Brent urged to adopt 'No Eviction' policy on Universal Credit rent arrears

At yesterday's Chalkill Community Centre meeting on Universal Credit there was a strong call for Brent Council to follow neighbouring Camden LINK in adopting a policy of not evicting any of its tenants who fall into rent arrears because of problems with the roll-out in Brent.  There is a minimum five week wait for payment.There was an additional call for the Council to persuade housing associations in the borough to adopt the same policy. It was pointed out that it would be more costly to the Council in the medium-term if it had to provide temporary accommodation for families who had been made homeless.

There are currently 2,000 Brent residents on Universal Credit who are mainly job seekers and not claiming housings costs. However 45,000 are due to move over to universal Credit of whom about half will have housing benefit.

Brent Central MP, Dawn Butler, addressing the meeting, said the she feared a big rise in evictions from private rented accommodation and an increased demand for food banks.  Butler asked the audience  to send in stories of the impact of the introduction of Universal Credit on individuals and families to inform and reinforce the campaign on the issue.  However, she did not favour the 'stop and scrap' demand saying that the Labour Party had been advised that this would cause even more harm to claimants. Instead there should be a 'pause and fix' approach.

There was particular concern that people, particularly those with disabilities or learning difficulties, or the poor without broadband and computers, would be 'digitally excluded.' 40% of people in Brent do mnot have access to their own wifi. Claiming Universal Credit does not only involve an initial on-line application, itself not an easy process, but regular access to the on-line account day to day or week to week, to correspond with the DWP regularly. If accessed through a library or cyber cafe there would be no claimant advice available. Butler said that she was seeking information from Brent Council on how it was using a government grant to help claimants with advice and access.  Butler favoured direct payment of the housing portion of Universal Credit to landlords.

There is a 'claimant commitment' in order to access benefit for those without employment to be actively seeking work for the equivalent of 35 hours a week. Those working part-time are expected  to top those hours up to 35 by seeking work.  After one year of trading the self-employed will; be assumed to be earning the minimum wage for a 35 hour week.

Unite Community will be holding a follow up meeting to organise campaigning. Check out Wembley Matters for an update.

Harlesden Massive Get Festive - December 1st

Better times ahead for Brent allotments?

Looking for improvements by next Spring

Brent officers from the Parks Department met with tenants on the Birchen Grove, Kingsbury, allotment today.

The meeting had been requested as a result of concerns over difficulties in making rental payments as well as overgrown and uncultivated plots which were not being relet and thus spreading weed seeds to neighbouring plots. LINK

The officers recognised that management of Brent allotments had not been going well for 18 months to 2 years since the  non-replacement of the Allotments Officer when she moved on to another job.  An officer is going through the process of auditing the many sites in Brent and as he toured the allotment with us today he took note of the uncultivated sites and maintenance issues and another collected photographic evidence.

We were promised better communication with updates on when plots had been allocated to new tenants and action to make the billing process more efficient. I have been trying to pay rent on one of my plots for  2 years without success!  An apprentice has been allocated to deal with the paper work. I suggested as an early essential is a spreadsheet recording all the plots, tenant's name, whether it was being cultivated and whether a bill had been sent.

The efforts of the Allotment representative at Birchen Grove, a voluntary elected position, has already helped reduce the number of unallocated plots from 25 to 10, although work has not started on some because of the colder weather. There will be another tour in the Spring to make sure that clearing and cultivation is taking place. It was pointed out than unlet plots represented a loss of income to the Council.

There is now a Birchen Grove Facebook page LINK that could be linked to a sustainability network that Brent Council is working on.

Cllr Krupa Sheth, lead member for the Environment, was unable to make the meeting but has asked officers to feed back to her on the issues raised.

TONIGHT! People's Vote on Brexit campaign meeting, Bridge Park, 6.30pm

Join local volunteers for a community meeting to hear more about campaigning in Brent for a People's Vote on any Brexit deal, and find out how you can get involved.

The meeting will also be attended by a representative of People's Vote HQ, giving you the opportunity to hear more about the next phases of the People's Vote campaign and ask any questions that you may have.

If you are able to attend, please RSVP  HERE so that we know how many people to expect.

See you there!

WHEN

November 23, 2018 at 6:30pm - 8:30pm

WHERE

Bridge Park Community Leisure Centre
Brentfield
Harrow Road
London NW10 0RG
United Kingdom
Google map and direction

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Residents angry at threat of 17 more Spurs games at Wembley Stadium flood planners with objections

There was a lot of opposition to the original change to planning conditions when Spurs moved to Wembley and wanted (and were granted by Brent Council) more full capacity (90,000 seats) events. LINK

That opposition has been reinforced and strengthened following the latest Spurs application to play an extra 17 matches until the end of the season at Wembley Stadium as a contingency on their stadium not being ready on time. It is interesting that this time there are more objections from people who have moved into the new flats in Quintain's estate.

BRENT COUNCIL SILENT ON IMPACT ON PEDWAY REPLACEMENT

A request to Brent Council Press Office for a statement on how this will affect the already tight timetable for the works to replace the Wembley Stadium pedway by steps has still not been answered. The request was made on Monday, a reminder phoned mid-week but with no response so far.

The planning portal today showed only two in favour, one being the Wembley Traders Association (although the portal has labelled it as an objection!) and another a resident.  All the 20 plus others object.

I publish them below with the house number etc of addresses removed. To make a comment in support or against the application go to LINK

COMMENTS ON PLANNING APPLICATION

Georgian Court, Wembley, HA9 6QG (Objects)

I object to the above proposal of additional 17 events taking place between 15 January 2019 and 12 May 2019 due to increase in traffic in the local area.

Parking restrictions opposed (imposed?) on the residents.

Quadrant Court, Empire Way, Wembley, HA9 0EY (Objects)

Not only spurs, think about neighbours also...

Redwood House, Engineers Way, Wembley, HA9 0FX (Objects)

I Object this proposal.

We already have almost 40 big events a year as it stands now and it excludes smaller events at SSE. This comes up to almost average of 1 event per week. Having to make travel arrangements this often is already a rather big overhead for residents.

I understand that part of what makes Wembley a great and vibrant place to live is the Stadium and the world class events it attracts. But to ADD another 17 MAJOR events within the span of a couple of months will disrupt our daily lives in a considerable way.

Event days, THFC in particular means a huge surge of intoxicated, loud and inconsiderate crowd. It will affect traffic too much too often. It affects the cleanliness of the streets and the feeling of safety on the area even after the events are finished. These additional events will definitely effect on the character of the area. It will also limit our privacy and ability to truly enjoy the area as a lot of local businesses and shops will either be too full or operate in a reduced manner during game day for local residents to use.

On game days, metropolitan and jubilee line gets so crowded that I had to often wait for up to an hour to be able to fit into the tube all the way from Liverpool Street. It delays my travel both on weekdays and weekends.

Once again I understand that events are an essential part to the borough. But the frequency at which it is proposed is going above the limit of what I believe is reasonable for residents that lives, commute and grow here.

Marathon House, 33 Olympic Way, Wembley, HA9 0GE (Objects)

I have two main objections related to the flow of crowd and traffic.

1) There is no management on the flow of the crowd. They should be restricted to just the main Olympic Way and not allowed to wander off on any other roads and streets (e.g Fulton Road, Rutherford Way etc). This will make sure that the residents in the area can leave and come back to their homes without any disturbance. Otherwise, these additional events will cause significant disruption to the residents’ daily lives.

2) The Traffic management leaves a lot to be desired as well. Engineers Way is typically close for a few hours on such event days which causes a great deal of disruption. Also, there does not seem to be any limit on the number of vehicles allowed in the area on the event day. The increase in the flow of traffic causes environmental concerns in terms of noise and air pollution. These events should be made pedestrian only with spectators not allowed to park their cars in the area.

In addition a majority of the marshals who man the barriers at road junctions for Rutherford Way with Engineer’s Way and Fulton Road have little if no common sense. They also believe that it is their God given right to prevent access to and from Rutherford Way for residents in their cars.

Kind regards etc

CLICK BELOW TO SEE MORE SUBMISSIONS

“GPs are under pressure but help is at hand” says Royal College top doctor

Speaking at a Brent Patient Voice public meeting at the Learie Constantine Centre on last Thursday 15^th November, Dr Pauline Foreman, Medical Director at the Royal College of General Practitioners, said that GPs sometimes felt like hamsters on a wheel. Patients were unhappy at long waits for appointments. The NHS wanted GPs to send fewer people to hospitals. Visits to practices from the Care Quality Commission were quite scary, even though 90% of practices were rated good or outstanding. NHS England targets to replace retiring GPs were not being met.

However GPs should be seen as irreplaceable specialists in the whole range of medical conditions. Being a GP offered an enjoyable career with a huge variety of challenges and the chance to interact with many different patients. “If GPs could be allocated 11% instead of 8% of the NHS budget under the new NHS Ten Year Plan they could do what they were expected to do,” she said. Help for struggling practices was at hand from the Royal College and others. “Any closure of a practice is a failure, both for patients and the NHS. It costs a great deal and is very upsetting.”

Her message was echoed by long-term Brent doctor and new Chair of Brent Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), Dr MC Patel. He explained that in Brent there are around 2,300 patients per GP, as compared with a London average of 1,670. “We want to make Brent a borough of choice for GPs and other health professionals” he said. The good news was that after Brent took a stall at a recent nursing event 76 people expressed an interest in working in general practice in the borough. The CCG wanted to see all local practices collaborating under the umbrella of the new Primary Care Homes initiative.

“This could involve some patients going to neighbouring practices for long-term care, e.g. for diabetes, but they would still have their own GP at their regular practice,” said Dr Patel.

Questions from the audience recalled the days of the TV programme “Dr Finlay’s Casebook” demonstrating the value of the one-to-one personal relationship between GP and patient. The speakers agreed that this was still very important for long-term patients but recognised that the younger generation often wanted to access services quickly online.

Thanking the speakers for their very informative contributions, BPV Chair Robin Sharp said:

We as BPV and through our Practice Patient Groups are  keen to help practices in these difficult times. We look forward to working with the Royal College and Brent CCG to secure the best results for patients in Brent.

For further information contact: Robin Sharp, BPV Chair on 020 8969 0381 or robisharp@googlemail.com

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Numbers of home-educated children in Brent falls

The number of children home educated in Brent has fallen by 100 since last year an FoI request shows. The fall in the first four years of primary school may reflect the easing of the primary places shortage with parents being offered places in their chosen school when children move out of the area. Despite the fall compared with last year, figures are well up on those of 2006.

Apart from parents keeping children at home, rather than taking up a place in a school they do not like, some parents opt to home educate their children because they reject the high-stakes testing of primary pupils LINK or because they feel their children's special needs are not addressed in mainstream schools.

Informing the Local Authority occurs when a child is withdrawn from school. There are other children who have never been registered at a school who may not have been counted. Once a child is registered at a school attendance is compulsory.

The legal position is that education is compulsory but schoooling is not. Read more HERE

After the recent death of a home-educated child, the Government is currently look at introducing a compulsory register of home-educated children with increased monitoring and support from local authorities. LINK

 Many home educators are resisting this as a threat to their rights as parents to educate their children in their own way without interference from the state.  They point out that home-educated children are less likely to be harmed than those at school.

There are several groups of home educators in Brent who come together to provide activities for their children and enable them to socialise.


In 2016 the ethnicity of home educated children was as follows with the number of Somalis particularly high. The table is rendered less useful due to the large number of 'unknowns':

Ethnicity description Number of students

Afghan 2
African Asian 1
Any Other Black Background 3
Any Other Mixed Background 10
Bangladeshi 1
Black - Nigerian 2
Black - Somali 29
Black Caribbean 7
Indian 5
Iraqi 4
Italian 2
Other Asian 3
Other Black African 5
Other Ethnic Group 2
Pakistani 11
Portuguese 1
Refused 1
Traveller of Irish Heritage 2
Unknown 111
White - British 6
White - Irish 1
White / Any Other Asian Background 2
White / Black African 1
White / Pakistani 1
White Eastern European 2
White Other 1
Grand Total 216

I would be pleased to publish any comments  about the issue from home educators, or home educated children.

The Bobby Moore Bridge tile murals – what do you think?

Guest post from Philip Grant

Last month, I wrote about a presentation to Wembley History Society on Quintain’s proposals for the future of the tile murals in the Bobby Moore Bridge subway. LINK  I am writing this follow-up article so that “Wembley Matters” readers are aware of what is being proposed, and the suggested options.

Wembley History Society’s committee was due to decide on its response, to Quintain and Brent Council, about the proposals last Friday evening. Any views which I express here are my own, and not those of the Society. But I would like to know what you think, so please add your views as comments below. If you wish to comment anonymously, please at least give a brief description of yourself (for example: local resident, councillor, Quintain or Brent employee). (Editor's note: If you find using the comment facility difficult you can email me with your comment at martinrfrancis@virginmedia.com and I will post it for you.)

Last April, the history society wrote to Brent Council and Quintain, asking that the tile murals, which have been covered up with vinyl sheet adverts for the past five years, should be put back on public display LINK . At the presentation on 19^th October, we were shown a “collaged” photograph of the tile murals along the east wall of the subway:

Quintain’s proposals for improvements to the subway (some of it funded out of the £17.8m Community Infrastructure Levy money which Brent’s Cabinet agreed to give them last year?) include better lighting in the subway. Some of this would be provided by strips of LED lights across the ceiling, but some by covering the whole of the walls of the subway with light boxes (illuminated panels). Their lead architect on the project said that these would be similar to those used in a subway at Kings Cross underground station, illustrated here

                                Light boxes in a subway at Kings Cross

The fixings for the light boxes would be positioned over joints between the tiles of the murals, so that the tile murals would not be damaged. The lighting could be left white, or could be used to display advertisements:

The light boxes at Kings Cross,
being used for advertising

Julian Tollast, Quintain’s Head of Masterplanning and Design, set out four options for the future of the tile murals, which could be included in their plans for the subway:

1.    The murals could be moved to a new location – although his view, and the general feeling at the meeting, was that this risked damaging or destroying the tile murals. It would also take them from their “spiritual home”.

2.   A facsimile of the murals could be created in a different location – His suggestion was that under the new Olympic Steps (replacing the pedway) might be a suitable location, but the downsides were that they would not be the originals, and not in their “spiritual home”.

3.   Preserve the murals in situ, with part on permanent display – It became clear in discussion that his suggestion was that all of the subway walls would still be covered by light boxes, but that the lights could be turned off in front of the section of the mural showing the old stadium and footballers (Bryan Robson and John Barnes?):

He said that this would not be ideal, as it would reduce the light levels in the subway, and there would be reflected light from the ceiling, off of the glazed light boxes, so that the view of the mural would be impaired.

4.   Preserve the murals in situ, with periodic display – Periodic display of the murals in the subway did not seem probable, because of the difficulty of removing the light boxes. He suggested that it would be possible to display the mural sections to the south of the subway (American football / Rugby League / Ice hockey on the east side, and a rock music drummer on the west) for short periods when the “Spiritflex” vinyl adverts were being changed.

One option which was not suggested by Quintain (but which was suggested from the floor of the meeting) was not to install the light boxes at all, but provide the better lighting instead just from redesigned lighting from the ceiling. The following slide was shown to justify Quintain’s right to install light boxes over the tile murals:

I have followed up on this planning process, and this is what I have found:-

·      15/5550 was a massive “Masterplan” outline application.

·      Although there is a brief mention of some improvements to the section of Olympic Way between Fulton Road and the foot of the Wembley Park Station steps, I have found no reference to ‘light boxes or adverts under Bobby Moore Bridge’ in that application.

·      There is no mention of these items in the 94 page Officers’ Report to Planning Committee (11 May 2016), or the December 2016 decision letter.

·      In amongst the wide-ranging detailed (reserved matters) application 17/3840, there is no mention of lighting in the subway in the planning submission.

·      There was a plan showing “illuminated panels”, which would cover all of the walls of the Bobby Moore Bridge subway. This is an extract from the relevant plan, which does not show the existing features on that wall, or that the lighting would cover tile murals:

·      Application 17/3840 was decided by planning officers, not Brent’s Planning Committee. In the “Delegated Report” there was no reference at all to the lighting proposals anywhere in the detailed considerations. On the basis of that report, the application was approved on 31 January 2018. 

Planning permission for the light boxes on the walls of the subway, which if installed will permanently conceal the tile murals, was therefore given by default, without the effect on the murals, and the loss of this asset to public view, ever being considered.

As shown by the meeting on 19^th October, and the options put forward at it, Quintain are willing to engage over ideas which could mitigate the damage to, and loss to public view of, the tile murals. However, as things stand, there is nothing to stop them from installing light boxes on the walls of the subway, which would permanently hide the main sections of the murals, if they decide to “just do it”.

Brent Council own the Bobby Moore Bridge and its subway. They are responsible for the murals, a major piece of public art illustrating a range of past famous events at the Stadium and Arena, which were installed in 1993 to be part of the Wembley atmosphere for the millions of people coming here.

Isn’t it time that Brent Council accepted that they have failed to give any proper consideration to what is happening to the tile murals, and intervene to broker a solution to the lighting in the subway, which not only preserves the murals, but paves the way for them to be returned to public view?

Philip Grant
(with thanks to Julian Tollast for all of the illustrations, from his presentation, used above)