Guest post, by
Philip Grant in a personal capacity
Entrance to the Gauntlett Court estate, Harrow
Road, Sudbury, February 2015.
At the end of August, I wrote an article about Brent Council’s “secret” plans for adding
more homes to some of its existing housing estates. That guest blog was mainly about estates in
Fryent Ward, but I did also mention that Gauntlett Court in Sudbury was shown
as a project ‘not yet in public domain’. This was on a map prepared for a
Cabinet meeting in July, with a figure of 120 new homes shown beside it.
Two weeks ago, Martin published the response I’d
received to that article from Brent’s Lead Member for Housing, Cllr.
Eleanor Southwood. She said that
everything shown in that map ‘is
not a secret’ (although Brent has done nothing to publicise it!). One of the
main themes of my article was that ‘the people affected by these proposed
schemes should be consulted before the projects get “firmed-up” any further,
and their views taken into account.’ Commenting on that Cllr. Southwood also
said:
‘I absolutely agree
that Brent Council must work
with residents to shape housing development projects,’ and,
‘I agree that working
with residents is key and this will continue to be a core part of developing
any proposals for new housing, balanced with the needs of residents who are
currently homeless and the requirements of planning policy.’
You can judge for
yourself how far Brent Council is living up to those words, from this further
information which has reached me about Gauntlett Court from various sources. I
am grateful to Paul Lorber, for letting me see a reply he received from Brent’s
Strategic Director for Community Wellbeing, which I will quote from below.
The Strategic
Director’s report to Cabinet in July 2021, about Brent’s New Affordable Homes
Programme, did include Gauntlett Court in a list of sites undergoing
feasibility assessment. This showed the number of predicted new homes there as
5. He has recently apologised, saying that this was an old figure, which should
have been updated.
The five new homes
were bungalows, proposed to be built where there are currently garages. At
least until recently, this was the only “infill” housing project at Gauntlett
Court which one of the backbench Sudbury Ward councillors was aware of. Martin
has let me have a photograph of a similar project underway at the Council flats
in Kings Drive [readers of a similar age to me may remember Pete Seeger’s 1963
song “Little Boxes”].
New Brent Council bungalows under construction at
Kings Drive, Wembley Park.
The Strategic Director has now clarified the
position, saying that for Gauntlett Court:
‘the current
feasibility relates to a potential 120 units on the same site as the existing
Gauntlett Court. The Council is considering a mix of airspace (building over
existing blocks) and infill development in and around that site.’
He made it clear that: ‘feasibility assessments for sites
under consideration. In other words, they are early assessments of what
might be possible, these numbers change as projects do or don’t progress.’ Yet
they are there in the report to Cabinet, as predictions of what the Council’s
Housing Supply and Partnerships (“HSP”) team expects to be able to deliver.
“Airspace” may
be a new term to you (it was to me!). The July report to Cabinet said that one
of the methods by which the HSP team would deliver 700 new homes by 2026 (using
funding from the Mayor of London’s Affordable Homes Programme) was: ‘Airspace
development using an offsite Modern Methods of Construction (MMC) solution.’
This appears to mean using modules built in a specialist factory, then
delivered to the site on the back of a lorry and lowered into place by crane.
A
factory building housing modules, and a module being lowered by crane. (Images from
the internet)
The term “Modern Methods of
Construction” covers a variety of pre-prepared materials delivered to building
sites (such as panels used to clad the walls of buildings constructed on
wooden, steel or concrete frames). Lowering new home units onto supports placed
across the flat roofs of existing blocks appears to be the one which they have
in mind for Gauntlett Court (and probably also for Campbell and Elvin Courts in
Fryent Ward).
I’m amused that this is considered a modern
method of construction. It is what was being used to supply temporary
factory-made bungalows, or “prefabs”, after the Second World War! If you’d like
to discover more about local prefab homes, you can see the slides from an
illustrated talk that I gave at Kingsbury Library, a couple of years ago, here.
Section of a prefab home being
lowered into place by crane, 1946. (Image
from the internet)
As well as “airspace” homes on the
roofs of the existing 1950s brick-built three and four storey blocks, Brent’s
HSP team are also looking to add “infill” homes. This would have to be on land
that is currently grassy open space, with mature trees, or areas currently used
for parking residents’ cars, or both.
What do the residents think? Gauntlett
Court has its own Residents’ Association, which meets regularly with local councillors
and the Council’s housing management officers. One of the Association’s
committee members said, as of two weeks ago, they had not been informed of or
consulted about the HSP team’s proposals. Yet, a few days later, the Strategic
Director wrote:
‘As I said above, these are early
assessments, they will evolve as costs, site considerations and planning issues
emerge. All of this work will be done with local residents and
councillors.’
I don’t think that it is right for
such schemes to be kept “secret” until Council Officers have decided what they
propose to do, in terms of method and numbers, on existing Council-owned
estates. If they are to prepare plans that ‘work for everyone’ (to quote Cllr. Southwood’s promise to residents objecting to
the plans for Kilburn Square), they
need to discuss what could be acceptable at Gauntlett Court, or any other
estate they are considering, from a very early stage. Surely they can see that,
from the storm they caused at Kilburn Square, when they ploughed on with
unacceptable plans for nearly a year before being willing to listen to what
residents were telling them!
Harrow Road blocks on the Gauntlett
Court estate, with a central green space beyond, February 2015.
The residents at Gauntlett Court are
not all Council tenants. One estimate I’ve seen puts the number of leaseholders
at around 50%, as a result of “right to buy”. You probably think that this was
a “Thatcher-years” policy from the 1980s, but Winston Churchill’s Conservative
government introduced a similar scheme in the 1950s. The Borough of Wembley
Municipal Housing Handbook for 1960 records that this ‘Sale of Council Houses”
scheme had caused them to sell 318 homes since December 1952.
Will these leaseholders want their
green space built over, or new Council homes put on their roofs (with the
associated building work and potential effect on the value of their own
property)? What if there are subsequently problems with defects to these new
homes - will they be indemnified from having to meet a share of the costs of
remediation work? Such defects problems are not unknown, as we’ve seen very recently! Or will Brent Council, as
freeholder, just ignore their concerns, or over-ride their “third party rights”?
I sincerely hope not.
Brent Council’s HSP team should let
all the residents at Gauntlet Court know, in writing and without delay, what
their current thoughts are about how the estate might be altered to provide
more of the Council homes which the borough undoubtedly needs. It should then
begin meetings with them, to discuss those ideas, and listen to the thoughts
and ideas of the residents, to seek a reasonable compromise about plans going
forward.
That is only fair and reasonable. It is
also what Brent’s Lead Member for Housing, and Strategic Director for Community
Wellbeing, appear to have said is the Council’s approach. The Council Officers
actually dealing with these matters, day-to-day, need to put that “working
with residents” approach into practice.
Philip Grant.
