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.

Cllr Krupa Sheth promises a response from Brent Planning regarding the GLA investigation into housing typologies, focussing on housing density and the development of tall buildings for residential use in London

 

Planned and in progress tall buildings in Alperton with number of storeys (Alperton station and school bottom right)

 The Committee does not believe that tall buildings are the answer to London’s housing needs and should not be encouraged outside of a few designated and carefully managed areas.

 Letter to councillors from Chair of the  GLA Planning nd Regeneration Committee

 

Cllr Anton Georgiou (Alperton), frustrated by the failure of Cllr Shama Tatler to deliver a response to his question at Full Council in September on the Council's response to the  GLA Planning and Regeneration Committee's report on tall buildings, instead addressed his question to Cllr Krupa Sheth (lead member on environment) at Monday's Full Council.

Citing the Council's declaration of a climate emergency and claiming that studies showed that the Council's 'obsession' with tall buildings was detrimental to the environment he asked:

What steps will be taken to acknowledge and act on the warning  outlined in the report into tall buildings that we all received from the GLA Planning and Regeneration Committee? Does this Council plan to continue ignoring local residents' views, and will the adminstration commit to undertake a full environmental assessment by an independent party of each planning application for a tall building before steam-rolling through approval?

Responding, Cllr Krupa Sheth claimed that more than a thousand resident signing up to the Brent Environmental Network showed they were doing a 'great job' in listening to residents. She went on regarding the main question:

'I will ensure someone from Planning Department will respond back to you.'

It is likely that the Planning Department it its reply will cite the independence of the Planning Committee from the political process. The chair at each meeting reminds the Committee that it is a non-political quasi-judicial committee bound by the national policy framework, the London Plan, Brent's Core Strategy, the emerging Local Plan, development management policies and other planning guidance. They are also reminded that there is a national housing shortage and targets have been set for the borough.

 Occasionally they are reminded that if they go against officers' recommendations on a particular application, developers may make a legal challenge at great cost to the Council.  In addition we know that at least one Labour councillor who has exercised independence on the planning committee has been removed subsequently. LINK

There is more on probity in planning decisons from the Local Government Association HERE

All this means that the Committee operates within narrow official and unofficial limits and it is the above-mentioned policies that need to be considered when challenging officers'  recommendations, particularly when they recommend approval even when the application does not comply with guidance on issues such as amount of amenity space, access to daylight, density etc. In the final analysis it may be that the policy needs to be changed - particularly in the Local Plan that, after consultation, is on the brink of final approval.

Another approach would be Scrutiny Committee considering the issue of tall buildings in the context of the Report and inviting the Chair of the GLA Committee to attend, give evidence and answer questions. 

 This is the GLA Planning and Regeneration Chair's letter sent to all councillors and referenced by Cllr Georgiou. Click bottom right for full page version.

 

Cllr Tatler's speech on the Healthy Neighbourhood schemes

Cllr Shama Tatler, Lead member for Regeneration, has circulated her speech at the Extraordinary Meeting of the Council on Healthy Neighbourhoods on social media. It contrasts with the speech made by Cllr Butt. I reproduce the speech below:

Healthy Neighbourhoods: 'Let's face it, we weren't up to scratch,' Cllr Kennelly tells Cabinet

 Cllr Kennelly made a presentation to the Cabinet yesterday regarding the Healthy Neighbourhoods scheme.

He said that the Council needed to make sure that the local community was fully engaged but it sas clear from residents and fellow councillors that they felt totally cut out of the process.  Had they been consulted they would have been able to identify the issues and would have sought to address then with Cabinet and project leads.

Kennelly asked a series of questions: (verbatim as far as possible)

1) Can you provide written consultaion responses from the emergency servies, particularly the ambulance service?

2) When will a clear outline be published to demonstrate the success that will be needed for the schemes to be made permanent?

3) How did you accurately measure the width of the road turning points and closures? What risk assessment was done and will these be made public?

4) What consideration was given to suggestions made in the inter-active consultation on active travel and by communities which I do not recall having road closures on these and other schemes? 

5) Why has the signage and implementaton of the scheme, let's be fair, not been up to scratch? It hasn't been done the way we would have wanted and why has it taken as long as it has to get the community engagement involved?

6) Will you publish the documentation surrounding both previous and current funding bids as these plans are submitted ahead of time?

Cllr Butt in response said that they had to ensure funding bids were submitted in a timely manner under Emergency Powers Act. He said that it was a UK issue, not just a Brent one and everyone had the right to walk uo and down the  streets without hindrance. 

Cllr Tatler said that she was willing to look at any recommendations in her portfolio area on active travel and the econony, the latter also involved Cllr Stephens. Any decisions relating to the budget must be done within the wider context.

Turning to Cllr Kennelly's presentation she said that she wanted to push back on the claim that councillors had been cut out of the process. She and Cllr Krupa Sheth had engaged with councillors throughout the summer including pre-implementation of any of the schemes; 'Councillors have been involved in shaping some of the, all of the, schemes.'

She said that the Council was committed to making sure residents are involved throughout the trials. These are not a fait accompli in any way, shape or form.  These are trials and by their nature, as traffic orders the Council has to consult during the process.  She said that she could confirm that during the process the Council will be making sure that residents are asked for feedback at the 2, 4 and 6 month intervals of the scheme: 'If anything needs to change we can come out and meet residents and so on'

She went on to claim that to say that councillors had been cut out of the process was probably an inaccurate picture. Councillors had been involved in shaping of schemes in their particular wards.

She concluded:

We are completely committed to the air quality agenda and the climate emergency agenda. It is vital that we work towards trial schemes that could help better quality of air, quality of life and ensure that our children, going forward, can breath cleaner air in our borough.

Cllr Krupa Sheth (Environment Lead) made a very short contribution referencing the climate emergency and the need to spend Covid19 monies wisely.

Cllr Butt said that there was a need to appreciate that these were difficult decision and not everyone would be on board.

 

Cllr Tatler moves swiftly to address concerns over Healthy Neighbourhood schemes

Cllrs Shama Tatler and Krupa Sheth are to hold meetings with ward councillors this week to discuss the experimental  Healthy Neighbourhood schemes in their area following concern about lack of consultation and practicality voiced at a councillor briefing earlier this week.

The councillors are assured by Cllr Tatler that there was no intention to ignore residents or permanently impose changes but to fulfil an ambition, shared by all, to have 'healthier, cleaner and greener' neighbourhoods. The email circulated to councillors says that there is no disagreement on the principle but that there is a need to iron out some of the implementation and teething issues as well as communication.

Councillors are told that no scheme wil be operational until residents have been written to in order to clarify  proposals, inform them of how they can comment and engage in the trials, and, importantly, a date on which schemes will go live. Tatler states that if a scheme is not working it will be amended or removed.

There will be regular communications with councillors on the monitoring process and updates for councillors and residents during the 6 month trial to ensure that all comments and feedback are tracked.

Covid restrictions permitting there will also be walkabouts with offices,

Cllr Tatler points out that in many areas, there are significant numbers of people, who do not have a car and that Brent Council has a responsibility to attempt to make the neighbourhoods we live in pleasant and safe environments.

She concludes that change, especially of necessity done at high speed,  is not easy but the potential benefits are huge and long lasting.