UPDATE: Barn Hill gets new slab paving rather than asphalt - Brent Council explains

 

Barn Hill today

Wembley Matters has been covering the so-called 'pavement wars' for sometime with various community groups opposing Brent Council's replacement of paving stones by asphalt on aesthetic and environmental grounds, while others feel asphalt presents less of a tripping hazard.

Residents have been puzzled over the policy of replacing paving with asphalt as it does not seem to be applied uniformly across the borough.  Indeed the redesign of Wembley High Road includes some quite expensive and painstaking paving work.

 

 

 Old paving discarded

 

Today I saw 'three men and a wheel barrow' team installing new paving along the length of Barn Hill. Is it the steep gradient that makes paving slabs the preferred option, conservation area status, or something else?

Brent Council responded with an explanation:

Barn Hill is in a conservation area and was one of the roads we changed to reactive repairs only rather than a full re-lay. 

Through reactive works we have only replaced investigation level defects like for like i.e. paving slabs. Not all cracked slabs have been replaced if they do not meet criteria. Also, we have not reconstructed the vehicle crossings or junctions with blocks or provided resin for the tree pits, as would have been done through planned footway maintenance.

In other words, basic repairs only.

As it happens Cllr Kansagra asked about the paving policy at the recent Resources and Public Realm Scrutiny;

UNPRECEDENTED RESIDENTS' COALITION OF 18 GROUPS CALL ON MUHAMMED BUTT TO TAKE CLIMATE EMERGENCY ACTION ON ASPHALT

 

From Brent Residents Against Asphalt Pavements

 

Brent’s new and unprecedented coalition – Brent Residents Against Asphalt Pavements – has called on the Leader of Brent Council, Cllr Muhammed Butt, to reverse the current policy of asphalting pavements instead of repairing broken slabs.

 

Now representing eighteen (18) residents associations and groups right across the Borough, BRAAP is pointing out that covering the many miles of pavements in the Council’s current renewal programme with asphalt involves thousands of trips by diesel-engined heavy lorries. These emit both pollutants of the air we breathe and global warming CO2. This is in direct conflict with Brent’s recently adopted Climate Emergency Strategy. 

 

BRAAP’s letter to Cllr Butt supports the just-published report of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and welcomes his article in the Kilburn Times about it. There he says “This is a climate emergency. We must act now.”

 

BRAAP joint-coordinator, Robin Sharp, says:

 

Why is Brent not taking the simple option of reversing its policy on asphalting pavements? This would save hundreds of tons of CO2, unnecessarily spewed into the atmosphere, and be widely popular across the Borough? It would produce a win-win outcome.

 

BRAAP is also asking for an explanation of why Brent councillors voted against a motion at Full Council on 21 July to have the asphalting policy referred to the Public Realm Scrutiny Committee. Cllr Mashari promised in the debate to write to BRAAP the next day with an explanation but no letter has been received.

 

In the light of the IPCC’s report last week, BRAAP is more determined than ever to see an end to Brent’s environmentally disastrous policy to asphalt pavements.

Background

This month’s report by the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change makes it unequivocally clear that the catastrophic floods and fires we are seeing across the world are caused by man-made activities producing greenhouse gases.  The evidence is clear that carbon dioxide (CO2) is the main driver of climate change -  carbon dioxide from diesel lorries for example.  

 

BRAAP Background

Brent Residents Against Asphalt Pavements is a new coalition of 18 (and rising) residents’ groups across the borough representing opposition to Brent Council’s policy to asphalt pavements.   It was formed in spring 2021.

Letter to the Leader of Brent Council

BRAAP’s letter to the Leader of Brent dated 23 August 2021 is below.

 

BRENT RESIDENTS AGAINST ASPHALT PAVEMENTS

 

23rd August 2021

Cllr Muhammed Butt

Leader of Brent Council

Civic Centre

Engineer’s Way HA9 0FJ

 

Dear Councillor Butt

 

Residents against Brent’s Climate-unfriendly asphalting policy

We would like to begin by introducing you to BRAAP – Brent Residents Against Asphalt Pavements. We are now an unprecedented coalition of eighteen, yes eighteen, residents’ associations and residents’ groups across the whole of the borough. We do what it says on the tin. We don’t know of any similar voluntary grouping in Brent on this scale on any other topic of concern to the citizens of our community. We are asking you and your colleagues to hear what we have to say.

 

IPCC

This month’s Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report makes it crystal clear that the catastrophic floods and fires we are seeing across the world are caused by human-controlled activities producing greenhouse gases. This epoch- making document serves to reinforce Brent’s own Climate Emergency Strategy which we support, as far as it goes. Among other things that says: „We will develop and implement a sustainable procurement policy that requires sustainable practices to be considered throughout our procurement and contract management procedures.”

 

We agree with your article in the current Kilburn Times where you state‚’This is a climate emergency, we must act now.’

 

Brent’s Strategy explains that there are many actions that individuals can take towards the UK’s net zero carbon goal – and that the Council must make every effort to adapt its own policies to the same end. There is a simple cheap option that the Council could take very quickly – but it is not listed either for short- or longer term action.

 

This is to reverse the policy of replacing footway paving slabs with asphalting throughout the Borough and not to start any new asphalting contracts from now on.

 

The rationale is really a no-brainer. Asphalting the many miles of footway in the Council’s current programme is requiring thousands of journeys by diesel-engined HGVs which emit both global warming CO2 and pollutants of the air we breathe. In addition asphalt when laid down contributes to warming of the ambient air temperature, needing alleviation through planting. By contrast replacing broken paving slabs consumes minimal resources and very few HGV miles, while pulverising good slabs to make way for asphalt burns up yet more energy.

 

Voting against Brent Scrutiny of asphalting policies

This being the case we are at a loss to understand why the Council has rejected BRAAP’s fully reasoned request for the Resources and Public Realm Scrutiny Committee to examine policies involved in asphalting pavements by voting against the motion put forward by Cllr Kansagra at the Full Council on 21 July. Moreover we are dismayed that Cllr Mashari, Chair of Scrutiny, did not honour her promise to write to BRAAP the next day to explain why you and colleagues voted against scrutiny of a policy which is opposed by so many residents’ groups.

 

We look forward to your response. Could you please let us know by 31st August if you are ready to consider our proposal and include it in the Climate Emergency Strategy? We are also writing to other Councillors.

 

Best wishes

 

BRAAP Co-ordinators

 

Contacts:

 

Flavia Rittner - administrator & co-ordinator: frittner7@gmail.com

Robin Sharp - co-ordinator: robisharp@googlemail.com 

 

Brent Residents Against Asphalt Pavements

 

Aylestone Park Residents’ & Tenants’ Association 

Barn Hill Residents’ Association

Brent Eleven Streets

Brent Parks Forum

Brondesbury Residents’ & Tenants’ Association

Brondesbury Road Group

Chandos Road Group

Clifford Gardens Group

Harlesden Area Action

Kensal Rise Residents Association

Kensal Triangle Residents Association

Kilburn Village Residents Association

Mapesbury Pavements Action Group

Queens Park Area Residents Association

Roe Green Village Residents Association

Sudbury Town Residents Association

Wembley Central & Alperton Residents Association

Willesden Green Residents Association

 

 

 

Unique coalition of 11 residents' groups call on Brent Scrutiny Committee to investigate Brent Council's policy on asphalting of pavements

 

Today BRAAP - Brent Residents Against Asphalt Pavements - have released their scoping paper  LINK reporting the shortcomings of Brent Council’s 2016 Policy to replace the paving slabs on the borough’s pavements with asphalt (tarmac).  BRAAP has sent the paper to Cllr Roxanne Mashari, Chair of Brent Scrutiny Committee for Resources and the Public Realm, asking them to carry out an investigation of the processes that lead to the policy along, with its implementation and to recommend an approach which takes account of residents’ input LINK.

 

BRAAP is a new, unique and unprecedented alliance of residents’ associations and street groups from across Brent who have got together to campaign to reverse the Council’s policy of asphalting at all costs.

 

 

MAIN POINTS

•  Brent’s 2016 Policy was introduced using hard to understand and unconvincing financial arguments.

•  A lack of transparency on the long-term running costs of asphalt vs re-laying paving slabs.

•  Over 95% of petitioned residents objected to the asphalting of pavements and the resulting reduction of the quality of the urban environment.

•  A lack of meaningful consultation with residents and residents’ associations, either on the general policy or individual schemes.

•  Hurriedly arranged ‘special’ meetings with worried residents, Councillors, Officers and the Leader, where Brent claim surprise at the level of opposition, but repeat the same arguments and asphalt anyway.

•  No clear tally showing how many slabs are re-usable.  Residents estimate up to 80% could be re-laid.

•  Shockingly, when the slabs are removed they are not re-used, but pulverized according to contractors.

•  A lack of transparency about the environmental impact assessment around air quality when using diesel trucks to transport 1000s of tons of slabs to be pulverised, and more trucks to bring asphalt into the borough.

•  Roads that were asphalted in 2016, eg Chandos Road, have already degraded whereas paving done at the time looks as good as new.

•  The policy goes against the direction we should be travelling in this time of climate emergency.  

* By default it is obvious that simple levelling of the slabs by workmen with hand tools will have a marginal carbon footprint compared with the use of new asphalt with its high embodied carbon and diesel intensive processes for lorries and plant.

 

Robin Sharp, Joint Convenor of BRAAP, said:

 

This is a unique coming together of 11 residents’ groups and associations in Brent objecting to replacing long-lasting paving slabs with cheap impermeable tarmac, which heaves and cracks,  grows moss and looks awful when repaired, radiates heat into the urban environment and is opposed by over 95% of residents.  The council should be working with residents’ and council tax payers’ interests in mind.  They say the policy is cost-driven, but they should be planning for the long term, with sustainability at the fore.  This policy is not fit for purpose.

BRAAP provided the following background information to Wembley Matters:

 
Black radiates more heat than lighter colours.  Urban heating is a global problem and wherever there are heat reduction programmes, the first thing they do is get out the reflective white paint: the New York City Cool Roofs Programme “cooled and coated” 2,077,537 square feet of rooftop.  In Greek villages they paint the houses white.  It’s for a reason. 

 

Brent has not disclosed an Environmental Impact Assessment to say how many diesel miles will be used disposing of re-usable paving slabs and importing asphalt into the borough.  This doesn’t sit well with their Climate Strategy for carbon neutrality. 

 

Water run-off increases flood risk to our drains and is why the Council has strict planning regulations for residents putting in front drives or hard standings - they have to install 50% soft landscaping as well as a soak away to stop water running into the highway, but the Council is getting away with laying mile upon mile of impermeable asphalt.  It is universally known that paving slabs allow water penetration through the gaps when they are laid on a sand substrate.   We have asked Brent for the Environmental Impact Assessment relating to Sustainable Drainage Systems where impermeable surfaces are concerned.

 

BRAAP Member groups:

 

Aylestone Park Residents’ and Tenants’ Association

Barn Hill Residents’ Association

Brondesbury Road Group

Chandos Road Group

Clifford Gardens Group

Kensal Rise Residents’ Association

Kensal Triangle Residents’ Association

Kilburn Village Residents’ Association

Mapesbury Pavements Action Group

Queens Park Area Residents’ Association

Willesden Green Residents’ Association

 

Brondesbury residents protest as Council about to start work to replacing pavements with asphalt

 

Brondesbury residents protested this morning as work was about to start on replacing paving with asphalt.  This is the latest of several protests over Brent Council policy which  the council claim is environmentally superior to replacing paving and safer for pedestrians.

 The counter-arguments to the policy were published HERE

 

Brent Council accused of mendacity over trees/paving policy

Salmon Street, NW9 - August 2019

 From an email sent to Brent Council:

RE: Brent Council Announces Climate Emergency And Then Chops Down All The Trees

Are you still insisting we hold a meeting outside in the dark today, at rush hour, before most residents have got home ?

I am unsure exactly what you propose to convey to us with your "brief discussion" in these conditions; we obviously will not be able to see the trees you mention.

Is it your intension to try to confine this discussion only to these remaining eleven trees on Furness Road ?

As you know the systematic destruction of Brent’s wonderful & varied stock of mature trees has been ongoing for a decade. 

Many of us have correspondence with the council going back several years regarding the tragic culling of mature and healthy trees outside our homes.

Amid repeated broken promises of them being replaced, line upon line have been erased from our streets. Furness Road has suffered terribly. And it continues.

We would like them back.

Who is sending these chainsaw gangs around the borough and why?

Similar action by another council in a recent case was described by Michael Gove (then Minister for the Environment) as “Ecological Vandalism’.

At an impromptu gathering outside Furness Rd School last Monday, a council representative claimed that it is Brent Council’s intention to replace ALL paving stones throughout the whole borough with asphalt.

Can you confirm if this is true ?

If so, what volume of asphalt in tonnage is likely to be purchased by the council ? 

I’m sure rough estimates by quantity-surveyors were calculated before such a decision was made.

What calculations regarding carbon offsetting, to cancel-out the use of such a large quantity of petroleum-based bitumen/asphalt have been completed ?

And, how does the felling of thousands, of mature trees help in this offsetting?

Clearly, in spite of recent claims by Brent Council, that they are in some way concerned with the environment, their actions (historic & ongoing), and recent decisions regarding pavements and canopy cover (without consultation) demonstrate the opposite. Indeed, it shows utter contempt.

This amounts to a public relations disaster for Brent Council & current MP, and yet further anger & frustration for the borough’s long-suffering residents.

Finally, I understand Krupa Seth will be attending today.

I do look forward to Counciller Sheth's answers to our previously unanswered questions and outstanding FOI requests sent to her under separate cover.

And a response to the above email from a resident with whom it was shared:

Thank you for an intelligent and insightful email which rightly centres on Brent Councils casual disregard for its tree stock and the profligate waste of money caused by this approach to pavement works, that is compounded by the damaging use of the extensive amounts of a fossil fuel derivative.

Brent Council has a corporate responsibility to reduce the amount of fossil fuel use in the borough – not increase it steadily.

This is for obvious reasons – obvious to everyone else, except the officers of Brent Council.

Brent is fortunate in that it appears to have many intelligent, engaged people who really do care about their borough and the way it is managed – it is deeply shameful that Brent Council continues with its ruinous pursuit of degrading the public realm facilitated by a Council that views its environmental responsibilities as a minor inconvenience.

I see again, the mendacious line trotted out again that a replacement sapling is in anywhere near a reasonable replacement of a mature tree as regards the large environmental benefits provided by a mature tree.

It will take decades for the replacement sapling to reach the same amounts of carbon sequestration, the production of oxygen, reduction in solar gain and the ecological benefits for wildlife.

Anyone with common sense can see the lunacy and ignorance of that statement – any honest arborist would tell you exactly the same thing. 

You would think it should be incumbent for the officers of Brent Council to be aware of this basic fact – this is not a difficult of overly complicated concept.

If not, they are either ignorant or incompetent or just plain dishonest.

This is a borough wide issue regardless of Brent Council's opinion and residents will continue to fight this environmental degradation everywhere in the borough.