month, “Scrutiny – What Scrutiny?”, after my expectation that concerns over Brent’s Cecil Avenue housing scheme (raised in a deputation on 9 March 2022) would be considered at the Resources and Public Realm Scrutiny Committee meeting on 6 September were dashed in a single sentence from the Chair, Cllr. Rita Conneely:

 

‘I’ve received information which reassures us about the accuracy and the quality of the information that was presented to the Scrutiny Committee.’

 

The only information I was aware of which had been presented to the Committee was a written response, sent from a Council Officer two months after my deputation, which made no reference to the Cecil Avenue housing scheme part of it. Cllr. Conneely’s sentence referred to two lots of ‘information’, so I submitted a Freedom of Information Act request for both of those, and have now received two documents in response to it.

 

I will ask Martin to attach these. The first includes the “Housing” section of the original “Poverty Commission Update” report, my deputation and the Council’s response to it, and then refers to information about the Cecil Avenue scheme which the Council had sent to me, and had not previously provided to the Committee. There is no indication of when this was supplied to them, and whether this was to all members, or just to the Chair.

 

  

Information reassuring the Committee that Brent had provide information to me!

 

After that brief “note”, it sets out the text of an email which Cllr. Promise Knight sent to me on 13 July 2022. I must apologise to Cllr. Knight, and to “Wembley Matters” readers, as I’d said I would share her reply with you. I thought I had done, but I’ve now found my “possible guest blog” document, unfinished and never submitted to Martin! Here is what she wrote:

 

‘Thank you for your email regarding the proposed development of the Cecil Avenue site. It is my understanding that you asked similar questions at Full Council of November 2021 and received a written response.

 

In summary, the Cabinet report of August 2021 that considered proposed developments in Wembley Housing Zone set out the position. 

 

Brent Council signed funding agreements with the GLA in 2016 and 2018, securing £8m grant to deliver 215 affordable homes across six sites within the WHZ by 2025, through a rolling programme of acquisition and development, and used £4.8m grant to acquire Ujima House. 

 

Heads of terms were subsequently agreed with the GLA to amend the existing WHZ funding agreement to refocus the £8m grant to deliver 152 affordable homes solely on the two council-owned Cecil Avenue and Ujima House sites. 50% affordable housing is proposed across the two sites, with London Affordable Rent homes, increasing the amount and affordability of affordable housing above minimum levels secured at planning. The development will also include workspace to support job creation and economic growth, community space, highway and public realm improvements and new publicly accessible open space. Reviewing the WHZ financial viability, the GLA also agreed in principle an additional £5.5m grant to deliver the scheme.

 

The council can also use its own capital, secured via ‘prudential borrowing’ in order to deliver additional affordable housing. Each opportunity to deliver housing is considered on its individual merits via development appraisals that assess a number of variables per site that ultimately evaluate viability. The intention of the council is to maximise the availability of affordable housing across the borough while ensuring that the proposals represent good value for the council and that borrowing is sustainable. The Council needs to ensure the entire programme is financially viable within the GLA grant available hence the requirement for a mixed tenure development in order to subsidise the delivery of the affordable elements.’

 

Although Cllr. Knight’s email gave more financial details than had previously been supplied to me, it does contain errors. The 50% affordable housing (which is what private developers are meant to provide) is not proposed to be all at London Affordable Rent. Sixty-one of the 98 “affordable” homes the Council intends to retain at Cecil Avenue (after transferring 152 other homes to a developer, for private sale) are to be for shared ownership or “Intermediate Rent”.

 

And my 9 March deputation to R&PR Scrutiny Committee (and follow-up emails to the Chair) urged the Committee to challenge the viability (they could get the details of this, while I’m not allowed to see them because of “confidentiality”), and to question Cabinet Members and Senior Officers as to why they cannot provide more genuinely affordable homes on the former Copland School site.

 

 

I’ll go back to what Cllr. Knight said in her Clement Close video, using images from it (with several lines of text edited into a single picture, for ease of reading). One of the main arguments used by the Council for why it needs to build so many new homes is:-

 

 

They make much of their “Brent Labour” promise of 1,000 new Council homes by 2024 (although a September 2021 “Life in Kilburn” blog showed that many of these would not be for households in temporary accommodation, or on the Council’s housing waiting list):-

 

 

And now the key point, used to justify the many “infill” schemes on existing Council estates:-

 

 

The former Copland School site at Cecil Avenue is a large piece of vacant Brent Council-owned, brownfield land in Wembley. The Council has had planning permission to build 250 homes there since February 2021. What an opportunity to make the most of that, and deliver a quarter of the entire 1,000 new Council homes target, in just one project! 

 

Work could already be underway (they currently don’t expect to “start on site” until next year) to deliver those homes, yet the Cabinet and Council Officers seem fixated on pushing through lots of smaller “infill” projects, against the wishes of many existing residents.

 

The second document which the Chair of R&PR Scrutiny Committee had received, headed ‘Mr Grant Clarification’, is unsigned and undated. It sets out ‘the current position’, and there has been a significant change from the written response sent to me last May. My deputation pointed out that the Report on progress in meeting the Poverty Commission recommendations (which Cabinet had accepted in September 2020) made no mention of social rented homes.

 

The Brent Poverty Commission recommendation for ‘more social rented homes’.

 

In May I was told:

 

‘In 2021, following discussions with the GLA the council received £111m of GLA grant, this falls within the 2021 – 2028 programme and will allow the council to build 701 Social rented homes, which are currently in development and feasibility stages. Delivering social rented homes remains a major priority of the council.’

 

This is in line with what both Brent and the GLA were saying last year:

 

 

The “Clarification” document now says:

 

‘The Poverty Commission report stated that the council is on track to deliver more than 1000 council homes by 2024 and a further 701 council homes by 2028. These are intended to be provided at London Affordable Rent levels.’

 

Although both Social Rent and London Affordable Rent (“LAR”) are classed as “genuinely affordable”, they are different, as I pointed out in a guest post in July. Even if Brent Council were to charge the maximum “rent capped” amount for Social Rent (which it does not have to), this is still cheaper than LAR. My ongoing dispute with the Council over the rents for two new Council homes at Rokesby Place, which were wrongly changed from Social Rent to LAR (by Planning Officers!), showed that the tenant of each four-bedroom home would have to pay £772.20 a year more (on 2022/23 figures) if the tenure was LAR.

 

The second document also suggests that Brent is likely to include more ‘intermediate housing (for example shared ownership)’ as part of the so-called “affordable” housing that it builds. It is already going down that road, both at Watling Gardens, where Cabinet approved a change of 24 homes from LAR to shared ownership in June, and in its Cecil Avenue proposals.

 

A placard from a demonstration against Shared Ownership.

 

But the Advertising Standards Authority has recently ruled that shared ownership cannot be described as “part rent, part buy”. Legally it is just an “assured tenancy”, which has been dressed-up as home ownership for political purposes. The rent rises each year are not “capped” (as Social Rent and LAR levels are). If the “owner” of a “share” defaults on their rent (or service charges) their home could be repossessed, and they would lose all the money they have paid for their “share” of the property.

 

And, shared ownership is NOT affordable to most Brent households living in temporary accommodation, or on the Council’s housing waiting list!

 

The direction that Brent Council is travelling over its provision of New Council Homes is moving away from what the 2020 Brent Poverty Commission Report showed was needed. It found:

 

‘More than 90% of couples or lone parents with two children cannot afford LB Brent social rents, and no family with two children (whether couple or lone parent) can afford any rent that is more expensive than LB Brent social rents.’

 

If that is true, then why is Brent not building affordable homes for Social Rent?

 

Philip Grant.

 

EXCLUSIVE: Rokesby Place – Brent's possible planning malpractice exposed

 Guest post by Philip Grant in a personal capacity

Architect’s drawing of the two proposed new Council houses at Rokesby Place.

 

There was a flurry of blogs on “Wembley Matters” last month about the planning application for the proposed Brent Council housing “infill” development at Rokesby Place. On 12 August, Martin wrote about the loss of green space and the tenure change. Straight after the meeting on 17 August, he reported that Planning Committee had “dumped” the a recommendation of the 2020 Brent Poverty Commission Report, and allowed a changed of tenure for the two new homes from Social Rent to London Affordable Rent.

 

I could not understand the justification for Brent’s Planning Officers recommending LAR when the planning application, only 4 months earlier, had said that the houses would be let at Social Rent level. 

 

Extract from the Planning Statement for the Rokesby Place application, 22/1400.

 

I added a comment below the second blog, giving the text of a Freedom of Information Act request I’d sent to Brent’s Head of Planning, seeking the evidence behind that change of tenure. Martin published that as a separate post the following day.

 

I received the information I’d requested on 1 September (that was quick for an FoI, but I’d told the Head of Planning that he should not issue the consent letter until my enquiries were resolved!), I said I would share the response with “Wembley Matters” readers, and will ask Martin to attach it at the end of this article, if possible.

 

I am not attaching the two enclosures, which were series of emails between Brent Planning Officers, the Brent Project Manager for the Rokesby Place scheme and the planning agent representing Brent Council for application 22/1400. The names of senders and recipients had been redacted (in order to protect the guilty?). 

 

I will include copies of the key emails below, as I explain what Council Officers did wrong, and why the change from Social Rent to LAR was not justified, and should be reversed. There is more detail on this in an open letter, and formal complaint about the conduct of the Council Officers involved, which I have sent to Brent’s Chief Executive. I hope that Martin can also attach a copy of that, as it includes some important points which MUST be put right before any more planning applications for Council “infill” housing schemes are considered.

 

Email from Planning Case Officer to Project Manager in Brent Property Services.

 

The email above was sent by the Planning Case Officer (“CO”) to Brent’s Rokesby Place Project Manager (“PM”) when the Officer Report was about to be published with the agenda for the Planning Committee meeting on 17 August. There should not have been any doubt about which rent level should be in the recommended affordable housing condition, as the application clearly stated Social Rent!

 

But worse than that, the CO should not have been communicating with the PM over the application (especially offering the chance to change a detail in it). There have to be special procedures in place where a Council, like Brent, is both the developer and the Local Planning Authority, to ensure that the Council’s applications are dealt with fairly. This is summed up in the Local Government Association booklet, “Probity in Planning”:

 

Extract from “Probity in Planning”, 2019 edition.

 

I have set out why this contact, which could (and did) have an unfair influence on the planning decision, was wrong in my letter to Carolyn Downs, if you are interested in the detailed reasons.

 

Further emails from the CO to the PM over the next few days, after the Officer Report had been published, show that the Planning Officer knew that recommending LAR might be a mistake, and that if it was, that should be reported to Planning Committee members.

 

The “confirmation” CO sought was finally provided by PM later that day, and acknowledged by the Planning Case Officer:

 

But LAR was not correct. It might be what was intended on the New Council Homes ‘master tracker’, but it was not what was shown by the planning application. That was Social Rent, which should have been the tenure included in the Officer Report for Planning Committee.

 

The emails between the planning agent, Maddox & Associates (“M&A”) and CO, and copied to another person (possibly the Senior Planning Officer who would be presenting the application to Planning Committee) are even more worrying. There were no communications involving the tenure of the proposed new homes after the application was submitted until the afternoon of 17 August, just a couple of hours before the Committee meeting. This was the first, from M&A:

 

Email from planning agent to Brent Planning Officer(s), 125 minutes before Committee meets.

 

M&A were concerned. They’ve discovered that “residents” are raising the issue of what rent level should be charged for the proposed new homes (they’d been discussing it on “Wembley Matters” since 12 August!). So M&A claim ‘we have always proposed that the units are 100% London Affordable Rent’. AND, in the final sentence, they effectively ask Planning Officers to repeat that claim, ‘in case Members ask the question to officers directly’ at the meeting!

 

We know that claim was false, because M&A had proposed that the homes would be for Social Rent. But Brent’s CO also knows it was false, because eight minutes after receiving that email from M&A, the CO sends this reply:

 

 

Undeterred by the truth, M&A send a further email to the CO (again cc’d), less than 50 minutes before the start of the Planning Committee meeting which will consider the Rokesby Place application. [The warning that it ‘contains information that may be confidential’ and that the recipient ‘may not … disclose it to anyone else’, does not protect it from a valid FoI request!]:

 

 

M&A are “flagging” to Brent Planning a line of argument which could be used to justify LAR being the tenure required in the affordable housing condition included in the Rokesby Place planning consent letter. I don’t know whether the Senior Planning Officer who presented the application to the meeting that evening saw this email, or was aware of its contents. But I do know, from watching and listening to the webcast, that this was the basis of the argument which she used.

 

I have set out in my open letter to Brent’s Chief Executive, in much greater detail, why the actions of Brent Planning Officers before and at the Planning Committee meeting were wrong and unacceptable. This includes the fact that the objectors (particularly the Ward councillor, Ketan Sheth, over the Social Rent or LAR point) were not dealt with fairly and impartially.

 

I have also set out how I believe my complaint(s) should be resolved, including the measures needed to ensure that future planning applications where Brent Council is the developer (and there is likely to be a string of new “infill” housing applications over the next few years) are dealt with properly, fairly and impartially.

 

I may not achieve everything that I hope for, but I am confident that Brent should reverse the decision over affordable housing tenure, so that the two new homes at Rokesby Place will be for Social Rent, not London Affordable Rent. 

 

The tenants of those four-bedroom houses are likely to be large families in urgent housing need. The Planning Officer claimed that the two rent levels were ‘very, very similar’. But, even on the figures she gave, each tenant would be paying £772.20 a year more than they should be if LAR is charged, rather than Social Rent. That’s why the Social Rent level recommended by the Brent Poverty Commission Report is so important to families on a tight budget.

Philip Grant. 

Information Request and Open Letter to Brent CEO.  Click on bottom right corner for full page view.

 

 

Watling Gardens – what happened next?

 Guest post by Philip Grant in a personal capacity

Last month, Martin wrote that there was more to the Watling Gardens new homes than the Council was letting on, in its press statement claiming that it was providing 125 new homes for local families. This followed on from a guest post I had written about the rushed and incorrect report on Watling Gardens which was going to the Cabinet Meeting on 20 June.

 

Brent wanted to reduce the number of London Affordable Rent homes at the last minute, and replace 24 of those with Shared Ownership instead. In order to go ahead with awarding a construction contract on that basis, they needed to change the “Affordable Housing” condition in the planning consent they’d received for the project in April this year.

 

Opening section of application letter from Jones Lang LaSalle on 14 July 2022.

 

Variations to planning consents are covered by two sections of the Town & Country Planning Act 1990. Section 73 is for “material” amendments, while Section 96A covers “non-material” amendments. An application on behalf of Brent Council (as developer) was submitted to Brent Council (as Local Planning Authority) on 14 July, on the basis that what was being sought was a non-material amendment.

 

Unlike Section 73, applications under Section 96A do not have to be put out for consultation, and are usually dealt with by Planning Officers under “delegated authority” within 28 days. However, they do appear on the Council’s planning website, so I read the supporting documents for the new application, 22/2519. 

 

Planning agents are paid good money to present their client’s case in the best light, but I felt that the “spin” in JLL’s letter might be considered misleading on a couple of points. One of these was the claim that ‘there will be no change to the amount of affordable housing being provided’. I have been keen for some time to remind Council Officers and Cabinet members (and now agents acting on their behalf) of the truth about different types of “affordable housing”.

 

The rest of this “guest post” is the “neutral” comment on application 22/2519 which I submitted online on 25 July (although I have added some relevant illustrations to break up the text):-

 

‘This application seeks to amend condition 3 of Brent Council’s application 21/2473 (“the main application”), which was approved as recently as three months ago.

 

1) In the Affordable Housing Statement, prepared by Jones Lang LaSalle (“JLL”) and submitted as part of the supporting documents for the main application, this was the paragraph on viability:

 

A paragraph from the Affordable Housing Statement on application 21/2473.

 

‘Viability

A separate Viability Assessment Report has been prepared by Savills under separate cover and demonstrates that Brent Council are providing in excess of the maximum viable amount of affordable housing. Notwithstanding this, Brent Council are fully committed to delivering these much-needed new affordable homes.’

 

In this application, 22/2519, JLL’s covering letter says:

 

‘Brent Council seeks to alter the wording of Condition 3 of planning permission ref:21/2473 to vary the tenure mix of the affordable homes at the Watling Gardens Estate in order to improve the overall financial viability of the scheme.’

 

The earlier statement acknowledged that the amount of affordable housing proposed in the main application was more than would be financially viable, but said that, despite this, Brent Council were fully committed to delivering the affordable homes set out in that application.

 

Now, the applicant is seeking to go back on that commitment. 

 

But JLL, on behalf of Brent Council, have not submitted any updated viability data to justify the proposed amendment. Shouldn’t such additional information be a requirement?

 

An elevation drawing showing two views of Block B at Watling Gardens, from application 21/2473.

 

2) At the end of the section of JLL’s covering letter which sets out their proposed new wording for Condition 3, the agent states:

 

‘The proposed amendment does not materially impact permission 21/2473 and will enable a financially viable scheme to be delivered.’

 

I believe that there WOULD be a material impact in substituting 24 shared ownership homes instead of what were to be 24 homes for London Affordable Rent. 

 

Extract from JLL’s covering letter of 14 July, with details of the proposed shared ownership flats.

 

Although shared ownership is technically an affordable housing tenure, it is not an affordable home for the vast majority of Brent residents in housing need. 

 

The 2020 Brent Poverty Commission Report found that the only really affordable Council housing in the borough was homes at Social Rent level. London Affordable Rent levels were just about affordable for some families, if they could top up their incomes with Housing Benefit or Universal Credit. 

 

Shared ownership homes SHOULD NOT be treated as “affordable homes” for the purpose of affordable housing in Brent. 

 

To take away 24 London Affordable Rent homes from the mix in Condition 3 would effectively reduce the number of General Needs Housing homes available to residents on the housing waiting list, or in temporary accommodation, by more than 35% (from 67 down to 43).’

Philip Grant.