Brent faces up to the urgency of the Climate Emergency

 

 

After the extreme heat and drought of the summer in England and extreme weather including overheating, and floods elsewhere with many lives lost it was appropriate that last night's Full Council had a dual focus on the Climate Emergency.

ACE Brent made a presentation on the need for the Council to involve councillors and residents in the challenge society now faces with an even hotter summer forecast next year and floods predicted this Autumn and Winter. They called for greater accountability through a Climate Emergency Scrutiny Committee and the restoration of  the Climate Champion role carried out by Cllr Mary Mitchell when she was a Labour councillor.

It was Cllr Mitchell who moved the Green Group's motion on  'Addressing Urban Heat and Climate Inequality in Brent'. An attempt to dilute the motion by the Conservatives was defeated, the Greens accepted a Liberal Democrat amendment and the resulting amended motion was supported by Labour.

The full presentation and debate can be viewed in the video above.

After the meeting Elaine Sheppard of ACE said:  

ACE Brent representatives are pleased that the climate emergency finally got more of a hearing in the council chamber last night, with our deputation with our deputation challenging 2 years absence of discussion in the Brent council chamber, and overall lack of accountability despite increasing climate breakdown, and the Green Party motion on urban heat and climate inequality.

 Cllr Mitchell said:

We did it! The first Green Party motion in Brent was carried yesterday, marking a significant step in the Council’s recognition of the climate crisis and the actions we must take to protect residents from extreme heat.

We were delighted to receive support from all parties in the chamber, and thank Brent Green Party members for their support, participation and belief that elected Greens make a difference, no matter how large the group! We also thank the Brent Liberal Democrat group for their amendments that strengthened the motion even further.

No resident in Brent should be put at risk because of where they live, how much access they have to green space or shade, or whether or not they can afford air conditioning.

We must act now.

LETTER: Not enough Climate and Bio-diversity Action in Brent? Join us.

 

Dear Editor,

ACE Brent is a coalition of 13 groups who want to see more climate action in Brent. We started working together in November 2023. Can your readers support us or be involved?

 

So far we have :

 

- Agreed a set of our own priorities for climate action in Brent (on Transport/active travel, Insulation and retrofitting, Divestment, Planning and Regeneration, Renewable energy, Food/Plant based consumption, Trees/green space). We have an overarching priority of mechanisms for public participation in and scrutiny of climate action (most neighbouring councils have these). We have received responses to our priorities, and accept the arguments about lack of funds, but believe more ambition, creativity and transparency is needed when other councils are doing better. https://councilclimatescorecards.uk/#jump=london-borough-of-brent

 

We are currently working on actions we want to see in the party manifesto's for the May 2026 Council Elections:

 

- Increased discussion about climate action across the council; through delegations to Full Council and the Public Realm Scrutiny Committee, and by writing to all councillors with comments on key climate reports. One result is the current work of a Kerbside Management Task Group which is looking at actions for more climate and people friendly streets.

 

- Pushed for Monitoring the effectiveness of local climate measures, and benchmarking with relation to other London councils; resulting in a new monitoring dashboard (not yet publicised or available for public scrutiny)

 

- Influenced (maybe) the appointment of new climate roles : Cabinet member for Climate Action and Community Power (Cllr Jake Rubin), and Climate Champion (Cllr Mary Mitchell)

 

- Met regularly with Cllr Jake Rubin and Oliver Myers, Head of Environment Strategy and Climate Action. We have pushed for mechanisms for public participation, more frequent climate reporting to the Scrutiny Committee, and better information on the council website. 

 

We were able to input to the Tree Strategy before it was written, and have had discussions about planning, active travel, food issues, use of NCIL and Strategic CIL etc.

 

The meetings are useful but not a substitute for full public participation. We now have agreement that the council will publicise future meetings with ACE Brent.

 

The next meeting is on Planning and the Climate, Nov 3rd, online at 7pm, and will be attended by the senior council members and officers.

 

We are aware that many Brent groups with environmental concerns are not yet aware of ACE Brent. We welcome all groups to get involved who want Brent Council to be doing more on the climate and bio-diversity. You do not need to agree with all of our suggestions so far. You can see work in progress at the moment here https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-G0zJmmH8th96TrUf5dCQiSDwnqlyfRfBxEsAfHYFCk/edit?tab=t.0

 

Join in for news, to take part in working groups and participate in meetings with council. 

 

You are welcome to :

 

1) Join us as a member group. The bigger our coalition the stronger our voice will be (see our current members below)

 

2) Join our mailing list as a group or individual. You will be updated on our activities, meetings - approx 6-weekly - meetings with the council and other key news (mailings max weekly, except when urgent matters)

 

3) Sign up for quarterly updates only

 

 

We look forward to hearing from you. And please let Elaine know Ace@brentfoe.com if you want the Microsoft Teams link for Nov 3rd at 7pm.

 

 

Best wishes,

 

Elaine Sheppard

on behalf of Action for the Climate Emergency Brent

 

Guest post: Concerns about contaminated land plans and airborne carcinogens in a densely populated area

 

This guest post by a local resident draws readers' attention to an issue of concern happening just over Brent's border.

 

PROJECT FLOURISH is a proposed housing development by Ballymore/Sainsburys in partnership with the Berkeley Group. But the small parcel of highly contaminated ex-industrial land at Kensal's old Gasworks site, at the northern top of Ladbroke Grove London W10, presents multiple serious health concerns. After a badly handled Southall gasworks site which was approximately 88 acres, the Kensal site is a tiny 12 acres, therefore the area of land contaminated, waste-pits and underground waste-tanks, is likely to be far more highly concentrated within this small space.
 

Airborne toxins, at this scale, are believed to continue to have a detrimental impact up to 7km away, depending on wind speeds/directions. So draw a circle, starting at Hendon, northwards, then clockwise to Highgate, Islington, Hoxton, Liverpool Street, Lambeth, Brixton Wandsworth, North Sheen, Kew, Ealing, Wembley, Kingsbury, then back to Hendon, don't forget to include everything within that circle.

PLEASE USE THE TEMPLATE below to write to your MP. Please inform your friends in other parts of London.

 

Ballymore were investigated by the Financial Times in 2021 for a disreputable history of shoddy workmanship, with many expensive repairs needed, post-construction and occupation, paid for by the new lease-holding residents, who then could not sell-on their properties. Further, Conservative MP and (then) Levelling-up Minister, named and shamed Ballymore as one of the building firms who refused to sign the “safe building register,” post-Grenfell. 

 

THE PRIMA FACIE EVIDENCE POINTS TO THE CONCLUSION THAT THIS PARTICULAR GASWORKS SITE MAY BE THE MOST CONTAMINATED OF ALL OF THE UK's OLD GASWORKS SITES – due to its industrial urban location, the area that it covered and its tiny size. 

 

At least 16 toxins are found in old gasworks sites.

 

Sainsburys, Ballymore's other partner, intend to keep either the current or their new, planned bigger store, open throughout the soil remediation and construction processes. 
 
The Sainsbury store at the top of Ladbroke Grove is built, along with it's extensive car-park, on what is likely to be the most heavily contaminated portion of the site (currently capped

 

The new development planned is for housing density, with multiple mega-towers (29 storeys, 98 metres from the ground). 2,500 new homes, no social housing.

 

LAWS CONTRAVENED OR BREACHED:

Environmental Protection Act 1990

The Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea's own “Climate Emergency Action Plan” -Written as a policy for protecting certain areas from over-population.

Sustainable Markets Initiative, as Prince of Wales (now King Charles) launched TERRA CARTA in 2021 – a mandate that puts sustainability at the heart of the public sector. “The TERRA CARTA offers the basis of a recovery plan that puts nature, people and planet  first,

Whole Life-Cycle Carbon (WLC) Planning Regulations (Greater London Authority) as set out in London Plan Policy S1

Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Protection Act 1990. Part 2A Contaminated Land – Statutory Guidance.

The current plans to remediate the toxic soils of the Kensal Gasworks site is full of very serious health hazards. Dirty work, done cheaply, in a densely populated area, with an ancient Cemetery and listed Nature Reserve nearby.

 

The official planning process only considers objections from that borough's own residents, before granting planning permission. Located about as far north of Kensington & Chelsea Borough as possible, near the boundary, in a place where many boroughs meet, the toxic winds will not stop at Borough nor Constituency borders. This plan will impact severely and, here and there, to the cost of their health and well-being, on residents from all of the nearby boroughs. Considering that a north wind is relatively rare, the most-part of the Royal Borough, to the south, will be minimally impacted, it may well impact MORE on those living, to the north, west and east (driven by prevailing winds), in Brent or  Middlesex, and to the west, Hammersmith & Fulham (the Park) and Ealing.

After the Grenfell Tower disaster, after the following Inquiry, and after many promises from the Royal Borough, they should know, and do, much better than this.

 

Please check these 2 websites, with informative videos: keepkensalgreen.com johnclarkson@futureofenergycollege.com  

PLEASE USE THE TEMPLATE below to write to your MP adding information as above or from the websites.

 

Dear  MP

 

I would like to draw your attention to plans involving an inevitable cocktail of dangerous airborne volatile toxins, contravening laws, aims and promises, in a densely populated area. 1 km from London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham's listed Nature Reserve,  (Wormwood Scrubs Park) and spreading across London.

 

Project Flourish is planned by Ballymore/Sainsburys to excavate and remove by lorry, the heavily poisoned soils, underground chemical waste-tanks and spoil-pits from the dirty ex-industrial Kensal Gasworks site at the northern end of Ladbroke Grove. The worst of it is believed to be currently capped-off underneath Sainsburys car-park. 

 

With a Shang-Hei style housing density on the 12 acre site, the plans contain multiple serious health and safety concerns. Firstly, that Dublin-based building company, Ballymore, were investigated by the Financial Times in February 2021 for a record of shoddy workmanship.

 

The Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea have supported and promoted the plans throughout, including gifting the developers some parcels of land and some of our roads (Canal Close and Canal Way). A valuable local community resource will disappear when the building used by many genuine community-based charities, gets demolished.

Sincerely.......

Green Party: Expanding Heathrow in the face of a climate emergency is the definition of irresponsible.

 

Responding to the news that Rachel Reeves is backing the expansion of Heathrow Airport, Green Party MP, Sian Berry MP said:

 

The Chancellor talked about the ‘costs of irresponsibility’ but expanding Heathrow in the face of a climate emergency is the definition of irresponsible.

 

Worst still, we’re also expecting formal planning decisions from ministers on Gatwick and Luton airport expansion, which the Chancellor pre-empted today. Giving these permissions in the month before vital new advice is expected from the Climate Change Committee, today’s speech is nothing short of reckless.
 

The carbon cost of expanding Heathrow, Luton, and Gatwick together will cancel out the benefits of Labour’s keystone clean energy plan, making Net Zero minister Ed Miliband’s task almost impossible.
 

The Chancellor’s stated goal is ‘raising living standards in every part of the UK’ but more and bigger airports will serve only the very richest aviation bosses and the most frequent flyers whose wealth doesn’t help people’s daily lives get better.
 

Tackling inequality and building a greener future should go hand in hand. That must mean investment in warmer homes, green energy and the local transport people use every day, not these bleak proposals.

Friends of the Earth - Tell Rachel Reeves: don’t put plane profits before planet. Sign our petition.

 

From Friends of the Earth

BREAKING: Chancellor Rachel Reeves has given the green light to airport expansion while we're in a climate emergency. 

Expanding airports like Heathrow won’t do much, if anything, for the communities that need growth the most. Instead, benefits will be enjoyed by shareholders and the wealthiest few who fly frequently.  

Airport expansions mean more subsidies for a heavily polluting industry - when we desperately need to be doing all we can to reduce emissions. Greenlighting a third runway at Heathrow alone could jeopardise the UK’s ability to meet our climate promises and put us all at risk of more extreme weather. 

Add your name now to this petition to demand no more airport expansion while we’re in a climate emergency. LINK

Rachel Reeves' statement that growth trumps everything is the short-sighted kind of thinking that has led to the climate crisis. And the growth that would come from expanding airports like Heathrow is questionable.

• Airport expansion doesn’t make flying cheaper. According to the Treasury’s own analysis, the costs of expanding Heathrow airport could add £40 to the cost of an airline ticket.
• More money leaves the UK from outbound flights than is spent by incoming tourists. Tourism spending is concentrated in London and a few hotspots, with little benefit elsewhere.
• Emissions from flights are growing while the aviation industry receives at least £10 billion in subsidies annually, due to tax breaks on fuel. This costs taxpayers and allows the sector to pollute without meeting climate targets. And the burden of climate action is shifted onto other sectors.
• Analysis by the New Economics Foundation shows that if expansions at 4 UK airports including Heathrow are allowed to go ahead, they will cancel out the carbon savings of this government’s clean power plan in just 5 years.

 

Rather than planning to trample over nature protection rules and binding carbon reduction targets, the government should be investing in a bold and fair climate plan. A plan that means we can all benefit from cheap energy, widespread public transport, thriving nature and well-paid green jobs.

 

If you go down to Roundwood today, you're sure of a big surprise...

 Aerial view of the southern edge of Roundwood Park (Bowling Green in centre)

I certainly got a big surprise when I visited the Gardening Club and other activity areas on the edge of Roundwood Park on Thursday at the invitation of Katie Mills of social enterprise Forest and Family. Full of passion and energy Katie has a vision for this space that already includes an independent gardening club, a Nature Connection Centre where events, talks and half-term activities are held and a Forest School area in a woodland glade. Working with children and their families from diverse backgrounds they reconnect with nature in an era of keyboards and screens.

 

The Gardening Club, made up of volunteers, even have their own resident poet in the person of Susan Carberry and I arrived just in time for a tea break and Susan's reading of one of her poems from her booklet Eternal Ephemera. (On sale in the Roundwood Cafe to raise funds for the Gardening Club)

 Susan told me of the benefits of the Gardening Club. It combines physical hard work, poetry, and socialising and in the process opens up new horizons for participants. People with little previous exposure to poetry become interested in Susan's poetry and that of other poets that she shares with the group, leading to a developing interest in literature.  Susan said that being: 'It fires me up to write!'

The hard work was visible in the garden area with its recently planted orchard, herb and strawberry raised bed and other beds being prepared for planting.

A toddler investigates the orchard

Raised beds

Weeding the herb and strawberry bed

Getting out the compost for use in the potting shed

Seedlings were being hardened off outside

Also in the Cafe compound is the Nature Connection Centre that can be used for events, work with children and all sorts of other possibilities.

A woodland garden is being developed behind the cafe. 

Beyond the Cafe area, walking towards Longstone Avenue, a tall fence and shrubbery conceals a bowling green and pavilion. Like that at Edward VII Park in Wembley it has fallen into disuse. The green has recently been mown and I understand that the pavilion, although currently full of rubbish, has a kitchen, centre space, toilets and changing rooms attached. It clearly has great potential, and it is a pity to see, in a borough lacking in green space, that it is unused.

But there is hope. Brent Council intend to lease it out and a consortium consisting of Forest and Family, the Scouts and others are interested in making an application.

The Bowling Green

The Pavilion

Walking on from the bowling green you come upon an asphalt path which used to be a vehicle entrance to the bowling green and next to it the children's playground currently being refurbished with the rather garish equipment common to most Brent Parks.

However,there is another surprise at the end of the asphalt path. The rustic entrance to semi-woodland that is used as the Forest School with visits from local primary pupils, enabling them to get in touch with nature and immerse themselves in activities. Katie Mills has brought the previously abused area back into positive use and given the right arrangements with Brent Council it could have a fully sustainable future and contribute to the Council's Climate Emergency Strategy and engagement with young people.

What child would not be thrilled to enter through this gate?

Another of Katie's projects, which has become a national outdoor campaign but runs locally with the cooperation of Brent Libraries, is Stories by Moonlight. Participants get an outdoor story book sack of activities to do at home with parents and carers on summer evenings, but even better, a network of participants has been formed. Children can come in their pyjamas to a park or green space and take part in storytelling and read books surrounded by fairly lights or lanterns in a magical space as day becomes dusk and night.

Looking again at the aerial view,  you can see that taken together the area around the cafe with its edible woodland gardens and meeting space, could be linked with environmental projects on the disused bowling green, and linked on again to the Forest School woodland area. This would be a tremendous facility that could serve as a model for other Brent spaces as well as further afield.

It just needs people to match Katie's passion and vitality and get behind the vision to the benefit of all.

I'll leave the last word to Katie: 

This is a big vision project about how Nature connects us to better health, wellbeing, and each other. I wanted to show how parks can become dynamic and innovative centres for Nature connection, outdoor wellbeing, green prescribing, and community cohesion in Brent. 

 

With support from NCIL funding we're achieved that; we're impacted so many people through the project and create an ambitious template with huge potential to be scaled. We're shown a huge appetite alongst local residents, schools and families for what we're doing. 

 

This work is urgent and vital, especially in Brent, and it needs a joined up, strategic and multi-partner approach. The council's buy-in to this vision is critical and if we can get the right level of support and momentum the benefits for all are huge.

 

LINKS

 

https://www.katiemills.co.uk/business/stories-by-moonlight/

 

 

https://www.katiemills.co.uk/business/forestandfamily/

 

 

 

Divest Brent calls on the Pension Sub-Committee to seize the opportunity and play its part in divesting from fossil fuels to ensure a planet habitable by humans

 

The Divest Brent delegation arrives at Brent Civic Centre

A delegation from campaign group Divest Brent made a presentation to the Brent Pension Fund Sub-Committee tonight to urge them to speed up the fund's divestment from fossil fuel copanies in the face of the climate emergency.

 

Glenis Scadding presented on behalf of the delegation and said:

 

Climate breakdown is gathering at shocking, unanticipated speed, with disasters occurring at 1.2 degrees of heating that scientists did not expect until we hit 2 or 3 degrees. If we are to save the planet from increasingly intense heatwaves, wildfires, droughts – and indeed keep it habitable by humans – we have to tackle the problem of fossil fuels NOW. 89% of CO2 emissions come from industry and from burning fossil fuels. You, the Pension Fund Sub-committee have a significant opportunity to play your part.

 

The International Energy Agency has warned that no new oil and gas exploration should take place, if we are to limit global heating to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. Yet there are currently around 200 fossil fuel development projects, each expected to eventually emit over a billion tons of CO2. This alone would use up the entire global carbon budget and trigger runaway climate change – and ultimately, in all probability, the extinction of the entire human race.

 

 

The current high cost of fossil fuels means that projects to develop more of them, such as Jackdaw and fracking, are being given the go – ahead by Government. This is misguided short – termism since the time courses involved are too long to rescue us from our current energy plight. Much better to invest in new renewables, even Dr Chris Cornelius, the geologist who founded Cuadrilla in 2007, said recently that ministers would do better to look at geothermal energy and tidal power.

 

 

The only way to avoid the worst scenario is to reduce our fossil fuel consumption as soon as possible – and by divesting its Pension Fund from fossil fuel companies Brent Council would be doing its bit to send a signal that promotes investment into new renewable energy projects, not fossil fuels.

 

 

The primary purpose of the Pension Fund is to maximise investment returns to provide pensions to retired Council staff. Fortunately, just as the cost of renewable energy is now significantly lower than fossil fuels, so the outlook for renewable investments is much better than fossil fuels. The investment value of the fossil fuel companies are set to crash as petrol vehicles give way to electric ones (with the UK phasing out sales of new petrol vehicles by 2030) and hard economics persuades utility companies to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy. Greenwashing by companies such as BP and Shell should not persuade you otherwise. Sub-committee members will not want to emulate their colleagues in local authority pension funds which lost up to £683 million in 2015 through failed investments in coal companies.

 

By divesting from fossil fuels Brent would be treading a well-worn path – 7 London boroughs have already committed to divest. The Islington Pension Fund chair has offered to talk to Sub-committee members and could answer queries.

 

We warmly welcome Brent Council’s Net zero roadmap but the measure used to identify the carbon intensity of an investee company or fund suffers from a major shortcoming: failure to consider scope 3 emissions. Fossil fuel companies are scored based on the carbon emissions of their offices, travel and power used in fuel extraction, but not on the emissions generated by burning them.

 

We do not underestimate the effort involved in Pension Fund divestment. Fossil fuel investments form part of an investment portfolio. In order to divest particular stocks and shares, the Fund will need to sell the entire holding in the investment fund in which they are held.  This is where Brent could benefit from the experience of those Boroughs that have already made the commitment to divest.

 

 

Brent Labour Party is already committed to divest – its 2022 manifesto promised to “redouble our efforts [to reach carbon neutrality] and call upon our partners to divest our Pension Fund of organisations that extract fossil fuels” All that is needed now is action.

 

 

Cllr Robert Johnson, chair of the committee, urged the delegation to hear the item updating the Council's  Net Zero Roadmap. The item is embedded below:

LETTER: ‘The pollution of the Wealdstone Brook with untreated human sewage is a clear and present danger.’

 Dear Editor,

‘A clear and present danger’ said President Biden recently with regards to the Climate Emergency,.

 

A clear and present danger says the various Brent Council documents and press releases with regards to the Climate Emergency.

 

So why is the presence of untreated human sewage in the Wealdstone Brook as it runs through Brent on its way to the River Brent and then onto the River Thames not declared Code Red for the local residents? Why was a ‘Major Incident’ not declared by Brent Council using its Formal Executive Powers?

 

The presence of untreated human sewage along with unknown toxic gases vaporising at low temperatures from the water surface would surely be regarded as a ‘clear and present danger’ to all but the ignorant.

 

As a retired Brent Secondary School teacher I will have a worksheet available for every Brent Councillor at the next full Brent Council meeting (absentees will be set it as homework).

 

Write out 100 times;

 

‘The pollution of the Wealdstone Brook with untreated human sewage is a clear and present danger.’

 

John Poole