In this Guest Blog Meg Howarth tries to disentangle the various interpretations of the law involved in the Kensal Rise Library development planning process.
Last
week, Brent's planning committee gave the go-ahead to Andrew Gillick's latest
plans for the Kensal Rise Library building he now owns. Brent & Kilburn
Times report HERE -
Regarding
the still-unresolved fraudulent email affair surrounding the developer's
original scheme - there's
currently some speculation that matters might now be in the hands of the CPS
(Crown Prosecution Service). This is unconfirmed, however, and shouldn't
stop anyone from writing to their ward councillors to ensure that Brent police's
investigation isn't quietly dropped on the back of last Wednesday's planning
consent.
Last
Wednesday's decision was made in the face of apparently contradictory
advice from the council's lawyers about the relevance of ACV (Asset of
Community Value) legislation to the application - the library building was
listed as an ACV in December 2012. The committee's legal advisor told the
committee that the Localism Act and ACV was 'separate legislation' and 'not
under the consideration of this committee'. This is not only untrue, as Jodi
Gramigni says on the following Wembley Matters' blog LINK
The
advice appears also appears to contradict points 7 & 8 of the planning
officer's report. These state unequivocally that 'in this case [KTR
planning application] the fact that the building is listed as a Asset of
Community value is...a material planning consideration' and 'is also relevant...as a
partial change of use to residential is proposed' - link to report HERE
But the most
glaring evidence of Brent legal's flip-flopping regarding ACV legislation comes
in the statement from Andrew Gillick's spokesman on the eve of the planning
committee: 'Further to advice provided by the
LPA [Brent local planning authority] in respect of the Assets of
Community Value Regulations 2012, I
am pleased to advise that the applicant [the developer] has today confirmed
that he is naming FKRL as the "actual" tenant, as opposed to his
"preferred" tenant'.
So
less than 24 hours before the Localism Act and ACV was declared 'separate
legislation', it had been used by Brent's planners to enable a shift
from 'preferred'
to 'actual' tenant status for
FKRL. Why, then, did committee members fail to probe these inconsistencies?
Were they asleep on the job? The 2012 legislation either applied to the
application or it didn't.
In
the event, the shift to the much-heralded status of 'actual' tenant appears
to have been little more than a PR move to encourage support for Mr Gillick's
latest attempt to convert the library building into unaffordable residential
flats. As his spokesman said: 'We trust this ['actual' over 'preferred' tenant
status] goes some way to giving the Council, the FKRL and the
local community the confidence to support this application'. But as Jodi Gramigni says:
there's no 'legally
binding requirement to reinstate a library [in the KRL building] or agree
a lease with FKRL, confirmed by committee member, Cllr Kasangra, when
he said clearly at the meeting that a lease is not part of the
planning conditions.
Those with long
memories will here recall the developer's apparent untrustworthiness when, in his original
change-of-use application for the Mark Twain library - the one linked to the
fake email support - he offered D1 space in the basement of the-then publicly
funded building in breach of the legally binding contract he'd signed with
then-owner All Souls College: 'none [of the D1 space shall be] in the
basement of the Property)' (Option Agreement para 15.1). Jodi's appeal for
'vigilance' is surely spot on.
A further
point regarding the Localism Act: if a property is listed as an Asset of
Community Value before a sale is agreed, the property is subject
to the Community Right to Bid - a 6-month period to enable community groups to
prepare alternative sale proposals. Brent's legal counsel argued that the
Option Agreement to purchase Kensal Rise Library from All Souls College,
allegedly signed in November 2012, preceded the building's ACV-listing in
December, and that the building was therefore exempt from the right-to-bid
period. But the Option Agreement wasn't a sale contract. That wasn't signed
until later, almost certainly in January 2013. So it's arguable that the
6-month bidding process should have started then, enabling FKRL to exercise a
bid. For clarification of this alone and/or other aspects of Brent's handling
of the application or the police investigation, it might be worth
requesting the Secretary of State to call in the planning committee's decision
for reconsideration advice on how to do so HERE
