Brent Cabinet to approve draft Tenant and Leaseholder Strategy tomorrow. Does it do the job?

 In September 2023, in a public question, I asked Cllr Promise Knight about Brent Council's actions over safety in its tall buildings post Grenfell and in the light of the Building Safety Act. It was important given what was emerging at the Grenfell Inquiry that tenants and leaseholders be fully involved.

Cllr Knight's Answer: LINK

 Photo: SkyNews.com

A further issue that emerged is that of the health dangers of damp and mould following the death of two year-old Awaab Ishak. LINK  Wembley Matters has written about damp and mould in Brent Council properties on the South Kilburn Estate LINK and Landau House, Kilburn LINK.

Tomorrow the Brent Cabinet will consider a draft Tenant and Leaseholder Engagement Strategy aimed at enabling tenants and leaseholders to challenge the Council on these issues in order to prevent another disaster.

The full Cabinet papers can be found HERE and the meeting is at 10am on Monday morning. They set out a series of arrangements and commitments:

 

Every person who rents or owns a home from the Council is important and should have a say in how their home is managed. This document explains how the Council will listen to what you think about living in your home and make changes based on your feedback.

By talking to you and others, the Council will improve services like fixing your home, keeping shared spaces clean, managing your lease, collecting rent, and making sure you are safe.

This document doesn’t talk about every service the Council provides, but any useful feedback will always be shared with the right people.

Events like the fire at Grenfell Tower show that listening to you is the only way we can be a good landlord. Over the next four years, we will work to rebuild our relationship with you, so you feel heard. We will also show you how your feedback has been used to make decisions.

We will be honest and open with information and improve how we communicate with you. This document supports the Council's plan to help everyone in Brent move forward together.

 

OUR COMMITMENTS

1. Commitment One: We have a culture that respects engagement & make changes using your feedback.

How we will do this:

o We will offer various ways for you to get involved and share feedback. o Achieve the National Engagement Standard set by the tenant  engagement support organisation, TPAS.

o Make sure our contractors (repairs) also offer ways you can get involved.

o We will train all new housing staff on engagement and refresh this  training annually.

o We will establish a tenant and leaseholder committee to hold the  Council accountable.

 

2. Commitment 2 – We will learn from your feedback.

How we will do this:

o We will regularly review feedback and complaints to spot areas for improvement.

o Share learning with housing staff and change our practice using this information.

o Host events each year so you can meet with housing staff and report any issues.

o We will use data to identify neighbourhood priorities and engage with specific estates to understand issues.

 

3. Commitment 3 – We will challenge stigma and make sure you feel included.

How we will do this:

o We will work with you to address any stigma and raise awareness among staff and contractors.

o We will ensure communication is respectful and inclusive.

o Offer training to all housing staff on challenging stigma and stereotypes  about people who live in social housing.

o Make community spaces places you feel safe no matter your age,  gender, sexuality, religion, ability, race & ethnicity.

 

4. Commitment 4 – We will make sure you influence decisions about the service we provide.

How we will do this:

o We will involve you in decision-making at both the neighbourhood and strategic levels.

o We will compensate you for your time and ensure you are part of assessing bidders and renewing contracts.

o We will work with you if you live in a high-rise block, so you feel safe and have a say on any work we need to carry out.

o Make sure your housing officer regularly inspects your block or estate and invites you and your neighbours to join them.

o Provide you with regular updates on changes to our service and how your feedback has been used.

 

5. Commitment 5 - We will be transparent with you and provide information so you can challenge us.

How we will do this:

o We will regularly share information with you using various channels about our performance.

o We will share the results of any consultation or engagement activity we carry out.

o We will meet with Resident Association representatives every two months (minimum) and present how we have delivered this strategy.

o We will support you in scrutinizing services and presenting findings to senior managers.

 

6. Commitment 6 – We will work with you to make a positive contribution to where you live.

How we will do this:

o We will promote opportunities for you to get involved in community activities.

o We will review community spaces to ensure they are used effectively and safely.

o Help you and your neighbours to apply for funding to run events and activities on your estate or in your community.

o Work with you and our partners like the Police on problems like anti- social behaviour and crime.

By working together, we aim to create a better living environment for everyone.

 

Keeping Our Homes Safe: A Plan from Brent Council

 

What’s Our Plan?

 

We want to make sure everyone living in our tall buildings is safe. We have a new

safety plan to help with this. The plan follows new rules introduced by Government

under the Building Safety Act 2022.

 

Why Do We Need This Plan?

 

There’s a new rule that says we must keep tall buildings very safe. Tall buildings are buildings that are 18 metres OR seven floors high and taller. We need to talk to the

people living there to find out how to keep them safe and keep them updated with

our plans for the building.

 

What Will We Do?

 

1. Sharing Information: We will tell everyone about important safety information.

2. Listening to You: We will ask for your thoughts and make sure we listen.

3. Checking on Safety: We will see if what we’re doing is working well.

 

Who’s in Charge?

 

Brent Council is in charge of making sure that the tall buildings it owns is safe for the people who live in them. We have specific people in charge of doing this:

 

 Senior Managers

 Safety Officers

 Housing Officers

 People who talk to residents

 

If you have any worries about safety in your home, you can email us at

BHMBuildingSafety@brent.gov.uk

 

Knowing Who Lives in Our Buildings

 

We need to know everyone living in our tall buildings, especially if someone needs help during an emergency. We will ask everyone once a year who lives in their home and if anyone needs special help. This helps the firefighters know who to help first.

 

Some examples include:

 

 If you have trouble walking or climbing stairs by yourself

 If you have poor eyesight or hearing

 

How We Will Share Information With You

 

We will use different ways to give you information:

 

 Letters to your home

 Posters in your building

 Information on our website

 

Every year, we will have a meeting about your building to talk about safety. You can ask questions and learn about any changes we are making at this meeting. We will publish dates of meetings on our website and contact you beforehand so you know when and where the meeting will be.

 

Asking for Your Opinions

 

We will ask what you think about:

 Big changes to your building and how that can affect you.

 Safety checks and repairs.

 Telling us about any new problems you have noticed.

 New safety rules.

 

Checking Our Plan

 

We will look at our plan every year to make sure it’s working. We will ask for your help to make it better.

 

Council housing – Brent’s clarification on London Living Rent homes at Fulton and Fifth development

 Guest post by Philip Grant in a personal capacity

 

East elevation drawing and location plan for Fulton and Fifth development.
(From documents in planning application 22/3123)

 

When I wrote my guest post “Brent’s Council Housing – A Tale of Two Sites” last month, I gave some details of a type of “affordable” housing known as London Living Rent (“LLR”), which the Council will be using for a block of flats it is buying at the Fulton and Fifth development in Wembley Park. 

 

I used details of this type of tenancy given on the GLA website, that ‘it is designed to help people transition from renting to shared ownership.’ I sent a copy of my article to Cllr. Promise Knight, Brent’s Lead Member for Housing, and asked:

 

‘IF Brent goes ahead with letting tenancies at Fulton and Fifth as LLR, what length of LLR tenancy does it plan to award? 

 

What will happen to those LLR tenants when their LLR tenancy comes to an end, if they are unable or unwilling to convert it to a Shared Ownership lease?’

 

I have now received a reply from Brent to that query, and as it clarifies the position (thankfully, these Council homes will not be converted to Shared Ownership!) I am setting out that response here, so that the correct information is available:-

 

‘I’m responding to your email below on behalf of Councillor Knight.

 

Thanks for your questions, your article is based on the assumption the Council is delivering London Living Rent as described by the Greater London Authority.

 

On 06 February 2023, the Council published a Cabinet report outlining the plans for Fulton and Fifth.

 

In this report, we state that Local Authorities can request from the GLA to rent the properties in perpetuity. We can confirm that this permission has been sought and granted and so the London Living Rent homes will continue to be rented at London Living Rent levels rather than there being a requirement to convert to Shared Ownership. This means they are effectively Discount Market Rent homes but will use London Living Rent levels to dictate the levels of rent charged.

 

The Council agrees, social rent and London affordable rent will always be the preference and priority and the scheme includes 176 homes for London Affordable Rent.

 

Best wishes

 

Head of Affordable Housing & Partnerships’

 

 

Extract from the Report on the Fulton Road development to the 6 February 2023 Cabinet meeting.

 

Leaving aside the assurance at the end of the reply, that the Council regards Social Rent and London Affordable Rent homes as a ‘preference and priority’, and the claim in the February 2023 Report that the Fulton Road development will benefit meeting ‘current housing demand’ (the homes are expected to be ready by July 2026), 294 new Council homes for rent is to be welcomed. Here is the split of home sizes for the two blocks, and two rent levels:-

 

 

Extract from the Report on the Fulton Road development to the 6 February 2023 Cabinet meeting.

 

It is a pity that more of these homes could not be at the “genuinely affordable” LAR level, but they should, at least, be cheaper to rent than private rents for similarly sized accommodation. I included a chart in my earlier article, showing what the LLR rent levels are for different sized homes in each of the Wards in Brent. 

 

I will finish by comparing what tenants in each of the two “affordable” housing blocks would be paying in rent, if their tenancy began in April 2024. The figures will be different (higher) by 2026, and they do not include service charges or Council Tax.

 

In block E, they will be tenants of Brent Council, and 2024/25 LAR rents (converted to monthly figures, but with weekly rent shown in brackets) would be:

 

1-bedroom  -  £840  (£193.99 pw)
2-bedroom  -  £890  (£205.39 pw)
3-bedroom  -  £940  (£216.80 pw)

 

In similar sized flats next door in block D, where the tenancies would be from one of Brent Council’s wholly-owned companies (First Wave Housing or i4B Ltd), the 2024 LLR monthly rents would be:

 

1-bedroom  -  £1,080
2-bedroom  -  £1,200
3-bedroom  -  £1,320

 

In theory, the LLR homes are for people who have a higher income (household income of up to £60,000 a year), but it would be interesting to know how the Council will decide who gets offered block D, and who is offered block E. It makes quite a big difference!

 

Philip Grant.

Brent’s Council Housing – A Tale of Two Sites. The reality behind Brent Council press releases

 Guest post by Philip Grant in a personal capacity

From the Brent Council website home page, 18 March 2024.

 

Two news items about Council housing on Brent’s website caught my eye this month. Before I look at these schemes individually, let’s have a recap about their targets for affordable homes.

 

When Brent’s New Council Homes Programme was launched five years ago, the aim was for 5,000 affordable homes to be built in the borough between April 2019 and March 2024 inclusive. As part of that aim, the Council set itself ‘a strategic target of delivering 1,000 new council homes at genuinely affordable rent by 31 March 2024.’

 

Promise’s “promise”, from the Spring 2024 edition of “Your Brent” magazine.

 

Having failed to meet those targets by next Sunday, the Council is doing its best to ignore that fact, and to publicise their new target instead. The ‘5,000 affordable homes in total within Brent’ is given an extra four years, and although an extra 700 new Council homes is added to the target to be achieved by 2028, rather than March 2024, they are no longer promised to be at genuinely affordable rent.

 

The Brent news release banner, from the Council’s website on 15 March 2024.

 

The first housing scheme that a Brent news release celebrated this month was the start of construction on the Neville and Winterleys site in South Kilburn. Among the white hard hat “crowd” in this Council publicity photograph are “the usual suspects” from Brent’s Cabinet, including the Council Leader with a spade (as in the Watling Gardens “groundbreaking” photo last October). But who are the others in this “flash mob”? Are they local residents waiting to be rehoused, celebrating that something is actually happening, or workers from a nearby site operated by the same contractor? Please add a comment below if you know the answer.

 

Brent applied for planning permission for this development in December 2018 (application 18/4920), and these were the details of the homes, and split between Social Rented and Private Sale, approved by Brent’s Planning Committee on 18 February 2020 (more than four years ago!):

 

Extract from the Final Officer Report to the 18 February 2020 Planning Committee meeting.

 

After minor changes to the design, the number of flats to be built here has been increased from 219 to 225, but the number of Council homes has gone down from 112 to 95. Despite this, Brent’s Lead Member for Regeneration can still put a positive “spin” on the numbers:

 

Extract from Brent’s 15 March 2024 news release.

 

The “almost half” is actually 42.2% of the new homes, and these will all be for existing Council tenants in South Kilburn, being decanted from other blocks that will be demolished as part of the troubled South Kilburn Regeneration Project. None of the ‘more than 200 much-needed homes’ will go to provide housing at genuinely affordable rents for local families on the Council’s waiting list, even though the 95 for existing tenants will be counted as ‘new Council homes’. 

 

Despite Brent celebrating the start of construction now, those homes may not be built in time for the 2028 target, as the news release says: ‘The scheme will be delivered by Countryside Partnerships (part of Vistry Group) and is due for completion by 2029.’ [I may add a comment below later about Vistry Group.]

 

Another Brent news release banner, again picturing some of “the usual suspects”, on 18 March 2024.

 

The second housing scheme that Brent issued a news release for this month is the former Euro House site in Wembley Park, now known as Fulton and Fifth. The development initially received planning consent in December 2020 for a total of 493 homes, which was increased to 759 (of which 218 would be “affordable”) under a second application to Planning Committee in November 2021 (with one Labour member, since removed from the committee, voting against approval). From the news release, it seems that the final figure is 876 homes, with 294 of them as new “affordable” Council homes.

 

It's amazing how many homes you can squeeze onto a site of 1.29 hectares, which used to be a two-storey warehouse. And the five towers have gone up quickly, as you can see on the left in this photograph, which I took earlier this month, while looking at what had happened to parts of the British Empire Exhibition grounds of 100 years ago (when there was a coal mine here!):

 

The Fulton and Fifth site, with its tower cranes, seen across Engineers Way from Canada Gardens.

 

It is very good news that all 294 ‘will go to council tenants on the council’s housing waiting list.’ But, as they say, ‘the devil is in the detail’, and these are homes that the Council is buying, on long leases, from a private developer, not Council homes that Brent is building itself.

 

In the 2021 proposals, there would only have been 80 homes for London Affordable Rent (“LAR”), with 62 “affordable” at no more than Local Housing Allowance (“LHA”) rent level and 76 for Shared Ownership. I explained LHA and Shared Ownership in detail, in a November 2022 guest post. 

 

The press release says that now ‘118 will be at London Living Rent, and 176 homes will be rented at London Affordable Rent.’ 176 homes at the “genuinely affordable” LAR rent level will be very welcome (although that rent level does not include a cap on the level of service charges). But 176 is slightly less than the 181 which will be sold privately, or as Shared Ownership, on Brent Council’s own development at Cecil Avenue in Wembley, with only 56 of the 237 being built at that site for rent to Council tenants at LAR level!

 

You may not be familiar with London Living Rent (“LLR”), so I will take this opportunity to explain what it means. It was introduced by the Mayor of London, and the GLA website says: ‘London Living Rent is a type of intermediate affordable housing for middle-income Londoners who want to build up savings to buy a home. … it is designed to help people transition from renting to shared ownership.’

 

To qualify for an LLR home, you need to live or work in London, be in housing need, but not be able to afford to buy a home (even a Shared Ownership one!) and have a household income of no more than £60k a year. Your tenancy, if you get an LLR home, will be for a minimum of three years, and up to ten years. During that time, you will be expected to save, so that you can buy a share of your home through Shared Ownership.

 

London Living Rent levels from 1 January 2024 for each Brent Council Ward. (From a GLA spreadsheet)

 

LLR rent levels are based on one third of average local household incomes, on a Ward-by-Ward basis across the capital, and are recalculated each year. Currently, the monthly LLR rent level for a 1-bedroom flat in Wembley Park would be £1080, rising to £1320 for a 3-bedroom home. For 2024, there is a cap of £1400 a month for LLR rents.

 

Extract from Brent’s 18 March 2024 news release.

 

What the LLR rent levels for Wembley Park will be in 2026, if the promised homes are ready in ‘just two years from now’, will depend on figures for household incomes in that area. Given the large number of new Quintain Living (and other private) apartments being let, and the rents that people have to pay for them, “local household incomes” are likely to rise, with the LLR rents rising as well.

 

Quintain Living advert, photographed on a Jubilee Line train in March 2024.

 

As an example of what is currently charged by Quintain Living, the advert above says that you can rent a studio apartment from £1703 a month. That’s more than £20,400 a year for a home only big enough for one or two people, so not affordable for most local people in housing need. (You have to look very closely for the “small print” on ‘one month rent free’, as it’s printed in white on a light background – it only applies to selected unfurnished apartments with a minimum 12-month tenancy.)

 

One final point on Brent’s affordable housing at the Regal London Fulton Road development. 294 homes is only 33.5% of the total being built there. Brent’s own planning policies say that at least 70% of the affordable housing provided on large developments should be “genuinely affordable”, but the Council’s 176 LAR homes are just under 60%, while the 118 “intermediate” LLR homes account for just over 40%. Not even following their own rules!

 

I hope you have found my latest look at Brent’s Council housing of interest. I’m sure it is more informative than Brent Council’s press releases!

 

Philip Grant.

 

 

EDITOR'S FOOTNOTE

 

Meanwhile MYLONDON reports on private renting:

 

The average cost of renting privately in one North West London borough has exploded over the past 12 months. Since February last year, tenants in Brent have seen their housing costs increase sharper than anywhere else in the country, leaving some residents feeling like life has become about nothing more than simply working to afford the extortionate prices.

 

The cost of renting the average private home in Brent is 20 per cent more expensive than it was in February 2023, according to data from the government’s Housing Market Indices Team. This increase is five per cent more than the next worst affected London borough, and more than double the national average.

 

FURTHER INFORMATION FROM PHILIP GRANT

 FULTON AND FIFTH SITE:

In case anyone is wondering how the 759 home scheme approved by Brent's Planning Committee was magically increased to an 876 home development, here is the answer.

Among the many further planning applications arising from conditions set out in the November 2021 planning consent was application 22/3123, seeking variations of (among others) 'conditions 2 (approved drawings/documents), 3 (residential units)'.

One of the variations was to add an additional floor within the buildings, making the tallest 24 storeys rather than the 23 approved, but to do so without raising the consented height of the building.

How do you do that? By reducing the ceiling height of the flats on each floor! The ceiling height would now be 2.5 metres, which is still acceptable for housing standards. One of the two blocks where this reduction would be made was block E, with 176 homes - and it is no coincidence that 176 is the number of homes for LAR which Brent Council tenants will be offered!

This planning application did not go to Brent's Planning Committee. It was approved by a Delegated Team Manager, and signed off by Brent's Head of Planning on 9 June 2023.

This was despite the Report on the application saying: 'It is acknowledged that the proposal would continue to be in excess of the indicative site capacity of the whole site allocation,' - squeezing them in, as my article points out!

The Report also says: 'Of the 876 units, 122 of these would be 3-bed (13.9%). Under the extant consent, 79 out of the 759 units were approved to be 3-bed (10.4%). While there is an uplift of 3-bed units, these still fall short of the requirement for 1 in 4 dwellings within a development to be 3 bedrooms or more, sought by the Local Plan Policy BH6.' So, a big shortfall in the family-sized homes which Brent desperately needs.

The 3-bed flats which Brent Council will receive are shown to be 56 for LAR in block E and 36 for LLR in block D. (That's 56 family-sized homes for "genuinely affordable" rent in a development of 876 homes!).

Morland Gardens – Brent Council ‘unable to make any commitments'

 Guest post by Philip Grant in a personal capacity

 

Earlier this month I wrote “Morland Gardens – Report recommends Council does not proceed, but …”. The ‘but’ was because, although Brent cannot go ahead with its proposed redevelopment (as its planning consent has expired), it still has an outstanding “first stage” contract with Hill Group which includes the demolition of the Victorian villa “Altamira” (above).

 

At the end of my previous guest post I included the text of an open email I had sent to Brent’s Chief Executive, and other senior figures at the Civic Centre, seeking an assurance that this locally listed heritage asset would not be demolished, unless or until there was a legal requirement allowing for its demolition (which does not currently exist).

 

There was no mention of this at the Cabinet meeting on 11 December, when the Affordable Housing Supply update report (which recommended a review to come up with ‘an alternative site strategy’ for Morland Gardens) was dealt with. Last Friday afternoon I received this written response to my open email:

 

‘Dear Mr Grant 

 

RE: Morland Gardens and the Affordable Housing Supply (2023) Update Report  

 

Thank you for your open email dated 4th December 2023 addressed to Cllr Knight, the Council’s Chief Executive and the Council’s Corporate Director for Resident Services. Your enquiry has been forwarded to me to respond on their behalf.

 

The Council is unable to make any commitments or assurances either verbally or in writing on whether there will be demolition of the Altamira building or not, until such time the Council has considered its options for the site. As provided in previous correspondence, the Council will be reviewing the site options including the Altamira building, and will present these to Cabinet for consideration in due course.

 

Further information about the Councils procedures can be found on the Council's website: https://www.brent.gov.uk/your-council

 

Kind regards

 

Head of Capital Programmes’

 

My concern, and that of other “Friends of Altamira”, is that someone at the Civic Centre will instruct Hill Group to carry out the demolition of the buildings on the site, under their existing contract, while the Council is still considering ‘its options for the site’. That is a risk, which could occur either by mistake, or deliberately out of vindictiveness (against the campaign which took advantage of the Council’s mistakes, in its fight to save this important heritage building).

 

 

There should not be any reason why Brent can’t give the assurance I’d requested. A similar one was given in June 2021, when the then Strategic Director for Regeneration and Environment wrote to me (in response to me pointing out that Brent did not have the Stopping-up Order required before its proposed Morland Gardens development could take place): 

 

‘I confirm that the demolition of “Altamira” will not take place until all necessary legal pre-requisites are in place.’

 

The Strategic Director had been made aware that there would be objections to any proposed Order, and the reasons for it. Yet it was not until 28 April 2022 that valid notice of the proposed Stopping-up Order was given. That was just before Brent was finally ready to award a contract for the development. 

 

Given the uncertainty over whether the Council would obtain the legal right to build over the land outside 1 Morland Gardens, a group of Liberal Democrat and Conservative councillors called-in his Key Decision to award the two-stage “Design and Build” contract. The minutes of the 9 June 2022 call-in meeting set out how he answered the reasons given by Cllr. Lorber and two members of the public about why the contract should not be awarded:

 

 

Mr Lunt’s argument was that “only” £1.1m was at risk (the estimated cost of stage one) if the contract was awarded, whereas the Council stood to lose £6.5m in GLA funding if the project did not go ahead. He gave the impression that the Stopping-up Order process would be over by the end of 2022. The minutes record his answer to a question from a Committee member:

 

‘It was confirmed that any objections to the stopping up order which were not withdrawn would be considered by the Mayor of London. Mr Lunt noted that in his experience, all stopping up orders had been confirmed.’

 

In fact, it was February 2023 before Brent supplied the GLA with all the information needed for the Mayor of London’s decision. When that decision came on 20 March, it did not confirm the Stopping-up Order. Instead, it said that the objections would need to be considered by a Public Inquiry, and Brent Council had still not arranged for that Inquiry to be held when its planning consent for the Morland Gardens development expired at the end of October!

 

The June 2022 call-in meeting of Resources and Public Realm Scrutiny Committee did agree that the contract should be awarded (although Mr Lunt had failed to tell them that he could not award it, as the “Contractor Framework” under which it was offered had expired at the end of May 2022!). A contract was actually awarded a couple of months later, under a different Framework, after a rushed decision by Brent’s Cabinet.

It is that contract which still poses a risk to the survival of the 150-year old beautiful and historic landmark building at 1 Morland Gardens. The Council has only to look at its own published words to know that it should not allow the unnecessary demolition of this heritage asset: 

 

From Brent’s May 2019 “Historic Environment Place-making Strategy”

 

I believe that Brent can and should make a commitment over “Altamira”, so I sent the following open email in reply to the response I’d received on 15 December:

 

‘Dear Mr Martin and Ms Wright,

 

Thank you for your email this afternoon, in response to my open email of 4 December. I have to say that I am disappointed by it.

 

I realise that the Council is carrying out a review to consider its options for the site at 1 Morland Gardens, and that recommendations will then be made to Brent's Cabinet. 

 

The assurance I requested does not need to wait for the outcome of those considerations, as it does not seek any commitment that there are no circumstances in which Brent Council would demolish the heritage building.

 

The assurance I am seeking is not an unreasonable one (given the Council's heritage assets policies and the fact that the flawed original consent, allowing the demolition of Altamira, has now expired). I will set out its terms again:

 

that there will be no demolition of the locally listed Victorian villa at 1 Morland Gardens, unless or until there are new plans in place for the site which would require the demolition of this heritage asset, and those plans have been properly consulted on, considered and given planning consent, and there are no outstanding legal requirements which need to be met before those new proposed development plans can go ahead.

 

I hope that, having reconsidered my request on a fair reading of the assurance I am seeking, Ms Wright can now give that assurance on behalf of Brent Council. Thank you. Best wishes, 

 

Philip Grant.’