Regeneration at Scrutiny meeting – The truth about Brent’s Wembley Housing Zone land

Guest post by Philip Grant in a personal capacity-

 

The Scrutiny page on Brent Council’s website includes the following question and answer:

 

From: https://www.brent.gov.uk/the-council-and-democracy/council-meetings-and-decision-making/scrutiny#Whatisscrutiny

 

For the Scrutiny system to operate effectively, the information given to Scrutiny Committees by Cabinet members and Council Officers needs to be truthful. Within the Brent Members’ Code of Conduct, this is spelt out: ‘you must comply with the seven principles of conduct in public life set out in Appendix 1.’ The seven principles include “Honesty”, and “Accountability” which is defined as: 

 

‘You should be accountable to the public for your actions and the manner in which you carry out your responsibilities, and should co-operate fully and honestly with any scrutiny appropriate to your particular office.’

 

Martin posted a blog article, “Cllr Tatler taken to task on regeneration issues”, following the Resources and Public Realm Scrutiny Committee meeting last Tuesday (23 April 2024). It included a video, taken from the Council’s webcast of the meeting, which I watched with interest.

 

I have tried several times, since January 2022, to get proper scrutiny of the August 2021 Cabinet decision to allow a developer to sell at least half of the homes at Brent’s Wembley Housing Zone (“WHZ”) development (including most at the more favourable Cecil Avenue site) for private profit. WHZ was in the first of the regeneration growth areas dealt with in the Officer Report to the Scrutiny Committee meeting:

 

 

 

When I heard what Cllr. Shama Tatler said about WHZ when addressing the meeting, I could hardly believe what I had heard. I submitted a short comment, saying: ‘I'm sure I heard Cllr. Tatler claim that Brent did.not own the Wembley Housing Zone land, which is why it was not viable to build more affordable housing there.’ I finished my comment with: ‘Was Cllr. Tatler being "economical with the truth"?’

 

After further research, I submitted a follow-up comment, which Martin has agreed to post as a separate item on Wembley Matters. This is what I wrote:

 

‘I asked above: 'Was Cllr. Tatler being "economical with the truth"?'

 

This was in relation to the Wembley Housing Zone, where I have been campaigning for more genuinely affordable housing, and writing guest posts about it, since August 2021.

 

I have gone back to the webcast, and transcribed what Cllr. Tatler said. Martin kindly sent me a document from a Brent Executive meeting in April 2014 on proposed land rationalisation at Copland Community School and adjacent lands.

 

This is the relevant extract from the webcast of Tuesday's Resources and Public Realm Scrutiny Committee meeting, with Cllr. Tatler addressing the committee on Brent's regeneration schemes:

 

'With the Wembley Housing Zone, we didn't own the land. We had to purchase the land. That impacts viability as well. And we are looking at how we deal with affordable housing on the scheme. Ideally we would want to deliver 100% social housing on any of our land ....'

 

This is the key paragraph from the April 2014 Report to Brent's Executive (now Cabinet), whose recommendations were approved and put in place. CCS is Copland Community School, which had been served with an Academy Order by the Secretary of State, and the IEB is the Interim Executive Board, which Brent Council as Local Education Authority had put in place instead of CCS's previous governing body, to run the school until it was taken over by the Ark Academy group.

 

'CCS is a foundation school and therefore the land and buildings are mainly in the ownership of the school itself, the responsibility for which is vested in the IEB. The IEB has expressed agreement to transfer the freehold of the site which it currently owns to the Council instead, in order for the Council to rationalise the ownership and use of the site overall, ensuring an optimum footprint for the school. The ARK would under these proposals be granted a 125 year lease on the final school site.'

 

In the "Financial Implications" section of the Report, these were the key points from the proposals (which were approved and put in place):

 

'2. The IEB transfer to the Council the freehold interest in the CCS site at nil consideration.

3. The Council accepts a surrender of CCS’s leasehold interests at nil consideration.

5. The Council grants the ARK a short term lease of the existing CCS buildings at peppercorn rent.

7. The Council will grant the ARK a 125 year lease of the new school siteat a peppercorn rent.

8. The ARK will surrender the lease to the existing school at nil consideration.'

 

So, Brent became the freehold owners of all of the original Copland School site and playing fields in 2014, granting ARK a temporary lease of the original school buildings from 1 September 2014. 

 

When the new school was built on the playing fields behind the original school buildings, Brent then granted ARK a 125 year lease for the new school site, BUT retained the freehold of the original Copland School land, now the Wembley Housing Zone Cecil Avenue site, at no cost to the Council.

 

The other, smaller, part of Brent's Wembley Housing Zone scheme, for which it received an £8m grant from the GLA in 2015, is Ujima House. Brent bought that office building in 2016, using £4.8m of the initial £8m GLA funding. It has since received further GLA funding to be used on affordable housing as part of the WHZ.

Cllr. Tatler DID mislead the Scrutiny Committee when she said that Brent did not own the Wembley Housing Zone land and had to purchase it!’

 

Map showing the land around Copland School and its ownership, prior to the rationalisation.
(From an Appendix to the Report to the April 2014 meeting of Brent’s Executive)

 

If there was any doubt about Brent Council’s ownership of the former Copland School site, the freehold of all the land hatched in green on the map above was transferred to Brent in 2014. The only land that Brent had to purchase for its WHZ scheme was the much smaller Ujima House site (which will provide 54 of the 291 WHZ homes, scheduled for completion in 2026).

 

Back in November 2021, Cllr. Tatler, in answer to a public question I had asked ahead of a Full Council meeting, said: ‘it is not financially viable to deliver all 250 homes at Cecil Avenue as socially rented housing.’ [Her scheme only delivered 37 affordable rented homes there then!]

 

Yet neither she, nor anyone else at Brent Council, has been willing or able to answer my question of why it would not be viable to build far more of the Cecil Avenue homes for genuinely affordable rent to Council tenants (see my January 2024 guest post for the latest figures), when the vacant site to build them on was already owned by Brent, they could have gone ahead with the development themselves as soon as they received full planning consent in February 2021, and interest rates were very low (and did not shoot up until autumn 2022).   

 

 Philip Grant.

‘Tis the Season to be Sneaky! Is Brent trying to award the c£100m Wembley Housing Zone contract without scrutiny?

 Guest post by Philip Grant in a personal capacity

 

The location of the two Wembley Housing Zone sites.

 

If you’re a regular reader of “Wembley Matters”, you will be aware of Brent’s often repeated statements about the urgent need to build more Council homes for the families in temporary accommodation and on the waiting list. They are used to justify the Council’s often unpopular “infill” plans for some of its housing estates, and by Brent’s planners to justify recommending applications that breach some planning policies, and are seen by many as overdevelopment.

 

You will also be aware of Brent’s promise (and Labour Group election pledge) to build 1,000 genuinely affordable Council homes in the five year period ended 31 March 2024.

 

If you’re a regular reader, you will have seen at least some of my previous guest posts about Brent’s Wembley Housing Zone proposals. These include building 250 homes on the Council-owned brownfield site of the former Copland School building at Cecil Avenue. If they had got on and built them as soon as they had full planning permission in February 2021, that could have contributed a quarter of the 1,000 homes target. But as a result of a Cabinet decision in August 2021, 152 of those new homes are to be built for private sale at a profit by a “Developer Partner”. 

 

Title page to the Report which Cabinet approved on 16 August 2021.

 

For much of 2022, I tried to get this (what appeared to be an odd) decision properly scrutinised, but that was finally scuppered by the Chair of the Resources & Public Realm Scrutiny Committee (acting on whose instructions?) in September. Now there appears to be an attempt by those in power at Brent Council to stop any scrutiny of the actual award of the contract for the Wembley Housing Zone scheme.

 

This will be a very big contract, likely to be worth in excess of £100m. Brent advertised in April for expressions of interest from contractors for this, and they had to respond by the end of May. In November, Cabinet were informed that progress had been made, but the details were hidden away in an “exempt” appendix to the Report.

 

Extract from the November 2022 “Update on the Supply of New Affordable Homes” Report.

 

Then, in the past few days, an item appeared on the Forward Plan page, saying that the decision to award the contract, to be Brent’s Developer Partner for the Wembley Housing Zone scheme, would be made this month, under ‘urgency procedures’!

 

The Forward Plan entry from Brent Council’s website.

 

As Brent has been working towards this decision since August 2021 (in fact, long before that) and the contract procurement process has been going on for over six months, why was it urgent and what are those procedures? There are some clues from the document, dated 12 December, that was provided in a “link” from that Forward Plan, which I will ask Martin to attach a copy of at the end of this post, for general information.

 

It appears that there are various degrees of urgency. Normally, at least 28 clear days’ notice of a Key Decision has to be given. In this case, although it would be less than 28 days, it was planned to be ‘at least 5 clear days’ notice.’ The decision would be made on 19 December.

 

Extract from the Urgent Key Decision form.

 

If it had been less than five days, the Chair of a Scrutiny Committee would have ‘to agree that the decision is urgent and cannot be reasonably deferred for the reasons detailed ….’  But as it was ‘at least 5 clear days’, ‘the Scrutiny Chair is only required to note that the decision will be taken.’ In other words, there would be no scrutiny of whether or not the decision was actually urgent.

 

According to the Urgent Decision form, 28 days’ notice could not be provided because: ‘Conclusion of the contractor developer partner procurement was delayed.’ But Council Officers have been working on that procurement for months, and would have known that a decision on it would be required at some time in the near future, so notice could surely have been given earlier.

 

And the reason why it is ‘impractical to defer the decision to a later date’ is said to be ‘to meet delivery timescales and funding conditions.’ With the delays which have already occurred since Brent first entered into its Wembley Housing Zone agreement with the GLA in 2015, delivery timescales don’t seem to have been much of a priority before. As for funding conditions, the Council must have been aware of these ever since funding agreements were made (at least 15 months ago for the extra £5.5m the GLA agreed to offer).

 

As at 6.30pm on Wednesday 21 December the formal decision has not been published on the Decisions page of Brent Council’s website. Perhaps it will be published on 22 or 23 December. But why would Senior Council Officers (and the Cabinet member responsible for this project, who is the Lead Member for Regeneration, despite this being mainly a housing development) delay making the decision, and giving the intention to make it so little publicity, until just before the Christmas / New Year holiday period?

 

Why Call-in matters, from Brent’s Protocol on Call-in.

 

I’ve said before that those behind this controversial Wembley Housing Zone project want to avoid any scrutiny of it. The award of the contract is a Key Decision, so could be called-in for scrutiny. I may be wrong, but I suspect that the decision is being made now to minimise any chance of a call-in. For call-in to take effect, at least five backbench councillors (non-Cabinet members) need to request that a Key Decision is called-in, and they need to do so ‘within 5 days of the date on which the record of the decision is made publicly available.’ 

 

How many councillors, if they were not aware that this important Key Decision was about to be made (because the usual 28 days’ notice has not been given) would be looking at the Decisions page on the Brent Council website over the holiday period? And even if any of them were keeping an eye on it, what would be the chances of organising five members to complete and submit call-in request forms before the end of the fifth day?

 

That’s the main reason I’ve asked Martin to consider publishing this guest post – so that this Festive Season is not used as a cover to sneak through a Key Decision without anyone realising that has been done until it is too late!

 

Philip Grant 

 

New Homes at 1 Morland Gardens – but not the ones Brent promised! Has Brent Council shot itself in the foot?

Guest post by Philip Grant in a personal capacity

 

In January 2020, Brent’s Cabinet approved proposals for a new adult education college, and 65 affordable homes, on the site of the existing Brent Start building at 1 Morland Gardens in Stonebridge. They delegated authority to make all the Key Decisions for this project to the then Strategic Director for Regeneration (in consultation with a Lead Member). His report told them that work on the new building should be completed by the summer of 2022:-

 

Morland Gardens “Delivery Timetable” from the report to Cabinet, January 2020.

 

In fact, the scheme had already been informally approved by the Leader, and then Deputy Leader and Lead Members for Education and Housing, at a meeting with the project team in February 2019. Then they were told that 89 new homes could be built on the site. That number was later reduced to 65, as even Brent’s planners would not agree that the impact on neighbouring residents (loss of light, etc.) of the 89-home design would be ‘acceptable’.

 

The proposal had started off in 2018 as an updated college and some new housing. The original design by the architects would have retained the locally-listed Victorian villa, and developed the site in phases, so that there was no need for Brent Start to by decanted. There was a viable alternative to the scheme which the Cabinet approved. However, it seems that the Council were determined to build as many new homes as they could on the college site, even though it meant demolishing a valuable heritage asset their own policies promised to protect, and that was the first of many mistakes they have made on this project.

 

Architect’s image of the proposed new building (viewed from across Brentfield Road).

 

In August 2020, the Council controversially obtained planning consent for the development, despite strong local opposition. It was soon celebrating its “award winning” Morland Gardens scheme, and the 65 new homes it would deliver. Two years later, there are new residents at 1 Morland Gardens, but in the original building, not the new one pictured above. 

 

The Brent Start college was moved out earlier this year to a “temporary home” in the former Stonebridge School Annexe. (The adaptations to the annexe cost at least £1.2m, and the building will be demolished once the college leaves, as it is on the site of Brent’s Twybridge Way 67-home housing scheme, which was given planning consent in May 2020, and should be nearing completion now!) That left 1 Morland Gardens vacant.

 

What do you do with a large empty building, when the catalogue of mistakes you’ve made means that you are still not ready to go ahead with its redevelopment? In May 2022, Brent contacted Live-in Guardians, and by early July this organisation was housing mainly young single people in the former college building.

 

An Instagram advert for Live-in Guardians at 1 Morland Gardens, July 2022.

 

I was first aware of Live-in Guardians (“LIG”) there when I attended a site meeting with Brent’s Project Manager on 26 July, to discuss my objections to the proposed Stopping-up Order for the highway outside the property. There was a sign on the gateway to say that they were providing live-in protection for the building, and a resident would not let us enter because the Officer had not arranged access in advance. 

 

I’m interested in all aspects of the Morland Gardens project, so I put in an FoI request for a copy of the Council’s agreement with LIG. This has been supplied to me, and as live-in guardianship is an idea which may be of wider interest, to single people (or couples) in need of an affordable short-term home as well as to property owners, I will include some information and extracts from it below.

 

The opening paragraphs from Brent’s agreement with LIG.

 

These “new homes” would not be for people on Brent’s housing waiting list, so who were they for? The agreement says that up to 26 “Guardians” would be provided with accommodation at 1 Morland Gardens, and gives details of the type of person and how LIG selects them.

 

It sounds from this extract that the Guardians living here will be people who do need relatively inexpensive accommodation, at a stage where they are not in a position to rent or buy somewhere more permanent. But how long can they stay in the building?

 

The paperwork makes it clear that the Guardians only have a licence to occupy the premises, subject to the right to 4 weeks’ notice to leave after the 26-week contract period. Their legal status is explained to them on the LIG website.

 

From the LIG website.

 

1 Morland Gardens has been used as a college since 1994, when it was sympathetically designed around the restored Victorian villa. Turning it into living accommodation would require some alterations, but as part of the agreement LIG paid the initial fit-out costs, for things such as installing a kitchen, 4 extra showers, and carrying out all of the necessary safety checks. The cost of this work was estimated at up to £17k.

 

It appears that Brent is getting a good deal out of allowing Guardians to live at 1 Morland Gardens. The Council would not have to pay a security company to look after the vacant property. The only expenses they would incur during the contract period would be the Council Tax or Business Rates, and any repairs or maintenance which the agreement made them responsible for. And, at any time after the 26 weeks, they could get vacant possession of the building and land within its garden walls by giving only four weeks’ notice.

 

I have to say that I approve of Brent’s decision to allow 1 Morland Gardens to be used for providing temporary accommodation, rather than remaining empty after they had moved the Brent Start college out of the building. The presence of Live-in Guardians will hopefully prevent the beautiful heritage building from being vandalised (and among the potential vandals, I include Brent Council and the contractors it has recently hired, perhaps unlawfully, to demolish it!)

 

1 Morland Gardens, the former Brent Start college, June 2022.

 

Another reason why I like Brent’s agreement with LIG (although, on refection the Council may regret it) is that the 26-week period will last until at least the end of December 2022. At a Scrutiny Committee meeting on 9 June, Brent’s Strategic Director for Regeneration justified the urgent award of a c.£38m contract for the Morland Gardens development on the grounds that if work did not begin on site by August ‘the Council stood to lose the £6.5m GLA grant towards affordable housing.’

 

The site is in two parts. They can’t build on the land outside, because there are open appeals against the proposed Stopping-up Order. Now they can’t begin any work inside the boundary, because that is legally occupied by Live-in Guardians. Brent can’t “start on site”, within the terms of their GLA grant agreement, this month (or this year), because they have no site to start on! 

 

Philip Grant.

1 Morland Gardens – Brent’s new contract is lawful, says Council.

 Guest post by Philip Grant in a personal capacity

“Altamira” and the community garden - a rare traffic free moment at Hillside, July 2022.

 

Last month, Martin published a guest post I had written asking whether or not the new contract Brent proposed to award - for the demolition of the heritage Victorian villa, “Altamira”, at 1 Morland Gardens, and construction of a new college facility and flats – was unlawful.

 

On 18 July I wrote to Brent’s Legal Director, questioning whether the proposed contract complied with the Public Contracts Regulations, 2015 (“PCR 2015”). I also questioned whether the requirement in Brent’s own Contract Standing Orders (“CSOs”), that Cabinet had ‘received and considered a report setting out all the relevant information’, before they authorised the Strategic Director to make the award, had been followed.

 

I received the Legal Director’s response on 1 August. As I believe in openness and transparency in my dealings with the Council on important issues, especially where other residents have shown an interest in the matter (and thank you all for that interest), this is what she wrote:

 

‘I have now had an opportunity of liaising with Officers and will seek to address the issues you raise in your email.

 

I would confirm that reference in my previous email to Regulation 33(8) of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 (PCR 2015) was indeed to Regulation 33(8)(a) and that when inviting a single contractor to bid from the Network Homes Contractor Framework (Framework), the Council complied with its obligations under Part 2 of the PCR 2015 in accordance with Regulation 37(6)(c).

 

I note you indicate: 

 

None of this was actually made clear in the Officer Key Decision Report, which the record of the Key Decision confirmed it had relied on (‘the report sets out the reasons for the decision.’).

 

Whilst the Officer Key Decision report does not expressly refer to the particular Regulations referred to above, paragraph 3.5 of the report does indicate:

 

In accordance with the Framework’s rules for a direct award process, the council identified Hill Partnership Ltd as the framework bidder that demonstrated best value for this opportunity.

 

Paragraph 5.2 of the report confirms that participation in the Framework is legally permissible, which involved a review of the Framework to confirm that it complied with the requirements for frameworks set out in the PCR 2015.  Further, paragraph 5.4 confirms that the Council followed the rules for tendering.

 

In the circumstances, it is considered that the report contained sufficient information for the Strategic Director of Regeneration & Environment to make an informed decision on the award of the contract.

 

With regard to the process operated in selecting a contractor to bid, Officers followed the direct award procedure set out in Schedule 1 of the Framework, comparing all contractors on Lot 3 and concluding that Hill Partnerships Ltd. best met the criteria set out in Schedule 1.  All contractor’s qualitative responses to the framework tender were reviewed and all met the council’s requirements. However, the other contractors on the framework did not have the resources available to meet the timescales the council required in order to meet the GLA grant funding requirement to be in contract and the project beginning in August 2022 and did not have the same level of knowledge and experience of, or relationship to the project site.

 

As it is considered that the direct award procedure set out in Schedule 1 of the Framework was used appropriately, it is not accepted that the award has been made with the intention of unduly favouring one economic operator.

 

You state you believe that there is a strong case for saying that the approval given by Cabinet on 20 June does not meet the requirements of Contract Standing Order 88(c). The Standing Order requires that Cabinet should receive and consider a report setting out all relevant information necessary to enable it to give such approval(s) as it considers necessary. I have responded to the points raised in the attachment to your email below.

 

You are concerned that Members of the Cabinet had from 4.30pm on Thursday 16 June and 10am on Monday 20 June when the Cabinet meeting began to consider the report on this particular issue.  None of the members of Cabinet expressed any concern as to the time they had had to consider the matter or raised any questions which indicated they had not understood its content.  There is no reason to think they would not have raised queries if they had had any. I have no reason to doubt that they diligently considered the content of the report prior to the meeting at which the decision was taken and were not reliant on comments by the Leader in order to understand what they were being asked to agree.  It was perfectly in order for the Leader to present the report. 

 

You are correct that there is an inconsistency between the legal implications section of the report and the recommendations in terms of the Cabinet member with whom consultation would take place.  However, the content of the recommendation itself clearly takes precedence and is what Cabinet members agreed to in making their decision. I have no doubt cabinet members were perfectly clear as to the cabinet member with whom they were agreeing the Strategic Director would consult.

 

The Protocol to which the Scrutiny Committee is required to have regard required it to come to one of the following conclusions:

 

§  That the matter should be referred back to the decision maker for reconsideration with reasons for its request and what the committee wants the decision maker to do.

 

§    That it does not object to the decision and the decision can be implemented. 

 

In this case, the committee determined that it did not object to the decision and the decision could therefore be implemented. 

 

The essence of the call in was a concern about the timing of the award of the contract and as to any inclusion of pre-construction demolition of building in stage 1 of the contract.  On the basis of discussion at the meeting, the committee decided it did not object to the award at this time of a contract for the Morland Gardens development.  The issue of which framework would be used for that award was not a part of the call in nor of the decision made by the committee. 

 

I do not consider there is any reason for supposing member of the Cabinet were confused as to the decision that the Scrutiny Committee had considered at its meeting.  It is perfectly clear in the report that Cabinet is being asked to agree a new process for awarding the contract as soon as possible.

 

You are concerned that the previous mini competition was too long ago to provide a reasonable price comparison and that the price may have significantly increased.  This is not the case.  With a direct award under the Network framework, the contractor is required to submit a project specific price, with overhead and profit figures not exceeding those they tendered for the framework.  The price that Hill Partnerships Ltd submitted complies with these requirements and was a similar price to that submitted during the November 2021 tender.

 

Paragraph 5.2 of the report refers to Standing Orders and summarises the relevant content of Standing Order 86 in respect of Frameworks.  I do not consider not including the number of the Standing Order has any implications for the report or the decision made in relation to it. 

 

Having considered the various points you have raised I do not consider there is any reason why the award should not now proceed.’

 

Cabinet authorising the award of a new contract on 20 June, in 59 seconds. (From Brent’s webcast)

 

The Legal Director has stated, about the Cabinet decision, ‘I have no reason to doubt that they diligently considered the content of the report prior to the meeting at which the decision was taken.’ My reply was: ‘I have to admit to some scepticism over your response in connection with the Cabinet's consideration of the Report on the Authority to Award, both before and at the meeting on 20 June.’ I’m sure there will be others who share my scepticism!

 

I am also sceptical about the claim that Council Officers considered all of the contractors under Lot 3 of the Network Homes Contractor Framework (“NHCF”), before deciding that Hill Partnerships Ltd was the one who best met the criteria for the direct award of the contract. The bid they made in response to the invitation under the NHCF just happened to be the same* as the one they’d made under a different framework, which Brent would have accepted if they had not run out of time to do so!

 

If Council Officers did do all that consideration and review of the other contractors, there should be documentary evidence, so I have requested that “audit trail” under Freedom of Information. 

 

“Altamira” from the community garden – the corner of Brent’s proposed new 9-storey building would be where the Sundisc sculpture (a Harlesden City Challenge public artwork) now stands.

 

My FoI request will not stop the award of the contract, which may have been done already. The Legal Director’s reply refers to ‘the project beginning in August 2022’, but can it really begin straight away, especially “on site”? 

 

The former Brent Start college building, including the Victorian villa, is now being used as a home by “Live-in Guardians” (I’ve told Brent’s Capital Projects team that I am quite happy with that, as it should protect the heritage asset from vandals!). And the land in front of 1 Morland Gardens, which Brent’s plans need, so that they can build out over it, is still the subject of objections to the Council’s proposed Stopping-up Order. It is likely to be Spring 2023, at the earliest, before those objections are resolved, hopefully by an independent Inspector, and the decision could go against the Council.

 

Philip Grant.

 

* Hill Partnerships Ltd November 2022 tender bid was £37,933,491. Their July 2023 bid is £37,933,561. Perhaps the extra £70 is an “admin. fee” for re-submitting the same paperwork?