South Kilburn: we need affordable and secure housing

GUEST BLOG FROM PETE FIRMIN,  A SOUTH KILBURN RESIDENT

The press release from Brent Council LINK about the planned demolition of Bronte and Fielding houses on the South Kilburn estate reminds me of those government press releases announcing more money for some good thing or another, only for a journalist to discover that they announced the release of exactly the same money several months, or even years, previously.

The demolition of the tower blocks in South Kilburn was announced as part of the "Masterplan" for regeneration in 2004 (!). Like much else in the Masterplan, it has taken a lot longer to come to fruition than originally intended.

No-one should really object to the pulling down of 18-storey tower blocks and their replacement by six and seven- storey blocks. Apart from other problems, the tower blocks have been plagued by failing lifts, meaning residents often faced hauling themselves and possibly shopping, children and buggies up many flights of stairs, or, alternatively, being isolated in their flats because they couldn't face the long walk down.

But why has it taken 8 years since the publication of the Masterplan for this to happen, and what is happening with the rest of the regeneration of South Kilburn? What does it say about the housing situation in Brent?

From the start the Masterplan for the regeneration of South Kilburn had problems, not least that it was dependent on a deal with private finance whereby in exchange for knocking down some dwellings and building some social housing, they were also able to build dwellings either for sale or for renting at "market rents". One of the most ridiculous aspects of this is that the two storey blocks on Cambridge Avenue, perfectly sound architecturally, are to come down in order to build private flats. Surely nothing to do with the fact that these flats will be facing away from the estate and situated very close to the tube and Kilburn High Road? Oh, and those dwellings will have gardens, unlike nearly everyone else on the estate.

There were (and still are) other issues, such as that the South Kilburn area (slum housing until the estate was built) is already densely populated and the regeneration scheme makes it even more so, with an extra 2,400 homes planned. Some of the little green space there is in the area is to be lost.

Personnel issues have also dogged the regeneration scheme from the start. One of the earliest issues was the sacking of the independent "tenants' friend", apparently because he became too close to tenants in his criticisms of the scheme. Then the Chief Executive of South Kilburn New Deal for Communities and his deputy left following the revelation in 2008 that they had shared a two bedroom maisonette loaned rent free by Brent Council to the NDC to be used as office space. Allegations have constantly circulated about how "tenants representatives" on various bodies have become divorced from tenants' interests, and have merely become tools for the Council to push through it's agenda. As with other Brent consultations (regardless of who controls the Council) the concerns of residents have been brushed aside, whether at planning committee or exhibitions organised by the planners.

As elsewhere, tenants have also had to transfer either to Brent Housing Partnership or a Housing Association for the plans to go ahead. Unfortunately tenants' and residents organisation on the estate is too weak and fragmented to be able to resist this as has happened elsewhere. Certainly Brent Council, whatever political colour it's leadership, has never objected to having to use private finance or insisting Council tenants transfer. Indeed, they all seem to have welcomed this.

Does any of this matter? New homes are needed, and surely residents are pleased to get new flats or refurbished bathrooms and kitchens?

Of course, but what level of disruption balances that out? The constant building work, noise, dust, road closures etc over many years (and many more to come) do not make life easy. More than that, for instance, during one spell of building work residents were advised to keep their windows closed because of the dust and noise. Yet when, as a consequence, some flats developed mould, those who have bought their flats were told it was their problem and they would have to pay to get it fixed. A constant problem has been the lack of oversight by Brent Council over contractors and how they treat residents and their property. And that's all before they put the HS2 tunnel under the estate.

The people who will gain most out of the South Kilburn regeneration are not the residents, but the building firms. They will get lots of shiny new flats to sell at inflated prices.

The biggest losers will be those who rely on Council housing - the price of the private dwellings will be well above what the average resident of Brent - let alone South Kilburn - can afford, whether to rent or buy. And the overall number of Council dwellings is drastically reduced in the process. Just look at the figures in the Council's press release "229 new flats and maisonettes, ....... 103 of which will be allocated to South Kilburn tenants". This is a pattern reproduced elsewhere in the borough - the flats that it is proposed to build as part of the new Willesden Green Cultural Centr will sell at £300,000 each with no "affordable" housing at all.

This at a time when the Council's own figures show that around 40,000 (!) households will be affected by the government's attack on benefits, meaning in many cases that they will no longer be able to live where they do currently. yet the Council does not seem to see the connection between this and its willingness to reduce the amount of Council housing in the borough.

What Brent - as everywhere else in the country - needs is housing which people can afford and which is secure.

Bodega critique of the Green Party. Act now!

I hope that we will have time to discuss the Bodega Brothers' proposals at our Green Party election strategy meeting tonight!

Brent Housing Partnership Talkback meeting and surgery tonight

Brent Housing Partnership, Brent Council's 'arm's length' social housing provider, is holding its first  ever Residents' Talkback Forum tonight at Brent Town Hall. The BHP's Chief Executive Gerry Doherty, will be there as well as senior managers and other staff. The 7-9pm Talkback session will be preceded by a 'Surgery' between 5.30 and 7pm where residents can ask about repairs, anti-social behaviour, rent, leasehold or estate services. The meetings will be held upstairs at the Town Hall in Committee Rooms 1,2 and 3.

The BHP faces an uncertain future with the possibility that Brent Council will bring social housing back in-house in the future.

How Greens will support our local high streets

Paddy Power have now opened a large new betting shop on Bridge Road, Wembley making it the third in the immediate vicinity. It replaces a bar/restaurant that struggled to succeed. I have argued before not against betting shops as such but for policies to improve the diversity of our high streets and thus encourage local shopping and small businesses.

The London Green Party and our Mayoral candidate Jenny Jones have been publicising our policies on these issues today and they may be of interest to those concerned about the impact of parking restrictions in Bridge Road and Preston Road.

The policies include:

1. Using planning policy to ensure that by 2020 all neighbourhoods will have a range of essential local services such as chemists within walking distance, and we will use planning policy to achieve this.

2. Increasing small business representation in the community by ensure micro and small businesses are properly represented on London's Local Enterprise Partnership.

3. Working with boroughs and trade bodies to Encourage Londoners to "buy local" and commission research into "buy local" schemes.

4. Ensuring small and local businesses aren't disadvantaged by congestion and parking and consulting them on the future of the congestion charge and a ‘pay as your drive' scheme, which would reduce time and money spent in traffic jams.

5. Preventing the construction of purpose-built car parks for supermarkets wherever possible and ensure local shops aren't disadvantaged by parking standards.

6. Lobbying the Government to give local authorities much stronger powers to prevent chain stores taking over independent shops, and to control the saturation of certain business types such as takeaways, betting shops and payday loan companies.

Improved Brent pupil attainment highlights important role of local authority in school improvement

 Last week's Children and Young People Overview and Scrutiny Committee received a report that should stop advocates of the breaking up of the local education authority in their tracks. Enemies of democratically accountable community schools often talk of 'freeing them' from local authority control. An alternative phrase would be 'depriving them of local authority support'.

The report set out the academic standards in Brent schools in 2010-11. It shows that despite the borough having high levels of deprivation and pupil mobility that it achieves at or above national averages in many areas.  This an achievement of which pupils and schools should be proud. It should also be shouted from the roof tops of Chesterfield House and the Centre for Staff Development because the education authority and the School Improvement Service have contributed a great deal to that success. The report sets out the range of local authority support and how it challenges nurseries and schools to do even better.

This success is now threatened by schools opting out of the local authority and changes in the School Improvement Service which may see it drastically reduced, or even end, after April 2013.

In the Early Years and Foundation Stage the gap between Brent children and the national average narrowed to only two percentage points.  Indicating that Brent is making progress in overcoming the impact of poverty the permanence of children entitled to Free School Meals improved significantly and was above the national average. In terms of ethnicity the performance of Black Caribbean children has had a steady upward trend since 2008 and the gap between them and all children nationally is 6 percentage points. Somalian children performed strongly with a 19 percentage point improvement this year (39 over the past 5 years) to within 7 percentage points of the national cohort.

Few people would quarrel with the Service's priorities for the current year which are to:

• Intensify the levels of support and challenge to settings requiring improvement.
• Intervene more vigorously in private, voluntary and independent settings causing concern.
• Promote the sharing of effective practice.

For this to continue there will need to be  adequate finance to fund quality staff in the future.

At Key Stage 1 attainment at Level 2+ (the main national benchmark) was in line with the national average in reading and writing and just below in mathematics. Brent standards rose in reading, writing and mathematics while national figures were static or in decline. There has been a steady improvement over the past 5 years.

Level 2B+ which predicts attainment at Level 4+ (the national expectation) at Key Stage 2, remained below the national average but the gap narrowed. (Reading 71/74, Writing 60/61, Mathematics 72/74).

Free School Meals pupils achieved better than FSM nationally in reading writing and mathematics at all levels. Again Somali pupils improved significantly across the subjects with girls accelerating at a faster rate than girls. Black Caribbean pupils were largely static and in line with the group nationally.  Special Educational Needs pupils with and without statements attained better than the national average.

The report attributes the improvements to the local authority's emphasis on raising standards at this key stage which started three years ago. They have put a number of projects in place in schools include Communication Language and Literacy Development (early literacy), Every Child Reader (this increases the impact of the Reading Recovery programme - expensive but highly effective) and Every Child Counts (this focuses on child thought in danger of not reaching Level 2 at the end of the key stage).

The authority has set out key priorities which include running successful literacy programmes, tailoring support to schools' individual needs; securing more Level 3 grades in mathematics and extending opportunities for speaking and listening in the subject.

Things were a little different at Key Stage 2 where there were unusually high results in the previous year. Attainment at Level 4+ was in line with national averages for English and mathematics combined and mathematics on its own was higher than the national average. Performance at Level 5, higher than the expectation for the average 11 year old, was above the national average for English and mathematics combined, and much higher in mathematics alone (40/35) with figures for boys of 43/37.

Pupils on Free School Meals performed better than FSM nationally in all subjects at Level 4+ and Level 5. I terms of ethnicity Indian origin pupils outperformed Indian pupils nationally for the second year running.  However there was a disappointing result for Black Caribbean pupils (-3 percentage points), Pakistani heritage pupils (-4) and Somali children (-8).

Support will be provided to schools to improve performance and will include action research projects and targeted support in both English and Mathematics. It will include central and school-based training.

The monitoring that the authority does is clearly vital in pointing up areas of under-performance and enabling it to devise specialist support quickly.  Local authority coordinated action research on issues such as the decline in achievement outlined above will be able to compare results in different schools, investigate good practice and provide staff development on proven successful strategies. The demise of the local authority and increased 'independence' of schools could deprive children of the benefits of this challenge and support . If there is no local authority will under-achieving children be over-looked?

I would be first to say that all is not perfect but there is a tremendous danger in throwing the baby out with the bathwater when schools are tempted by short-term financial benefits to go it alone and short-term expediency persuades the Council to reduce the School Improvement Service.

How local firms lose out in procurement process

Spawning frogs Fryent Country Park March 1st

We should soon hear the results of the Council's internal deliberations about the possible privatisation/out-sourcing of the Brent Parks' grounds maintenance service.  The Council have refused to answer my Freedom of Information request about the matter but I hope the results will be subject to meaningful consultation.

If the result is a decision to out-source several issues need consideration. Firstly, such decisions often leave the current workers at a disadvantage. Although they have expertise in the actual job they are unlikely to have it in the arduous and complicated task of putting in a detailed bid at the procurement stage if they decide to make a bid as a group of workers. They may also not be able to give the financial guarantees that a large firm will be able to provide. Large firms, used to procurement, will have the back office expertise to make a bid as well as low pay rates that will undercut an internal bid.

Secondly, we need to ask about the quality of external contractors: their skills and the empathy they have with the local environment.  Brent rightly has great pride in its Green Flag winning parks and particularly the precious Welsh Harp and Fryent Country Park spaces.   Having seen some of the grounds maintenance work done by contractors on our housing estates, as well as some undertaken in the Country Park, I am very concerned that maintenance will be of the 'cut and slash' variety. Rather than pruning and reducing trees sympathetically to encourage balanced regrowth, they will be sawn back. Shrubs will become rectangular and cut back at convenient times for the contractor rather than at the appropriate seasonal time. There is a danger that habitats will not be nurtured and will be subsequently lost.

Maintaining and enhancing biodiversity is one of Brent's priorities and success stories. We must make sure this is not lost in the rush to save money.

Similar issues arise with attempts to use local small firms for building projects in schools. With high levels of unemployment in Brent it is essential that we try and give them work. However they again often lack the back office staff and financial guarantees necessary to meet the procurement demands of Brent Council and contracts instead go to large companies, often multinationals, with workers travelling from outside of Brent. As part of a strategy to combat unemployment in Brent we need to look at  how we can support small building and construction businesses that are part of a community and will want to deliver a good job for that community.

Navin Shah backs retention of Old Willesden Library

Close behind Ken Livingstone's distancing from Brent Labour's library closures the Labour AM for Brent and Harrow, Navin Shah, has told a constituent that he favours the retention of the Old Willesden Library on local heritage grounds:

With regards to Willesden Green Library, as an architect by trade I feel preserving Willesden Green Library is extremely important. In Harrow, I have fought long campaigns to keep locally listed buildings and am on the board of Harrow Heritage Trust, which take matters such as these extremely seriously. I want to keep Willesden Green Library building and am actively pursuing this issue.

Shah's full statement can be read on the Keep Willesden Green blog HERE

Jenny Jones explains her policies to BBC London panel

Follow this LINK to see a confident appearance by Green Mayoral candidate Jenny Jones. So refreshing after the three male candidates.