A “report back” blog by
Philip Grant:
Some Granville New Homes images from the Ridge
Report.
There was great interest in October, when Martin
shared details of the scandal over Granville New Homes, where repairs to these South Kilburn flats would
cost more than the blocks cost to build, only twelve years ago.
Proposals for these homes to be taken over by the
Council from its company, First Wave Housing Ltd (“FWH”), were considered at an
extraordinary meeting of the Community and Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee
on 7 October. Committee members
were told that the repairs would cost £18.5m, but had to rely on a report which
had been prepared for a Cabinet meeting the following week, and on information
and answers given to them by Council Officers and Cabinet members.
Title page of the Ridge Report.
The committee had not been allowed to see a copy of
the report by the consultants, Ridge and Partners, who had carried out a
detailed survey of the Granville New Homes buildings. Martin obtained a copy of
that Report from Brent Council, under the Freedom of Information Act, and published it on “Wembley Matters” in November.
When I read the Report online, there seemed to be
discrepancies between some of the details it showed, and what the Scrutiny
Committee, and an earlier Audit & Standards Committee meeting, had been
told. I added a comment below the 11 November blog, and sent a copy of that
comment in an email to the two Committee Chairs involved, to draw those
“discrepancies” to their attention.
I heard nothing more about it until 7 December,
when I received an email from Brent’s Legal Director, saying: ‘The councillor, the Independent Chair
and the Chief Executive have asked that I consider your email and respond and I
will be in contact with you as soon as possible.’ I’ve now received her response,
and as my original comment is “in the public domain”, I think it only fair that
Brent Council’s explanation for the “discrepancies” should also be publicly
available. I will set out my original comment, and the Council’s response
below.
I will not comment
further on them, other than to say that when a small number Senior Council
Officers and Cabinet Members have so much power, I believe that they should
provide full, accurate and clear information to the elected councillors whose
scrutiny of their decisions is an important safeguard on behalf of the local
community. You can judge for yourselves whether they did so over Granville New
homes and the Ridge Report.
My comment of 12
November 2021 (under published copy of the Ridge Report):
‘There appear to be
some discrepancies between the Ridge Report above, and how it was presented to
Cabinet on 11 October 2021, in a report signed off by Brent's Chief Executive.
The opening paragraph of the report to Cabinet
members says:
'First Wave Housing
(FWH) has commissioned a report from Ridge Consultants to investigate water penetration, cladding, fire
safety and window issues at FWH’s Granville Road, Princess Road, and Canterbury
Road blocks (otherwise known as Granville New Homes). Ridge have
recommended that works be carried out at the blocks to remediate these
issues. It is estimated that the cost of works will be £18.5m. This makes the
FWH business plan unviable.'
This clearly states
that fire safety was investigated as part of the Ridge Report; but the report
itself (see bottom of page 24 of the document in the blog above) says:
'Fire safety matters,
relating to the cladding have not been commented on in this report as they are
excluded from the scope. From what was seen, during the opening up of the
cladding, there are a number of issues which should be further investigated by
a façade specialist and fire engineer. These include possible combustible
insulation and seemingly a lack of cavity barriers within the cladding system.
The cladding systems should be reviewed, from a fire safety perspective, as a
matter of urgency.'
Page 26 of the Ridge
Report gives the budget cost estimates of the work identified as a result of
this consultant's investigations:
'TOTAL COSTS by block:
Granville Road East £2,185,000
Granville Road West £2,475,000
Peel Square £4,550,000
Pilgrims Corner £4,435,000
TOTAL £13,645,000'
Clearly, there is a
difference between the £13.645m figure in the Ridge Report which has now been
disclosed under FoI (and which was not made available to the members of the
Audit or Scrutiny Committees, when they considered the problems and proposed
solutions over Granville New Homes), and the £18.5m figure in the report to
Cabinet.
Was there a second specialist report on the fire
safety issues, with the estimated cost of that remediation making up the almost
£5m difference between the two figures?
If not, what is the explanation for that
difference?
And if there was a separate fire safety defects
report, why was that not mentioned in the report to Cabinet, and why has that
report not been disclosed to councillors, or made public?’
Relevant extracts from the Ridge Report.
Brent Council response of 9 December 2021:
‘Dear Mr
Grant
Your email
below was shared with David Ewart, the Independent Chair of the Audit and
Standards Advisory Committee, by Cllr Lo. It was also drawn to the
attention of the Chief Executive by Cllr Sheth. The Chief Executive,
Cllrs Lo and Sheth and the Independent Chair have asked that I consider your
email and respond.
Your email
references reports considered by three council bodies, Audit and Standards
Advisory (22 September 2021 (ASAC)) Community and Wellbeing Scrutiny (7 October
2021) and Cabinet (11 October 2021) and raises three areas of concern which I
address below.
1. Commissioning of the Ridge Report
You are
concerned that the Scrutiny Committee Report referred to the Ridge Report as
being commissioned by First Wave Housing (FWH) while the Ridge Report itself
refers to the report being commissioned by FWH and Brent Council. You
seek clarity as to who commissioned and paid for the report.
The
council provides housing management services to FWH. Therefore, FWH asked
the council to commission the report on its behalf and the cost will be borne
by FWH.
2. Ambit
of the Ridge Report
You refer to the first paragraph of
the Cabinet report, part of which reads:
“commissioned a report from Ridge
Consultants to investigate water penetration, cladding, fire safety and
window issues”and to the Ridge Report which refers
to: “Fire
safety matters relating to the cladding” being excluded from its commission.
The
paragraph you refer to in the Cabinet report is a summary paragraph and the
detail behind that summary appears later in the report. Paragraph 3.6 of
the Cabinet report refers to the council’s own Housing Property Services
presenting the result of fire risk assessments and intrusive investigations
into fire safety concerns and to Ridge presenting the result of intrusive
investigation into water penetration, cladding and window issues. I
consider this corrects any misunderstanding as to the scope of the
investigations commissioned from Ridge that the summary paragraph may have led
to.
Further,
the Ridge Report, makes reference to fire safety issues which happened to be
observed during Ridge’s investigations and suggests that cladding systems be
reviewed from a fire safety perspective as a matter of urgency. The
review had effectively already been undertaken following the Fire Brigade
Improvement Notice and therefore included in the presentation by Housing
Property Services referred to in the report.
3. Discrepancy
in figures given for estimated costs of repairs
As you
point out, page 26 of the Ridge Report gives the cost estimates as totalling
£13,645,000 but the Cabinet, ASAC and Scrutiny reports refer to estimated costs
of £18.5m. You query why this is and whether there is a second specialist
report on fire safety issues which accounts for the difference.
This
figure of £13,645,000 is included in the £18.5m referred to in the
reports. As set out in paragraph 3.9 of the Cabinet report, that higher
figure also includes the cost of fire safety work already undertaken and
paid for by FWH, e.g. the waking watch over the premises and a new fire alarm
system, and a contingency figure. In addition, paragraph 3.9 make clear
that the total figure is inclusive of VAT, which FWH and I4B, unlike the
council, would be required to pay. The final sentence of 3.9 should have
read that the £18.5m is “based on” an estimated value from Ridge, but in the
overall context of the paragraph I think the position was clear.
Although
these elements are not explicitly referred to in paragraph 3.4 of the Scrutiny
report, the Cabinet report was in the papers presented to the Scrutiny
Committee and did contain this information. This level of detail was not
in the report to the ASAC, but as the report was a general update report of
which this particular issue was only one element and pre-dated the matter being
put to Cabinet as the decision maker, this is unsurprising.
At the
time when Ridge were commissioned, they were aware of the fire safety issues
identified through fire notices and the test results of the combustibility of
the external wall system which had been carried out previously. The Ridge
Report and their cost estimate included the work to remediate these issues. The
report of the test results does not include any costs.
In light
of the above, I do not consider there is any reason to fear that members were
misled by the reports as to the essential issues. These were that the
estimated costs to FWH of dealing with the issues identified in relation to
Granville New Homes would render the company’s business plan unviable and an
assessment of options for dealing with the situation was required as set out in
the report.
Best wishes
Debra Norman
Director of Legal, HR, Audit & Investigations’
Prepared on behalf of:
