Brent Cabinet set to approve of purchase Gloucester & Durham blocks from Telford and Notting Hill Genesis for c£92m

Brent Council's Cabinet will decide on July 15th to pay circa £92million for a site sold on leasehold to Telford Homes PLC and Notting Hill Genesis in May 2018 for £3million. REPORT

The Gloucester and Durham blocks will contain 235 housing units and Brent Council will purchase the leasehold interest, merging the leasehold title with the freehold. The units will be let as affordable homes. As they will be counted as new affordable homes they will attract a grant from the GLA towards the cost of acquisition and the remaining costs will be be via borrowing based on the Housing Revenue Account which is no longer capped.

Officers claim that if the homes are let at London Affordable Rents the finance will be paid back in c50 years.

The financial details are in Appendix 1 which is withheld from the public under the Local Government 1972 because it contains 'information relating to the financial or business affairs of any particular person (including the authority holding that information).' The sum of £92m is not mentioned in the report and is presumably in the Appendix but is mentioned in the notice to Matt Kelcher, Chair of Resources & Public Realm Scrutiny (above).

A request for information to the Brent Council Press Office and Amar Dave, Strategic Director of Regeneration and Environment went unanswered last week.

Brent Council rushes to spend £92m buying South Kilburn site before other buyers purchase it

Brent Council has informed Cllr Matt Kelcher, Chair of Resources and Public Realm Scrutiny Committee LINK, that they are making an urgent decision to buy the Gloucester and Durham bocks on South Kilburn Estate for £92m - the decision to be made by July 15th.

Telford Homes took on the lease in January 2018.  The notice to Kelcher says the blocks will be sold to other buyers if 'we do not treat with the vendor before the end of July.'

It is unclear which site is earmarked for the decant of William Dunbar and William Saville House residents in 2021.  It appears the Council fully expects to win the  ballot of residents on the demolition of their homes.

South Kilburn: When is a tenant not a tenant?

I wasn't sure when I saw this what exactly a 'Tenants' Steering Group' is - is it tenants steering themselves or some other organisation steering the tenants? I asked a South Kilburn tenant and he said:

"Open to all secure council tenants within the regeneration area"? Not if the regeneration area is South Kilburn, whether your block is due to be regenerated soon or not. Members of our Tenants & Residents Association committee who went to one of the meetings were told it was not for them, but they could sit quietly at the back if they wished.

It is not a "Tenants' Steering group" (i.e. run by Tenants), but an organisation run by the Council at which people can raise their particular housing situation. The information people can get at these meetings is no more "independent" than if it was provided directly by Mo Butt.

Communities First LINK

Feisty parents fight off forced academy conversion

In a victory that may have wider repercussions for schools facing forced academisation, St James' Church of England School in Gloucester have been told that it will not face academy conversion for the foreseeable future.

Parents at St James' have been campaigning vociferously over the issue. Recently Michael Gove has not be very pleased with Ofsted Inspection reports that have noted forced academisation takes schools' attention away from getting out of special measures. The problem is referred to here.

A letter from the school on February 12th stated:

Since receiving the Academy Order which was referred to in my last letter, the governing body, Local Authority and Diocese have collectively sought approval from the Department for Education (DfE) to defer the academy conversion process for the foreseeable future. I'm please to be able to tell you that yesterday we received formal notification that the request has been approved.

The specific reasons for the agreement is that the DfE have acknowledged that the school needs to prioritise coming out of special measures and would have been distracted from this by the amount of administration involved in academy conversion. In addition, the Local Authority has yet to complete its audit which determines whether additional school places may be needed in the city for 2016 and beyond.

Governors acknowledge that some parents have expressed their concerns about academy consultation. Please be assured that all parents, as well as other local stakeholders, will be fully consulted about future plans for thye school once the Local Authority have undertaken this work. 

The letter goes on to invite  parents to hear about the latest HMI monitoring report at the meeting which was to be held about academy consultation.

The letter concludes:

We do hope that as a community we can now all collectively focus on the immediate priority - to ensure that St James' moves out of 'special measures' and appoint a sunstantive headteacher with the energy and ambition to ensure that St James' is the school of choice for parents in this locality. 

The St James' Campaign  Facebook was jubilant with this heartfelt message posted about one of the leading campaigners:

You are a true inspiration to others your drive passion and fight for a cause you believe in have done you proud you are a woman to aspire too who has gone to extraordinary lengths to fight for Save St James....since September you took this on as a full time job as well as being a full time mum and all the voluntary work you do to help others...even when you were at your lowest point kicked in the teeth by the very people that are in charge of our children you never gave up hope...may your children also see you for the remarkable strong and dedicated woman that you are...a true fighter to the end!!!! so proud of you and may many children benefit from this x x

Congratulations. I hope Brent and other local authorities and governing bodies will note the importance of standing together against forced academisation and getting behind parent campaigns..