Missing fortnight and missing documents twist in Kensal Rise Library saga

This is the notice of the Disposal of Land listed as an Asset of Community Value (Kensal Rise Library site).

It was only issued on November 27th, two weeks after Andrew Gillick, the current owner, informed Brent Council of his intentions, so there is some contention over the six week initial moratorium, starting from November 13th. Community interest groups have had public knowledge only from last Thursday.

The auction is to be held in just over two week's time on December 17th.

Meanwhile the  Communituy Infrastructure Levy Liability document and the Deed of Agreement  have not yet been uploaded to the Council's planning portal LINK

And, perhaps needless to say, no more has been heard into the police investigation into the alleged fake emails submitted to Brent Council in support of Andrew Gillick's initial planning application.

What do Brent councillors think about deferral of Kensal Rise planning application?

A lively and at times passionate debate is taking place on these pages over the redevelopment of the Kensal Rise building.

The article has attracted more comments than  almost any other on this blog and I am posting this to invite readers who may have missed it to join in.

In particular I am inviting councillors and council election candidates to respond to what is clearly an important local matter.

One major theme is whether the planning application should be deferred until after police have completed their investigation into the alleged fraudulent emails submitted in support of the developer Andrew Gillick's previous planning application. LINK

Other matters include whether the space offered to the trustees of Friends of Kensal Rise Library for a community library is sufficient, and how robust that agreement is.

The original article by the trustees of the Friends of Kensal Rise Library and subsequent comments can be seen HERE

Since this was written responses have started coming in via Twitter. I will update here:

1. Martin Francis ‏@WembleyMatters 1h

   .@CllrButt What do you think? http://www.wembleymatters.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/what-do-brent-councillors-think-about.html …
2. Cllr. Muhammed Butt ‏@CllrButt 1h

   .@WembleyMatters we have a statutory responsibility to look at application. 1000's apps in Brent. Do we check the person or application

   
   

    Vicky Zentner ‏@vickyzentner 56m

   @WembleyMatters @CllrButt isn't ignoring the suspicion over fraudulent emails at very least morally wrong and at worst, collusion?
3. Meg Howarth ‏@howarthm 47m

   @CllrButt Both person& app.need flagging up.Planning cmtee statutorily independent&can vote to defer hearing>
4. Alex Colas ‏@AlexWG2014 18m
   

   .@WembleyMatters Planning cmtee should defer decision on this application until investigation into fraud allegations are completed.

@WembleyMatters 1/2 Strongly agree planning app should be deferred until outcome of investigation. Result might invalidate, for example. Alison Hopkins  @Hopkins_Alison   @WembleyMatters 2/2 FKRL know if space enough. I want VERY watertight legal guarantees. I've bad experiences with developers (Brent X!

Delay continues over Kensal Rise email fraud: some niggling questions

Guest post by Meg Howarth

On 13 February, Brent council confirmed that ‘we have passed the police all the information they have requested in connection with Kensal Rise Library and that we continue to co-operate fully with their enquiries’. The police had previously stated that ‘[we]have been informed that there is further evidence to support the allegation of fraud and are awaiting receipt thereof. A decision whether to progress the allegation will be made after all the evidence has been scrutinised’ (Police may look again at email fraud evidence in Kensal Rise development, Wembley Matters 6 February).

So a police investigation in to the apparent fraudulent use of local, and other, residents’ addresses in support of a change-of-use planning application for the Mark Twain library is finally underway - five months after the Friends of Kensal Rise Library and others first reported the matter to the council. The Kensington and Chelsea force is handling the affair - developer Andrew Gillick’s head-office for his Platinum Revolver/Kensal Properties firms is in the royal borough.

There is currently no indication of when the police will decide whether or not a prosecution will follow.

Mr Gillick’s original planning application for one of Brent’s few remaining historic buildings was unanimously rejected by the council’s planning committee last September but it’s understood he has a revised application in the offing. That is why a speedy resolution to this tawdry affair is required. Despite the council’s official line that it,  

has a responsibility and obligation to consider any valid planning application that is put forward from any individual(s)...consider[ing] each on its merits in accordance with its statutory obligations’ (Christine Gilbert, acting chief executive)

most people will find it incomprehensible if the planning committee is asked to determine a further application before the outcome of an active police inquiry is known. Speed does not, of course, mean cutting corners. 

Meantime, some niggling questions remain:

Why wasn’t all the information and evidence the council had amassed handed to the police in the first instance, instead of what appears to have been a summary of its findings?

Would an investigation have been launched sooner if the police had received a complete dossier earlier?

Why did it take 10 days before council leader Muhammed Butt’s late-night tweet on 31 January stating that the police weren’t pursuing the investigation - the first (and last) anyone’s heard of the City Police’s NFIB (National Fraud and Investigation Bureau) initial decision to take no further action? The head of Brent’s Audit and Investigation department was informed of this on 21 January but was taking ‘advice’ on what he was ‘able to disclose’. In the event, he never disclosed anything. Did the council want to ensure vacant possession of the site by landlord All Souls College, Oxford)? It knew the completion of the sale of the building to Andrew Gillick was conditional on vacant possession and that the final date for this was 31 January - its lawyers are the only third party to have seen the Binding Agreement to sell the building to this developer. Vacant possession was, of course, achieved by All Souls sending in its heavies at 6am to demolish the pop-up.

Back at the beginning of October, Brent’s legal boss, Fiona Ledden wrote about Brent’s own inquiry into the fraudulent emails that: The [council’s] investigation is continuing and there have been some complications in relation to the work undertaken. It would not be usual to publish findings of any investigation, there may however be some conclusions that we will be able to share’.

At that stage, it seems the council didn’t anticipate police involvement. 

So what changed, and when? Was it the information the council received early in November that a property owned by Andrew Gillick in St Mary’s Terrace, Paddington was sub-let at the time an online-comment using that address appeared in support of the council’s own planning application for the Barham Library Complex? Mr Gillick, the only supporter of that proposed development, was slated to speak at the planning hearing but failed to attend. It was this same address that was previously used twice to support his own change-of-use application for Kensal Rise Library. Any developer is entitled to support her/his own application but if the comments using the developer’s W2 address were submitted in his name when someone else was living there, that surely could give rise to allegations of fraud? 

Information about this, like the theft of Kensal Rise businesswoman Kirsty Slattery’s address which was used to support the developer’s change-of-use application for the 110-year old library building, appears to have been sent to the police only this month.

Why?

Supine Brent Council accept NFA in alleged Kensal Rise fraud

Who would Miss Marple suspect?

Accusations of malpractice in planning application in Brent are not new.  There were suspicions about a last minute surge in support for the Willesden Green development LINK, an independent investigation was carried out over Paul Lorber's email interchange with the bidder for the Barham Park library site LINK and currently we have the issue of fake emails submitted for the Kensal Rise Library development. LINK

At the weekend Cllr Muhammed Butt revealed in a sharp email interchange with a Labour Party member that the fraud police had decided not to take their investigation further. A strange decision when such developments are worth millions of pounds.

One would think that Brent Council, as the guardian of council taxpayers' money and responsible for the fair conduct of planning applications, having had their attention drawn to the fake email by KR campaigners,  and finding enough evidence in their own investigation to pass the matter on to Action Fraud, would have established why the police had decided on no further action.

 I am sure Miss Marple would consider the question, 'Who stands to benefit from this fraud?' and then investigate accordingly.

Does the lack of a police investigation mean Brent Council just goes ahead with hearing the planning application as if nothing has happened. Do the residents who have clearly stated that their addresses were used without their permission, for a cause they did not support, just accept that no further action will be taken?

Instead of any such action Fiona Ledden, Head of Legal and Procurement at Brent Council, copied a complainant into this email, which is a masterpiece in conveying absolutely nothing in four paragraphs.

I am writing to inform you of the outcome of the police investigation into the potential fraudulent use of emails in respect of the planning application for the building of the former library at Kensal Rise.

The Police have now informed the Council that it is not taking further the investigation into potential fraudulent emails in respect of the planning application for the building of the former library at Kensal Rise.

The Council does want to continue to maintain the highest level of integrity with its planning process, since the Council continues to have statutory responsibilities to consider planning applications that are submitted.

I know you will be disappointed by this conclusion but in taking the action, the Council has already demonstrated their continuing concerns with regards to this matter.

If the planning application and committee hearing goes ahead, as if nothing has happened, it will be a strange way of  demonstrating 'continuing concerns' on this matter.

Answers needed urgently on Kensal Rise fake emails

Guest post by Meg Howarth

Muhammed Butt's late-night sneering tweet to Michael Calderbank claiming that Brent Council had 'provided all the evidence and police not pursuing' the fake email business fails to inspire confidence in the council's, let alone the NFIB's, handling of this grubby affair.

An official statement from the council on the matter is needed urgently. Brent was contacted by the police on 21 January. Does it take 10 days - and the shameless destruction of the pop-up at the Kensal Rise Library site - before the release even of this snippet of information - and, then, in this personally antagonistic and entirely unsuitable fashion? Bad news burying even worse news? Michael Calderbank was simply asking about progress of the email investigation. 

Some immediate questions that demand public answers are:

- Why have the police decided not to pursue the matter?

- Has the council probed this decision? If not, why not?

- Was Andrew Gillick interviewed by the NFIB (National Fraud and Investigation Bureau)? If not, why not? 

- Was the NFIB told of the apparent sub-letting of Mr Gillick's St Mary Mansions Paddington flat at the time a comment using that address was posted on the Barham Library planning application site? Two comments using that address appeared a couple of months earlier on the Kensal Library planning site.

- Was any attempt made to try and trace the fake emails, as Margaret Smith asks above? If not, why not? As a computer expert confirms: 'it could be very easy if...no precautions [were taken], and difficult or impossible in other circumstances'. This is surely where the occupancy of Mr Gillick's Mary Mansions flat at the time of the three planning comments could help resolve matters?

The computer expert went on to say: 'It's not very clever of Brent to collect comments via a system that is this easy to spoof. They could easily take a few precautions, [otherwise] this kind of thing will only become more frequent'. Fortunately, it seems that the council has now beefed up its system of online comment in the wake of this nasty affair. But

the the police decision not to pursue the matter hardly clears it up and any new [planning] application will be heard in an atmosphere of suspicion' (Martin Francis). Precisely. 

It seems that a further planning application from Andrew Gillick is expected to be lodged shortly.

The council's lax system enabled the email scam. The very least it must now do is publicise the reasons for the police's decision not to proceed and prosecute. Planning matters around the Kensal Rise Library building can only become even messier without the utmost transparency by the council.

Footnote: 'hippy' references, as posted in comments on this blog. also featured in the online planning comments supporting Mr Gillick's application. It's unclear whether they were found by the council to be amongst the fake emails passed to the police.