Don't be fooled by Brent's claims on 'affordable' housing

Following Wednesday's Planning Committee Brent Council's communications (public relations) team were quick off the mark hailing the decisions as 'Hundreds of new homes given the go ahead by Brent Council' what they omitted was that these new homes are not ones that Brent residents can afford to buy.

The press release quoted Cllr Margaret McLennan

Cllr Margaret McLennan, Deputy Leader of Brent Council, said:

"We're serious about making this borough an amazing place to live and are working hard to build the homes that people need. We know that house prices are a massive issue and are pressing developers to deliver as many affordable units as possible.

"This is a huge development and we're proud that once completed, Wembley will have over 11,500 new homes, with around 32% affordable housing across the Wembley Masterplan area.

"The approval of these plans shows that we are serious about regenerating the area, creating the much-needed new homes, jobs, apprenticeships and economic opportunities for local people and demonstrates that Brent is very much open for business."

Monthly rents in Quintain development

The word 'affordable' is the misnomer here as affordable in this context means 'up to 80% of market rent including service charges'.  Landlords will go up to that maximum to get the highest return possible on their investment.  Developers in Wembley have time and again attempted to reduce the amount of affordable housing in their projects on grounds of financial viability so it is clear they will go for the maximum.

Cllr McLennan heralds 32% affordable housing (80% market rent) but Brent's Core Strategy CP2 states that 50% of new homes in the borough should be 'affordable':

'the maximum reasonable amount of affordable housing will be sought when negotiating on individual private residential and mixed use schemes, with due regard to a number of factors, including development viability'

The key is in the last three words, each of the schemes have external viability studies that claim to show that they will not be viable without a reduced proportion of 'affordable' housing.  Viability studies are controversial and in the past Cllr Marquis, chair of the Planning Committee, has attempted to challenge them.They were labelled a 'dark art' by the former Mayor of London. LINK

There is an additional 'intermediate category' that is often added to the 'affordable' category for public relations purposes.  The definition is vague:

'intermediate houses for sale and rent provided at a cost above social rent but below market level'

Even 'social rent' is problematic with housing associations becoming developers in their own right and adopting the 'up to 80% of market rent' policy.

Having established the context does the detail suggest that the press release is no more than Brent Council doing Quintain's public relations for them?

Planning officers argue that there is no necessity to provide affordable housing on the Arena Square/Powerleague site because affordable housing to meet requirements is provided elsewhere in Quintain's development. Whether this is achieving the 'maximum reasonable amount of affordable housing' is a matter for debate.

Bedrooms	Private	Up to 80% market rent	Intermediate	Social
APEX HOUSE
1	56	11	12	0
2	77	9	4	0
3	18	4	4	0
ARENA SQ
Studio	36	0	0	0
1	138	0	0	0
2	157	0	0	0
3	9	0	0	0
COTTRELL HOUSE			Shared ownership
Studio	6	0	0	0
1	13	2	1	0
2	15	4	3	0
3	8	3	0	0

It is worth noting that all of these developments are in Tokyngton ward where Cllr Butt, leader of Brent Council, is a councillor along with Cllrs Ketan Sheth and Hylton.  None of them made any representations at the Planning Committee  or submitted comments on the applications.

FURTHER NOTE

A point made on Facebook discussions of this posting is that the 'up to  80%' definition of affordable is the former London Mayor, Boris Johnson's fault and not that of Brent Council.  My gripe is that the Council's press release and Margaret McLennan's flag waving, perpetuates the myth that this is genuinely affordable by residents and therefore good news.  Cllr Mashari does recognise the reality.

Former councillor James Powney has posted this on his blog LINK:

A lot of controversy is generated by the term "affordable housing", since in London especially, it is often far from affordable.  Here is a quick summary of the main types of housing sent to me by a senior housing officer:

Affordable Rent- for family units are usually 60-65% of market rents or the LHA (whichever is the lower), whereas 1-2 bed units are up to 80% of market rent or LHA (whichever is the lower).

 

Social Rent - averages out at 50% of market rent, may be slightly higher (usually 5%) above Social Rent target rents.

 

Intermediate Rent- above both Affordable or Social Rent, but will be below the market value, approx. 90% of market rent.

Tories step into Brent Labour's Council Tax Row

Brent Central Conservatives released the foloowing Press Release yesterday
 

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The Conservative Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Brent Central has called for the Labour controlled Brent Council to cease its internal argument over whether to raise the rate of Council Tax by 1.99%, and instead to work together to reach a decision which is best for the residents of Brent.

Dr Alan Mendoza, a former Brent councillor who announced that he would run as the candidate for Brent Central in January, made his call for unity after an anonymous letter emerged on community blog site WembleyMatters.blogspot.co.uk, claiming to be written by a current Labour councillor.

The letter has revealed an internal argument in Brent Council’s Labour Group, over whether to raise the rate of Council Tax, with backbench Labour councillors accusing the Council Leader Cllr Muhammed Butt and Deputy Leader Cllr Michael Pavey of refusing to accept a vote to raise the rate in order to protect Brent from further proposed service cuts.

The letter, which likens Cllr Pavey’s actions to those in George Orwell’s novel Animal Farm, claims that the Leader and Deputy Leader of the Council refused “point blank” to allow the Council to vote on the Budget, and that, when members of the Labour Group did force a vote, the Leadership chose to “completely ignore it”. The letter also referred to the incident as “an affront to democracy” that will “will bring the council in disrepute.”

Dr Mendoza said: “This internal dispute is indicative of how the Labour controlled council is failing residents in Brent. Instead of working together to reach the best decision for Brent residents, it is focused on playing politics and squabbling amongst themselves.”

Speaking on the proposed increase in council tax, Dr Mendoza said: "The lie that Brent Council has no choice but to make massive cuts because of central government policy has been exposed by this rift in the Council's Labour Group. It turns out that this policy has been enforced by the Labour leadership against the will of backbench Labour councillors. I look forward to the 'nonaffiliated' anti-cuts group Brent Fightback organising its next march outside Cllr Butt's and Cllr Pavey's offices".

Pavey Review not yet available but notes on Constitutional challenge released

The Agenda for Thuursday's meeting of the General Purposes Committee has now been published. The meeting is due to discuss the Pavey Review of Brent Human Resources but the report is not yet available on the Agenda web page.

I understand this is because there are some late additions being made. Instead of the report there is a placeholder:

Following the loss of an employment tribunal case in September, 2014, Councillor Pavey, Deputy Leader, who has Cabinet responsibility for Equalities and the Council’s role as employer, agreed to take stock of the Council’s policies and practice to see where improvements could be made.  Councillor Pavey has now completed his review and will present the findings to the General Purposes Committee.

Although the fullest possible report is obviously desirable, it is unfortunate that members of the committee, the press and the public won't have time to consider it in detail before the meeting.

The Annual Brent Diversity Profile LINK  has been published and this graphic tells its own story about racial equality (Sc3 is the lowest and Hay the highest). Overall % of council workers who are BME is 62%):

Meanwhile the indefatigible Philip Grant is now able to pass on notes of his meeting with Brent Council Leader Muhammed Butt following a resident's successful Freedom of Information request.

Philip asked for a meeting to raise his concerns over the Council's respect of its constitution.

Cllr. Butt had agreed that Mr Grant should take a note of their discussions, and that these should be sent to him for checking, with a view to producing an agreed accurate record of those discussions. It was Cllr. Butt's change of mind on that agreement which means that the Council now claims they are no more than Mr Grant's 'own personal recollection of the meeting'.

Regular readers of Wembley Matters will be able to put a name to the anonymised "AB", especially if they follow those initials in alphabetical order.