How will 2nd staircase requirement for 30metre plus buildings impact on Brent's current pipeline?

 I have asked Brent Council Press Office to provide a quote from the Council on how the requirement for a second staircase for buildings over 30m high will impact on developments currently in the pipeline in Brent. The requirement follows recommendations made after the Grenfell fire.

From Fire Protection Association LINK

As reported by Building, property consultants Lambert Smith Hampton (LSH) and Connells have analysed that up to 124,000 new London homes could be greatly affected or delayed by new fire safety regulations – schemes that had been previously approved.

Following the government’s recent 12-week consultation on proposed changes to Approved Document B (ADB), in February 2023, London Mayor Sadiq Khan announced, that he would be going ahead with the requirement for two stairwells in new buildings that were over 30 metres in height.

During his announcement, he stipulated that the Greater London Authority would only sign off on high-rise building applications that included two stairwells. As LSH and Connells note, this means that a current pipeline of 243 buildings (accommodating 123,632 new homes) will have to be scrapped as new designs are submitted by developers. The property consultants added that the new requirements could lead to current applications being “under threat of significant delay, or even being completely mothballed”.

The head of planning at LSH, Mary-Jane O’Neill, explained: “Given the tragic circumstances that led to the revision of fire safety regulations, there are few plausible grounds on which to oppose their implementation. But all of us involved in the process of development do need to process their implications and come up with some pragmatic solutions as a priority.”

The decision for a secondary staircase follows calls for better life safety measures for residents of high-rise buildings by giving them another means of escape in the event of a fire. It can also mean that fire crews have more access to take firefighting equipment to higher storeys when alternative routes might not be feasible. The need for a second staircase was one of the recommendations set out by Dame Judith Hackitt in her independent review and has also been backed by RIBA. The London Fire Brigade welcomed Sadiq Khan's decision, with further bodies wondering whether the height threshold should be reduced to 18 metres instead of 30. At the time, Charlie Pugsley, Assistant Commissioner for Fire Safety, said:

“Having pushed developers to include at least two staircases in tall residential buildings for some time, we support the government’s plans to bring in this clear limit for new buildings over 30m to further improve safety.

“This introduction of a clear threshold will give clarity to developers, local authorities and communities and prevent the continued practice of increasingly tall buildings being designed and constructed with only a single staircase.”

The new London-wide mandate, however, is expected to impact several London boroughs and their promises for more housing. Indeed, Architects’ Journal reports that construction work has stopped at 10 new residential blocks between three and 16 storeys in the east London borough of Havering. The £450 million residential scheme expected to replace 270 homes with 380 homes has now been halted over the current uncertainty around second staircase requirements. Developer Wates Residential, alongside Havering Council, has stopped construction until the government gives more clarity and reaches a “decision on new building safety legislation regarding taller buildings”.

In a statement, the developer said: “Regulations are likely to change to require two staircases in buildings over 30m, so we have taken the decision to pause the development at this early point in the construction process until we have a better understanding of what the new regulations will mean.”

Mary-Jane added that while legislative updates to fire safety measures are still ongoing, “housebuilders are unlikely to go back to the drawing board on these schemes until there is much more clarity around the required design standards”. In the meantime, developers will have put their existing plans on hold. 

“There is no silver bullet on the horizon that will unlock the uncertainty surrounding tall buildings,” she said.

 

Cllr Tatler responds to challenge over Brent Council's support for tall residential blocks across the borough

 

Brent's Local Plan incudes designated areas for tall buildings as well as intensification corridors  based on the assumption that given the shortage of  land in the borough the only way to address the housing crisis is by building up and maximising high density housing on a small footprint. 

Shama Tatler, Cabinet Member for Regeneration and Planningm recently short-listed to be Labour's parliamentary candidate for the Watford constituency, has been a strong advocate of such a response, even though Labour in Watford has campaigned against the Liberal Democrat Mayor's support for tall buildings.

Covid lockdown revealed problems over contagion of the virus in lifts, staircases and shared landings, as well as the lack of amenity space in which to get socially-distanced exercise in fresh air.

Problems were even worse for families with small children socially isolating in small flats, particularly on upper floors.

Alongside this has been the post-Grenfell cladding crisis which has plunged many into debt as well as anxiety, paying not only for repairs but also for fire-watches. People with disabilities have found themselves in the middle of conflicting advice over 'stay put' policies as well as the difference of opinion over the efficacy of PEEPs (Personal Emergency Evacuation Plans) supported by the London Fire Brigade but opposed by the government. Readers may recall the long-running saga of South Kilburn resident John Healy's attempts to get a PEEP from Brent Council.

Then there is of course the problem of the amount of truly affordable housing in new developments with Brent Council's insistence on terming Shared Ownership affordable. 

Finally academic reports question the energy efficiency of tall buildings when many local authorities, including Brent, have declared a Climate Emergency.

Not limited to tall buildings is the emerging issue of uncapped energy prices for residents whose homes are connected to a District Heating Network. Some relief was promised while all eyes were on Boris Johnson wriggling on a hook of hs own devising, when the government announced. 'We will ensure families living on Heat Networks are better protected. By appointing Ofgem as the new regulator for Heat Network in Great Britain, we will ensure customers get a fair price and a releaible source of heat.' 

Hear Martin Lewis' alarming Channel 4 piece on likely fuel bills in October HERE .

Whether this will be progressed amidst current political turmoil remains to be seen. The government has published a Fact Sheet HERE

It is against this background the the Liberal Democrat councillor for Alperton, Anton Georgiou, ask Shama Tatler a written question ahead of Monday's Council Meeting.

Readers can judge for themselves the adequacy of Cllr Tatler's written response and hear any further discussion on the Council's livestream starting at 6pm on Monday LINK:

 

Question from Councillor Georgiou to Councillor Tatler, Cabinet Member for Regeneration & Planning.

Five years on from the Grenfell Tower disaster, which highlighted to many the safety issues associated with tall buildings, developers with issues in their existing stock (including in Brent) continue to be let off the hook. With building regulations still nowhere near clear enough, what assurances can the Cabinet Members for Regeneration & Planning, give to residents that:

· Tall buildings are safe for local people?
· Tall buildings are suitable as family homes, particularly for young children?
· About the number of families (including how many) Brent currently place in
flats above the 5th floor?
· In view of the 2019 UCL (University College London) study into the energy efficiency of such buildings that allowing so many buildings, higher than 6 storeys, is not making the Climate Emergency in Brent much worse?

Response:

Safety of Tall buildings

The Building Safety Act 2022 contains a series of reforms to building safety and is the most substantial legislative response to the Grenfell Tower fire of 2017.

A Building Safety Regulator (BSR) has been established within the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). Their role relates to buildings with 7 or more storeys or that are 18 metres high and have at least two residential units, or are hospitals or care homes. These are known as higher risk buildings (HRB).

The BSR is likely to rely relies (sic) on council building control services (and fire and rescue services) to deliver the building control regulations for HRBs, which is expected to involve multi-disciplinary teams.

The BSR has three main functions:

(1) To implement a new regulatory regime for higher-risk buildings, and
to be the building control authority for these buildings. This includes
building work on existing HRBs and enforcing the regime in terms of their occupation, as well as new HRBs. The BSR looks at all aspects of the Building Regulations not just fire related provisions. The BSR uses a multi- disciplinary team, which is likely to include local authority building control teams. There are three gateway points where details must be approved before progressing to the next stage:

· planning gateway (in place since August 2021); the planning application must demonstrate that fire safety requirements have been considered and incorporated into the construction proposals;

· construction – pre construction, the regulator must approve the design as compliant with the building regulations;

· completion – at pre-occupation stage, a completion certificate will only be issued by the BSR once they are satisfied that the work is complaint with the building regulations.

Only once Gateway three has been passed (either for partial or full completion) can the new building be registered with the Building Safety Regulator for occupation. The BSR will then be responsible for carrying out checks to ensure that the people responsible for managing HRB’s are managing Building Safety risks, complying with their duties and keeping residents safe through the Building Assessment Certificate process.

(2) To oversee the safety and performance of all buildings. This involves collecting data on the performance of local authority building control services, and external approved inspectors.
(3) To support the competence of those working in the built environment industry, and to manage the register of accredited building inspectors. This involves establishing an industry led competence committee and establishing competence requirements for building control professionals (who need to be in place when the system becomes operational). Brent Building Control will ensure it complies with the requirements.

The BSR will be responsible for holding local authorities and building inspectors to account, with the power to suspend or remove inspectors from the register where necessary.

The Fire Safety Act 2021 became law in April 2021. It introduced changes to fire safety law for buildings containing two or more sets of domestic premises in England and Wales. The aim of the Fire Safety Act is to clarify who is responsible for managing and reducing fire risks in different parts of multi occupied residential buildings. It has introduced new fire safety obligations to some leaseholders, building owners and managers for the building structure, external wall, common parts and doors between domestic premises and common parts.

Suitability of Tall buildings as family homes

Fire safety requirements are for all people and types of household not just families with young children. The above sets out details on the changes that are being implemented.

Number of families Brent currently place in flats above the 5th floor

According to our household records there are 179 children across 108 households living on the fifth floor or above. These 108 households sit across 31 blocks.

Energy efficiency of buildings and impact on Climate Emergency in Brent

 

Both the London Plan and Brent Local Plan have been the subject of Sustainability Appraisals and in themselves include a range of policies to ensure that development including tall buildings respond to climate change and environmental efficiency requirements. Brent Policies for example include minimising greenhouse gas emissions, energy infrastructure, urban greening and sustainable drainage. Tall
buildings allow for an effective use of land in highly accessible locations and have advantages of minimising car travel and support infrastructure being delivered in a sustainable way such as waste management and energy.

 

Wembley Park Station car park – a TALL story

Guest post by Philip Grant. This planning application will be decided by Brent Planning Committee tomorrow, Thursday November 26th. The meeting starts at 6pm and can be viewed HERE

 

Elevation drawing from the planning application with heights added

What is a tall building? For Brent planning purposes it’s one that is more than 30 metres in height (ten storeys), or more than 6 metres above the general prevailing heights of the surrounding area.

The proposed Barratt London / TfL development which Planning Committee will consider tomorrow evening (Thursday 26 November, 6pm) is definitely a tall building (or five of them). You can see more pictures of this planning application in Martin’s 2 November blog.

 

Brent’s Planners, in the Key Issues comments at the start of their Officers Report to the committee accept that ‘the development would exceed the policy expectations in respect of tall buildings’. I think they should have been clearer than that, so let me take you through the tall buildings planning policies which cover the Wembley Park Station car park site. I’ll begin with my “old friend”, the Wembley Area Action Plan (“WAAP”).

 

Foreword to the Wembley Area Action Plan, 2015.

 

When Brent’s then Lead Member for Regeneration (now Deputy Leader) writes to say that this Plan, adopted by the Council after wide consultation with the local community, will determine ‘how Wembley develops over the next 15 years’, you would think you could trust her words. And you can, because the WAAP’s policies still apply, and form part of the Draft Local Plan that is currently being finalised.

 

The WAAP has a tall buildings policy, WEM 5. It’s opening words are: ‘Tall buildings will be acceptable in a limited number of locations within the AAP area.’ The locations where tall buildings are, or may be, appropriate are shown on a map. Wembley Park Station car park is in “the red zone”, labelled ‘Sites inappropriate for Tall Buildings’.

 

The Tall Buildings map from the WAAP.

 

One of the specific sites (W22) identified in the WAAP for particular proposals was called “Wembley Park Station Car Park”. However, that was the western end of the original car park, not the present site with that name. This is where Matthews Close was built, with blocks between 5 and 8 storeys high - a scale identified as suitable for the mainly residential area of Brook Avenue.

 

Brent Council adopted a new comprehensive set of Development Management Policies in November 2016 (as seen in an earlier blog on another planning case in August!). These did not set out any new policies on tall buildings, but it did confirm that ‘policies within the Wembley Area Action Plan will take precedence where there are locally specific policies covering subjects that might also be covered’ by the DMP and the forthcoming Local Plan.

 

Another “supplementary planning document” which will form part of the new Local Plan, when it is finalised, is the Brent Design Guide, SPD1. Its policies were adopted by the Council in November 2018. SPD1 has a section on ‘Density, height and massing’, which includes guidance on sites appropriate for tall buildings. Under Principle 3.1 it states: ‘Tall buildings will only be encouraged in areas identified as appropriate for tall buildings.’ As we have seen above, the Wembley Park Station car park is a site inappropriate for tall buildings!

 

A page from the Brent Design Guide, SPD1, dealing with building heights.

 

As well as this confirmation over tall buildings, SPD1 goes on to set out the rules for heights on all other sites. These include that ‘sensitive design should ensure that new development respects the character of the wider surroundings’, and that ‘new development should positively respond to the height of the adjoining buildings and local area’.

 

I’ve already made mention of Brent’s Draft Local Plan, which has been through several phases of local consultation and is currently undergoing a final review to ensure that it complies with both the National Planning Policy Framework and the London Plan. It should come into force next year, and shape Brent’s planning policies for the next 20 years, so that it’s right that how it would affect the Wembley Park Station car park application is taken into account.

 

The Draft Local Plan does include a site-specific policy for Wembley Park Station (BCSA7), covering two sites. For the southern site, the narrow strip of land between the railway lines and Brook Avenue, it identifies an indicative capacity for 300 new homes.

 

The Wembley Park Station site plan from Brent’s Draft Local Plan (Stage 3).

 

Details for the Wembley Park Station sites from the Draft Local Plan.

 

As shown above, the WAAP tall buildings policy, under which this site is inappropriate for tall buildings, still forms part of the planning policies within the Local Plan. The proposals for the southern site respect that, with just a small adjustment. You will remember that a tall building is one of more than ten storeys, and the design details for this site say: ‘Up to ten storeys will be considered acceptable to the western side of the site, stepping up slightly directly adjacent to the station.’

 

One of the key purposes the Draft Local Plan has been designed to do is to deliver the housing target of providing over 2,000 new homes in the borough every year for the next 20 years. The Wembley Park Station car park site can provide the 300 homes which the Plan requires from it, with buildings no more than ten storeys high, possibly rising to twelve storeys next to the station. Any proposed new development on this site does not need to breach Brent’s tall buildings planning policies.

 

The Barratt London / TfL proposed development offers 454 new homes (152 of which would be “affordable”, but with 79 for sale as “shared ownership” and only 73 for “affordable rent”). But it clearly breaks the Council’s tall buildings planning policies. What does the Officer Report to Planning Committee say about that? This is just one of nine paragraphs on the subject:

 

’47. Whilst the Wembley Area Action Plan (WAAP) forms part of the development plan for the area, as it is the adopted policy, the emerging changes to policy as observed within BD2 of the emerging Local Plan are to be acknowledged and stand testament to the substantial increase in housing targets that have come into relevance since the publishing of the WAAP. Furthermore, emerging London Plan policy can now be afforded substantial weight and the sustainability of this location immediately adjacent to Wembley Park Station would identify it as a preferred site for maximising development opportunities. Wembley Park Station is the only tube station in Brent to be served by more than one London Underground line and its 6a PTAL rating underlines its sustainability.’

 

Heavy going! It’s not easy to follow exactly what the relevant planning policy is. You could easily think that they don’t intend you to, so that you'll just assume that they must know what they’re talking about, and accept their recommendation!

 

Policy BD2, from Brent’s Draft Local Plan.

 

Para. 47 (above) of the Officers Report refers to Policy BD2, as if it supports tall buildings on the station car park site. But BD2 only supports tall buildings in appropriate locations. The online version of the policies map it refers to is difficult to read, because it has so much detail, but this site appears to be within the overall “tall buildings zone”, but not in the Core Zone. This suggests that the site allocation details for BCSA7 above, which allow a slight stepping-up to a tall building at the station end of the site, should prevail.

 

Para. 51 of the Report does provide a couple of lighter moments, even if unintentionally. How about this one? ‘The buildings proposed would serve as a place-marker for the station.’ Imagine the scene:-

 

Visitor: “I need to get to Wembley Park Station. Can you tell me where it is, please?”

Helpful local resident: “Yes. It’s next door to a tall building in Wembley Park.”

 

Or this one – ‘A significant reduction in height from 30 storeys at this scheme’s initial pre-app stage is also acknowledged and has resulted in a building which establishes a reasonable maximum height.’

 

A man walks into Brent’s Planning Office, and says: ‘I want to build a tower block three times higher than your planning policies allow.’

Brent Planner: ‘I’m sorry, sir, we can’t accept that. We can only recommend a building that’s twice as tall.’

 

If a comedian said that, you might well laugh at his joke. But this is not “a tall story” * – it’s exactly what Brent’s Planning Committee is being asked to agree.

 

Philip Grant.

 

* If you are not familiar with the phrase “a tall story”, it’s colloquial English for ‘one that is difficult to believe’ (Oxford Reference Dictionary).

Poor TV signals in Wembley - any advice?

From the Law. Forum website LINK

Hi I would appreciate any help from anybody more knowledgable than me on this subject.

I live in Wembley, as you may know the erection of the monstrous stadium was erected in the last few years, now there is non-stop building works of huge new buildings. Flats, tall ones!

Since all this, my television and phone reception, along with all my neighbours and family have been affected so badly that I can no longer even speak to people on my mobile, and my TV just freezes ALL the time, at least twice a day...I don't even watch that much TV, maybe an hour a day at MOST.

I live in a nice area in Wembley where the council tax bills are so large I feel like I'm paying it like a sucker.

Such a large proportion of Brent council's income comes from me and my neighbours round here and now we can no longer make full use of our technology, which we need for work etc. No doubt this has devalued the house, as my neighbours have recently sold their house and had been told by estate agents that they had to drop the price as people would realise how bad the signal is and find it terribly impractical.

I have spoken to the council and they do nothing but brush me off!

Is there any legal action I can take? I have lived here for 20 years and loved it, now it's a nightmare!