LETTER: Brent is prioritisng housing targets over community support on Kilburn Square

 Dear Wembley Matters Editor

 

You have previously published reports of the long-running saga of Brent’s “Infill” housing expansion scheme on the Kilburn Square Co-op estate. I’m a near-neighbour, and have friends who live on the estate itself.

 

Despite good words from the Cabinet Housing Lead and various Officers, the project team is now preparing for Planning Application a design that our combined local community still considers as much larger than what the site can reasonably support without transforming its character and damaging the health and wellbeing of current and incoming residents.

 

I find bitterly ironic the contrast between this scheme and a mirror-image story about a current project in Barnet: https://www.times-series.co.uk/news/19937298.residents-lose-latest-fight-save-east-finchley-green-spaces/ . A Council facing acute housing shortages seeks to build houses on green space next to existing homes, in an area deprived of green space, against the protests of residents. Sound familiar? The twist is that this is a Conservative Council; and the Labour group are defending the interests of the current residents…

 

Kilburn Square was a major topic at a Kilburn Ward Zoom Hustings hosted last week by Kilburn Village Residents’ Association and two neighbouring RAs. As the election is almost upon us, I’d like to share with your readers the following Letter which the Brent and Kilburn Times Editor is about to publish

 

Yours sincerely

Nicky Lovick

 

“Dear BKT Editor

 

In the heart of Kilburn, just off the busy and polluted High Road, Brent plans to impose a major housing expansion scheme – currently 144 extra units - on a well-balanced and mature estate that a Brent Housing Officer has described to our MP as “brilliant”. Our local community is incensed.  Here’s the story:

 

·      On its Kilburn Square estate, Brent Council has been seeking for over 18 months to design a scheme for further housing expansion, that “can work for everyone” and “balances” the acute need for new social housing with protecting the health and wellbeing of existing residents

·      Engagement last Summer produced near-unanimous rejection of the scale of the original scheme by estate residents and neighbours

·      In agreeing to design a smaller scheme, Brent acknowledged three major objections: a new tower, the loss of Trees and Green Space, and the much-increased density of residents.

·      It is now preparing a Planning Application for a scheme (its “Approach A”) https://legacy.brent.gov.uk/media/16420113/kilburn-square-newsletter-issue-2-2022.pdf  that addresses only one of these (the tower)…

·      …and retains two new blocks that would remove green space and mature trees, aggravate an existing deficit of Amenity Space and increase the resident population by 67% vs 2019

·      Kilburn Ward is in the most deprived category for green space in the whole Borough – and the Climate Strategy is supposed to INCREASE green space, not remove it

·      A three-month Council engagement effort, with tightly constrained options and the exclusion of trusted Independent Advisors Source Partnership, identified only 10% of estate residents willing to express any support for Approach A

·      Brent has sought to exclude the local community from debate before fixing the project scale, despite representations from the Kilburn Square Stakeholder Group (KSSG) and over 50 recent emails from concerned neighbours seeking a smaller scheme

·      Lack of any serious communication going to ALL neighbouring streets means many close neighbours are still in total ignorance of the expansion plan

 

For more details, see https://wembleymatters.blogspot.com/2022/03/letter-response-to-cllr-southwoods.html

 

Brent’s Housing Director has said publicly they “would not want to force homes on anyone, so where they had built had been with the support and encouragement of local residents and Ward Councillors”. Empty words in relation to Kilburn Square!

 

Estate residents and neighbours alike acknowledge the social housing crisis and will accept SOME further development – but this scheme is still too big, and unfair to current estate residents.   

 

Wouldn’t it be great if all candidates standing in Kilburn (Brent) Ward would promise that, if elected, they will NOT support a Planning Application for the scheme in its current shape, and will work closely with the KSSG and all their electors to propose a more balanced and fairer scheme…?

 

At a Ward Hustings last week, hosted by three Residents’ Associations, three Party speakers agreed with that sentiment… and one did not. I’ll leave your readers to guess which one.

 

Nicky Lovick

Brondesbury Road resident (name and address supplied)”

Kilburn Square residents present 900 signature petition over Brent Council plans they claim impact on density, green space and wellbeing on the estate

Kilburn Village Residents Association (KVRA) also presented a petition this morning about the proposed tower block and infill on Kilburn Square. The petition of 900 signatures was presented byMargaret von Stoll a founding member of the Kilburn Square Co-op:

Kilburn Square Petition speech to Brent Council Feb 7 2022

Good morning Councillor Butt, Cabinet Members and Officers

My name is Margaret von Stoll. I’m a longstanding Kilburn Square resident, and founding member of the Kilburn Square Co-op.

I’m here to present a 900-signature petition against the scale of the council’s proposals for infill development at Kilburn Square, and to voice our disillusionment with the pre-consultation process to date.

Despite repeated requests for more meaningful engagement, we have just been informed that the Council intends to submit its Approach A to Planning – an option which fails to address our concerns about our existing green space, and about overcrowding on the estate.

We feel let down by the undemocratic decision-making, and an inadequate and unprofessional engagement process. I would like you to listen to our concerns. You'll see they impact on Health, Environment, Community Engagement, Scrutiny and other portfolios as well as Housing.

Last year we were relieved when Source Partnership was selected as our independent Advisor We were led to believe that they would be allowed to work as a neutral channel between the Council and residents throughout the process

Their resident survey on the original scheme concluded;

“There is very little demonstrable support for the Council’s proposals, or trust in the consultation process”

That powerful statement was omitted from the published summary; and our request to send the full report to every household was refused. And since the re-set decision, Source has been largely sidelined. This is simply not acceptable!

 

Councillor Southwood:

 

You have acknowledged our community’s concerns, stating that you now sought “a scheme that can work for everyone”. That Brent would:

·      ensure the team would work “in collaboration with residents”

·      and balance the housing targets with respect for the wellbeing of estate residents 

We are here to say, Brent’s actions and latest decisions prove otherwise.

Our ‘design workshops” have proved to be one-way Drop-Ins, residents being instructed to choose from limited design proposals, without being allowed to state on record that none of the proposals address our concerns. We’ve been told “these are your options, your vote will be wasted if you don’t choose one”.

This engagement process is tokenistic, and gives only the illusion of collaboration with affected residents. You have held community-led co-design efforts elsewhere – why not on Kilburn Square? To tell us the scale and shape are fixed, and then offer us further engagement is disingenuous and totally unfair.

Brent is proud to have one of the largest social housing programmes in London. We believe you should be creating homes and places we can all be happy to live in - not just more housing. The London Plan stresses that the optimal capacity of a site is not the same as the maximum capacity.

We do accept the need for SOME additional housing. But Amenity Space at Kilburn Square is already much lower than Brent’s own policy norms require; and the scale of your current proposals would make this much worse.

Whilst increasing the number of homes at Kilburn Square by 60% may make economic sense, and achieve targets, there will be significant detrimental impact to our health and wellbeing through the overcrowding, loss of health and community facilities and loss of mature trees and open green space.

Brent’s Climate strategy seeks to increase green space - not remove it. New research shows we are the area most deprived of green space in the whole Borough. Your Approach A proposal will remove our green lung – which helps mitigate flood risk and the appalling air quality from Kilburn High Road.

Finally, let me point out that our petition is also addressed to the Chair of the Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee – for good reason. Brent’s Housing Director assured the Committee in January that “they would not want to force homes on anyone, so where they had built had been with the support and encouragement of local residents and ward councillors”. We urge the Council to honour that philosophy in relation to Kilburn Square; and, even at this late stage, to genuinely engage with residents to create a more sustainable solution.

 

Responding Cllr Southwood thanked Margaret for her 'helpful and detailed overview of the journey so far' but said the com mitment had always been to blance balance the provision of genuinely affordable homes with the benefits to the original residents of the estate. She recogniseed concern over the height of the proposed tower, the density of the proposals and the value that residents put on the green space.

 

Architects had come up with proposals to meet, in variable ways, the residents' concerns which result in proposals A and E. She said that she would agree to disagree with the residents over their criticism of the level of engagement. The tower height had been reduced and the issue of density could be picked up during the planning process.

Southwood said that over-crowded families, currently in homeless accommodation without a voice, would be given priority in the additional housing. The Plan A proposal was now entering the formal phase and would include work around the green space including making better use of it.

 

Cllr Butt in a notably more aggressive contribution said that he made no apologies for building homes and addressing the needs of children for the stability that would give them a secure future. Concerns would be taken into account but decisions had to be made that would not suit everyone - 'I will make no apology for that'.

 

Margaret von Stoll was muted on zoom when she tried to come back on those remarks.

 

A further comment is expected from KVRA later this week.