Council housing at Cecil Avenue – a reply from Cllr. Muhammed Butt

 Guest blog by Philip Grant in a personal capacity:-

 

Council housing at Cecil Avenue – a reply from Cllr. Muhammed Butt

 

At Monday’s Cabinet Meeting, Kilburn Village Residents’ Association presented a petition expressing their opposition to the “infill” housing plans which the Council seems determined to push through for Kilburn Square, and dissolution with the consultation process, in which residents views had been ignored.

 

After watching the webcast for this item, I was struck by the way in which the Council Leader, and Chair of the meeting, seemed to dismiss the residents’ concerns. The most important thing for him was to build the Council homes that families in temporary accommodation urgently need, and he made no excuse (or apology?) for building them.

 

Architect’s diagrammatic view of Brent’s planned Cecil Avenue development

 

That struck a chord with me, because for the past six months I’ve been trying to find out why Brent’s Cabinet decided, in August 2021, that 152 of the 250 homes the Council plan to build, on land they own at Cecil Avenue in Wembley, would be for a developer to sell at a profit, and not for people in urgent housing need on the Council’s waiting list.

 

I sent an email to the Council Leader, Cllr. Muhammed Butt, referring to the passion he had expressed in Cabinet for building Council homes, then asking about Cecil Avenue:-

 

‘Let me ask you a straight question, and ask you for a straight reply to it:-

 

What excuse are you making for not building all of the 250 homes on Brent Council's Cecil Avenue site in Wembley as affordable Council homes for rent, and only using 98 of the 250 as Council homes for Brent people in housing need?

 

 

Cecil Avenue is a vacant, Council-owned site. Full planning permission for the 250-home development on that site was given a year ago, and the Council could by now have a contractor building those much-needed homes there.

 

 

Instead, your Cabinet resolved last August to adopt a "developer partner" option, under which the contractor who would be appointed, and paid by Brent Council to build those 250 homes (plus 54 at the Ujima House site across the High Road), would be allowed to purchase 152 of the 250 homes at Cecil Avenue and sell them for profit.

 

 

People in the borough, including those in temporary accommodation that you spoke so passionately about, deserve to know why. I look forward to receiving your response, and sharing it publicly. Thank you.’

 

 

To his credit, Cllr. Butt sent me a reply at lunchtime today (Wednesday 9 February), and agreed that I could publish it, as long as it was unedited. That is what Martin has agreed to do, and you can read it in full below.

 

 

You will see that much of it has been written in the form of a party political speech for the Local Council elections in May, but there are parts which relate directly to my question about the Cecil Avenue development. I will give my response to those – readers can comment on his other claims, should they wish to.

 

 

I do appreciate that the Cecil Avenue site is part of Brent’s Wembley Housing Zone scheme. I made that clear in my very first “guest blog” about this issue, last August.

 

 

In case it leads to confusion, I should clarify that when Cllr. Butt says: ‘This site intends to deliver 100% affordable housing and a target of 50% across both sites’, the site with 100% affordable housing is Ujima House. This still only has outline planning permission, and will need to be demolished before a ten-story block of 54 homes (only 8 of them family-sized) can be built on the site, above affordable workspace on the ground floor.

 

Outline plan for Ujima House, currently an office block on the High Road.

 

 

The key answer given by Cllr. Butt, to justify the planned “giveaway” of 152 homes at Cecil Avenue to a developer, is this: ‘The Council needs to ensure the entire programme is financially viable within the GLA grant made available by the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, hence the requirement for a mixed tenure development in order to subsidise the delivery of the affordable elements.’

 

 

 

That may be Brent’s “excuse”, but Cecil Avenue is a Council housing development on Council-owned land. Brent Council will be borrowing the money, at low interest rates, to build the homes there, just as it would for any other Council housing scheme within its Housing Revenue Account, to provide homes for rent to Council tenants. Why does it need to sell 152 of those homes to a private developer, at a pre-agreed fixed price, rather than using them to house local people in housing need? I still don’t understand that.

 

 

After all, it appears to be acceptable, to the Council and its Cabinet, to borrow at least £48m, charged to the Housing Revenue Account, to purchase 155 leasehold flats in an Alperton tower block, from a secretive “Asset Special Purpose Vehicle”! I’m still waiting for an answer on that.

 

Artist’s impression of the courtyard garden at the Cecil Avenue site.

 

 

My final comment on Cllr. Butt’s reply is his reference to ‘a new publicly accessible open space’. The approved plans for the Cecil Avenue site include a courtyard garden square. This would mainly be for the benefit of residents, but there would be public access to it, through an archway from Wembley High Road. 

 

 

This shared public open space makes the Cecil Avenue site much more desirable than the 100% affordable Ujima House site, where the flats will just have tiny balconies (plus a play area on the flat roof of the block). 152 of the Cecil Avenue homes would be for private sale, and 61 of the remaining 98 “affordable” Council homes would be either for shared ownership or intermediate rent, leaving only 37 of the 250 for affordable rent to Council tenants.

 

 

I’ve had my say, but please read what Cllr. Butt has said, and make up your own minds. This is his reply to my question above, in full and unedited:

 

 

‘Dear Mr Grant

 

 Thank you for watching the live stream, and for your comments.

 

 

I hope that you can appreciate that the Cecil Avenue site is part of a wider development in the Wembley Housing Zones Programme and includes the adjacent site Ujima House - which is being used for affordable workspace so that it remains in use until things have been finalised.

 

 

This site forms part of our New Council Homes Programme to deliver at least 5,000 affordable homes with partners and at least 1,700 council homes directly ourselves, by 2024. Brent is one of a handful of councils that is meeting its targets, that means people desperately in need of housing get safe secure housing, something that surely not even you can be against.

 

 

This site intends to deliver 100% affordable housing and a target of 50% across both sites. We have always strived to achieve the best that we can on any given site – it is the responsible thing to do, to deliver homes today not years down the line. What this means in plain English, is that a mixed development at Cecil Avenue will enable the Ujima House site to be 100% affordable housing.

 

 

Our vision is for a development that will also include workspace to support job creation and growth in the local economy, a community space for everyone, highways and public realm improvements. I hope that you will have seen some of the works for the public realm improvements have already started on Wembley High Road, aiding the local economy, footfall and turbo-charging our recovery from Covid-19. We also want to include a new publicly accessible open space during this latest development. A positive outcome for the residents of Brent.

 

 

This is the commitment that we gave about making improvements for the residents of Brent and Wembley and this is what we are delivering, this is what a responsible Labour council can do, focussing on action and outcomes for today, to bring the future forward faster.

 

 

The Council needs to ensure the entire programme is financially viable within the GLA grant made available by the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, hence the requirement for a mixed tenure development in order to subsidise the delivery of the affordable elements. Your suggestion would jeopardise any affordable homes that are needed today; and would mean the people who desperately need those homes we are planning to build, would remain in poor quality accommodation, surely you would not want anyone to remain in poor quality accommodation?

 

 

As you point out, I care passionately about the people who need help to get a roof over their head; it is what I come to work for, to make a real difference to people’s lives. Creating the opportunities for people to upskill themselves through Brent start and Brent works.

 

 

Making sure that we work with all our schools to reach point today where about 97% of our schools are rated good or outstanding.

 

 

Investing in our high streets to create the strong local economy.

 

 

Our commitment to the green agenda with our climate emergency strategy and not forgetting the changes and improvements we are making to engage and interact with the good citizens of Brent with our new portal Citizen lab.

 

 

There is so much more that this Brent Labour administration has achieved and will absolutely strive to do more, despite what the Lib Dem and Tory coalition started and this party gate Tory government has taken away from us in Brent.

 

 

I need to remind you that over the last 10 years an average of £15.5 Million a year has been taken out from this councils funding. I hope that you find that truly distasteful, because I truly do.

 

 

This labour administration has worked diligently to deliver and support the residents that need our help, we have been the dented shield that has protected our residents.

 

 

We make the promise that we will continue to do whatever is in our remit and responsibility for the most vulnerable and needy in our society.

 

 

Sometimes this means taking decisions that people may disagree with, but I have always appreciated that.

 

Brent is a borough of ambition, aspiration and opportunity, that is what a good Labour council like Brent will deliver for its residents

 

 

I have answered your question; please feel free to post this on any site you wish to publish my response on; in the interests of transparency I hope unedited.

 

 

I look forward to hearing that you will be watching the next Cabinet meeting; it is a fantastic thing to see more people actively involved with local democracy.

 

 

Regards

Muhammed

Cllr Muhammed Butt
Leader of Brent Council.’

 

 

 

 

 

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.

Brent Council announcement that the proposed development of Kilburn Square is to be 'adapted' in collaboration with residents welcomed by campaigners

The existing design  (figures are the number of storeys) - Kilburn High Road is top right

 

This is Brent Council's Press Statement

The design proposal for the new homes on Kilburn Square Estate is set to be adapted through collaboration with residents, the council has announced today.

This comes after extensive engagement throughout the summer with those living on the estate and the local community. The council has listened to people’s feedback and agreed to review the proposals taking into account some of the most commonly raised concerns, while also maintaining its commitment to delivering a significant number of new council homes.

Each council housing scheme is different and will always be considered within its own specific context.

Cllr Southwood, Brent’s Cabinet Member for Housing and Welfare Reform, said:

 Brent is in the grip of a severe housing crisis. There are more than 1,400 families living in temporary accommodation and many more whose home is completely unsuitable. We are doing everything in our power to build more council homes and create a fairer and more equal borough.

Since autumn 2020, we have been working with Kilburn Square residents on proposals to build new homes on the estate. We have received some helpful feedback and I want to thank everyone who has worked with us. I also want to thank everyone for being patient with us while we review the scheme and decide how best to take it forward.

We are keen to amend the existing design, working with the residents of Kilburn Square. It is essential that all tenants and leaseholders attend the workshops we will be holding shortly to have their say. By doing this, we can make sure the new homes we build and the changes we make across the estate are as good as they can be for the community, for future residents and for the council.

A letter and a newsletter will be sent to all residents living on Kilburn Square this week (w/c 13 September). This will include more information about this decision and the upcoming opportunities for residents to get involved in shaping the design.

The statement is partly in response to a public question posed for Cllr Southwood at Monday's Cabiner meeting on the Kilburn Square development that by the Kilburn Square Stakeholders Group,  a coalition of four local Residents' Associations and the Kilburn Neighbourhood Plan Forum. The KSSG is spearheaded by Kilburn Village Residents' Association - whose territory includes the Estate itself as well as the surrounding streets.

 

Keith Anderson, Kilburn Village Residents' Association chair said.

 

·       The saga of this huge "Infill" project has been running since last October. The Stakeholder Group was formed in January and since then we’ve been patiently dealing with Cllr Southwood, senior Officers and the project team, explaining why we believe the scheme is much too big. 

·         The drawn-out process came to a head in August, and our Question was designed to press the Council to finally deliver on its promise to heed the voices of the residents and the local community. We are grateful to Cllr Southwood and her colleagues for the written response being presented on Monday, to Council and the wider public.

·         We look forward to the promised shift to a more collaborative approach to finalising a smaller scheme that can, in Cllr Southwood’s words, “work for everyone".

Residents accuse Brent of 'playing games' over Kilburn Square infill project and launch petition for smaller plan

 

From Keith Anderson, Chair, Kilburn Village Residents Association

Brent is playing games with both local neighbours and estate residents over the huge “Infill” project for extra housing on Kilburn Square

·       After superficial “consultation” on the Estate for months, Zoom meetings with local community groups were due in early May…

·       … then postponed for two months while the project team “reviewed the designs”

·       They led us to expect that a smaller Plan B, which they clearly now have in the drawer, would be what we discuss next week

·       But no, the meetings will be based on the original Plan A

·       Cynics are connecting this with the likely shortfall in the GLA money they can spend, and the net extra units that will be achieved there; I make no comment

·       But we have now launched a petition for a smaller project: http://chng.it/xwxLyYcDhP

·       Please sign and share!

 

And if any reader lives in Kilburn (Brent), Kilburn (Camden) or Queen’s Park Wards and would like to get involved, please email me at streetgroups@mistral.co.uk

 

This is the wording of the petition:

 

Brent wants to build an extra 180 council homes on the existing site in North London, including:
•          A second 17-storey TOWER, next to the highly polluted Kilburn High Road
•          A 5–7 storey Extra Care building
•          Three more new 5-storey blocks, removing mature trees, a playground, a football pitch and open green space
 
Including a new block just completed, this would be an increase of over 80% on the original estate population – on exactly the same footprint. 

This would mean real overcrowding, huge impact on the skyscape and light and privacy for both residents and neighbours, damage to our neighbourhood’s precious Green Lung, concerns about security, more on-street parking, pressure on local services, huge noise and disruption for the whole area during construction.

This simply does not make sense!

We have seen no supporting surveys or analyses, and it’s NOT in the Local Plan. Estate residents are being ‘consulted’ on details; but not on the scale of the scheme. They have worked hard to create a friendly, well-balanced and crime-free estate. A plan on this scale would completely transform its character and the sense of place built up over decades, and impact the local community as a whole.

We recognise Brent has an acute housing need, but this plan is much too big. The Council should revert to the smaller plan being studied last summer, while prioritising the improved housing units for current tenants.

Brent’s Director of Housing told a recent Scrutiny Committee meeting Brent ‘would not want to force homes on anyone’ – we ask that he honours these words.

So, we call upon Brent Council, and the Greater London Authority, to
1.     Reduce the size of the development to 70–75 units and protect the open space for the resident and local community, to meet GLA and Brent best design practice.
2.     Set the housing proposals within the wider context of the plans for upgrading the Kilburn High Road frontage.

 

 
 
Please join us and sign our petition! HERE

 

To find out more, visit https://save-our-square.org or email us at savekilburnsquare@gmail.com to join the campaign. See also: https://www.kilburntimes.co.uk/news/kilburn-residents-against-over-development-7979330