Affordable Housing – what is the truth about different rent levels?

Guest post by Philip Grant, in a personal capacity

 

Extract from a Brent Council press release in June 2022, after Cabinet had decided to change 24 of the 125 homes on its Watling Gardens development from London Affordable Rent to Shared Ownership.

 

Martin’s blog about the 9 June Call-in Scrutiny meeting, about the award of a contract for the Council’s Morland Gardens development, mentioned a claim made by Brent’s Strategic Director (Regeneration and Environment), Alan Lunt, that London Affordable Rents were only £10 a week more than Social Rents. 

 

I was at that meeting, and was incredulous when I heard him say that. It also attracted some attention on social media. Now that the minutes of that meeting are on the agenda for the Resources and Public Realm Scrutiny Committee meeting next Tuesday, 19 July, I have taken the opportunity to challenge that claim. 

 

This is the full text of an open email I sent to Councillor Rita Conneely, the Chair of that committee (with copy to Alan Lunt, and all members of the committee), on the afternoon of 14 July:-

 

Dear Councillor Conneely,

 

                                       This is an Open Email

 

This email will not be as long as my email to you on 12 July, on matters arising from the minutes of the 9 March meeting. 

 

It does, however, raise the same point that I made: it is important for proper scrutiny that Lead Members and Senior Officers should be honest when dealing with matters being considered by Brent's Scrutiny Committees, and should not try to mislead you in what they write in reports or say at committee meetings. 

 

The minutes of the Call-in meeting on 9 June include the record of an answer given by the Strategic Director (Regeneration and Environment) to a question from a member of your committee:

 

'In response to a question from Councillor Ahmadi Moghaddam referencing affordable rents, it was noted that these rents were only £10 more a week than social rents.'

 

That is a correct record of what Alan Lunt said about the difference between London Affordable Rent and Social Rent levels. However, there was incredulity among a number of members of the public watching the meeting (and by some councillors) over that answer.

 

I can show why many felt that your committee were being misled by that answer, by using an extract from the Affordable Housing Statement, submitted one year ago as part of Brent Council's planning application for the Watling Gardens redevelopment (21/2473), which gives a comparison between Social Rent and London Affordable Rent levels for that scheme:

 

 

You will note that both SR and LAR rent levels had been provided for this document 'by the Applicant' (Brent Council), and that the London Affordable Rents are around £50 a week more than Social Rents.

 

I am copying this email to Alan Lunt, as well as to the members of your Resources and Public Realm Scrutiny Committee. 

  

I would strongly suggest that Mr Lunt is requested to address your committee, under item 4 of your agenda next Tuesday, as a matter arising from the minutes of the Call-in Meeting on 9 June, either to correct the answer that he gave about the difference between London Affordable Rent and Social Rent levels, or to provide the evidence that LAR 'rents were only £10 more a week than social rents', if he still maintains that to be the case.

 

On a final point, I welcome the note at the end of these minutes of 'a commitment from the Committee to want to see genuinely affordable homes for residents going forward.' 

 

As mentioned in my earlier email, Social Rents and London Affordable Rents are the only genuinely affordable rents. Lead Members and Council Officers should not be allowed to pass off Shared Ownership or any tenure other than SR of LAR as "affordable homes". Thank you.

 

Best wishes,

  

Philip Grant.

 

More to Watling Gardens 'new homes' than the Council is letting on

 

Watling Gardens with some of the buildings due to be demolished (note the mature trees)

Brent Concil published a press statement last week after the Cabinet meeting which presumably they expect to be used by the local press.

 

Another 125 new council homes for local families

 

125 local families will benefit from new Council homes at Watling Gardens, Cricklewood, after construction was given the go ahead by Cabinet on Monday 20 June 2022.

 

Following close on the heels of last week’s announcement that that we are investing in 155 new homes at the Alperton Bus Garage Development, this latest approval marks a leap forward towards the aim to create 1,700 new council homes by 2028.

 

The high cost of private rented housing was one of the biggest issues identified by Brent’s Poverty Commission, which recommended making building more council homes a priority.

 

Watling Gardens will consist of 125 new council homes, including 45 extra care homes especially designed for disabled and older people, 24 shared ownership homes, to provide an affordable means of getting on the property ladder and 56 London Affordable Rent homes. Building works are expected to begin early next year (2023).

 

Councillor Promise Knight, Cabinet Member for Housing at Brent Council, said: 

 

“We are invested in much-needed council homes, helping local families into affordable, secure homes. This decision to build another 125 properties as council homes in the Watling Gardens Development is yet another step to hitting our promise to create 1,700 council homes by 2028. We are driving that promise forward almost weekly.

 

Brent’s Poverty Commission clearly set out that a safe, secure home is the foundation for every family to build upon. We are determined to keep building and providing those homes for the families who live in Brent.”

 

Cllr Knight was not actually at the Cabinet meeting as she was unwell and Cllr Butt managed the item.

The claim  of 125 new council homes needs some unpacking. 42 homes (the two Claire Court buidlings and bungalows), pictured above, are to be demolished and the occupants have been decanted. That leaves a net increase of 83 council homes. However, since the announced change of tenure, 24 of the 83 will be Shared Ownership instead of London Affordable Rent, requiring a shared annual income of £60,000 to £70,000. This further reduces the number of truly affordable homes to 59.

The press release also leaves out the information that, contrary to the Officers' Report, the change of tenure has to go back to Planning  for approval as pointed out by Philip Grant in a guest post on Wembley Matters. The report was amended at the Cabinet meeting to take this into account.  LINK.

Reacting to the Council's statement Philip Grant said:

It is as if it was prepared before Monday's Cabinet meeting, on the basis that the original recommendations had been approved, without the last-minute amendments.

 

The 125 homes at Watling Gardens are not strictly all "new" Council homes. Up to 34 of the homes will have to be allocated to existing tenants whose homes will be demolished to make way for this development, if they wish to be rehoused at their former Watling Gardens location.

 

For the change from LAR to Shared Ownership to be legally permissible, Brent will have to apply for an amendment to Condition 3 of the April 2022 planning consent. No such application is yet shown on Brent's planning pages. 

 

As the reason for the existing "affordable housing" condition was 'in the interests of proper planning', there is no guarantee that the change would be acceptable. 

 

Any such request for an amendment to the condition should be dealt with by Brent as Local Planning Authority in the same way as they would for any other (unconnected) applicant. Any attempt to apply "political pressure" on Brent's Head of Planning, in order to deliver what the Cabinet and other Senior Officers want, would be improper, and probably unlawful.

 

Of course, none of that is reflected in the press release!

 

40 minute Cabinet nods through all item in a 'heavy agenda'

 Yesterday's Brent Cabinet completed all  10 decision items in 40 minutes, underlining the fact that this 'public meeting' merely serves as a rubber stamp with any real discussion and debate taking place elsewhere in private.

A member of the public had applied to speak on one of the items but Cllr Butt ruled that the request had not complied with the required amount of notice.

The extensive Climate Strategy item for was dealt with in just 3 minutes with Environment lead Cllr Krupa Sheth reading aloud a short prepared statement.  As well as the main report there were six Appendices. We were left unenlightened about what exactly is involved in the creation of 'Sustainable Neighbourhoods' and why there were no plans for safe and accessible cycling routes in the borough.

Cllr Promise Knight was unwell so was not present for two key items including the conversion of  24 in-fill units at Watling Gardens from London Affordable Rent to Shared Ownership.  The CEO had to remind Cllr Butt of an addition to the report stipulating that the change had to be approved by the Planning Committee.  This appears to have been the result of Philip Grant's intervention covered on Wembley Matters HERE.

It was also left to the CEO to make a passing mention of the risks involved in the arrangements for Brent Council's purchase of hoiusing units at the Euro House development in Wembley Park.

The meeting only livened up, if you can call a couple of questions livening up, at the end when a restructure of the counci's senior management, deleting one post, was discussed.

The items and decisions can be viewed HERE

Watling Gardens – a rushed (and incorrect) Report to Monday's Cabinet

 Guest post by Philip Grant in a personal capacity

 

Extract from the Affordable Housing Statement in Brent’s planning application 21/2473.

 

When Brent Council submitted their planning application for the redevelopment of their Watling Gardens estate they said: ‘Brent Council are fully committed to delivering these much-needed new affordable homes.’ Then suddenly, at the last minute, they want to change that, so that 20% of the homes there will not be genuinely affordable.

 

Less than 24 hours ago, I wrote a guest post about a Report on 1 Morland Gardens for the Cabinet meeting at 10am on Monday morning, which had only been published on Thursday afternoon. I mentioned that there was another Report for that meeting which had still not been published. Giving Cabinet members, other councillors and the public so little notice of important issues where decisions are to be made is bad for local democracy, and it can also lead to bad decisions.

 

The Watling Gardens Report was only published at around 3pm on Friday afternoon. It asks the Cabinet to approve the award of a contract ‘in the sum of £38,535,634. In order to make the Watling Gardens scheme viable, it also recommends that Cabinet: ‘Approve the tenure changes of 24 homes (19 x 1 bedrom homes and 5 x 2 bedroom) from London Affordable Rent to Shared Ownership.’

 

I had looked at the Watling Gardens planning application, and felt that something was not right with that recommendation, nor the “facts” given in the Report to support it. I had another look, then immediately sent an email to Brent’s Legal Director and the Strategic Director (Community and Wellbeing) who had signed off the Report. This is that email (sent at 4:14pm on Friday):

 

‘Misinformation in Report to Cabinet on Watling Gardens (item 16 on Monday's agenda)

Dear Ms Norman and Mr Porter,

 

The Report on item 16 (Award of Contract for Watling Gardens) for Monday morning's Cabinet meeting was only published at around 3pm today. 

 

I realise that this is an urgent matter (and that: 'Due to urgency, a waiver of call-in has been obtained in relation to the decision to be taken by Cabinet.'), but that does not excuse the Report containing what appears to be incorrect information, which might lead Brent's Cabinet to make an unlawful, as well as rushed, decision.

 

The misinformation I am referring to is at paras. 3.3 and 3.6:

 

'3.3 The planning consent gained for this site is for a 100% affordable housing scheme.'  

 

'3.6  Therefore, officers recommend the change of 25 of the 125 homes to be converted to shared ownership as in recommendation 2.1. There will be no change to the planning approval required as this is an affordable housing product, on which the council receive 25% capital receipt at the point of sale and staircasing receipts usually from year 5 onwards. The properties would be fulfilling a need within Brent for people unable to register for affordable rented housing but not able to access the open market due to salary levels.'

 

The planning consent is not just for '100% affordable housing.'

 

Planning Committee, when they approved the application, did so on the basis that the 125 homes would be a mix of Social Rent and London Affordable Rent.

 

The consent letter of 25 April 2022 contained a specific condition over what type of affordable homes had been consented to:

 

Condition 3 from planning consent letter of 25 April 2022 on application 21/2473

 

 

There is no indication on Brent's planning website that there has been any change in this condition under application 21/2473, so that making a decision, and awarding a contract, which converted 24 (or 25?) of the 125 homes to shared ownership would involve Brent Council breaching its planning consent for the Watling Gardens scheme.

 

 

This point needs to be put right, so that Cabinet members are aware of the correct position well before they are asked to make a decision on the Watling Gardens contract.

 

 

The Report says that it affects Mapesbury and Kilburn Wards, but as I am not sure which Ward the site falls into following the boundary changes, I am copying this email to councillors for Cricklewood & Mapesbury and Kilburn Wards. Yours, 

 

Philip Grant.

1 Morland Gardens – yet another twist!

Guest post by Philip Grant in a personal capacity

 

“Altamira”, 1 Morland Gardens, with community garden in the foreground. (Photo by Irina Porter)

 

When Martin reported, just a week ago, that a call-in meeting of Brent’s Resources and Public Realm Scrutiny Committee had given the go-ahead for the contract for the Council’s Morland Gardens redevelopment scheme to be awarded, you might have thought that the fate of the heritage Victorian villa there was sealed.

 

The only thing that could scupper Brent’s controversial plans to demolish the locally-listed building might be the objections to the proposed Stopping-up Order for an area of highway between the restored garden wall of the villa and the community garden. Council Officers, with the encouragement of several Cabinet members, had decided in early 2019 that they could use this extra piece of Council-owned land, in order to build more homes as part of the development. They had failed to consider the consequences of that decision, or to take the necessary action to obtain the Order, which led to the call-in.

 

The “award-winning” building which Brent wants to replace “Altamira” with.

 

Alan Lunt, Brent’s Strategic Director (Regeneration and Environment), won his right to award the two-stage Design & Build Contract for Morland Gardens to Hill Partnerships Ltd on the evening of Thursday 9 June. But when the agenda for the Cabinet meeting on 20 June was published the following day, this was item 12:

 

‘12. Authority to Tender for the Design & Build Contract at 1 Morland Gardens, Stonebridge.

Following on from a call-in relating to the original contract award, this report requests approval to invite tenders by way of a direct award under the Network Homes Contractor Framework and approve the pre tender considerations as required by Contract Standing Orders 88 and 89.’

 

The Report for this item was “to follow”, and that was not published on the Council’s website until the afternoon of Thursday 16 June. What had gone wrong? This is the explanation given at para. 3.3 of the Report:

 

‘The council also sought to procure a contractor for the scheme in May 2021 and May 2022 but both tender opportunities were unsuccessful. The first tender opportunity did not elicit any bids. The second tender opportunity elicited three bids and the council recommended the award of the contract as detailed in the Key Officer Decision report of 20 May 2022. This decision was subject to “call in”, during which period the Framework under which the contract was awarded, expired and so the council is required to procure a contractor again under a further procurement process.’

 

It appears that Mr Lunt may be trying to blame the call-in for the missed opportunity to award a contract for the scheme, and the need for a third attempt ‘to procure a contractor’. In fact, he was given a second chance to find a contractor in August 2021, and the three bids under that procurement process were received in November 2021. The fact that Brent took until 20 May 2022 to decide which of the three contractors they wished to award the contract to is no fault of the councillors who called-in his decision. They did so because of the risk of awarding a contract for a project which involves land that Brent does not have the legal right to build on!

 

Brent’s Cabinet are being asked to make a big decision at short notice. Not only that, they are being asked to approve the finding and appointing of a new contractor in a very rushed process, set out in this table from the Report:

 

Extract from table at para. 3.6 of Cabinet Report.

 

The Report says that ‘the estimated contract value of the procurement is £38m.’ The bid the Strategic Director wanted to accept in May was £37,933,491, but that had been made in November 2021. There was another item on the Cabinet agenda (Watling Gardens) where the Report was also not available, and a Council Officer has explained to me the reason for that:

 

‘Item 16 was not available on that date because the need for the report has arisen unexpectedly because of the escalation in the costs of the project due to the current inflation situation.  You may recall the challenges this situation is causing for the council were mentioned by the Chief Executive at the recent call-in meeting.’

 

That “escalation in costs” will surely affect the amount that any contractor submitting a tender for the Morland Gardens project is willing to offer. And if they offer an amount within the Council’s “budget” for this scheme, what corners will they cut in order to build it and still make a profit? This could easily become another Granville New Homes, where what was on paper an award-winning design was so poorly built, in order to keep “within budget”, that it is now costing more than the original contract to remedy the defects.

 

Brent Council has made so many mistakes and bad decisions over 1 Morland Gardens, which is why they are in the mess they are now over it. Will they plough on, digging a deeper hole for themselves, or will they finally see sense and go “back to the drawing board”?

Philip Grant

 

Council to extend consultations on Kilburn Square development over the summer

Cllr Southwood speaking on the development proposals for Watling Gardens, Windmill Court and Kilburn Square at this morning's Cabinet said that she was aware of Kilburn Square residents' concerns.  Some of these would be dealt with at the Planning Committee stage but she recognised that Covid restrictions had meant that the Council had not been able to engage with residents as much as they would lik,e so consultation would be extended over the summer. She emphasised that no final decisions would be made and she would come back to Cabinet when team had heard from 'more people, in greater depth.' She said that the main point of the agenda items was to put the necessary legal requirements in place.

 She said that they were working to improve the stability of the Tenant Management Organisation and finding ways to working towards a constructive environment in which the inevitable concerns could be addressed.

Cabinet to approve 'last resort' compulsory purchase orders on Watling Gardens, Windmill Court and Kilburn Square this morning ahead of demolition to make way for new housing

 Brent Council will be asked to approve an approach to 'in-fill' plans for Watling Gardens, Windmill Court and Kilburn Square this morning: 

To delegate authority for the Strategic Director Community Wellbeing to make an application to seek the Secretary of State’s consent under section 19 of the Housing Act 1985 to appropriate any part of Watling Gardens, Windmill Court or Kilburn Square including any part consisting of a house or part of a house so that parts of these sites are no longer held for the purposes of Part ll of the Housing Act 1985.

The estates are part of the Council's scheme to increase the number of Council homes by demolishing 59 properties at Watling Gardens and Windmill Court and the appropriation of council owned land for housing.  125 additional homes are planned for Watling Gardens, 60 for Windmill Court and 178 for Kilburn Square.

The Officers' report states that the demolition of 59 homes is not sufficient to trigger a residents' ballot under London Mayoral powers.

Compulsory purchase will only be used if negotiations with leaseholders over their loss of rights fail, the report states.

Regarding Council tenants the report says:

The project team will be basing early engagement offers of alternative accommodation and decant options for secure residents on the current Allocation Policy and the statutory consultation required in connection with the use of Ground 10A of the Housing Act 1985 4

 

The current Allocation Policy will apply to secure residents to be decanted from 1-11 Watling Gardens, 1-30 Claire Court and 1-18 Windmill Court. Under the current allocation policy secure residents affected by the infill developments will be placed into Band A on a phased basis to bid for an alternative home. Early engagement with residents and leaseholders has started with a view to obtain vacant possession of the required blocks as soon as possible

The report justifies the choice of Watling and Windmill:

Watling Gardens and Windmill Court were chosen due to the relatively low density of housing on the sites compared to modern developments in London and the fact that the land is wholly owned by the Council and thus avoids land acquisition costs. Furthermore the development provides the opportunity to carry out extensive long term soft and hard landscape improvement works. The infill programme on each of the sites will deliver new play facilities, activity areas, revised parking arrangements, improvements to a community hall, improved environmental and wellbeing spaces and solve the current problems of anti-social behaviour in the undercroft. It is possible to omit some or all of these improvements however this will reduce the positive impact of the development.

 

 There is a separate report tabled for the controversial Kilburn Square development. Keith Anderson from the local campaign against the council's plans said:

 

As far as we can see this is mainly an enabling report to allow them to do pretty much what they want on the entire area including both the clinic and mental health buildings, where the new tower and extra care facility are due to go, and all the rest of the Co-op estate site, including the trees and green space that Buildings C and D would remove.

 

We also spotted in the modifications to the Local Plan that they want to slip in a clause allowing tall buildings on the KS site – so they don’t contravene the Plan if they press ahead with another 17 storey tower. Not that any of this project, Plan A or a smaller Plan B, is covered by the Local Plan in the 0-5 year frame!

 

They’ve had strong pushback from local neighbours (and some estate residents) on the Zooms two weeks ago. And the petition is up to 740 signatures. 

 

Cllr Southwood keeps saying the designs are not finalised (and there’s a brief statement to that effect in today’s report) – but we have limited faith in that; the report also has language about the overriding need for more social housing, which they seem to think means they can ride roughshod over any counter arguments about the wellbeing of the current estate residents or the interests of our local community.

 

 The meeting takes place at 10am this morning AGENDA

You can watch the webcast of the meeting HERE

 

 

Kilburn Square  petition http://chng.it/xwxLyYcDhP

 

New Council Homes is welcoming feedback from anyone in Kilburn Brent, Kilburn Camden or Queen’s Park Wards. Details from streetgroups@mistral.co.uk