More 'potential development opportunities' on Brent's council estates

Proposals for 'fill-in' development of the council's sites across the borough have sometimes been controversial, especially when current residents are opposed to densification, loss of light or the loss of green space.

The council respond that such proposals provide much needed council housing under the New Council Homes Programme (NCHP) and the balance of detriment versus gain is in favour of development. As we have learnt from the reallocation of new homes in Watling Gardens from London Affordable Rent to Shared Ownership things are not always straightforward in terms of genuine affordability.

A new map listing finished, current and potential developments has been issued to ward councilors today. Those on the map below in red  have been identified as 'potential development opportunities.' Ward councillors will be contacted by officers to discuss proposals in their wards.

Nearly a half of the 886 red projects in 'feasibility' are accounted  for by development on the St Raphael's Estate.

It is to be hoped that ward councillors, many of them new, will actively engage with estate residents  early in the process so that they are not presented with a fait accompli.

You should be able to enlarge this map  by clicking bottom right.

 

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!

 

Slow progress on Kings Drive 'shoe box' bungalows

2017 proposal amended Deccember 2018

Plans June 2019

October 2021

Yesterday May 18th 2022

Bemused residents of Kings Drive, Wembley, have been watching the extremely slow progress of Brent Council's building of four estate 'fill-in'  bungalows on the former garages and car park site on the Kings Drive estate. Glimpses of what is going on are quite rare as often there are no workers on site.

Older residents remember the prefabs that were on nearby Pilgrims Way and some compare the bungalows unfavourably with those designs. They also ask why no attempt was made to match the new build to the  red brick of the buildings on either side of the site.

Pilgrims Way Prefabs c1950s (Brent Archives)

When I was a child when one of us had a new pair of shoes we would fight to keep the shoe box so that we could make a 'house', cutting away at the box to make windows and a front door. 

The new bungalows bring back childhood memories...

Wembley Housing Zone – Brent’s “hush hush” contract decision

 Guest post by Philip Grant in a personal capacity

 

It may be a coincidence, but two days after I had posted a comment about Brent’s failure to start work on its Cecil Avenue (former Copland School site) housing development, a decision to start work on a tender contract appeared on the Council’s website. My comment referred to this vacant Council-owned site having had planning permission for 250 homes since February 2021, and how Brent proposed to let a developer sell 152 of these privately, and only have 37 for affordable rent (with none at social rent levels). [If you are wondering how 37 (14.8%) relates to the 39% so-called affordable in the image below, the balance is 61 homes for shared ownership or intermediate rent level, unaffordable for most Brent families in housing need!]

 

Extract from “Soft Market Testing” details for prospective developers, April 2021.

The timing of this decision is of some concern. Part of the purpose of notifying intended decisions in advance is so that members of Brent’s two main Scrutiny Committees can see whether there are points which they wish to consider before a decision is actually made. But those two Committees had their last meetings of the current Council in March, and the details on the Council’s website show that the final Officer decision is scheduled to be made on 4 May, the day before the elections for the new Brent Council. This will effectively prevent any detailed Scrutiny of the decision, as the new committees will not be formed until the Council’s Annual Meeting on 18 May.

 

Details of the proposed decision from Brent Council’s website.

 

Of course, it could be argued that this decision is being made under delegated authority, given by Brent’s Cabinet in August 2021. However, as I showed in a recent guest blog (are Cabinet meetings a Charade?), the decision to include a private developer as part of the Council’s Wembley Housing Zone (“WHZ”) housing development goes back much further than that. And it involves meetings of the “off-public record” Policy Co-ordination Group (“PCG”) of Cabinet members and Senior Officers.

 

In another guest post, in January, I showed how the “soft market testing” of the present proposals, was put to five developers in April 2021. Their support for the opportunity has been used to justify allowing a developer to profit from the sale of 152 homes (which could have been used to house local people in housing need). That market testing was so “soft” that it was always going to appeal to them. 

 

It then turned out, from a report to a PCG meeting in July 2020 (which I obtained under FoI), that a previous WHZ proposal had also been “market tested” in February 2020. But that only found favour with 2 out of 5 developers it was put to. Council Officers and the key Cabinet members involved do seem determined to allow a developer to profit from this Brent Council housing scheme!

 

Extract from the WHZ report to Brent’s Policy Co-ordination Group, 16 July 2020.

 

I have been trying since August last year to find out why Brent isn’t building all 250 of the homes at Cecil Avenue for rent to Council tenants, with as many of them as possible at social rent levels, which was the priority recommended by the 2020 Brent Poverty Commission. In a written answer to a Public Question for the November 2021 Full Council meeting, Cllr. Shama Tatler said: ‘it is not financially viable to deliver all 250 homes at Cecil Avenue as socially rented housing.’ 

 

No evidence has been made public to justify this claim over financial viability; but how could it NOT be viable to make all of the homes Council housing, even if they might not all be at social rents? In a local newspaper article the same month, seeking to justify Brent’s plans for “infill housing” on land at Kilburn Square, 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.'

Cllr. Ketan Sheth’s article in the “Brent & Kilburn Times”, 18 November 2021.

 

If that is true for green spaces on existing Council estates, why isn’t it true for the vacant “brownfield” Council-owned former Copland School land? Residents in Wembley Central, where the Cecil Avenue development will be built and where he is standing as a Labour candidate for the 5 May local elections, may wish to ask Ketan Sheth that question!

 

I have tried since January to get one of Brent’s Scrutiny Committees to examine the Council’s alleged justification for allowing a private developer to sell 152 of the 250 homes to be built at Cecil Avenue, without success. I did manage (after a struggle) to be allowed to present a deputation to the Resources & Public Realm Scrutiny Committee meeting on 9 March, on the housing aspects of the “Poverty Commission Update” report which was on the agenda. 

 

The Report tried to conceal the fact that Brent had, so far, not invested in social housing, as recommended by the Commission. My presentation to the meeting (which had to be submitted in writing because of [unexplained!] technical problems) included this plea to the councillors: 

 

‘You, as a Scrutiny Committee, need to challenge that, and demand that Brent Council does better.

 

You can recommend that in meeting its Poverty Commission commitments, it should invest in more social rent housing as part of the New Council Homes programme, including at its Cecil Avenue development.’

 

I was promised a written response to my deputation from the Lead Member for Housing, Cllr. Eleanor Southwood. I am still waiting for that, despite two reminders. I mentioned that in the comment I posted on 10 April (see opening sentence). By coincidence (?) the following day I received an apology for the delay from Scrutiny Chair Cllr. Roxanne Mashari, who told me: ‘A written response is being prepared [and] will be with you as soon as possible.’

 

My parody Brent publicity photo for the Council’s Cecil Avenue housing development.

 

When, or if, I finally receive it, I will ask Martin to share it with you. Cecil Avenue, though a housing scheme, is not directly Cllr. Southwood’s responsibility. The Lead Member for Regeneration, Cllr. Shama Tatler, is the one working on this, along with Senior Officers (and, no doubt, the Council Leader). You can see all three portrayed in my image above.

 

Everything about this Cecil Avenue development, and the way it is being progressed without proper scrutiny, of decisions made behind closed doors by a small number of Cabinet members and Senior Officers, highlights the need for a more balanced Council. Only then will potentially “dodgy” decisions be challenged, and decision-makers properly held to account. 

 

The people of Brent have the chance to vote, for change for the better, on 5 May. I hope that you, and as many of our fellow citizens as possible, will vote, and vote wisely.

Philip Grant.

 

 

Philip Grant’s Deputation for Scrutiny Committee: item 9 – Poverty Commission Update

Philip Grant's presentation to Scrutiny Committee was abandoned due to poor internet connections.  Here it is: 

The Poverty Commission Update report asks you to ‘Note progress on implementation of the Poverty Commission recommendations as agreed by Cabinet.’

You are a Scrutiny Committee, and you should be questioning this report, not just noting it. Please look at paragraph 3.7, on Housing. What progress has been made on that?

Lord Best’s Poverty Commission identified the cost of housing as a major contributor to poverty in Brent, and recommended a substantial increase in investment in social housing.

Brent’s Cabinet agreed Recommendation 4, which said: ‘We recommend that in pursuing its strategic target to secure 50% of new homes as affordable, Brent gives special consideration to achieving more social rented homes.’

Yet you look at “Housing” in the Update report, and there is not a single mention of social rented homes!

The Update report says that the Council is making great progress with its New Council Homes programme, but how many of those homes are genuinely new homes for people on the housing waiting list?

Of the 655 homes already delivered, 209 at Gloucester & Durham in South Kilburn are actually replacement homes for tenants whose flats were demolished to make way for that development.

Of the homes delivered or ‘onsite’, 92 at Knowles House are for temporary accommodation, not permanent Council homes.

At Grand Union in Alperton, the figures include 23 for shared ownership. The 92 rented Council homes there will be for London Affordable Rent, which is higher than social rent levels.

If you ask how many of the New Council Homes Brent says it can deliver by 2024 will be at social rent levels, I think you’ll find the answer is “none”.

One place where Brent could increase investment in social housing is the former Copland School site. It is vacant land, owned by the Council, which has had full planning permission to build 250 homes there for over a year.

I wrote to Cabinet members last August, when that item was on their agenda, urging them to fulfil their Poverty Commission promises, and make at least some of this development homes for social rent.

Instead, they approved a proposal which allows 152 of the new homes there to be sold privately. Of the 98 Council homes, 61 would be for shared ownership, and only 37 for London Affordable Rent.

Overall, the Wembley Housing Zone scheme claims to provide 50% “affordable housing”. But the balance of that is 54 flats at London Affordable Rent level on the Ujima House site, and only 8 of those would be family-sized homes.

There would be NO social rented homes. That’s the reality hidden in this Poverty Commission Update.

You, as a Scrutiny Committee, need to challenge that, and demand that Brent Council does better.

You can recommend that in meeting its Poverty Commission commitments, it should invest in more social rent housing as part of the New Council Homes programme, including at its Cecil Avenue development.

Thank you for listening to me. I’d be happy to answer any questions.

Council housing at Cecil Avenue – a reply from Cllr. Muhammed Butt

 Guest blog by Philip Grant in a personal capacity:-

 

Council housing at Cecil Avenue – a reply from Cllr. Muhammed Butt

 

At Monday’s Cabinet Meeting, Kilburn Village Residents’ Association presented a petition expressing their opposition to the “infill” housing plans which the Council seems determined to push through for Kilburn Square, and dissolution with the consultation process, in which residents views had been ignored.

 

After watching the webcast for this item, I was struck by the way in which the Council Leader, and Chair of the meeting, seemed to dismiss the residents’ concerns. The most important thing for him was to build the Council homes that families in temporary accommodation urgently need, and he made no excuse (or apology?) for building them.

 

Architect’s diagrammatic view of Brent’s planned Cecil Avenue development

 

That struck a chord with me, because for the past six months I’ve been trying to find out why Brent’s Cabinet decided, in August 2021, that 152 of the 250 homes the Council plan to build, on land they own at Cecil Avenue in Wembley, would be for a developer to sell at a profit, and not for people in urgent housing need on the Council’s waiting list.

 

I sent an email to the Council Leader, Cllr. Muhammed Butt, referring to the passion he had expressed in Cabinet for building Council homes, then asking about Cecil Avenue:-

 

‘Let me ask you a straight question, and ask you for a straight reply to it:-

 

What excuse are you making for not building all of the 250 homes on Brent Council's Cecil Avenue site in Wembley as affordable Council homes for rent, and only using 98 of the 250 as Council homes for Brent people in housing need?

 

 

Cecil Avenue is a vacant, Council-owned site. Full planning permission for the 250-home development on that site was given a year ago, and the Council could by now have a contractor building those much-needed homes there.

 

 

Instead, your Cabinet resolved last August to adopt a "developer partner" option, under which the contractor who would be appointed, and paid by Brent Council to build those 250 homes (plus 54 at the Ujima House site across the High Road), would be allowed to purchase 152 of the 250 homes at Cecil Avenue and sell them for profit.

 

 

People in the borough, including those in temporary accommodation that you spoke so passionately about, deserve to know why. I look forward to receiving your response, and sharing it publicly. Thank you.’

 

 

To his credit, Cllr. Butt sent me a reply at lunchtime today (Wednesday 9 February), and agreed that I could publish it, as long as it was unedited. That is what Martin has agreed to do, and you can read it in full below.

 

 

You will see that much of it has been written in the form of a party political speech for the Local Council elections in May, but there are parts which relate directly to my question about the Cecil Avenue development. I will give my response to those – readers can comment on his other claims, should they wish to.

 

 

I do appreciate that the Cecil Avenue site is part of Brent’s Wembley Housing Zone scheme. I made that clear in my very first “guest blog” about this issue, last August.

 

 

In case it leads to confusion, I should clarify that when Cllr. Butt says: ‘This site intends to deliver 100% affordable housing and a target of 50% across both sites’, the site with 100% affordable housing is Ujima House. This still only has outline planning permission, and will need to be demolished before a ten-story block of 54 homes (only 8 of them family-sized) can be built on the site, above affordable workspace on the ground floor.

 

Outline plan for Ujima House, currently an office block on the High Road.

 

 

The key answer given by Cllr. Butt, to justify the planned “giveaway” of 152 homes at Cecil Avenue to a developer, is this: ‘The Council needs to ensure the entire programme is financially viable within the GLA grant made available by the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, hence the requirement for a mixed tenure development in order to subsidise the delivery of the affordable elements.’

 

 

 

That may be Brent’s “excuse”, but Cecil Avenue is a Council housing development on Council-owned land. Brent Council will be borrowing the money, at low interest rates, to build the homes there, just as it would for any other Council housing scheme within its Housing Revenue Account, to provide homes for rent to Council tenants. Why does it need to sell 152 of those homes to a private developer, at a pre-agreed fixed price, rather than using them to house local people in housing need? I still don’t understand that.

 

 

After all, it appears to be acceptable, to the Council and its Cabinet, to borrow at least £48m, charged to the Housing Revenue Account, to purchase 155 leasehold flats in an Alperton tower block, from a secretive “Asset Special Purpose Vehicle”! I’m still waiting for an answer on that.

 

Artist’s impression of the courtyard garden at the Cecil Avenue site.

 

 

My final comment on Cllr. Butt’s reply is his reference to ‘a new publicly accessible open space’. The approved plans for the Cecil Avenue site include a courtyard garden square. This would mainly be for the benefit of residents, but there would be public access to it, through an archway from Wembley High Road. 

 

 

This shared public open space makes the Cecil Avenue site much more desirable than the 100% affordable Ujima House site, where the flats will just have tiny balconies (plus a play area on the flat roof of the block). 152 of the Cecil Avenue homes would be for private sale, and 61 of the remaining 98 “affordable” Council homes would be either for shared ownership or intermediate rent, leaving only 37 of the 250 for affordable rent to Council tenants.

 

 

I’ve had my say, but please read what Cllr. Butt has said, and make up your own minds. This is his reply to my question above, in full and unedited:

 

 

‘Dear Mr Grant

 

 Thank you for watching the live stream, and for your comments.

 

 

I hope that you can appreciate that the Cecil Avenue site is part of a wider development in the Wembley Housing Zones Programme and includes the adjacent site Ujima House - which is being used for affordable workspace so that it remains in use until things have been finalised.

 

 

This site forms part of our New Council Homes Programme to deliver at least 5,000 affordable homes with partners and at least 1,700 council homes directly ourselves, by 2024. Brent is one of a handful of councils that is meeting its targets, that means people desperately in need of housing get safe secure housing, something that surely not even you can be against.

 

 

This site intends to deliver 100% affordable housing and a target of 50% across both sites. We have always strived to achieve the best that we can on any given site – it is the responsible thing to do, to deliver homes today not years down the line. What this means in plain English, is that a mixed development at Cecil Avenue will enable the Ujima House site to be 100% affordable housing.

 

 

Our vision is for a development that will also include workspace to support job creation and growth in the local economy, a community space for everyone, highways and public realm improvements. I hope that you will have seen some of the works for the public realm improvements have already started on Wembley High Road, aiding the local economy, footfall and turbo-charging our recovery from Covid-19. We also want to include a new publicly accessible open space during this latest development. A positive outcome for the residents of Brent.

 

 

This is the commitment that we gave about making improvements for the residents of Brent and Wembley and this is what we are delivering, this is what a responsible Labour council can do, focussing on action and outcomes for today, to bring the future forward faster.

 

 

The Council needs to ensure the entire programme is financially viable within the GLA grant made available by the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, hence the requirement for a mixed tenure development in order to subsidise the delivery of the affordable elements. Your suggestion would jeopardise any affordable homes that are needed today; and would mean the people who desperately need those homes we are planning to build, would remain in poor quality accommodation, surely you would not want anyone to remain in poor quality accommodation?

 

 

As you point out, I care passionately about the people who need help to get a roof over their head; it is what I come to work for, to make a real difference to people’s lives. Creating the opportunities for people to upskill themselves through Brent start and Brent works.

 

 

Making sure that we work with all our schools to reach point today where about 97% of our schools are rated good or outstanding.

 

 

Investing in our high streets to create the strong local economy.

 

 

Our commitment to the green agenda with our climate emergency strategy and not forgetting the changes and improvements we are making to engage and interact with the good citizens of Brent with our new portal Citizen lab.

 

 

There is so much more that this Brent Labour administration has achieved and will absolutely strive to do more, despite what the Lib Dem and Tory coalition started and this party gate Tory government has taken away from us in Brent.

 

 

I need to remind you that over the last 10 years an average of £15.5 Million a year has been taken out from this councils funding. I hope that you find that truly distasteful, because I truly do.

 

 

This labour administration has worked diligently to deliver and support the residents that need our help, we have been the dented shield that has protected our residents.

 

 

We make the promise that we will continue to do whatever is in our remit and responsibility for the most vulnerable and needy in our society.

 

 

Sometimes this means taking decisions that people may disagree with, but I have always appreciated that.

 

Brent is a borough of ambition, aspiration and opportunity, that is what a good Labour council like Brent will deliver for its residents

 

 

I have answered your question; please feel free to post this on any site you wish to publish my response on; in the interests of transparency I hope unedited.

 

 

I look forward to hearing that you will be watching the next Cabinet meeting; it is a fantastic thing to see more people actively involved with local democracy.

 

 

Regards

Muhammed

Cllr Muhammed Butt
Leader of Brent Council.’