Brent’s Wembley Housing Zone contract award – still too many secrets!

 

Guest post by Philip Grant in a personal capacity

 

In a guest post last month (‘Tis the Season to be Sneaky!) I suggested that Brent Council might be trying to use its “urgency procedures” to get the decision to award a major contract for its Wembley Housing Zone (“WHZ”) development slipped through over the Christmas / New Year period, in the hope of avoiding it being called-in for scrutiny.

 

Although the decision was scheduled to be made on 19 December, it wasn’t officially made, by Brent’s Chief Executive, until 10 January, and published on the Council’s website the following afternoon. Normally, 28 days clear notice of a Key Decision has to be given, but the Urgent Key Decision Form sent to a Scrutiny Committee Chair on 12 December said that was not possible. Yet the decision was made 29 days after “urgency” was claimed!

 

Part of the Evaluation Process section from the Officer Key Decision Report.

 

In fact, notice of a Key Decision for this contract could have been given at least several months before 12 December. The Officer Report (undated), on which the decision to award the contract was based, says that the tender process started on 30 April 2022, when the Council advertised for initial expressions of interest from contractors. Eight had provided the necessary responses by the closing date of 31 May. The four short-listed contractors were invited, on 3 July, to submit tenders, and three had submitted valid tenders by the closing date of 18 October.

 

The Recommendation from the Officer Key Decision Report.

 

After all of the evaluation of the tenders by Council Officers, the recommendation which Brent’s Chief Executive accepted was to award the “developer partner” contract to Wates Construction Ltd, for a price of £121,862,500. That is a lot of money! In fact, the report shows that it could be even more than that, perhaps as much as £133m (and that is after an estimated £4m already having been spent on architects’ fees).

 

Extract from the Financial section of the Officer Key Decision Report.

 

It appears that the £126.5m will be the cost of building 304 homes on two sites which Brent Council already owns. That is a building cost of around £416,000 per unit. As para. 4.2 in the Report extract above states, part of this will be funded through capital receipts from the sale of private homes. When Cabinet agreed this scheme in August 2021, it included allowing the development partner to have half the homes (152, and all on the more favourable Cecil Avenue site, which will be completed first) to sell privately, for profit. How much will Wates be paying Brent for those homes as part of the contract deal? We don’t know – it’s a secret!

 

Part of the funding will also come from the ‘capital receipts from … intermediate homes’. In plain English that means the sale of percentages in shared ownership flats within the 152 homes that the Council will own. In August 2021, Cabinet agreed that 61 of the 98 homes which Brent would retain on the Cecil Avenue site should be “intermediate”, with only 37 of them for London Affordable Rent. Following the November 2022 Cabinet meeting, will the figure of shared ownership be increased?  We don’t know – it’s a secret!

 

Wembley Housing Zone extract from the “Affordable Housing” report to Cabinet, 14 November 2022.

 

Martin published a guest blog I had written about that Affordable Housing report to the November 2022 Cabinet meeting, and another which I wrote following the Council Leader’s response to questions which Cllr. Anton Georgiou had asked at that meeting. I showed that there is already a surplus in shared ownership homes on offer in Brent, which is likely to continue and increase, and that shared ownership is not really affordable to most people in housing need in Brent. So why is the Council planning to make many of the WHZ homes shared ownership, which won’t help the people its affordable homes policy is meant to house?

 

Outline of the contract from the Officer Key Decision Report.

 

The contract, as shown by the extract above, is in several parts. This is because although both WHZ sites were given planning permission in February 2021, Ujima House only has outline permission. Because of the long delay in getting to the contract award stage (which has greatly increased the cost of the project), the “developer partner” has to prepare, submit and get approval for the actual Ujima House plans. That’s why there is a completion date of 31 December 2026 (nearly 4 years away!), with a possible extension, for those homes to be delivered.

 

The former office block at Ujima House still has some “meanwhile” occupants, including the thriving Stonebridge Boxing Club, a vital resource for the local community. They have still to find an alternative home. Despite the long lead time before any work at Ujima House can begin (apart from its possible demolition, leaving an empty site, like that of the former Copland School buildings, where work on the Cecil Avenue homes could start straight away), Brent Council wants to ‘seek to assist them in finding suitable alternative premises’ (evict them a.s.a.p.). 

 

Extract from the Equality Implications section of the Officer Key Decision Report.

 

The Report’s determination ‘to ensure a start on site by the end of March 2023’ must mean that the extra £5m funding the Council has obtained from the GLA comes from its 2016-2021 (but extended to 2023) Affordable Housing Programme. There is probably some “spare” money in that pot because Brent will fail to start some of its other New Council Homes projects before the 31 March deadline! The £5m looks like the grant for 50 London Affordable Rent homes, at £100k per home. The Cabinet’s August 2021 decision (possibly since watered down) was for all 54 homes at Ujima House to be for LAR, but only 37 at the Cecil Avenue site, so at least some of the latest GLA agreement must relate to Ujima House.

 

One final point. The documents published with the decision notice include the Council’s Tender Evaluation Grid, where Wates appear as contractor “C” (the identities of “A” and “B” are secret). Although “C” scored highest overall, because their Financial score was much better than the other two (meaning their price was lowest), they were only second in the Quality section. Their Quality score was 68.6 out of 100 (contractor “B” was best with 72.0). Brent has had problems over poor quality housing developments in recent memory.

 

The Quality section of the WHZ contract Tender Evaluation Grid.

 

Non-Cabinet councillors have five working days to call-in the Key Decision for scrutiny, if they consider there are reasonable grounds to do so. As it was published on 11 January, at least five members would need to call-in the decision by 5pm on Wednesday 18 January for the award of the contract to be put on hold, so that (probably) Community and Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee could consider it. It will be interesting to see whether that happens!

 

Philip Grant.

 

An Olympic Games tile mural – Quintain’s reply (what do you think?)

 Guest post by local historian Philip Grant in a personal capacity

 

The Olympic Torch tile mural, currently hidden away in the Bobby Moore Bridge subway.

 

When I sent a New Year request to Quintain’s Chief Executive Officer in 2022, it was two months before I received a full reply. This time, Quintain took just two working days to reply to my 1 January 2023 letter, which suggested that the Olympic Torch tile mural in the Bobby Moore Bridge subway should be put back on public display, in time for the 75^th anniversary of the 1948 London Olympic Games at Wembley.

 

I will ask Martin to attach a copy of Quintain’s letter below, so that you can read it if you wish to. It is almost 500 words long, but it can be summed up in a single word: “No”. I’ll include my reply to that letter at the end of this article.

 

There are two passages in the letter I received which suggest that Quintain are not inclined to uncover any more of the tile mural scenes in the subway between Wembley Park Station and Olympic Way:

 

‘… the lighting installation under Bobby Moore Bridge has full planning permission … and is not subject to any time limits.’

 

‘… we think that the lighting displays are an important part of our cultural offering now and for the future.’

 

The letter talks as though Quintain think that they own the Bobby Moore Bridge and the tile murals on the walls of its subway. In fact, they are owned by the London Borough of Brent (which, as far as I know, is not legally under Quintain’s ownership or control). 

 

But what do you, as citizens of the Borough, think about the idea of Quintain’s lighting displays, as against the tile murals celebrating Wembley’s sports and entertainment heritage, which are currently hidden behind the LED light panels? If you’ve not seen them, or can’t remember what they look like, here are a few reminders:

 

Part of the murals on the west wall of the subway, in 2012. (From a “Soundscape” web page)

 

 

A message on the west wall LED lighting panels in July 2021.

 

 Some of the mural scenes on the east wall of the subway, pre-2013.

 

 A lighting display, either side of the footballers mural, on the east wall of the subway, July 2021.

 

Would you prefer to see the heritage tile murals back on permanent display, or Quintain’s modern ‘cultural offering’ of lighting displays? Please feel free to give your honest views in a comment below.

 

My response to Quintain on 9 January suggested an alternative solution for the Olympic Torch mural, using their LED light panels. This is the text of my open letter (which was written to Quintain’s Head of Masterplanning and Design, with a copy to James Saunders, the CEO):-

 

Dear Julian, 

 

Thank you for your letter of 4 January 2023, in response to my New Year letter to James Saunders. 

 

I note the reasons given as to why Quintain will not be taking up my suggestion for uncovering, and putting on display, the Olympic Torch tile mural, on the east wall of the Bobby Moore Bridge subway, in celebration of the 75th anniversary of the 1948 London Olympic Games in July 2023.

 

You have set out your view on the history of the current lighting arrangements in the subway. I don’t think that it would be helpful to argue over this now, However, I do remember that when you and Quintain’s lighting designer came to a Wembley History Society meeting in October 2018, to set out your vision for the subway, several members suggested to you that the plans should be changed. 

 

Instead of putting all of the murals on the walls on display, with sufficient lighting in the subway for that purpose, as members had asked, you chose only a minor amendment to your original plans, which displayed just one of around a dozen tile mural scenes. The Society did agree that if just one scene was to be displayed, it should be the footballers playing at the “twin towers” stadium, which included the plaque unveiled by Bobby Moore’s widow in 1993.

 

It is disappointing that you seem to suggest it is Quintain’s intention to retain the lighting panels, which cover the rest of the tile murals in the subway, as a permanent feature. I am aware of the various planning and advertising consents. However, I would remind you that while Quintain’s ownership of the tile murals on the walls of Olympic Way is not in dispute, the Bobby Moore Bridge and the tile murals in its subway belong to the London Borough of Brent.

 

Since my suggestion for uncovering the Olympic Torch tile mural is not acceptable, I will offer an alternative suggestion, which I hope will meet with the approval of yourself and your colleagues at Quintain. 

 

This mural is covered with LED light panels, which can be programmed to show particular displays. As part of ‘the changing programme of lighting displays which has been integrated into the overall arts and cultural strategy at Wembley Park’, I would suggest that the panels over the Olympic Torch mural could be programmed to show an image of that mural, during at least July and August 2023. 

 

You already have a clear photograph of the mural, showing the design and its colours, which I included in my 1 January 2023 letter. The LED digital version of it could provide a temporary addition to the Wembley Park Art Trail this summer, adding to the celebration of the 75th anniversary of the 1948 Games, on the wall next to the displayed “footballers” mural - as marked on this image:

 

 

I look forward to hearing that this alternative suggestion will be taken up, as part of the Olympic Way local history enhancements for this important anniversary year.

 

 Thank you.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

Philip Grant.

 

 

 

UPDATE FROM PHILIP GRANT (see January 13th comment below) 

 

How an image of the Olympic Torch mural could be displayed, in the same way as an advertisement in another subway.

Brent Libraries - closure or 'transformation'? Putting the record straight

 

Mike Phipps reviews Transforming Brent Libraries, by James Powney, published by AuthorHouse, and sets the record straight on an important local struggle. Reprduced on Wembley Matters with the permission of the author. Furst published on Labour Hub.

Some years ago I was involved in a small way in the campaign to prevent the closure of a local library. Frustrated at the fact that the Chair of my Constituency Labour Party repeatedly and on specious grounds kept ruling out of order my branch’s motion opposing the Council’s cuts to local libraries – the CLP Chair was himself a Councillor, never a good idea – I gave an interview to the local paper.

I said there was real anger about the library closures and it was proving to be the most toxic issue for the Party locally since the war in Iraq. I added: “I think it is inevitable that James Powney will be held personally responsible for the way he has handled these closures.”

 

Naming this local Councillor, the lead member responsible for the closures, was not mischief-making on my part. It was intended to protect the local Party from a wrong, vote-losing policy, which was allowing local Lib Dem activists to grandstand over the issue – the same party in government that was cutting local authority grants which put councils in such a desperate financial plight. “The tragedy would be that the Liberal Democrats would benefit when it is their government pushing through these cuts,” I pointed out.

 

It must have been a quiet week in Brent, which is in northwest London, because the interview was put on the front page. It elicited a phone call from the Chair of the CLP, who had never contacted me before (or since), saying how much he admired all the work I did for the Party, etc., etc., but couldn’t I just drop this issue and move on?

 

That would have been difficult. The whole library closure programme felt like a great injustice locally, given that 82 per cent of residents who took part in the consultation said they didn’t want the libraries to close. In the interview, I said: “I don’t think the consultation was undertaken seriously and I don’t think that the process whereby local groups were invited to put their ideas forward to rescue the library was taken seriously either.”

 

The contempt with which campaigners’ alternative proposals were met by Councillors responsible now seems undeniable from the latest evidence – an account by the key perpetrator of the closure programme.

 

I didn’t know James Powney had written a book about all this until I saw a letter he wrote to the Guardian last December publicising it. Transforming Brent Libraries is mercifully short at 71 pages, and self-published, for good reason. It would be hard to see this making the best-seller list.

 

As Lead Member for Environment and Neighbourhood Services in the London Borough of Brent, Powney “oversaw the successful transformation of Brent Library service in raising both the total number of loans and visitors to become one of the most successful public library services in the UK,” trumpets the opening line of his biographical note.

 

But this doesn’t tell the full story. He also presided over the closure of half of the Borough’s libraries. The scale of protests – meetings, demonstrations, media activity, celebrity involvement – within and beyond Brent was immense. Powney later refers to protesters as a “baying mob”.

 

He claims the campaign was “principally led by a small number of single issue campaigners, many of whom were not from the area.” But the anger against the closures was very local and was reflected inside the local Labour Party where Powney was a Councillor.

 

 'Pop Up' Library outside the closed Kensal Rise Library

 

One of the most contested closures was that of Kensal Rise library, originally opened by Mark Twain over a century earlier. It was located in Kensal Green ward where I was Chair of the local Labour Party branch and which Powney represented as a Councillor. Meetings were poorly attended until the closures were announced. Then angry members began to turn up in droves. At the earliest opportunity, Party members voted to deselect him as their Council candidate.

 

In the Acknowledgements, Powney writes: “In writing this book, I should acknowledge some debts, possibly including the Friends of Kensal Rise Library (FKRL) who through sheer determination and litigiousness stretched the whole saga out to make enough material for a book.” This mocking, supercilious tone towards campaigners, invariably disparaged as “litigants”, becomes increasingly wearing as the book drags on. The unfortunate Powney finds he has do a lot of ‘explaining’ of how things work to the ignorant activists, a “continuous barrage” of whom had the cheek to turn up to his Councillor surgeries.

 

Equally ignorant, in this version of events, were the celebrities that campaigners sought to “drag in” to promote their cause. They are treated with some contempt here – apparently, celebrities care about libraries only because they remind them of their childhood.

 

Creative ideas to take over the running of libraries that the Council was seeking to shed from its remit are dismissed as the interference of a “lumpenproletariat”, hopelessly tainted by association with Cameronian notions of a “Big Society”.

 

At the end of this tedious rant, Powney attempts to draw some lessons from the whole sorry experience. The main one seem to be: what a pain pressure groups are, and how unscrupulously they are prepared to exploit their celebrity backing to “magnify the noise made without any interest in truthfulness.”

But happily, “After the decision is done, those who opposed it are surprisingly forgetful of the position they took.” That can’t be right – if it were, Powney would not have been deselected as a Kensal Green Councillor by his own Party.

 

It would be unfair to blames James Powney solely for this debacle. As he rightly says, all members of the Council Executive voted the libraries project though unanimously, despite what he concedes was a “massive petition” in opposition.

 

 

Arguably the campaign against library closures and the publicity it generated contributed to the ousting of the then leader of Brent Council in May 2012. By then the issue had been in the local newspaper virtually every week for eighteen months, taking up quite a few front pages, as on November 18^th 2010, when the Willesden and Brent Times opened, under a banner headline “IT’S OUTRAGEOUS” with “Council chiefs spent more than £600,000 on refurbishing two libraries – just months before announcing plans to close them.”

 

Editor's note.  Many thanks to Mike Phipps for permission to republish this article. Search Wembley Matters for further coverage of the issue.

Brent and Camden come together for meeting on the future of Kilburn High Road - January 23rd at Kiln Cinema 6-8pm

 

FREE TICKETS

From Brent and Camden Councils

Help shape the future of Kilburn

Calling everyone who lives, works and plays in Kilburn – we want to hear your ideas on how to make Kilburn even better!

Join us at the Kiln Theatre on Monday 23 January from 6-9pm to meet new people, discuss Kilburn's future & enjoy live music and free refreshments.

Exhibition next week on major redevelopment between Dudden Hill Lane and Willesden High Road

 

Website link (live after Exhibitions)

Plans for the residential led redevelopment of the current light industrial/commercial site between 54-68 Dudden Hill Lane NW10 1DG and 370 Willesden High Road NW10 2EA will go on public exhibition at Mencap 379-381 High Road, Willesden, NW10 2JR on Tuesday January 17th 4pm - 8pm and Thursday 19th January 4pm to 8pm.

The development website will not go live until after the exhibitions. Purple pin below marks  54-68 Dudden Hill Lane and red pin 370 High Road.

 54-68 Dudden Hill Lane (Google Streetview)
 

370 High Road (Google Streetview)

LETTER: The rotten stench of neglect

 

Dear Editor,

I've often written on Wembley Matters about how South Kilburn is neglected by Brent Council, the apparent thinking being that if they put up nice looking new buildings (don't look too closely inside), no-one will notice the lack of concern for the maintenance of the area.

I could do so again, since so little changes, but of immediate concern is a single example of the extent to which Brent shows little concern to sort out the most extreme of issues.

Since the heavy rain early last week, there has been a pool of stagnant, stinking water at the bottom of Coventry Close, just off Kilburn High Road (photo). This has been reported to Brent almost since it appeared, and repeatedly by several residents since. Apparently there was an unsuccessful attempt to clear it towards the end of last week. Since then nothing.

As with so many issues, reports to the Council receive little useful response. Repeated messages to officers and Councillors have had no reply until this morning (Monday) when we are simply told by Council officers that they know about it. It may (?) be that they deal with it today, but why does it take the best part of a week to sort out an extreme health hazard. People walking past think it smells of raw sewage, residents close by cannot open their windows. How long would it take for Brent Council to act if this was in the more affluent areas of the borough or even outside the Civic Centre?

Pete Firmin

Guest Post: Why the Newland Court garages planning application should be withdrawn.

Guest post by Philip Grant in a personal capacity

 

Policy DMP1, from Brent’s Local Plan.

 

“Wembley Matters” has been following the progress of Brent’s New Council Homes “infill” planning application, 22/3124. Most recently, Martin shared an email sent by Newland Court resident, Marc Etukudo, to the Council’s Head of Planning.Marc’s uncovering of the Barn Hill Conservation Area boundary change (adopted by Brent’s Executive – now Cabinet – in June 2013), which puts the site of the proposed new houses within the Conservation Area, made me review my own earlier objection comments. Last Friday I submitted my updated objections. 

 

I will ask Martin to include the illustrated pdf version of these at the end of this post – which includes screenshots from Brent’s massive Local Plan document of the policies which the Newland Court garages scheme would breach. Please have a look at these, if you think they could be useful for future objections you may wish to make on applications affecting you!

 

It was now clear to me that the Newland Court planning application should be refused, so I have sent the following open email to the Cabinet Member and Council Officer(s) behind it, calling on them to withdraw the application. I have asked Martin to share it’s text with you, so that it is available for anyone to read (and to write in support of, or comment on).

 

Dear Councillor Knight, Ms. Baines and Ms Sweeney,

 

This is an open email

 

As you are, respectively, Brent's Lead Member for Housing, Head of Affordable Housing and Head of Estates Regeneration, I think you should see my latest (and illustrated) comments document, which sets out further objections to Brent's Newland Court garages planning application, 22/3124.

 

It explains, in section 1, why the site on which you propose to build seven new Council homes is actually inside the Barn Hill Conservation Area. This was the result of a minor change in the boundary, adopted by Brent's Executive (now Cabinet) in June 2013. 

 

It lists the reasons why your application fails to comply with a number of Brent's Local Plan policies, including those on Heritage, Trees, Ecological Impact and Parking.

 

In case you don't feel that you have time to read the whole of the attached document, here are some highlights from its conclusion:

 

'There is already a long list of Brent Local Plan policies which application 22/3124 fails to comply with: BP1 Central, BGI1, BGI2, BHC1 and BT2. To that list can also be added the main development management policy in the Local Plan, DMP1. This policy states that ‘development will be accepted provided it is ….’ It then sets out nine tests, and this application fails at least five of them: a), b), d), e) and h). It cannot be claimed that there is ‘a minor conflict with policy’. The application is so far in conflict with Brent’s adopted Local Plan policies that it must be refused.'

 

'Although this “infill” scheme may have looked possible “on paper”, it is not practical or sustainable when the reality of its proposed site is taken into account. That, on top of its many failures to comply with Brent’s adopted planning policies, must mean that the application should be refused.'

 

It is not just me, or residents of Newland Court and neighbours in Grendon Gardens, who believe that your application should be refused - several Brent Council experts have also said so in their consultee comments on it.

 

I am bringing this to your attention because I think it is time you accepted that the Newland Court garages scheme was a mistake. Your planning application should be withdrawn, and no further money, or Planning / Housing Officer time, should be wasted on it.

 

I hope to hear that you have taken, or will now take, that sensible decision. Best wishes,

Philip Grant

 
(a Brent resident with an interest in housing matters)