Thanks to Philip Grant for this guest post. It is a long article but worth reading in full by anyone concerned about the relationship between Brent Council, its councillors and developers.
A recent blog on questions over
“hospitality” for councillors, raised by Cllr. Duffy with Brent’s Standards
Committee LINK led to many comments from “Wembley
Matters” readers. In one comment, I drew attention to an entry in Cllr. Butt’s
“Register of Interests” on the Council’s website, which raised concerns over
its possible effect on planning matters in the borough:
'09/05/17
- Three course meal with developers from the construction industry. Estimated
value between £30-40. Received from Terrapin Communications, London.'
I
decided to seek further information from the Council Leader about this meal
(paid for by a PR company which represents a number of property developers), so
sent him an email and added the text of it as another comment. I had intended
to put any reply received from Cllr. Butt as a further comment below that blog,
but now feel that more readers could see it, and make their own judgement about
the details given and their implications, if they are set out in a separate
blog.
I was not optimistic that I
would receive a reply from Cllr. Butt, as he has not replied to any emails I
have sent him since September 2014. A number of these have included important
questions, such as in February 2015, when I asked him (and repeated this in a
blog, and in a letter published in the “Brent & Kilburn Times”) why he
was still “protecting” two senior Council officers, Cara Davani and Christine
Gilbert, when he had known about their misconduct in the Rosemarie Clarke
Employment Tribunal case since at least September 2014? [I have previously
suggested, only half-jokingly, that the reason he won’t reply is because he is
afraid that anything he writes to me may be used in evidence against him!]
However, on 3 October I received
an email from Brent, thanking me for my Freedom of Information request (I
didn’t know that I had made one!) and saying that it had been forwarded ‘to the
relevant department’. A few hours later, I received an email from the Chief
Legal Officer, Debra Norman, giving the Council’s response to my FoI request. I
don’t know why the Council Leader could not just provide the information
himself, but at least the Council’s Monitoring Officer (Ms Norman’s “other
hat”) realised that the points I had raised needed to be answered fully, and
quickly. This is what she wrote (the numbered paragraphs begin with the six
questions, in bold type, I had asked Cllr. Butt, so the answers are as if from
him):-
Dear Mr Grant
I set out the
council’s responses to your request for information sent to Cllr. Butt which
has been allocated to me via the council’s FOI system. I have spoken to
relevant senior officers concerning your request and the members and officers
declarations of gift and hospitality have been reviewed.
- Who else from
Brent Council (members or officers) attended that "Terrapin
Communications" meal with you?
·
Cllr Tatler [Author’s note: Lead Member for Regeneration etc.]
·
Aktar Choudhury [Note: Operational
Director Regeneration]
· Amar Dave [Note: Strategic Director Regeneration and Environment]
The officers
concerned declared the hospitality on 23.5.17 and 10.5.17 respectively.
Cllr. Tatler declared the hospitality on 10.5.17. Cllr Butt declared the
hospitality on 09/05/17.
- Which companies
were the 'developers from the construction industry' who were at that meal
with you?
The guest list
indicates the following companies sent representatives to the event:
·
London Square
·
Dukelease
·
Dandi Living
·
Pinnacle
·
Henley Homes
·
R55
·
Stanhope
·
Countryside
·
The Collective
3. What
current or proposed developments in the London Borough of Brent are those
companies (in question 2) involved with?
The relevant
developer and addresses are included below.
·
London Square - 60 Neasden Lane
·
Dukelease and Dandi Living - York House – this is a permitted development
·
Pinnacle - Shubette House aka Pinnacle Tower
·
Henley Homes - Brent House
·
R55 - 255 Ealing Road and Minavil House
·
Countryside - Barham Park Estate
- What reason did
Terrapin Communications give for inviting you to that meal?
To engage and enable
developers to better understand the Borough and our aspirations.
It is important that
the council’s Cabinet Member for Regeneration, Growth, Employment and Skills
(who is not the chair of the Planning Committee and who has a different role)
promotes a clear understanding of the council priorities in respect of
affordable housing and quality of design.
5. Were
any past, present or proposed developments in Brent discussed at the meal, and
if so, what developments or proposals?
The discussions
consisted of generalisations about the borough aspirations and what the council
wants to achieve. Only one developer (Dukelease) raised a particular
development, which was York House.
6. Were
any of the matters discussed at the meal passed on afterwards to any other
Brent Council member or officer, and if so, to whom were they passed?
Aside from
requesting a relevant officer to respond to a transport issues raised by
Dukelease, no information was passed on as operational matters were not
discussed.
Best wishes
Debra Norman
Chief Legal Officer
Now
that we have the information, what are we to make of it? I will give a few
thoughts of my own, and I would invite anyone who wishes to, including Ms
Norman and the councillors and officers who attended the meal, to add a comment
in reply, giving their own views.
I will
start with the reply to question 4, the reason that the PR company gave for
inviting the Council Leader, and Brent’s top “Regeneration” people, to a meal
with a number of their developer clients. The first sentence may be what they
said, but the rest looks like a “gloss” put on that, to justify the attendance
of Cllr. Tatler.
Frankly,
there was no need for a get together over dinner, especially if (as the answer
to question 5 states) ‘the discussions consisted of generalisations about the
borough aspirations and what the council wants to achieve.’ Brent’s
Regeneration aspirations, and the planning guidance in respect of them, are set
out clearly on the Council’s website. For example, this is the online package
for regeneration in Wembley LINK .
Terrapin
Communications could also have given their clients the information they needed
on these issues from its own experience the previous year, in advising Hub
Group over its successful planning application for the “Twin Towers” development at the
corner of Wembley High Road and Park Lane. This was the proposal for two blocks
of flats, up to 26 storeys high, which Planning Committee approved in April
2016 by four votes to two, with two abstentions. It was opposed by hundreds of
local residents, but recommended by Planning Officers, despite it not complying with Brent’s and London’s policies
on density, carbon emissions, living space, open space, play space and the
proportion of affordable housing. LINK .
Terrapin, as a PR
company, of course put a positive “spin” on this decision, when reporting it on
their website shortly afterwards:
‘Residents in Brent are set to benefit from an exciting new community
centre along with other public improvements thanks to a new development in the
Borough. Terrapin Communications helped Hub Group secure planning consent
for the scheme. Designed by Macerator Lavington, it will also
include 239 new residential units in two new buildings, one twenty six stories,
the other twenty one stories. Commenting on the success at the Planning
Committee, Terrapin Senior Adviser, Christian Klapp, said "It
was hard work but rewarding knowing the benefits the new scheme will bring for
people in the local area".’
In my opinion, Terrapin’s reason for arranging the meal and
inviting Cllr. Butt and others was to “engage and enable developers” to meet,
and hopefully influence, key decision makers in the borough. I agree that Cllr.
Tatler ‘is
not the chair of the Planning Committee’, but she, and particularly the Leader
of the Council (and of the Labour Group, which has seven on the eight committee
members) are in a position to influence the decisions made by that Committee
(even though it would be a serious breach of Brent’s Planning Code if they were
to do so).
Turning
to the answers to questions 2 and 3, the developers at the meal with Cllr. Butt
and the other Brent attendees, and what developments in Brent they are involved
with, there are definitely some areas of concern. I will focus on the developer
R55. They are not a potential developer who needed to ‘understand the Borough
and our aspirations.’ They already had at least one development under construction,
and other planning applications “in the pipeline”.
The
meal took place on 9 May 2017, and at the Planning Committee meeting on 24 May
2017 R55’s application 16/2629, for a large mixed-use development (including
blocks of flats up to 26 storeys high) at Minavel House, Alperton, was
unanimously approved, even though the Council’s regeneration masterplan for
this area had set a height limit of ‘up to 17 storeys’. In the declarations of
interest at the start of the meeting, under “approaches”, the minutes record:
‘Minavil House - All members and officers received a brochure from the
applicant’s agents.’ Although not opposing the development in principle, a
speaker against the application ‘expressed
concerns on behalf of the residents in the development to the south of the site
regarding the scheme’s scale, massing, height and obstruction to light.’
LINK
Although
not listed in the response to question 3 above, R55 also have a pre-planning
application, 16/0445/PRE, on the agenda for next Monday’s (9 October) Planning
Committee meeting. This is in respect of ‘land at 370 High Road, London, NW10 2EA and 54-68 Dudden Hill
Lane’, ‘for a mixed use development consisting of 224 residential units, a
supermarket, nursery, gym, café, workshops and amenity space.’ A previous
pre-planning presentation had been made to the committee on 15 March 2017, when
it appears that some councillors may have expressed concern over the proposed
height of some of the blocks of flats, in the vicinity of Willesden High Road.
Many Brent
residents, and residents’ groups, have been disappointed by Planning Committee
decisions in recent years, allowing developments which seem to go against the
borough’s own agreed planning policies. An opposition motion calling for an
investigation of this issue was put to the Full Council meeting on 18
September, but lost – although the details are not yet available on the
Council’s website, it appears from the webcast that most of the Labour Group’s
large majority of councillors voted against it. Yet a number of Labour
councillors have told me privately that there is “political interference”
within Brent’s planning system.
In his email to
Cllr. Allie, the Chair of Standards Committee, the comments on which gave rise
to this blog, Cllr. Duffy said:
‘In my experience its best to keep clear of
hospitality from developers as “When you dance with a developer, it’s always to
their tune".’
I hope
that Brent’s Monitoring Officer will endorse that view, when she considers the
lessons which should be learned from this episode. The Codes of Conduct for
both members and officers include a requirement to comply with the seven
general conduct principles in public life. If citizens of our borough are to
have confidence in the Council, a key principle is:
‘Integrity:
you should not
place yourself in situations where your integrity may be questioned, should not
behave improperly and should on all occasions avoid the appearance of such
behaviour.’
How does accepting
an invitation to dine with developers, who may want you to help them get their
planning applications approved, fit with that principle?
