What's going on and off Wembley High Road? Latest photographs and some questions

From our very local correspondent

Elizabeth House work is almost complete except for a few bits on the ground floor, all the scaffolding has gone and cladding replaced.

Next door, Wembley Place (old Brent House site) was completed and signed off in Easter 2020, although no one moved in until October 2020 and that was just the Social Housing portion.  There are two retail outlets on the Ground Floor, Costa Coffee, and a Sainsbury's Local.  It was not long after Sainsbury's had been shopfitted and ready for opening that scaffolding went up outside and around various parts on the ground floor.  On asking residents and Sainsbury's recently as to why it's there, nobody seems to know!  I have never witnessed anyone working on any parts.  Rumours abound.  1) that balconies glass is not safe? 2) some cladding bricks were loose and falling off?  No one really seems to know, perhaps you can do some detective work?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our three trees have been removed from the Triangle and replaced with some large wooden planters?  What's that about?

 

Last week I saw several workmen digging out the places where trees once were on the High Road to install new ones!!! Obviously of the right kind???? and it would appear that Brent have added some new Urban Art in Electric Orange colour warning Paan Spitters that they could be fined £100.  Interestingly I spoke to Brent  Enforcement Officer  who said despite working for them for 3 years and Paan Spitting being one of his big bug bears like the rest of us, no matter that he has tried relentlessly he has never been able to catch a perpetrator in the act. LOL.  I think it mostly happens at night.

 

 

Behind the Twin Towers (developer's name 'Uncle and the site of Chesterfield House) two more blocks are going up, one of 17 storeys and 1 of 19, being constructed by Henrys (same as twin towers) with same developer "Squarestone Hub"  I think on planning it's listed as the Wembley Link, you will see from photos they continue to build on the Chiltern railway cutting as it has been purchased by them.  The view from the back of my house shows that they have built in front of the gap between the twin towers which will definitely obscure most of the sunlight when it sets in the West.  It's funny because these towers are directly behind Daniels, Nando's etc and cannot be seen if you are  on  the High Road at all.  

 

Uncle have at least 4 retail units which they appear to be struggling to let.  I have not seen any activity in any of them, perhaps they are too expensive to lease, and also they will require a full shopfit which is not cheap.  I'm surprised that one of the Coffee lot haven't taken one of them but considering there are now 3 Costa's in Wembley plus one next door called Chico Nero, and then Shakes and Bagel's across the road, perhaps too much competition.

 

On another note, what happened to the Community Centre supposed to be located at Ground Floor Level of Uncle, under the 21 storey tower.  I noticed it's now occupied by a company called Little Village which is a foodbank come recycling clothes for babies and toddlers? I  couldn't get access and couldn't find anyone to talk to.

 

Also their landscaping is looking past its sell by date, isn't planning supposed to monitor that, to ensure it's kept up to date?

 

(Lack of) affordable homes at Brent Council’s Cecil Avenue development – Cllr. Tatler’s response, and a consequent challenge to councillors

Guest post from Philip Grant

As Martin reported last month, Cllr. Shama Tatler missed the Full Council meeting on 22 November, so was not there to answer my supplementary question about the (lack of) affordable Council housing proposed for Brent’s Cecil Avenue development, on the vacant former Copland School site. I had not been satisfied with the original answer to my Public Question on the subject.

 

A written answer from the Lead Member for regeneration was promised, but a subsequent Member’s Question (from the Leader of the opposition), on whether the written response to me would be circulated to all members of the Council, did not appear to receive an answer. 

 

I have now received that written response (I will ask Martin to attach a copy below), and to ensure that all councillors do have the chance to consider it, I have circulated the document to them with the following email. I am sharing that email publicly, so that any Brent resident can ask their local councillors how they have responded to the points raised by my question, and Cllr. Tatler’s “answer” to it:-

Cllr. Tatler’s response to question on affordable Council housing at Cecil Avenue

Dear Brent Council Members,

 

At the Full Council meeting on 22 November, your colleague Cllr. Shama Tatler was not available to answer my supplementary Public Question about affordable Council housing at Brent Council’s Cecil Avenue development (on the vacant, Council-owned, former Copland School site in Wembley). 

 

I received her written response on 7 December, and as it is unclear whether this has been circulated to all members of the Council, I am sending you a copy now. I believe that this matter raises important points, and you may wish to share your views on them with the Lead Member for Regeneration.

 

As well as the response, it is best that you know the question that she was meant to be answering (because I do not think that they key points have been answered). This was my supplementary question: 

 

‘Brent urgently needs more affordable Council homes, and it could be building 250 of these at Cecil Avenue now.

 

 

But only 37 of the 250 in your plans will be for affordable rent, while 152 will be for private sale by a developer.

 

Some of the £111million GLA grant could be used to provide social rent housing there.

Instead, you plan to use it for infill schemes on existing Council estates, which may be years away.

 

What justification will you give for these plans, when asked by families who’ll have to wait much longer for a decent home, and existing residents who’ll lose the green spaces on their estates?’

 

In an article published in the “Brent & Kilburn Times” on 18 November your colleague, Cllr. Ketan Sheth, wrote:

 

'The value and cost of land in London is at an all time high: therefore, building on land already owned by the council means the building costs are lower and all of the new homes can be let at genuinely affordable rents.'

 

But under the proposals for Cecil Avenue, approved by Cabinet on 16 August, and for which Cllr. Tatler is the Lead Member, only 37 of the 250 homes will be for London Affordable Rent, and none will be for Social Rent (which the Brent Poverty Commission Report in 2020 said should be the Council’s priority for genuinely affordable homes).

 

The attached response from Cllr. Tatler makes a similar point about the importance of using Council-owned land to provide affordable homes:

 

‘Many of the current and planned future developments containing affordable housing will be on ‘re-purposed’ council owned sites that mean there is no acquisition cost and that because of ownership, schemes can be developed at pace.’

 

The ‘council owned site’ at Cecil Avenue is vacant, and full planning consent for the 250-home project was granted in February 2021. The scheme there could ‘be developed at pace’ for affordable Council homes, but under Brent’s current proposals 152 of the new homes there will be for private sale by a “developer partner”.

 

This is how I (and, I suspect, many other Brent residents) see the Council’s current proposals for the Cecil Avenue development:-

 

This image is a parody of the Council’s publicity photographs for its “New Council Homes in Brent” programme, but the point it is making is a serious one.

 

Do you want the citizens of our borough to see the hypocrisy that the Council’s current proposals display? Perhaps ask yourself the question which I put to Cllr. Tatler:

 

‘What justification will you give for these plans, when asked by families who’ll have to wait much longer for a decent home, and existing residents who’ll lose the green spaces on their estates?’

 

If you agree that the current proposals for the Cecil Avenue site don’t seem right, please share your views on them with the Lead Member and the Strategic Director for Regeneration. Thank you. Best wishes,

 

Philip Grant
(a long-time Brent resident, with no party-political allegiance)

 

 

LETTER: Money spent on Wembley High Road fancy paving could have been better used to tackle dangerous pavements elsewhere

 Dear Wembley Matters Editor

The pavements in Wembley High Road were last upgraded at large cost when Ken Livingstone was Mayor of London just before one of his re-elections.

Over time many areas were driven over and damaged. I have been calling for proper repairs for some time. Instead of timely and effective repairs the Council patched up the slabs with ineffective shovels of asphalt.

During some developments the section of pavement between the square and Ealing Road was relayed with asphalt. This is in perfectly good and safe condition. More recently the developer of the Uncle building on corner with Park Lane provided new slab pavements outside their building. Many of the pavements behind railings in the High Road are also perfectly good condition requiring just minor repairs.

When money is short and pavements in residential roads requiring improvements are ignored is not the time for the Labour run Brent Council to waste money. Sadly this is exactly what Labour Councillors have decided to do - just 6 months before the local elections.

Magically (actually taxpayers money provided by the Government) Brent Council stashed away £17 million from Covid Grants and a staggering £3.5 million has been allocated to Wembley High Road.

Instead of cost effective repairs Labour Councillors decided that all the existing paving (including the completely new pavements next to Park Lane, the asphalt paving and good slabs) replaced with extremely expensive small paving stones.

All this is happening in the run up to Christmas when the High Road is busy with people trying to access the shops. Very disruptive for shoppers and local businesses. 

I estimate that the pavement repairs and the other improvements (new seating etc) should have cost around £1million - which means that at least £2 million is being wasted  - could have been used to upgrade and make safe pavements in many dangerous streets across Brent which actually need it.

The same Labour Councillors who decided to waste this money have also just announced their proposals for another 3% Council Tax Rise on top of all the rises in previous years.

The tragedy for local democracy is that these kind of bad decisions in Brent are made by a handful of people without any effective scrutiny. The Cabinet is made up of Labour Councillors only and there is no effective or independent scrutiny as these Committees are also chaired by Labour Councillors.

A change in the way Brent Council is run is desperately needed. We need both a Fair Voting System (and return to Committees) to end the scandal of one party getting almost all the Councillors on just half the votes.

All the best
Paul Lorber 

Brent’s affordable housing needs – is this “answer” acceptable?

 Guest Post by Philip Grant in  a personal capacity

Brent’s future flats at Wembley High Road, from the plans approved in February 2021.

 

On 13 August, Martin published an article I had written about Brent’s plans for Council homes in its Wembley Housing Zone. This set out why the Cabinet should question the recommendations made to them by Council Officers, particularly the lack of any social housing provision, and why it was proposed that two-thirds of the 250 flats and maisonettes in the Council’s Cecil Avenue scheme would be handed over to a developer for private sale. 

 

I sent a document copy of my article to all members of the Cabinet, for their consideration before their meeting. None of them replied, and on 16 August they accepted the Officers’ “preferred delivery option” for the developments at Cecil Avenue and Ujima House.

 

As I’d not received a reply from the Lead Member for Housing, Cllr. Eleanor Southwood (or any of her Cabinet colleagues), I raised this matter again with her when she did answer another housing matter which I’d written to her about [Brent’s “secret” Council Housing projects and the Council’s response]. I emailed her about the Council’s Cecil Avenue proposals on 19 September, with a copy to her Regeneration colleague, Cllr. Shama Tatler, and Brent’s Strategic Director for Regeneration, Alan Lunt. 

 

Cllr. Southwood responded on 23 September, writing: ‘Dear Mr Grant, just acknowledging your email, which I will respond to substantively shortly.’ Despite a reminder to her on 8 October, I did not receive any response, either from her, Cllr. Tatler, or any Council officer on their behalf.

 

As I believe this is a matter of some importance, I was not prepared to let it drop. On 16 October, I submitted a Public Question, to be answered at Brent’s Full Council meeting on Monday 22 November:-

 

Question to the Lead Member for Regeneration, Property and Planning:-

New Council Homes at Cecil Avenue, Wembley.

 

Brent Council has an urgent need for new Council homes, and has accepted the Brent Poverty Commission recommendation that more social rented housing should be a priority.

 

Brent Council owns the vacant former Copland School site at the corner of Cecil Avenue and Wembley High Road, and since February 2021 has had full planning permission to build 250 flats and maisonettes on this site.

 

Yet, at its meeting on 16 August 2021, Brent's Cabinet approved a 'preferred delivery option' that included only 39% affordable housing for this development, with less than a quarter of the total homes being rented at London Affordable rent levels (not Social rents), the balance of the affordable housing being at Intermediate rent levels or for shared ownership. Under this 'preferred delivery option', the majority of the homes at the Council's Cecil Avenue site would be sold privately by a 'developer partner'.

 

At the same meeting, Brent's Cabinet also resolved: 'To delegate to the Strategic Director of Regeneration & Environment, in consultation with the Lead Member for Regeneration, Property & Planning, the decision on alternative development scheme proposals and procurement routes, if procurement of the preferred option was unsuccessful in relation to the Sites.'

 

My questions are:

 

1) Given Brent's urgent need for social rent housing, why is Brent Council not proposing to build all 250 of the homes at Cecil Avenue as affordable rented Council housing?

 

2) As, since 16 August, the GLA has approved a grant to Brent Council of around £111m under its 2021/26 New Affordable Homes programme, to be used mainly for social rent housing, will the Lead Member, in consultation with the Strategic Director of Regeneration & Environment, now recommend that Cabinet changes its mind, and approves alternative proposals to make the Council's Cecil Avenue scheme 100% affordable housing?

The answers from Lead Members to Public Questions are published in advance of the Council meetings, as part of the agenda package. This is Cllr. Shama Tatler’s answer to the two points which I raised in my question:

 

Response:

1) Brent Council’s redevelopment of council-owned Cecil Avenue and Ujima House sites as part of the Wembley Housing Zone programme together proposes 50% affordable housing. However, because it is vitally important to ensure the long term sustainability of the Housing Revenue Account (which ultimately would be responsible for repaying loans secured to deliver new housing) it is not financially viable to deliver all 250 homes at Cecil Avenue as socially rented housing. 

 

2) Brent Council’s £111.7m GLA grant under the 2021-26 New Affordable Homes Programme is separate from the Wembley Housing Zone programme, and allocated to deliver an additional 701 socially rented homes across the Borough.

 

The response from the Lead Member is brief, and ignores much of the detail that my question was about!

 

Cllr. Tatler writes that Cecil Avenue and Ujima House together will provide 50% affordable housing. She doesn’t say that NONE of this will be Council housing at social rent levels, which is what homeless families and people on the Council’s waiting list desperately need. 

 

Ujima House is expected to provide 54 homes, all at London Affordable rent levels. Of the 250 new homes on the Cecil Avenue site, only 98 will be “affordable”, with 152 handed to a developer partner for private sale (‘to cross subsidise the affordable housing and regeneration of the area’). Of the 98 “affordable” Council homes, only 37 will be at London Affordable rent levels, with the other 61 as “intermediate housing” (‘either shared ownership or intermediate rent’).

 

 

The Wembley Housing Zone sites.

 

I realise that Council housing provided through the Housing Revenue Account must have long-term financial sustainability. The expected rental income over the period of the loan borrowed to pay for the homes (usually sixty years) must be sufficient to pay the interest on that loan, and to repay the capital sum. But with interest rates as low as they are ever likely to be, I find it difficult to understand why this Wembley Housing Zone development could not be financially “sustainable”, especially as the report to Cabinet on 16 August said that: ‘the GLA have also agreed in principle an additional £5.5m grant to deliver the scheme.’

 

It all comes down to “viability” (and we know from planning applications that the financial experts who developers employ can come up with any figure for viability that their client wants, in order to reduce the amount of affordable housing they have to include in their plans!). The viability of Brent’s Wembley Housing Zone scheme is, of course, known only to Cabinet members and the Senior Officers advising them. It is hidden away from the rest of us in a document named “Appendix 5: WHZ internal financial appraisal summary (exempt)”.

 

Cllr. Tatler writes that ‘it is not financially viable to deliver all 250 homes at Cecil Avenue as socially rented housing.’ But Brent is not delivering ANY socially rented housing at Cecil Avenue. Surely it would be financially viable to deliver at least some!

 

But, fear not, with the money from the GLA’s 2021-26 programme Brent promises ‘to deliver an additional 701 socially rented homes across the Borough.’ Around 300 of these might be provided through the “infill” of part of the open space beside the St Raphael’s Estate. More would be from the “infill” of (green!) spaces on existing Council estates, together with “airspace” developments on top of blocks in these. There is also an opportunity for ‘New Build for Rent in South Kilburn’ (Granville Park?).

 

Having asked a Public Question, I am allowed to ask a supplementary question at the Council meeting on 22 November. I’m not able to be present at that meeting myself, but hope that someone (I have asked the Mayor if she would be kind enough to do so) can ask it on my behalf. I’ve not made up my mind exactly what to ask, so if you have any (polite) suggestions, please feel free to make them as comments below, during the next couple of days.

 

Philip Grant.

 

 

Butt to hold Affinity Water to account over High Road disruption

Following the disruption  at Wembley High Road and Park Lane, Brent Council Leader Muhammed Butt has issued the following statement:

Following more disruption on Wembley High Road and Park Lane, I am setting up an urgent meeting with Affinity Water to understand what they will be doing to fix these problems once and for all.

Since 2019, Affinity has applied for 17 emergency permits to fix leaks on those two roads alone. These latest repairs are stopping deliveries to essential businesses and making it more difficult for residents trying to get to vaccination appointments, COVID tests and keyworker jobs. 

We’ve been here many times before, so we now need Affinity to get to the bottom of the issues with the water mains for residents and businesses along that stretch. At that meeting, I will be asking them to explain their plans and holding them to account.

I wonder if the problems have anything to do with the 'Twin Towers' high rise blocks at the junction of the High Road and Park Lane as well as Brent House on the High Road itself. Brent House was the site of major problems when concrete blocked the sewer. LINK

Wembley Central resident warns of scooter delivery danger on the High Road pavement

 

 

Wembley Central resident Jaine Lunn has written to councillors, council officers and the Town Centre manager, drawing their attention to the problem of scooters using the pavement in Wembley High Road:

Dear All

On Saturday 19th September around 2-3 pm I counted 22 delivery scooters parked on the pavements outside KallKwiK nearr Nandos, and outside Al-Pasha Supermarket, close to the bus stop.  Aside from the fact there is no respect for Social Distancing, Covid19 rules, I witnessed several pedestrians being forced to jump out of the way at detriment to their own safety as these drivers collect their deliveries, jump on their bikes, start their engines and drive several metres along the pavement before accessing the road.  As a pedestrian with no mobility problems it's like an obstacle course, and for those who have mobility issues or people with pushchairs it amounts to the Council and Police abandoning their duty of care to the public.

There are 2 loading bays in the immediate vicinity of this location, outside Uncle ('Twin Towers' to you and me Ed) block, and then again outside nos 410 to 402 High Road, is it not possible to force them to park there?

In the absence of Serco/Enforcement unwillingness to challenge these idiots, it is against the Highway Code to drive on the pavement, and I seriously question how many of these Take Away Drivers have read it, or that they have taken the required CBT test or that its valid.

 

 

I did call the SNT/Police as it was so bad but no one turned up.  As I walked back home I noticed a BMW parked on the pavement just east of the Traffic Lights, outside Cerabau Romanesque.

Would you please take action against the huge number of Take Away Scooter Drivers, persistently parked on the pavement and DRIVING on the pavement, as a matter of urgency regarding public safety.

I have photo's and video as proof (See photographs above)

regards

Jaine Lunn

Resident