Postponed Scrutiny Committee will now discuss recycling and street cleansing proposals on Thursday 15th December

Papers for Brent Council meetings are usually posted a week before the meeting in order to enable the public to read them beforehand. This enables the public to request to speak at a meeting if they feel there are issues in the papers about which tey have questions or a view.

Yesterday I noticed that Tuesday's papers for the Resources and Public Realm Scrutiny Committee had not been published meaning that councillors and public had little time to read them. In fact, the Committee usually discusses them at a pre-meeting before the actual meeting so councillors would have had even less time to get their head round the issues.

The meeting was due to discuss controversial changes to the recycling service and street cleansing.

I protested to the Council via Twitter and called for the postponement to enable proper perusal of the documents. After interchanges this was conceded.

 

From Wembley Matters: Dec 8^th Brent Council: papers for Tuesday's Scrutiny only just published less than a week before the meeting. Insufficient time for members of the public & likely committee members to adequately scrutinise far-reaching changes to street cleansing, recycling etc. Meeting should be postponed.

 

From Wembley Matters to Cllr Conneely and Cllr Sheth (Chairs of Scrutiny) and Brent Council’s CEO: This is no way to treat Scrutiny. Particularly on such a controversial topic.

 

From Brent Council: Dec 9^th Thank you for raising this concern about the delayed publication of some of the scrutiny papers for which we apologise. All papers have now been published in full and can be viewed on the council website.

 

In the circumstances, to enable residents and the committee to have the usual amount of time to review the content, the meeting has been postponed. The rearranged meeting will now take place on Thursday 15 December.

 

From Wembley Matters: Thank you. A good decision.

 

This is the main paper for the Resources and Public Realm Scrutinny Committee now to be held on Thursday 15th December:

Redefining Local Services: Update on the Integrated Street Cleansing, Waste Collections and Winter Maintenance Services Contract Procurement Programme PDF 422 KB

For Recycling the Council pronounces its 8 week trial of alternate weeks reycling a success The first week a paper sack collection for paper and card and the second the normal blue bin collection minus paper and card.:

The results from the eight-week trial have been analysed and the trial is considered to have been a success when measured against the following key critical success factors

• The set out % for the sacks (the number of households putting their bluesack out with paper and card)
• Contamination levels within the sacks
• Contamination in the existing, blue-lidded recycling bin (including levels of paper/card)

They reject a weekly 'twin' collection of both sack and blue bin as too expensive and say it would mean cuts in other services. Officers recommend that the Preferred Option (alternate collections) be included in the final Integrated Contract.

They argue this method will mean less contamination of waste and thus increase recycling rates and save money.

The officers give more weight to the Face to Face meetings they held (which favoured to proposed system) than the On-Line Consultation which rejected it. Nearly 8 times as many residents took part in the On-line consultaion compared with Face to Face at the Roadshows. Officers felt this was because they saw the sacks and were able to talk to Council employees about the new system.

The majority of the On-Line consultees wanted to keep the present system:
 

The suggested changes in the Street Cleansing Contract are for a switch from a 'frequency led system' (Translation: How often your street is cleaned on a regulat basis) to an 'Intelligence Led System' when new officers in teams and residents let thecontractor know when a street needs cleaning.

The approach will include six new, dedicated rapid response teams in each Brent Connect Area (with two in Wembley) which the council will be able to task directly to address any ad hoc issues arising and to target hotspots.  

Data management will also be improved within the new contract with a new dedicated Digital Manager post sitting with the contractor and a live dashboard shared with the Council’s client team which we will jointly monitor daily and which the council will analyse for trends to determine locations which require changing levels of resource. The new regime will therefore be flexible allowing resources to be reallocated where required across the borough.

This comes with a reduction in frequency of the cleaning of residential streets: (Note DM and DL and North Circular)

I could not find a list of DH, DM and DL roads or definitions but will try and find out tomorrow.  Again On-line responders were more likely to oppose the changes, though not as strongly as for Recycling.
 

Residents made some suggestions on improving street cleansing and the officers responded:

 

Additional measures include the Education Team, currently with Veolia, being brought in-house and a new free, bookable small items collection service would be introduced. The  service would collect:

• Textiles
• Small electrical appliances
• Household batteries
• Paint
• Used coffee pods

Consultation Findings LINK

 

 

 

Brent’s Broadview infill plans – do genuinely affordable homes and the environment matter?

Guest post by Philip Grant in a personal capacity

 

Aerial view of the Broadview Garages site. (From Google Maps website)

 

I first mentioned Brent’s plans for infill homes on a small garage site behind Broadview in August 2021, when I wrote about Brent’s “secret” Council Housing Projects. I was not aware of the current planning application for two houses on this site until I saw it on the agenda for next Wednesday’s (14 December) Planning Committee meeting. I took a quick look through the Officer Report, initially just out of interest, but what I read left me knowing that I had to object to the application!

 

I will ask Martin to attach a copy of my illustrated objection comments document at the end of this article, so that you can read it if you wish to. It is another application where Planning Officers recommend approval, because what they describe as ‘the limited conflict with policy’ would be outweighed by building new homes.

 

The first point that I felt really strongly about is that, although Brent’s application states that both new homes would be for London Affordable Rent, Planning Officers say that there does not need to be an affordable housing condition in the consent letter. I have explained why, if these homes are to be built (despite the good planning reasons why the application should be refused), the “benefit” of them needs to be guaranteed by making it a condition that they are let to Brent residents in housing need at “genuinely affordable” rent level.

 

The rest of my objection points arise mainly from Planning Officers relying on inaccurate, and at times wholly misleading, information in reports prepared on behalf of the applicant, and ignoring the true facts given to them by local residents in their objection comments. This is not the first time I’ve raised the importance of looking at such reports critically (because they are prepared by firms paid to support the application, so not impartial). Most recently this was in connection with trees, and the Arboricultural Impact Assessment (“AIA”) for the trees at the Newland Court infill site.

 

The Broadview Garages AIA (as well as the Ecological Impact Assessment and Flood Risk Assessment) were prepared by the same firm as the Newland AIA. That is not the only similarity, as the applicant (Brent Council, possibly with the same Project Manager), planning agent and Planning Case Officer dealing with the application are also the same as the Rokesby Place and Newland Court applications (cynics might say: ‘How “cosy” is that?’). The firm begins its Broadview Garages AIA as follows:

 

 
 

OK, that’s just a minor slip, probably because they are using the same template for many reports for Brent infill schemes! My main concern with their AIA is that they misrepresent where an important tree ‘on the boundary of the site’ actually is, so that they can justify having it cut down. It is actually growing inside Fryent Country Park, so that it should be protected. Their original AIA, later amended, said that both of the tall ash trees you can see on the left of this photograph could be cut down and removed!

 

The Broadview Garages site, with Fryent Country Park on the left, 8 December 2022.

 

My objection comments should give rise to a Supplementary Report to the Planning Committee meeting on 14 December. It will be interesting to see which change, if any, having the true facts, with supporting evidence, will have on the outcome of the application!

[]

Philip Grant.

Formidable new local partnership in Brent demands warm homes for all

Some of the campaigners at Kilburn Square last Saturday

 

Campaigners from a new coalition of local organisations fighting for warm homes in Brent gathered at Kilburn Square on Saturday 3rd December as part of a national day of action on the energy price crisis. 

Local organisations that are part of the new partnership include a formidable list of local organisations and campaigns including  Advice4Renters, Brent Fairtrade Network, Brent Friends of the Earth, Granville Community Kitchen, Harlesden Mums who Cycle, Harlesden Neighbourhood Forum, Kilburn Neighbourhood Plan Forum, Kilburn Unemployed Workers, Sufra NW London and Transition Town Kensal to Kilburn.

The local partnership, United for Warm Homes Brent - which launched in November - aims to unite communities and organisations across the area that are working towards a common goal: warm homes that don’t cost the Earth. 

The national day of action was coordinated by the campaign Warm This Winter, which United for Warm Homes Brent is supporting as part of a UK-wide day of events pressuring the government to take swift and transformative action to stop people going cold this winter and beyond. 

With around six million people predicted to be in fuel poverty this winter, campaigners are urging the government to take stock and listen to the common sense solutions that will both lower skyrocketing energy bills and cut harmful carbon emissions. 

That means additional financial support for those struggling to afford to heat their homes to ensure people stay warm and well during the colder months. 

But longer-term solutions, that will bring down bills for good and prevent a year-on-year energy price crisis, are badly needed. Campaigners are urging the government to rapidly roll out a national programme to fix the UK’s poorly insulated homes, which are among the worst in Europe. This is one of the cheapest and quickest ways to bring down the nation’s energy bills. 

This should be done alongside reaping the UK’s full renewable power potential and scaling up the production of cheap, popular clean energy. Combined, these measures can slash energy prices, keep homes warm and reduce the amount of carbon unleashed into the atmosphere.

The event on 3^rd December saw volunteers from United for Warm Homes Brent displaying placards with the group’s goals and talking to local people about the campaign.

Simon Erskine, one of the co-ordinators at United for Warm Homes Brent, said:

The colder days are drawing in but the worst months are yet to come – and still the government has no credible plan to ease the pain of the cost of living crisis for millions of people, or lower our energy bills for good. 

Even with the package of financial support announced by the last PM, the number of people facing fuel poverty this winter has more than doubled compared to last year. Clearly, there are too many facing bleak and difficult months ahead and in desperate need of support. 

But going beyond the short-term and rolling out the measures that will help to lower bills for good must also be at the top of the government’s agenda. By committing to a nationwide insulation programme and a plan to rapidly ramp up the production of cheap, clean and popular renewable energy, the government can slash energy bills, cut carbon emissions and keep each and every one of us warm.

 

Ditching of Schools Bill welcomed - let's concentrate on teaching, learning and pupil wellbeing

 The announcement by the Government that the Schools Bill is not to proceed is very welcome. It appeared that apart from concentrating on all the current issues in education, including pupil menetal health, that schools would have been diverted by the government's intention that they should all join or form multi-academy trusts.  This would have taken up much time and energy and remove schools further from local democrartic accountability.

Commenting on the Education Secretary, Gillian Keegan’s announcement during the Education Select Committee that the Schools Bill will not be going ahead, Kevin Courtney, Joint General Secretary of the National Education Union, said:

 

The fact that the Schools Bill will not progress through Parliament is a relief as it has been widely discredited. The Bill focused on the wrong priorities, if we want school improvement or educational quality and the Government must accept that maintained schools are here to stay.

 

The NEU successfully disputed the evidence that the Government produced with its case for forcing every school to join a trust. The NEU’s challenge to the DFE data was supported by the Office for Statistics Regulation*. The Bill did not address the pressing challenges which both maintained schools and academy schools face. The urgent challenges are recruitment and retention of teachers, school funding, pay, and the unequal learning gaps created by Covid.

 

The Bill missed the opportunity to resolve the problems created through the fragmentation if the system, such as the lack of voice and choice for schools after they have joined a Trust. This is the second time the DFE have been prevented from trying to over-rule local communities en masse and lever forced conversions on them. As a result of the abandonment of this misguided Bill, leaders and schools can focus on collaboration, retaining staff and outcomes for their students, rather than structures and DFE dogma. Voluntary aided and community schools do not have to convert to academy status. Single-academy trust schools do not need to join a multi-academy trust. Multi-academy trusts do not have to grow to contain a magic number of schools directed by DFE.

 

The Government must recognise that structural change is not what schools and communities want and should also back away from the counter-productive pressure which it is putting on schools, predominantly those in poorer communities.

 

Parents and local councillors want an education system which is well-funded, responsive to local needs and which works for their local context, without pressure to join a mega-trust. Now that it has dropped the Schools Bill, Government has the opportunity to focus on the actual priorities and the real challenges around modernising assessment, identifying funding and addressing teacher retention.

 

Vix Lowthian, Green Party spokesperson on education and herself a secondary school teachers said:

 

 Great news that the much misguided Schools Bill has been dropped. It was badly informed and full of discredited views. But - what next for education? The current system - poor funding, huge pressures on staff and students, lack of SEND support - is letting everyone down.

Brent Citizens welcome Council leaders' offer to meet to resolve Living Wage issues that have arisen since May local elections

 

Cllr Butt responds to school students and other community members questioning his commitment to making Brent a Living Wage Borough (Photo: @AmandaRosePhoto )

After Monday's Living Wage action at Brent Civic Centre by Brent Citizen's, Muahhmed Butt, Leader of Brent Council, put out a tweet:

Today Brent Citizens replied:

Thank you Cllr Butt for attending our public action and offering to meet with us in January to review your administration’s commitments re: making Brent a Living Wage Borough! For the benefit of your followers, allow us to provide some context:

 

Accountability and transparency matter. We’re glad our collective action led to

Cllr Butt offering to meet and resolve the issues that arose since May. We look forward to working with him and Cllr Southwood to combat in-work poverty in Brent.

 

Finally, for anyone who wants to dig deeper into the Living Wage Places schemes - Living Wage Zones, Living Wage Boroughs, Living Wage Cities - we recommend this resource: https://t.co/PQ5k5DcfhK

 

 

 Brent Citizens held up posters reminding Cllr Butt and Cllr Southwood of their election pledges

 

 

Joining in the coversation Brent Renters added:

 

That's great community involvement, however, wage rises for a huge proportion of workers will mean nothing as without rent controls/freezes increased wages will just be eaten up by ever increasing rent levels - especially for private renters.

 

This is why it's so important for Brent's communities to organise on both fronts - for better wages and for good quality, affordable housing. We're fully behind you.

 

Time to rebuild housing strategy in wake of axing house building targets, say Greens

 Ellie Chowns, Green Party spokesperson on Housing and Communities

 

The Green Party has welcomed a decision by ministers to axe arbitrary house building targets LINK and have called for future housing development to be led by affordability, quality and environmental standards. 

Green Party spokesperson on Housing and Communities, Ellie Chowns, who is also a Cabinet Member on Herefordshire Council, said:

Councils of all political colours have pushed back against unrealistic top-down housing targets, which have taken decision-making away from local authorities and ignored the views of local people. And where targets have been missed, it has allowed developers to get away with lower quality housing that is less sustainable and less affordable.

It’s time to rebuild a housing strategy that takes powers away from central government and the giant house builders funnelling money into Tory Party coffers and give councils the power to set their own housing targets to meet the needs of local populations. We need the focus of future development to be on building genuinely affordable housing that is good for local people while helping to tackle the cost of living crisis and the climate emergency. 

We certainly do need thousands more new homes but the priority should be on homes for social rent, built to the highest environmental standards so they dramatically cut energy bills and carbon emissions. We also need to prioritise building on brownfield sites and preserve our precious green spaces which are good for public health and for nature. 

All new housing must also be served by high quality walking and cycling routes and much improved public transport services.

Charlie Watts at Kingsbury Library

 Guest post by local historian Philip Grant

 

It’s five months since “Wembley Matters” reported that a bust of the Rolling Stones drummer, Charlie Watts, had been presented to Brent Council. There was speculation about where it should be put on display. Well now, and for at least the next few months, you can see it at Kingsbury Library (“click” here for details of the library).

 

Charlie grew up in a pre-fab home on the Pilgrims Way estate in southern Kingsbury, a fact he confirmed to me when I contacted him (at his rather different estate in Devon) when I was helping Brent Archives with its “Pre-fabs Project” in 2011.

 

 

Charlie went to school at Fryent Juniors in Church Lane, then on to the newly-opened Tylers Croft Boys Secondary School (now the Lower School for Kingsbury High School) on the north side of Roe Green Park. The school has a reminder of his time there, as a skilled student artist, who at 15 went on to progress his studies at Harrow Art School. A trip to London Zoo was the inspiration for Charlie’s painting on tiles, which still hangs on a wall in the school.

 

 

The small Brent Museum and Archives display at Kingsbury Library also includes photographs of the Rolling Stones when they performed a concert at the Kilburn State cinema in November 1963. So, if you want to pay your respects to the “Wembley Whammer” (Mick Jagger’s nickname for Charlie), or are just interested in this piece of our local musical history, Kingsbury Library is the place to visit!

 

 

Philip Grant.

Is Brent's Long Term Strategy Review document 'deliberately confusing'?

 

Local resident Rishi Shah has reviewed Brent Council's Long Term Transport Strategy  LINK in detail and has written to Cllr Krupa Sheth (Lead Member for Environment, Infrastructure and Climate Action) with his comments:

 

1.    How many iterations did this document go through before the final version?

2.    On Pages 4 and 5 the LTTS is described as a strategy between 2015 – 2035 yet all targets on page 36 are aimed at 2041. Why? How can a strategy be aimed between a certain time frame yet all key indicators and goals are set beyond that time limit?

a.    Why are there no incremental targets between 2022 – 2041?

                                i.      This allows consecutive failures and allows for a “Hope for the best by 2041” where you are relying on consumers changing their habits without incremental delivery

3.    Page 4 – The document states “Services and a safe and pleasant cycle network” What does a pleasant cycle network mean? This is just an ambiguous word without any reference to it means for a cyclist 

4.    Cycle lanes/ Cycle networks are mentioned 14 times throughout the document yet no goal, metric or targets are attached – why not? If funding is a requirement as per appendix 3 then why has the £xxm Cost not been attached? 

a.    If you do not know the funding requirements, why not? Surely knowing how much something is going to cost will allow you to plan for the future adoption and budgeting of spend

b.    Appendix 3 – “Expand the cycle network beyond planned schemes” – Why is a metric or target not attached to this? Something as simple as “We will expand the cycle network by xxKM/ Miles by dd/mm”

c.    There is no mention of cycle lanes owned by TFL vs Council (E.g. Brook Avenue) – which the council enables anyone visiting the borough on NON event days the ability to park without fear of tickets, meanwhile there is an approved barrat homes building to be built in the station car park, thus introducing more people and cars to the street.

5.    Page 7 – There is a mention of the LTTS public consultation and feedback yet no link to the raw data and findings, nor any references in the appendix. Why not?

a.    There is no mention of the number of participants who responded, so %’s imo are hiding the reality, I suspect low response rate. Am I right?

6.    Pages 8 – 11. All data is pre pandemic, in parallel the section on the impact of covid (page 11) is “travel in London” – do you not think this is confusing because you have Brent level data up to 2020 meanwhile reference London travel as a whole up to 2021. Surely this confuses the reader.

a.    Is there not any local level data in Brent on traffic trends (obviously increasing in traffic build up), number of speeding fines, traffic infractions?

                                i.      If not, why not? Why has the council not studied changes in levels of above?

7.    The document seems to consistently not mention and clearly not understand the financial benefits of reducing traffic and car usage in the borough, by enabling less spend on road network maintenance thus freeing up spend and budgets for other initiatives. Why is this not taken into consideration? Surely its in the interest of the council to spend less on fixing pot holes

a.    And the reduction of financial burden when actively travelling, e.g. A daily driver of a small city car would save £xx because of not using fuel. Etc.

8.    Pages 14- 19 – Why has the doc not got any data, mapping or heat maps to show the worst polluted areas of Brent?

9.    Page 21 – The only mention of CPZ’s yet there is no mention of areas that do not have them and the contribution of on street parking problems for residents, causing further traffic because all these non residents drive into the borough and have the ability to park anywhere for free. Why was none of this negative impact assessed or documented as a negative impact on each community/ local area? (Same as point 4 above). E.g. Parking on surrounding roads by both Wembley Park and Preston Road station. Surely a mention should be for Barrat homes development to fund this for 10 years, or an ask for them to do so as part of the CILs?

10.Pages 28-29 – The document mentions inclusive areas, but this is a disguised mis-truth. For example all the public areas around the Stadium are not public, they are privately owned with access to the public. Why has the document not made this obvious? Seems disingenuous because private security can ask you to leave thus making not inclusive.

11.There is no mention of parking on single and double yellow lines, no data on the number of parking fines on a daily, weekly, monthly or yearly average. Nor any data around whether they have increased or decreased over the past few years

12.There is no mention of initiatives and costs for example adding TFL bikes which I know require sponsorship but this will radically reduce car usage and increase active travel. Why has this type of initiative not been considered, costed with uptake predictions based on other boroughs?

13.Referenced data for London has been used, rather than the improvements boroughs in East London have seen through their initiatives and changes. Why were these not referenced?

14.What about bad/ dangerous driving? – I met with you on Elmstead Ave and you literally witnessed a car mount the pavement, drive through the pavement to get around a blocking vehicle.

 

My overall comment of this document is that it seems to be deliberately confusing, mixed data without any baselines nor references to most of the data are missing from the appendix. The biggest benefit to the council is a reduction of maintenance costs which has been omitted from this document without any clear reason why? A simple argument will be “If we reduce private vehicle usage we will reduce our £xx budget thus enabling spending in social care” or whatever, why have costs and benefits analysis not been completed? 

 

My biggest concern is the performance targets and indicators which are not in the stated LTTS timeframe, and there are no indicators whether the council is on target or not YoY. This to me reads as if you are hoping for the best because consumers will change their habits – and sure in a small % they will, but without a YoY indicator whether the change is occurring means you are hiding from the facts, additionally cherry picked targets seem to have been used. Some missing data e.g. “Planting X trees will reduce CO2, Co2 reduction YoY etc etc etc”