Brent-Labour In Thatcherite Gloves: ISN’T IT JUST AN IRONY?

 

Last week an air ambulance landed at the post demolition library site to take an injured child to hospital

 

Guest post in a personal capacity by Bastôn De’Medici-Jaguar 

Your Community Archer

 

On April 27^th, the South Kenton and Preston Park residents, in a forum organised by the Residents Association (SKPPRA), scrutinised the council candidates for the elections this coming Thursday. The goal, one can infer, was to understand the policy position of the diverse candidates who presented themselves for questioning (democracy lives on). 

 

At the heart of this meeting was the hot topic of the recently passed Brent Council Planning Committee motion for the redevelopment of the Preston library. The issue is a sensitive one for the residents of SKPP – and rightly so. A consultation return indicated that 98% of the residents opposed the development, which Labour insists is to provide homes for people in the Borough. No one doubts that there is a housing crisis in Brent or indeed London. The simple controversy is this – the people do not want this kind of housing – small and exorbitantly expensive. One resident at the meeting “rightly” points out that no one in the community can afford the price tags attached to these properties. This then begs the question: who is Brent building for? The answer is anyone’s guess. 

 

The plot of land for the intending site was once the home of the Preston library. That has now been demolished to put the block of twelve flats on [Ed: a new space for the library will be provided in the block]. The actual bone in this matter is that the proposed infrastructure goes against local planning regulations. But Brent has nonetheless hammered its imprimatur to the deal. The controversy was such that the residents, through the faithful gatekeeper, Doreen Gill, launched a judicial review in the High Court. The High Court held that the proposed development was contrary to the Local Plan and found against the Council. Oh, how could they? The Council sidestepped the ruling of the Court and is pushing ahead with its machination. 

 

At the SKPPRA meeting last Wednesday, residents asked the panel of candidates, “Should the High Court's ruling be respected?” The obvious answer is yes. However, Labour-led Brent Council, represented by Councillor Daniel Kennelly at the meeting, submitted that the ruling is respected. How so? The tactic used to circumvent the Court’s ruling was a piece of legislation from the long laid to rest Thatcherite government, allowing planning regulations to be disregarded. This, Kennelly vehemently advocated and submitted, is a Conservative piece of legislation, and if anyone wanted it to change, the Conservatives are in power and thus have the clout to change it. I suspect this was directed at Cllr. Michael Maurice – a Conservative Councillor who was in the audience. Very well said and indeed correct, Cllr.Kennelly.  But there is a mistake. Brent Council is controlled by Labour. And it is this Labour council that has gone back in time to reach for the archaic legislation. This behaviour  frustrates the Court’s decision and launches an onslaught on democracy – disregarding the will of the people, and has ripped open the sacred veil of servanthood. Brent-Labour has strapped its hands in the Thatcherite gloves. Brent is now a carved-out autocratic island in a supposedly largely democratic nation. When judiciary rulings are stifled, fundamental rights can do nothing but take flight. With Brent-Labour's punching power amplified by the Thatcherite gloves,  it has winded society and flatlined the voice of the people, causing the fundamental right of 98% of SKPPRA's residents to take leave.

 

Bastôn is the Green Party candidate for Kenton. Read his election statement HERE

LETTER: Promises, Promises...

 Dear Editor,

 

It is local election time and existing and prospective councillors are on doorsteps or in hustings making promises. We recall our community’s experience of an election promise.

 

On the 7^th May 2014 at a public meeting in St. Erconwald’s Church Hall, Councillor Roxanne Mashari then a member of Brent Council Cabinet and still a Councillor today said:

 

‘Therefore this Labour administration the Labour Party in Brent will offer the building at a peppercorn rent to a local community group who can provide a sustainable community library and that is our pledge’.

 

The ‘building’ was the Preston Library Building – the only publicly owned community space in our area. The matter was an election issue because the Labour administration closed the library in the face of widespread opposition.

 

Years of evasion followed while the Council looked for every possible excuse (school use need etc.) to renege on their promise.

 

Eventually Brent submitted a planning application for the redevelopment of the site and faced down persistent, reasoned, and evidenced opposition that the redevelopment was contrary to their promise, is contrary to the Local Plan, will increase the flood risk, and will result in climate abuse. Brent ignored these issues in years of ‘community consultation’ and twice granted planning consent for their own development. The matter then proceeded to the High Court for Judicial Review.

 

At the second Judicial Review – the first one quashed the planning consent – and faced with a High Court Judge finding for a second time that the development is contrary to the Local Plan – the Labour administration instructed its lawyers to invoke the Senior Courts Act – a law introduced by the Thatcher Government to limit the involvement of ordinary citizens in government decisions.

 

To the astonishment of many including their own supporters a Labour Council (who persistently say they are constrained by Tory Government cuts) used the tools of the Thatcher Government to impose its development on our community.

 

On 26 June 2020 in a video meeting – we asked the Leader of the Council and the Chief Executive to honour Councillor Mashari’s Pledge. They did not deny the pledge or what it meant for the library, but the Chief Executive replied that an administration coming into office after an election could never be bound by the promises made by a candidate for council in an election campaign.

 

The pledge was referred to the Council’s Monitoring Officer who administers the Brent Members Code of Conduct. This describes the expected integrity, accountability, and honesty of members – qualities which most residents would see as relevant to a failure to keep a public promise.

 

In a decision published on 26 August 2021 the Monitoring Officer decided that too much time had passed since the pledge for it to be in the ‘public interest’ to investigate the matter. She added - as an individual Member of the Council and the Cabinet, Cllr Mashari had no power to make a binding commitment on behalf of the Council or Cabinet.

 

Residents should therefore heed the advice of the Monitoring Officer - candidates cannot make promises and don’t be patient when they mislead.

 

Despite Brent Council’s appalling treatment of our community, we believe in free speech and a right of reply. On the 15 October 2021 we asked Councillor Mashari to explain why she had not kept her promise because we intended to publish this review and wanted to give her a right to reply.

 

Within an hour Councillor Mashari replied that she would make a substantive response by next Tuesday. (19 October 2021).

 

On the 23 October 2021 she said she was ill but would address the points you have made here thoroughly. Please be assured that I will reply as soon as possible.

 

We never heard again from Councillor Mashari.

 

It seems for Brent councillors ‘next Tuesday’ just never comes. ‘Next Tuesday’ never comes either for Brent Council’s ‘promise’ to tackle the climate emergency.

 

Brent Council demolished the library in December 2021.

 

Instead of giving the building to the community as Councillor Mashari promised, it was given to a demolition contractor to take to landfill to aid in the Council’s destruction of the planet.

 

Michael  Rushe,

Chair

South Kenton Preston Park Residents Association

 

LETTER: Preston Library: Brent Council Demolishes and Residents Pay

 Dear Editor,

Brent Council’s real climate change policy was evident last month when the Council justified the demolition of Preston Library by saying ‘the current building is considered inadequate in terms of energy use’.

 

(Kilburn Times 7^th December 2021 - https://www.kilburntimes.co.uk/news/local-council/wembley-anger-as-council-begins-preston-library-demolition-8546130)

 

Days later residents received an email from the Council promoting its ‘Green Grants to help fight Climate Change’ and asking for applications for ‘energy efficiency improvements’. See Pot 1 at https://www.brent.gov.uk/your-community/climate-emergency/carbon-offset-fund/

 

Thus a few days after tearing down a perfectly good building and unnecessarily pumping 600 tonnes of Carbon into the world – the Council asks residents to insulate their homes and invest in low carbon heating – ‘to make a real difference locally to tackle the climate crisis’?

 

Where residents’ homes are ‘inadequate in energy use’ residents must apply for grants and use personal funds to top up the cost of the measures needed to save the planet. When Brent has a building that is ‘inadequate in energy use’ - it is demolished helping to destroy our climate.

 

In 2012 – some time before Brent Council realised there was a climate emergency - SKPPRA (South Kenton Preston Park Residents Association) completed a pilot project on energy and carbon savings in our 1930s solid wall houses.

 

These are ‘entirely inadequate in energy use’ as there is no cavity to insulate but surprisingly no-one suggested demolition as residents do not have the funds available to Brent to demolish perfectly good buildings.

 

In 2012 all residents in SKPPRA were able to participate, and two houses were chosen at random to have the work done to their house at no cost to the occupants. The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) provided the funding through the Local Energy Assessment Fund (LEAF) and monitored the outcome for savings in energy consumption and carbon emissions.

 

Typical SKPPRA 1930s Semi - All external walls were insulated in LEAF 2012 scheme

 

In 2012 the project cost twice as much as Brent Council are now offering homeowners in a maximum grant through the Council’s Carbon Offset Fund. Any resident who applies will therefore need significant personal funds to reach the energy and carbon savings of the SKPPRA 2012 LEAF project.

 

If 480 homes are improved under Brent’s scheme residents will have to invest £4.8m of personal funds to deliver the performance of the SKPPRA 2012 pilot - just to offset the avoidable climate abuse and carbon emissions caused by the Preston Library development.

 

Quite a transfer of cost and resources from the climate abuser to the residents of Brent.

 

The destruction of the Preston Library building was not just the loss of a cherished community resource - it helped to destroy the planet.

 

Happy New Year?

 

SKPPRA – South Kenton Preston Park Residents Association

The Preston Library site and 'Our exceptional and Priceless Planet'

 This Guest Post is the view of the authors and not necessarily that of Wembley Matters. Guest Post by SKPPRA (South Kenton Preston Park Residents' Association).

 

Yesterday the UN Secretary General of the UN António Guterres told humanity at the COP26 conference in Glasgow - ‘We face a stark choice: either we stop [the addiction] or it stops us’[1].

 

Here in Wembley Brent Council gave an instant response to the UN that afternoon when contractors for the Council started work on the climate destroying redevelopment of the Preston Library site. In the words of Mr. Guterres - Brent Council have decided not to stop climate destruction but to stop us!

 

The library development is a disaster for the climate and for our local community which has fought for so long to retain a library use at the site. The local community strongly opposed the development in 90% of the responses made to Brent Council in the pre-application consultations and in the town planning process. The proposed development reduces community use at the site, overlooks and impacts on the amenity and privacy of the adjoining owners, and was found by the High Court in two separate Judicial Reviews to be contrary to the requirements of the Local Plan.

 

Brent Council was only able to avoid the quashing of the planning consent for a second time by invoking The Senior Courts Act – a Thatcher Government statute designed to limit individual and community involvement in local government decisions. The present Council, it appears has strong addictions not only to climate abuse but to the methods of its political opponents back as far as Mrs. Thatcher in the 1980s.

 

SKPPRA (South Kenton Preston Park Residents Association) and the residents living next to the Preston Library Site in Wembley have for more than three years sought to plot a better course for the community, the site and for the planet.

 

Brent Council proposes to demolish the existing Preston Library building and to build a new library on the same site a few metres away from the existing building. Residents know this is unsustainable and a climate destroying development. The proposal results in an avoidable emission of six hundred tonnes (600tCO₂e) calculated using the ICE database at https://circularecology.com/ for the demolition and rebuild of the library building.

 

To mitigate these emissions ten-thousand trees (one third of the street trees in Brent) need to be planted and mature for ten years to offset the avoidable emissions in the library development.[2]   Brent to be carbon neutral by 2030?

 

The Community’s initiative not only saves the building and the planet, but avoids the emissions caused by the development, retains the trees destroyed by the Council, and avoids disruption to the underground river - Crouch Brook at the site.

 

The initiative is a response to the consequences of climate change, the recent floods in the area, and to Brent Council’s Climate Emergency Declaration (July 2019) which says that the Council will work with residents ‘every step of the way’[3] to make the borough carbon neutral by 2030.

 

 

Community Proposal for Preston Library site with the retention of existing library (yellow), trees and new housing (grey). The existing library is demolished in the Brent Council Scheme to form a car park.

 

The UN IPCC report (9^th August 2021) advised that this was the last report where there was still a chance to take emergency action to avert a climate disaster. The SKPPRA community and Brent Council know the critical ‘every step’ and ‘emergency action’ now means the immediate retention of the existing Preston Library building.

  

The Council Leader noting the publication of the IPCC report [4] said ‘we can change our wasteful consumption of finite resources,  .. we can cease to be a drain on this exceptional and priceless planet…. To do nothing is to condemn ourselves and our descendants to untold misery and chaos. This is a climate emergency, we must act now’. 

 

For five years however Councillor Butt has refused to consider or respond to detailed objections to the development and refused to look at the alternative proposal or even take any step of the way with residents.

 

Referring this hypocrisy to the Mayor of London, to central Government Departments[5], to Barry Gardiner the local MP, and to Kier Starmer (Leader of Councillor Butt’s party) received no response other than the advice that avoiding the effects of climate change - was a ‘local matter.’ The UN Secretary General doesn’t agree.

 

Residents have invested time and resources in preparing an alternative proposal to save a valuable community resource and to prevent climate change.

 

In contrast - the Council has failed to apply its own policies on sustainable development, refused to explain or publish the cost of the development, and refused to consider any alternative proposals as promised in the Council’s own Climate Emergency Declaration.

 

Unfortunately, we live in Wembley but not on Councillor Butt’s exceptional and priceless planet.

---

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/01/digging-our-own-graves-world-leaders-speak-cop26

[2] Calculated using https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gas-equivalencies-calculator

[3] Brent Climate & Ecological Emergency Strategy 2021-2030 (April 2021) Page 2.

[4] https://www.kilburntimes.co.uk/news/cllr-muhammed-butt-on-the-recent-floods-8240446

[5] Several referrals to Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG)