Guest post by Philip Grant in a personal capacity
At the end of a guest blog about Brent’s Wembley Housing Zone on 15 April, I mentioned that I was waiting for the written response from the Council to a deputation of 9 March, on a report to a Scrutiny Committee about its progress on implementing the recommendations of the 2020 Brent Poverty Commission Report. I’m still waiting!
I was meant to present my deputation via zoom to a meeting of the Resources & Public Realm Scrutiny Committee, near the end of a meeting which went on for over three hours. However, not long into my presentation, the sound from me started to break up, and the Chair, Cllr. Roxanne Mashari, decided that they would have to cut me off. She asked me to send a written copy of my deputation, so that a written response could be sent. I was then immediately removed from the zoom link.
Martin, to whom I’d already sent a copy for information, published the text of my deputation straight away on “Wembley Matters”, and I sent an email to Cllr. Mashari, her committee members and its Governance Officer with a pdf copy of my deputation. The following morning, Martin sent me a screenshot of Cllr. Mashari’s “like” of his “tweet” sharing the link to that blog.
Two weeks later, as I’d heard nothing further, I emailed Cllr. Mashari, and Cllr. Eleanor Southwood, who I understood would be dealing with the Council’s response, as my deputation concentrated on the Housing section of the Poverty Commission Update. I attached another pdf copy of my deputation, and asked one of them, or the Governance Officer to whom it was copied, to let me have the response, or the date I could expect it, if it wasn’t ready then.
At first, they denied having previously had a copy of my deputation. Then Cllr. Mashari told me, on 23 March, that she would seek to ensure I got 'a full response as soon as possible, at the latest within the next ten working days.' After further “chasing” I was told on 11 April that ‘a written response is being prepared [and] will be with you as soon as possible.’ Still nothing!
On 26 April, in response to yet another email, the Governance Officer wrote: ‘I can confirm that a response on the issues raised within your deputation is currently being prepared and will be shared with you as soon as it has been finalised.’ He also added that it was having to be prepared from ‘a copy of the version posted online’, as they had not received a document copy from me (despite these being sent on 9 and 23 March!).
You would have thought that Cllr. Southwood and Senior Council Officers would have wanted to answer the serious concerns I had raised about the Poverty Commission Update report (signed off by the Assistant Chief Executive). These had been publicised widely online, and they had been promised a “right of reply”, with their response also published on “Wembley Matters”. It now seems they are determined NOT to reply before the elections on 5 May. WHY?
Brent Poverty Commission recommendation on social rented homes.
The Poverty Commission’s key recommendation on housing, which Brent’s Cabinet accepted in 2020, was that the Council should invest more in building homes for letting at social rent levels. But the report (which recommended that Scrutiny Committee should simply “note” the progress made) did not mention the words “social rent” at all in its Housing section!
Instead, it repeated the Council’s claims of the great progress made with its New Council Homes programme. My deputation challenged that, using information from the excellent “Life in Kilburn” blog from September 2021, which exposed the reality of Brent’s claim to be building “1,000 New Council Homes” by 2024. [The Cabinet has since agreed to buy a couple of blocks of leasehold flats from developers, but that is not quite the same thing!]
My deputation also alleged that this concentration on the New Homes programme was an attempt to hide from Scrutiny that, so far, NO new Council homes had been built for letting at social rent levels. I will be very interested to read the Council’s response on that point, because Cllr. Southwood must have heard at least some of my zoom presentation on 9 March. When I went to Brent’s online webcast library to find out what had been said at the meeting after I was “thrown out” from it, she appeared to give an answer.
Cllr. Southwood appeared to say: ‘all of our housing is at social rents.’ I believe that statement to be, at the least, misleading! You’d think that someone who has been Lead Member for Housing for several years would know what the different types of homes which fall within the definition of “affordable housing” are. Here is part of a chart from the GLA website which explains them:
As the chart shows, “social rent” ‘is the only housing type really affordable to lower income Londoners’, that is why the Brent Poverty Commission recommended that it was the type of housing the Council should invest in for its new homes. One of the Poverty Commission’s key findings was that: ‘no family with two children (whether couple or lone parent) can afford any rent that is more expensive than LB Brent social rents.’
But most of the new homes Brent Council is building will be for London Affordable Rent (sometimes referred to ‘as “social rent”, which it is not’). That is higher than “social rent” levels. And some of the New Council Homes will be at “Intermediate” rent levels, or for Shared Ownership, which although these are still described as “affordable”, would not be for most Brent families in housing need. On the Council’s Cecil Avenue development, the proposed split of the 250 homes to be built is 37 for London Affordable Rent, 61 at Intermediate Rent or Shared Ownership, 152 for private sale by a developer partner and zero for social rent!
That is why my deputation called on the Resources & Public Realm Scrutiny Committee to challenge the failure to comply with the Commission’s recommendation over social rented homes, and demand that Brent Council does better. I look forward to hearing how they will do that, but how much longer I will have to wait for their written response is an open question.
Philip Grant.
