Cabinet poised to approve consultation plans for Islamia Primary to move to Strathcona site with additional build and land transfer agreed with the Yusuf Islam Foundation

Monday's Cabinet meeting will be discussing proposals to move the Islamia Primary School (IPS) from its Queens Park site to the Strathcona site in Kingsbury.  The Yusuf Islam Foundation had give the school and Brent Council notice to quit the site. Strathcona had become available following Brent Council's decision to close the Roe Green primary provision there despite a spirited fight by staff and parents. It was earmarked for  post-16 SEND provision but if the Islamia move is approved another site will have to be found for that provision.

Islamia parents launched a petition opposing the move to Queens Park (see this Wembley Matters article) on the grounds that it would be to the detriment of local parents and pupils in terms of travel and instead suggested the South Kilburn regeneration site earmarked for Kilburn Park Junior School and Carlton Vale Infants be allocated to Islamia Primary.

The officers' report responds:

A parent of children who attend IPS put a petition on the Council’s e-petition portal between 13 July and 18 August 2022 that called for the new school in South Kilburn that will be built as part of the South Kilburn Regeneration Scheme to be allocated to IPS. The petition had 509 signatories. The new South Kilburn School is a key part of the infrastructure of the South Kilburn Regeneration Scheme and will provide a community school that will provide primary provision for families of all faiths within the area. The school is replacing Carlton Vale Infant School and Kilburn Park Junior School and the sites of these schools will be used to provide new housing and green space, respectively. The schools have been working with a design team over the past two years to develop the project to meet the school and local community’s needs. The new South Kilburn School will not be available until September 2026, whereas the Foundation is requiring IPS to vacate its current site by the end of July 2024.

No reason is given for the Foundation's decision to issue an eviction order on the council and school and its website still boasts about the school and its achievements. However officers report that they did not engage in proposals to improve the Salusbury Road site:

The Council has undertaken significant and extensive efforts since 2015 to build a new primary school building on the existing Salusbury Road site. The Council identified capital funding to the sum of £10.01m, including ring fenced funding secured from the Education Skills and Funding Agency (ESFA) of £2.8m, to meet the then demand for primary school places. Design development for the new-build school was completed in 2015, funded from the ESFA contribution. The Foundation decided not to proceed with these plans and for the past seven years has not responded positively to the Council’s attempts to revisit the build proposals.

The report states:

The Council has resisted the validity of the [Eviction] notices since receiving them and has repeatedly asked the Foundation to withdraw them so that the Council, the Foundation and IPS can concentrate their efforts on reaching an accommodation which suits all involved. The Foundation has agreed to withdraw the notices on the condition that the Council, the Yusuf Islam Foundation and IPS entered into an agreement to surrender and deed of surrender (sic) from the Salusbury Road site. These agreements, which are subject to final negotiations, are based on the premise that:

a) the Foundation withdraws and/or does not seek to enforce the eviction notices;

b)  Providing the statutory procedures (as required by SSFA 1998) once concluded confirm it is feasible to do so, the School will be relocated to a new site;c)  IPS will be able to remain in situ whilst the identified site, the Strathcona site, is prepared for the relocation;   

d)  IPS will vacate the Foundation’s Salusbury Road premises by 31 July 2024 

e)  A long-stop date of 1 January 2025 is in place should there be any unforeseen delay (for example a delay in any building works);

f)  Any new site will be transferred to trustees prior to the School taking up occupation in the new site. Officers will need to negotiate and agree Heads of Terms setting out the main terms the parties agree in respect of the proposed transfer of Council owned land for any new site earmarked for the School to occupy 

 

The Foundation has now agreed to delay the eviction until July 2024 and the council will agree a lease on the Strathcona site with the Foundation's trustees.  Although voluntary religious organisations are expected  by the DfE to make a contribution the officers' report notes:

The DfE expects Voluntary Aided bodies to contribute towards capital works that improve their school buildings at a rate of 10% of total costs. Conversations would need to be held with the Yusuf Islam Foundation and IPS about a contribution towards new facilities. No assumptions about a contribution have been included in the costs above.

The parents' concerns about travel to the Strathcona site are not directly addressed but officers' report:

Officers met on 5 April 2022 with Preston Ward members and the Lead Member for Schools, Employment and Skills to discuss transport options for the Strathcona site with the intention of making school related journeys (i.e. school drop off and pick up) car free. Officers met with Queens Park Ward members and the Lead Member for Children, Young People and Schools on 15 July 2022 to brief them on the proposed relocation of IPS.

After considering the options officers recommend  a proposal to retain and refurbish all buildings on the Strathcona site and build a new block to meet the requirements for a 2 form entry (60 children per year group) school.  

They recommend that this would meet the Council's statutory duty to provide a diversity of school places, provide a new site to enable Islamia to retain its 'Good' Ofsted rating and ensure chidren have a high quality learning environment.

£10.01m was allocated 7 years ago for a new build school and costs have of course gone up since then. The part refurbish existing buildings and part new build proposal is costed at £9.11m:

 

 

To these costs must be added the cost of the post-16 SEND provision in terms of the overall Brent Council budget. It would have been on Council owned land and may now need the purchase of a site on the open market.

The building finances are far from simple:

There is currently £2m of unallocated funding available in the Basic Need grant following Cabinet approval of the SEND Capital Programme Business Case in January 2022. Therefore, assuming project funding includes the £2.6m Targeted Capital Fund -TCF [carried over from previous proposal] from DfE and £2m basic need grant, £4.51m is required from alternative funds to deliver the preferred option. Council borrowing has been identified and subject to Cabinet approval could be used for this project. Borrowing £4.51m would result in an additional revenue cost of circa £0.3m per annum. This would need to be reflected through the budget setting process for revenue.

 If the DfE do not allow the council to use the TCF funding for this project, then £7.11m would be required through Council borrowing. The additional revenue cost of borrowing £7.11m would be circa £0.45m per annum. This would need to be reflected through the budget setting process for revenue.

If Cabinet approve the Governing Board will need to manage the statutory consultation process about the move which may not be an easy task given that 509 people signed the parents' petition. There may well be representations about the issues involved at Monday's Cabinet.

The new Home Secretary's Brent (Kenton and Wembley) connections

 Suella Braverman

 

This article was published on Wembley Matters in 2020, LINK when Suella Braverman was appointed by Boris Johnson. It was submitted by someone who was at school with her. It sheds some light on the new Home Secretary and her ambitions.

Following Boris Johnson's appointment of Suella Braverman (nee Fernandes) as attorney general (shortly after she attacked judges as unelected and unaccountable) it is interesting to hear from someone who was at school with her in the 1990s:

 

Sue Ellen Fernandes (who prefers to be known as Suella, so as not to be compared to a character in the 1980's TV series "Dallas") grew up in Kenton.

 

Her mother was a Conservative councillor on Brent Council, Uma Fernandes (who, as a candidate for Parliament, managed third place in the Brent East by-election won by Sarah Teather in 2003).

 

By the sixth form at school, Suella was open about her ambition to be a Conservative M.P., and to become Prime Minister, like her idol, Margaret Thatcher.

 

She studied law at Cambridge, and went on to become a barrister, specialising in planning law, but also spending time trying to get selected as a Conservative Parliamentary candidate.

 

One of the roles that helped on her Tory CV was acting as Chair of Governors for Katherine Birbalsingh's Michaela Community School LINK, although her knowledge of planning law did not seem to cover the fact that consent was needed to display a large advertisement over its building in Wembley Park LINK:

 

The advert had to be taken down after a few days - a waste of taxpayers money that could have been avoided!

Suella was elected for the "safe" Conservative seat of Fareham in Hampshire in 2015. Now, at the age of 39, this "aspirational" junior barrister has been appointed by Boris Johnson as the Government's top legal adviser.

 

Heaven help us!

 Seven years earlier I wrote on Wembley Matters about an encounter I had with her at a 'consultation' about Michaela Free School which is quite revealing of her attitude towards the public. LINK

 

Suella is a daughter of former Brent Conservative councillor Uma Fernandes who was a councillor for 16 years and stood in the Brent East parliamentary constituency, and Suella herself stood as a Conservative candidate in Fryent ward. She attended a local Brent primary school, Uxendon Manor, but her secondary education was at Heathfield School in Pinner - a Girls Public Day School Trust establishment.

Fuel Poverty Action asks the new Prime Minister 3 challenging questions

Fuel Poverty Action has today written an open letter [1] to incoming Prime Minister Liz Truss, posing three questions about her response to the energy crisis that threatens to plunge millions of people into fuel poverty, causing cold, hunger, and destitution on a scale unseen for generations.  .

The first question is: Who will benefit from the policies to be announced this week, widely expected to include a taxpayer bail-out in the form of holding prices down.  We point out that the savings from such a move will largely accrue to people who can afford to use a lot of energy, while people who are barely putting the heating on will save very little.  Nor does the public have faith that we will benefit from a government loan based on a fantasy of a crisis-free future.  

The second question is: Who will pay? Will it be the taxpayer, at the expense of expenditure on welfare benefits, health, and housing?  Or will it be the energy companies, now enjoying undreamed of excess profits?  Will the Prime Minister’s energy policy address the fact that many of the suppliers claiming that they can’t sell energy for less than the wholesale prices they pay, are an arm of the very companies choosing to charge these prices? The letter says, “Asking taxpayers to pick up the tab for the obscene prices they are charging is the latest idea [2] from an extortionate industry that puts its profits before people's lives, and is ready to sacrifice even the planet we live on.” 

The third is: Will she implement FPA’s flagship proposal of Energy For All – a free allocation of energy to cover each household’s needs for essentials like heating, lighting and cooking. Energy For All would be paid for by

• higher tariffs on higher use - beyond needs
• windfall taxes, which could almost cover the support package the new Prime Minister is expected to announce [3], and
• an end to fossil fuel subsidies from the public purse, which amount to millions of pounds every day, and further swell the coffers of wealthy individuals and extraction of a polluting, expensive fuel.

This would have the benefit of encouraging responsible energy consumption, encouraging the introduction of energy saving measures and promoting green energy investment. Unlike most of the proposals being put forward it would be at the same time universal and targeted, turning rightside-up the current upside-down energy pricing system, where you pay more per unit of energy when you use less of it. 

The concept of Energy For All has captured the public's enthusiasm and brought new hope.. More and more organisations including the TUC are now coming out with similar schemes, and a petition signed by over 550,000 people will be handed into Downing Street at 1.00 pm on September 19th, with supporters  gathering beforehand at an event including speakers. 

 

[1] https://www.fuelpovertyaction.org.uk/news/fpa-writes-to-the-new-prime-minister-about-her-energy-policy-and-the-cost-of-living-disaster/

[2] Energy UK has proposed that taxpayers foot the bill for struggling businesses to meet their surging bills in a plan that could cost anywhere between £50bn and £100bn. https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/energy-companies-plan-businesses-winter-pay-bills-leaked-letter-1827585

[3] https://www.taxjustice.uk/blog/44bn-a-year-could-be-raised-from-higher-tax-on-oil-and-gas-profits

No response from Brent Council to Audit's concerns over potential conflict of interest in First Wave Housing and i4B Holdings

Wembley Matters recently drew attention to the Brent Council Internal Audit that found a possible conflict of interest in the directorships of Brent's housing companies First Wave Housing and i4B Holdings. See LINK. Wembley Matters drew attention to the role of the councillor director Saqib Butt, who is the brother of the Leader of Brent Council as well as Brent Council officers.  

Brent Council responded to the Audit:  Management Response: We will review job descriptions to identify and mitigate conflicts of interest.

The Internal Audit found 5 medium risks the first of which said:

Responsibilities for Council employees working for the companies: The management and two of the five directors of the companies are employed by the Council and line managed within the Council. This may create a conflict of interest as management may feel they need to represent the interests of the Council rather than the companies. These responsibilities need to be clarified to ensure that these conflicts are effectively managed, and the companies are robustly represented in disputes with the Council.

Proposed changes to the Board membership and governance arrangements for both companies are tabled for Cabinet on September 12th. The officer's report makes no mention of resolving the potential conflict of interest and merely substitutes one Brent Council officer,  Phil Porter, Corporate Director for Adult Social Care, for another, Gail Tolley, who steps down from the boards following her retirement as Strategic Director for Children and Young People.

The Independent Chair, Martin Smith's and Independent Non-executive Director. Akimntoye's terms of office are recommended to be extended for another 3 years. 

As Peter Gadson, Corporate Director, Residents Srrvices stays on the board, it means that three of the five directors are either Brent employees or a Brent councillor. 

No mention is made of the Council's promise to review job descriptions and mitigate conflicts of interest. Instead the Cabinet's overall control of both companies is emphasised:  

As sole Shareholder for i4B and the sole Guarantor for FWH, the Council has an important role in providing strategic direction for the companies and retains control of key decisions. Cabinet is the strategic supervisory body with ultimate responsibility for ensuring governance of the companies and the power to appoint and dismiss Directors and the Company Secretary are reserved to Cabinet. Cabinet therefore has the power to agree the Recommendations contained in this report

EXCLUSIVE: Rokesby Place – Brent's possible planning malpractice exposed

 Guest post by Philip Grant in a personal capacity

Architect’s drawing of the two proposed new Council houses at Rokesby Place.

 

There was a flurry of blogs on “Wembley Matters” last month about the planning application for the proposed Brent Council housing “infill” development at Rokesby Place. On 12 August, Martin wrote about the loss of green space and the tenure change. Straight after the meeting on 17 August, he reported that Planning Committee had “dumped” the a recommendation of the 2020 Brent Poverty Commission Report, and allowed a changed of tenure for the two new homes from Social Rent to London Affordable Rent.

 

I could not understand the justification for Brent’s Planning Officers recommending LAR when the planning application, only 4 months earlier, had said that the houses would be let at Social Rent level. 

 

Extract from the Planning Statement for the Rokesby Place application, 22/1400.

 

I added a comment below the second blog, giving the text of a Freedom of Information Act request I’d sent to Brent’s Head of Planning, seeking the evidence behind that change of tenure. Martin published that as a separate post the following day.

 

I received the information I’d requested on 1 September (that was quick for an FoI, but I’d told the Head of Planning that he should not issue the consent letter until my enquiries were resolved!), I said I would share the response with “Wembley Matters” readers, and will ask Martin to attach it at the end of this article, if possible.

 

I am not attaching the two enclosures, which were series of emails between Brent Planning Officers, the Brent Project Manager for the Rokesby Place scheme and the planning agent representing Brent Council for application 22/1400. The names of senders and recipients had been redacted (in order to protect the guilty?). 

 

I will include copies of the key emails below, as I explain what Council Officers did wrong, and why the change from Social Rent to LAR was not justified, and should be reversed. There is more detail on this in an open letter, and formal complaint about the conduct of the Council Officers involved, which I have sent to Brent’s Chief Executive. I hope that Martin can also attach a copy of that, as it includes some important points which MUST be put right before any more planning applications for Council “infill” housing schemes are considered.

 

Email from Planning Case Officer to Project Manager in Brent Property Services.

 

The email above was sent by the Planning Case Officer (“CO”) to Brent’s Rokesby Place Project Manager (“PM”) when the Officer Report was about to be published with the agenda for the Planning Committee meeting on 17 August. There should not have been any doubt about which rent level should be in the recommended affordable housing condition, as the application clearly stated Social Rent!

 

But worse than that, the CO should not have been communicating with the PM over the application (especially offering the chance to change a detail in it). There have to be special procedures in place where a Council, like Brent, is both the developer and the Local Planning Authority, to ensure that the Council’s applications are dealt with fairly. This is summed up in the Local Government Association booklet, “Probity in Planning”:

 

Extract from “Probity in Planning”, 2019 edition.

 

I have set out why this contact, which could (and did) have an unfair influence on the planning decision, was wrong in my letter to Carolyn Downs, if you are interested in the detailed reasons.

 

Further emails from the CO to the PM over the next few days, after the Officer Report had been published, show that the Planning Officer knew that recommending LAR might be a mistake, and that if it was, that should be reported to Planning Committee members.

 

The “confirmation” CO sought was finally provided by PM later that day, and acknowledged by the Planning Case Officer:

 

But LAR was not correct. It might be what was intended on the New Council Homes ‘master tracker’, but it was not what was shown by the planning application. That was Social Rent, which should have been the tenure included in the Officer Report for Planning Committee.

 

The emails between the planning agent, Maddox & Associates (“M&A”) and CO, and copied to another person (possibly the Senior Planning Officer who would be presenting the application to Planning Committee) are even more worrying. There were no communications involving the tenure of the proposed new homes after the application was submitted until the afternoon of 17 August, just a couple of hours before the Committee meeting. This was the first, from M&A:

 

Email from planning agent to Brent Planning Officer(s), 125 minutes before Committee meets.

 

M&A were concerned. They’ve discovered that “residents” are raising the issue of what rent level should be charged for the proposed new homes (they’d been discussing it on “Wembley Matters” since 12 August!). So M&A claim ‘we have always proposed that the units are 100% London Affordable Rent’. AND, in the final sentence, they effectively ask Planning Officers to repeat that claim, ‘in case Members ask the question to officers directly’ at the meeting!

 

We know that claim was false, because M&A had proposed that the homes would be for Social Rent. But Brent’s CO also knows it was false, because eight minutes after receiving that email from M&A, the CO sends this reply:

 

 

Undeterred by the truth, M&A send a further email to the CO (again cc’d), less than 50 minutes before the start of the Planning Committee meeting which will consider the Rokesby Place application. [The warning that it ‘contains information that may be confidential’ and that the recipient ‘may not … disclose it to anyone else’, does not protect it from a valid FoI request!]:

 

 

M&A are “flagging” to Brent Planning a line of argument which could be used to justify LAR being the tenure required in the affordable housing condition included in the Rokesby Place planning consent letter. I don’t know whether the Senior Planning Officer who presented the application to the meeting that evening saw this email, or was aware of its contents. But I do know, from watching and listening to the webcast, that this was the basis of the argument which she used.

 

I have set out in my open letter to Brent’s Chief Executive, in much greater detail, why the actions of Brent Planning Officers before and at the Planning Committee meeting were wrong and unacceptable. This includes the fact that the objectors (particularly the Ward councillor, Ketan Sheth, over the Social Rent or LAR point) were not dealt with fairly and impartially.

 

I have also set out how I believe my complaint(s) should be resolved, including the measures needed to ensure that future planning applications where Brent Council is the developer (and there is likely to be a string of new “infill” housing applications over the next few years) are dealt with properly, fairly and impartially.

 

I may not achieve everything that I hope for, but I am confident that Brent should reverse the decision over affordable housing tenure, so that the two new homes at Rokesby Place will be for Social Rent, not London Affordable Rent. 

 

The tenants of those four-bedroom houses are likely to be large families in urgent housing need. The Planning Officer claimed that the two rent levels were ‘very, very similar’. But, even on the figures she gave, each tenant would be paying £772.20 a year more than they should be if LAR is charged, rather than Social Rent. That’s why the Social Rent level recommended by the Brent Poverty Commission Report is so important to families on a tight budget.

Philip Grant. 

Information Request and Open Letter to Brent CEO.  Click on bottom right corner for full page view.

 

 

Plans for Boxing Club, Cafe and Toilets in King Eddie's Park Pavilion. Comments by Friday 9th September.

 

 

The Pavilion this week (top hidden in the surrounding trees, bottom, side view)

The long dis-used and vandalised Pavilion in King Edward VII Park, Park Lane, Wembley could be transformed into a home for Stonebridge Box Club and a community resource.

 

The Planning Statement for Planning Application 22/2526 states:

 

The proposal is to alter and extend the pavilion building and to repurpose it for use by Stonebridge Boxing Club, including gym and physio facilities and showers. A small café and external seating area would also be provided at ground floor, and office at first floor. The Building would upgrade the building by using renewable energy where possible such as Air Source Heat Pump (“ASHP”), Photovoltaic Panels (“PV Panels”).

 

Rather optimistically it is claimed that revenue from the cafe would help subsidise the maintenance and management of the building.  There would be two members of staff.

 

Opening hours would be 8am to 9pm in Summer and 8am to 7pm in Winter. 

 

 

 

There are some beautiful mature trees close to the building and new Brent Principal Trees Officer, Julie Hughes, takes a welcome tough approach in her report, proposing several protection measures after stating:

 

The site falls within a public open space owned by Brent Council. None of the trees on the site are protected by TPO however this does not mean that they are not important, merely that because the Council are considered to be a responsible landowner, that a TPO is not really justified.

The proposed extension to the pavilion building will effectively double the current extent of footprint to the SW. I would ideally like to see the extension moved to sit wholly outside of the Root Protection Area of T10; a category B Lime tree. 

 

When I visited the park earlier this week and chatted to people, I was told that the police had been called to the pavilion recently after an incident and the area was used for drinking, drug taking and other activities. There is currently just one CCTV camera in the pavilion vicinity and no lighting. People were adamant that lighting would be required if the pavilion is to stay open after dark as it is sited some 200 metres from the Park Lane entrance in the centre of the park and party concealed from the road by trees and vegetation.

 

Young people walking through the park on dark evenings after using the Boxing Club facilities might be in some danger unless adequate preventative measures taken.

 

Overall, those I spoke to were keen on the idea of a cafe and welcomed the availability of toilets. One person said that was much better than children (and others?) having to 'go behind a tree.' I was told that since the new residential developments in the High Road, Wembley, and the enclosure of Copland Fields, the park was very busy in the afternoons and this was likely to be the peak time for the cafe.

 

The present state of the building and the uses it has been put to is evident from these photographs.

The question posed was, "Will this new project discourage current ‘anti-social' behaviour or would such behaviour pose a threat to the success of the £1.6m project?"

 

Thinking about the 'broken window' theory it might help if the notice-boards at the entrance to the park were properly maintained. The information about local councillors is out of date and a poor impression is given for anyone visiting for the first time.  Only one person I spoke to knew (vaguely) that there were plans for the pavilion. Everyone else was surprised. There were no planning notices around the pavilion area and none on the notice boards.

 

 

 

The Bowling Green and its building remains locked up behind fencing and the previously immaculately kept green is now a sun scorched meadow.

 

 

I understand that Fields in Trust, who have an interest in the park going back some years, will be added to statutory consultees and members of the public can submit their views on the Brent Council Planning Portal.  Neighbourhood Consultation closes on Friday 9th September 2022. LINK