Petition launched to Save Cricklewood Post Office: 'Losing it would hurt not just our local economy but also the spirit of Cricklewood'

 

Cricklewood campaigners have been quick off the mark after Cricklewood Post Office was included in the list of potential closures. Kilburn, Harlesden and Kingsbury Post Offices are also on the list. Please let Wembley Matters know of any campaigns for these and I will publicise.

Save Cricklewood Post Office have launched a petition and are asking residents to sign. SIGN HERE or use QR Code below to go straight to the petition.

We, the undersigned, demand that the Post Office keep our local Cricklewood Office open.

This post office is at the heart of our community, providing essential services that so many of us rely on. Losing it would hurt not just our local economy but also the spirit of Cricklewood. 

Please join us in supporting the Cricklewood Post Office and helping to preserve our beloved community hub.

 

Chess at Chalkhill Success: 'The junior sessions are at full capacity and for the first time ever there is now a waiting list!'

 

Guest post by Anthony Fulton Willesden & Brent Chess Club General Secretary and Junior Coordinator   In March 2020 life in the UK experienced a situation it hadn’t done so for generations. COVID-19 hit UK shores in February and by March the UK went into the first of many lockdowns. Over the next two years, life changed as lockdown meant that the many social activities individuals would partake of ceased as family, friends and even strangers were unable to interact. However, due to Skype, Teams, Zoom, and other such platforms, many of these activities were able to proceed virtually. A foreseen consequence was the impact lockdown would have when these activities moved from the physical sphere to the virtual (bricks vs. clicks). Many organisations, i.e., businesses, sports clubs, etc. faced challenges as if they were unable to migrate to the virtual, since the period of lockdown would be unknown there could be no guarantee that when life returned to ‘normal’ that they would continue to exist. These were the circumstances in which the UK lived including Willesden & Brent Chess Club (WBCC).   When the pandemic ended and life began to return to normal WBCC recognised they were a club in crisis. In fact they were a club in crisis prior to the pandemic. Ironically, lockdown was ideal for the club as the period was used to review how they operated and if they were to return they had to ‘build back better’. The club resumed its services at Cricklewood Community Library on 10th January 2022 and took what at the time was the risky decision to set up a second night, based at Chalkhill Community Centre, Wembley from May 2022. It was a risk as throughout the club’s history (1946 to date) they had traditionally operated one night a week from their historic base Willesden Municipal District, including after 1965 when London Borough of Brent formed with the merging of Willesden and Wembley Urban District. For a small not-profit-organisation this placed a huge demand on resources, both financially and in terms of personnel. It was accepted that the venture of two nights a week should be tried as at the time they had nothing to lose and everything to gain. Should it prove unsuccessful the club could retrench by returning to its spiritual home and accept it could no longer be a competitive club, just be a social one providing opportunity for like-minded people to meet.   It must be noted that one reason WBCC chose to set up at Chalkhill is because they sought to expand their chess presence in the borough and to ensure that both North and South Brent were properly serviced. By establishing a base in Wembley, it meant that this part of Brent had a formal chess presence for the first time since 1956 after the demise of Wembley Chess Club - for further details see A History of Chess in Brent at either Brent Archives (Willesden Green Library) or on www.willesdenchess.wordpress.com Therefore if the club was to be successful they had to focus on building capacity from a low base in the area.   The three years at Chalkhill have been somewhat parlous with September 2022 to December 2023 being a critical period as it seemed as though the project was doomed to failure, Attendance was low, at times the number of tables outnumbered the adults who were present after the junior session! This though appeared to be the nadir as January 2024 began to see a turnaround which has carried through into the current season (2024-25).   The junior sessions are at full capacity and for the first time ever there is now a waiting list!  The number and strength of attending juniors has influenced the club to enter junior specific teams into competition. The number of attending adults has increased to the point where we now have teams participating in the Middlesex League and Hillingdon League.   The decision therefore has proven to be a masterstroke! As with any new venture, the first few years are indeed a struggle but to be fair to the club, as stated, chess had not really been a force in the Wembley area after 1956ca with the demise of Wembley Chess Club and the reluctance of the old Willesden Chess Club to focus on in its historical base, despite assuming the name ‘Brent’ in its title! By persevering and showing resilience, the club has begun to grow from strength to strength. The club has ambitions to continue growing in this vein, it may prove challenging to accommodate all the juniors wishing to attend and possibly adults if there numbers continue to grow but the beauty of being at Chalkhill Community Centre is that there is plenty of space within which the club could expand into subject to the other activities that take place. We certainly look forward to continuing welcoming new, existing and even former members.   The club has had its struggles during its history, none more so than the past decade where they have had to relocate twice after their long-time base, Scout House, was sold and their replacement, Willesden Working Mens Club, decided to convert its upper floors to flats. We are therefore grateful to both Cricklewood Community Library and Chalkhill Community Centre for allowing us to re-establish firm roots. We must also be thankful in receiving the Love Where You Live Grant (June 2022) which allowed us to help build our capacity, we can safely say that the funds received helped tide us over the tricky period so gave us time to bed down.   Chess in Wembley, and Brent specifically, appears to have a future as apart from our weekly sessions we:
1.     Main session in Allen Suite
a) Have held two of our Brent Junior Congresses (BJCC) at Chalkhill Community Centre (BJCC23 & BJCC24). [Note our first post pandemic was BJCC22 at Stonebridge Hub.]
2.     BJCC24 participants
b) Use Chalkhill Community Centre to host its home league matches, we now compete in three senior leagues (Middlesex League D2; Middlesex League F4, and Hillingdon League D3) and run three junior specific teams (Wembley Juniors, Willesden Juniors and a combined Willesden & Brent Junior team). The institution of junior teams has been a long held ambition but there were never sufficient numbers; it is good to see this ambition eventually come to fruition. [Note we are always looking for players to join our teams so if you’re looking to play more competitively do consider joining!]
3.     Hillingdon League Junior match - W&B Juniors (facing) vs.Harrow Juniors (30/10/2024)
4.     Middlesex League D2 match - WBCC (facing team) vs Hammersmith 2 boards 1-4 (30/10/24)
c) See that our junior session at Chalkhill is now at full capacity and we are now having to ask parents to go onto the waiting list. [Note there is still scope to attend the junior session on Monday at Cricklewood Community Library]
Finally, special mention must be made of an extra event the club will be holding this year at Chalkhill Community Centre, Brent One-day Secondary School Rapidplay Chess Tournament on 28th November 2024. For several years the club has been investigating the gap at chess at secondary level. Students who have a genuine interest are unable to develop or consolidate this interest as chess clubs either do not run or do not provide the level of challenge they seek. Quite often schools are even unable to allow students to learn chess as a skill under the Duke of Edinburgh programme as there is no-one with requisite skills to be a DofE Chess Assessor so another skill is learnt instead! Unfortunately, these students do not always then explore other options such as attending a local chess club so are lost to chess, they may return to chess as adults in their own right or when they have their own children but this tends not to be the case, so opportunity for these individuals to develop a lifelong love of the game is impacted at a critical phase of their life. As the pandemic showed, apart from people taking up chess for the first time online, many were returners to chess. This is not unique to Brent but chess in general as due to the demands and agenda of secondary schools leadership teams, chess tends not be considered anything other than a social activity, thus there is a lack of parity for chess as compared to other competitive activities such as traditional sports (athletics, basketball, cricket, football, netball, etc.), STEM clubs, Debating Clubs, Jack Petchey and a raft of other extracurricular activities that allow the young person to challenge themselves against their peers in other schools, locally and nationally. Many overlook the fact that chess likewise has its competitive element and in fact is academically beneficial. Who would not want students who as a matter of fact are able to think logically? Take ownership of their actions? Contemplate the consequences of their actions before they act? Etc. For readers of a certain age, it will be remembered in 1972 Grandmaster Robert ‘Bobby’ Fischer broke the Russian stranglehold on the World Chess Championship and opened the path to the current non-Russsian dominance through the likes of Vishy Anand and Magnus Carlsen to name but two!
As stated the club knew there was a gap but was never really in a position to tackle as apart from trying to discern which schools have chess as an extracurricular activity and how to form a working partnership, funding is an issue. Thanks to the ECF Grassroots Initiative, a scheme devised by the English Chess Federation on the back of the government investment in chess in August 2023, the club is now in a position to address this gap. Although chess is still not considered a sport in the UK unlike many other countries, with the government being prepared to invest in chess, especially trying to develop in deprived areas such as Brent, the club has jumped at the chance to try and raise chess profile in the borough further by hosting what is hoped to be the first of many secondary-specific events. Ostensibly it will provide competition for secondary aged students and to explore the possibility of instituting a formal competition amongst Brent Secondary Schools. If the latter comes to pass it means the club would have successfully revived the Willesden Chess League played by Brent Schools in the 1960s and 1970s. At present Wembley specific schools that are participating are: Ark Wembley, Lycee International, Preston Manor and Wembley High Technical College. At time of writing, it is thought that Ark Elvin will also be participating.   Onwards and upwards for Willesden & Brent Chess Club but more specifically for Chess in Brent!
Willesden & Brent Chess Club always welcomes new attendees no matter your playing strength, so if you do play chess or would like to learn do consider signing up! We also appreciate any volunteers to help with service delivery, so you can still be involved even if not a chess player!

'Artistic Autistic' Art Exhibition - Stonebridge, December 8th

 

'He's got the whole of Brent in his hands' - Muhammed Butt grabs more power

 

It  had been suggested that Cllr Muhammed Butt has taken on Cllr Shama Tatler's portfolio only temporarily until a new Cabinet member was appointed. However, in an updated Full Council Agenda yesterday it appears that this is permanent arrangement.

Cllr Butt has granted himself direct power over Regeneration, Planning and Growth in addition to Housing which he took over when Cllr Promise Knight went on maternity leave.

Given the number of controversial developments and planning decisions in Brent this might be seen as too much power and influence for one person. Cllr Butt hs been pro-active in early meetings with developers before applications get to Planning Committee but now has a formal role. What price the independence of Brent Planning Commitee?

Other changes were notified on the Agenda following the resignation from Committee positions of ex-Deputy Mayor Cllr Diana Collymore:

 

Full Council – 18 November 2024
 

Agenda Item 5 – Appointments to Committees & Outside Bodies
Standing Order 30(g) states that, if necessary, Full Council is required to agree appointments to committees and outside bodies. In addition to the changes listed Council is being asked to confirm the appointment of an Independent Person.

Such appointments are set out below:

Cabinet Membership
 

Council is asked to note that effective from 8 November 2024 the Leader of the Council has incorporated the role of Cabinet Member for Regeneration, Planning & Growth within his remit following Councillor Shama Tatler having stood down from her role as a Cabinet Member.
 

Committee Appointments:

1. Audit & Standards Advisory Committee and Audit & Standards Committee – Councillor Lesley Smith to replace Councillor Teo Benea as a full member.
 

2. Community & Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee – Councillor Teo Benea to replace Councillor Diana Collymore as a full member
 

3. Corporate Parenting Committee – Councillor Lesley Smith to replace Councillor Diana Collymore as a full member.
 

4. Resources & Public Realm Scrutiny Committee - Councillor Teo Benea to replace Councillor Diana Collymore as a substitute
member

Art Exhibition showcasing work by refugee artists, forced migrants and Brent Youth - Kensal Rise Library until November 18th

 

Cllr Ryan Hack set to become Brent's new Deputy Mayor

 Cllr Ryan Hack (Brondesbury Park) is set to become Deputy Mayor of Brent after a narrow victory over Cllr Narinder Singh Bajwa (Northwick Park).  The post became vacant after the resignation of  Cllr Bajwa's ward colleague, Cllr Diane Collymore,  following a finding that she had breached the Councillor Code of Conduct LINK.

Cllr Hack is an energetic activist instantly recognisable from the cap atop his tall figure when he is out campaigning.

 

Cllr Hack will be one of the youngest Mayors of Brent when he takes over from Cllr Tariq Dar next year. His entry on the Brent Labour website stresses his local background and activism:

Ryan Hack was born and bred in Brent, largely in the south of the Borough, and was raised by a wonderful single mother, always living in social housing, as he still does today. He has attended local state schools in Brent from Curzon Crescent Nursery in Roundwood to Claremont High School in Kenton. Ryan became the first person in his family to attend university and holds a master’s degree in American Politics from UCL. His life has been shaped by the impact of austerity on social housing and food banks. After witnessing his father beginning to use food banks last year, he became an official volunteer at the Trussell Trust Food Bank in Church End. As Co-Convenor of the Brent ‘Right to Food’ campaign, he is committed to reducing food and fuel poverty connected to a Cost-of-Living-Crisis by working closely with mutual aid groups and key stakeholders to establish a food justice strategy in our community. 

 

Ryan is also an active member of the Brent Friends of the Earth where he is committed to transforming our local parks and high streets, where he has conducted for the past six years a monthly neighbourhood clean-up by tidying up our underpasses, alleyways and public parks in Brent. As a dedicated local activist, he fundamentally believes that he has the life experience and the passion that one can bring to bear in representing our community.

Cllr Bajwa is an officer of the Sudbury Courts Residents' Association and director of Harrow based Skyspace Homes.

Lib Dems call on Brent Council to promote action to help protect tenants and leaseholders from unsafe and defective new builds

 Wembley Park developments from King's Drive

 

 The Liberal Democrats have tabled the following debate topic for Monday's Full Council Meeting (6pm Brent Civic Centre):

Guaranteeing new builds are safe and free of dangerous defects.

 

The number of new residential buildings in the borough has increased substantially in recent years. New buildings have changed the landscape of our borough, with the vast majority of large towers blocks around Wembley Stadium, Wembley Central and Alperton.

 

Brent’s Labour Cabinet, particularly the Leader and former Cabinet Member for Regeneration, often point to significant building in the borough as their proudest achievement – but they always fail to recognise its negative impact on existing residents in Brent and those who end up living in these buildings.

 

A worrying number of new buildings in Brent have significant defects. The standard of some new builds is shockingly poor – issues include dangerous, faulty lifts in high-rise blocks, water and waste leaks, unsafe balconies and outdoor communal spaces.

 

At the planning stage, developers are keen to highlight how seriously they take building standards and commit to building good quality, safe new homes. Sadly, somefail to do this and very little is done to hold them to account. Brent Council has little involvement after the planning stage and Council Officers are on record as effectively stating it is not the local authority’s responsibility to do anything if there are issues in new buildings once built.

 

All residents deserve to live in safe buildings, free of defects. When issues arise, developers, construction companies and housing management companies must do a better job of resolving these issues quickly to minimise the impact on residents.

 

Brent Council should have a much tougher line on developers who consistently fail residents by building unsafe buildings with significant defects and should be a leading voice in calling for better regulation and accountability from developers who are failing residents in their buildings.

 

This Council therefore resolves to:

*Create a borough-wide log of issues in new builds to get a better picture of the type of problems faced and urge the Labour Government, as part of their planning reforms, to enable decisions about whether to allow developers, who have issues in their existing stock, to continue building in our borough to be treated as a material planning consideration
 
*Urge the Labour Government to make it possible for local authorities to step in and act when issues in new buildings occur. Currently Brent’s Building Control Team are only responsible for ensuring that the construction of any new building is undertaken in line with building regulations. This needs to be extended to when building is completed and when issues present after the construction phase. Additional costs associated with increasing responsibilities for the Council should be permitted to come directly from CIL contributions made by developers.
 
*Create a dedicated helpline for tenants and leaseholders in new blocks across the borough, for them to be able to report issues so that the Council can assist in guaranteeing action from the relevant bodies and when necessary to support residents in raising complaints with the Housing Ombudsman.

 

Cllr Anton Georgiou

Alperton ward

When is complaint not a complaint? – Part 2 Is there a 'cover up culture' at Brent Council

Guest post by Philip Grant in a personal capacity

Opening paragraphs of Kim Wright’s email to me of 27 September 2024.

 

On 2 October, Martin published my guest post “Bobby Moore Bridge advertising lease – When is a complaint not a complaint?” The email of 27 September above from Brent’s Chief Executive had been sent in response to my request for her to conduct a Final Review of the formal complaint I had made on 30 August. I requested that as I was not satisfied with the initial reply of 9 September from a Corporate Director, which did not even mention the word “complaint”.

 

The grounds for my complaint were detailed in a guest post a month earlier, “Bobby Moore Bridge – formal complaint submitted over advertising lease award”. Briefly, they were that the Officer Report to the Cabinet meeting on 28 May, and the recommendation to make the award under Option B, were biased, and that the main author of that report had an undisclosed conflict of interests, which had only come to light months later.

 

 I wanted to understand the reasoning behind the Council’s decision not to treat my “concerns” as a formal complaint, which had apparently made before the first response to that complaint on 9 September, and what evidence it had been based on. I requested some details in an email to Kim Wright on 11 October (the text is in the comments section under the 2 October guest post). The Council decided to treat this as an FoI request, and I received the response to that on 11 November.

 

If the information provided is correct (and you would expect it to be, as the response came from a Senior Brent Council Lawyer), the decision (that my formal complaint was not a complaint) was made between 30 September and 3 October, after the Chief Executive had told me of the decision.

 

In reply to my questions about what information the decision had been based on, that the matter I’d formally complained about ‘had not affected me personally’, and ‘had not caused me an injustice’, the response in both cases was: ‘Please refer to council officer’s emails sent to you dated 27/9 and 3/10.’ In other words, if Brent’s Chief Executive said that I had not suffered any personal injustice as a result of actions by the Council, or one of its Officers, that was sufficient evidence on which to base a decision justifying her claim!

 

Extract from Brent’s FoI response of 11 November 2024.

 

The response had already told me that the (apparently retrospective!) decision had been made by ‘The Complaints and Casework Manager in conjunction with the Corporate Director, Law & Governance.’ My final request had been for ‘any documentary evidence relating to’ the decision, and ‘any communications, and any advice sought or given, in respect of it.’ I was informed that the only documents were Kim Wright’s email to me of 27 September and the Council’s Complaints Policy (a copy of which was attached). ‘No further communication is held.’

 

I have set this out in detail so that any reader who is interested can see how Brent Council operates. If it does not want to deal with a complaint, it says that it is not a complaint, without having to provide any evidence. It hopes that you will give up and go away, rather than admitting that something has been done wrongly, and trying to put it right! 

 

Anyone who knows me will realise that I am not put off by such tactics. This is the full text of an open email which I sent to Brent’s Chief Executive on 12 November:-

 

This is an Open Email

Dear Ms Wright,

 

Further to my email of 25 September, requesting a Stage 2 Final Review of my formal complaint to you of 30 August 2024 (see copy attached), you will have seen my Internal Review request (sent yesterday evening) to the FoI response of 11 November, to the questions I raised in my email to you of 11 October.

 

This is getting complicated, and is taking up quite a lot of Senior Council Officer time. The reason for that is that you and other Council Officers appear to be trying to "give me the run-around", hoping that I will give up, so that you do not have to deal with a perfectly reasonable and genuine complaint that I raised.

 

This latest letter, from Brent's Senior Constitutional & Governance Lawyer, exposes that there is no valid basis in evidence to show why Brent Council should not treat my complaint of 30 August as a complaint within the Council's Complaints Policy.

 

It appears from her FoI response that the "decision", 'that this issue does not fall within the scope of the Council's normal complaints procedure', set out in your email to me of 27 September, was not made until several days after you had sent that email, rather than before Minesh Patel's original email reply, in your absence on leave, of 9 September, which is what you had suggested.

 

And that "decision", for which there is no documentary evidence, appears to have been founded solely on a claim in your email of 27 September that: 'In this particular case you have not suffered a greater degree of personal injustice than anyone else affected by the matter raised.'

 

There was no supporting evidence for that claim. In fact, you already knew that the open tender process for the new advertising lease from 31 August 2024, seeking best value for the Council, with separate bids that would give the opportunity for Cabinet to properly consider the tile murals in the Bobby Moore Bridge subway, had been my suggestion in 2021, which had been accepted by your predecessor, Carolyn Downs.

 

The process was meant to be fair and transparent, and I had put in a great deal of effort to try to ensure that it was. My complaint (there can be no other valid description for it) was that the Report and recommendation, which Cabinet accepted, had been biased, and that its main author had an undisclosed conflict of interests. How could that not affect me personally, or give rise to an injustice, not just to the people who signed the petition which I presented on 28 May, but to me personally?

 

I would ask you again to carry out a Stage 2 Final Review of my formal complaint of 30 August, in the hope that this matter can be satisfactorily resolved without my having to refer it to the Local Government Ombudsman.

 

In answer to another FoI request, which I received on 14 October, I was told that the new advertising lease agreement between the Council and Quintain from 31 August 2024 had not yet been signed. If that is still the case, then my suggested remedy No.1 still applies (as does the second suggested remedy in my open letter of 30 August attached).

 

I look forward to receiving your reply. Best wishes,

 

Philip Grant.

 

The Leader Foreword from the Cabinet Bobby Moore Bridge advertising lease report, 28 May 2024.
(The “supplier” referred to is Quintain Ltd, through its Wembley Park subsidiary)

 

You will notice a reference to some other FoI requests I made, to which I have received some partial responses. Among the information gleaned on the Report to the 28 May Cabinet meeting is that the “Leader Forward” in it was not actually written by Cllr. Muhammed Butt himself (but by the Officer with the alleged undisclosed conflict of interests):

 

‘The foreword for the report was discussed by the Leader and Head of Communications, Conference and Events at a face-to-face meeting and the steer the Leader provided was included in the report and cleared by the Leader.’

 

My request for ‘copies of all email or other documentary contacts between the Contact Officers and the Leader … in the preparation of the Report’, was denied. The reason given was that:

 

‘complying with this request would exceed the cost limit set by the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Under Section 12 of the Act, public authorities are not required to comply with requests if the estimated time to locate, retrieve, and extract the requested information would take more than 18 hours.’

 

I doubt whether it would cost that much to provide the relevant emails etc between two people from 1 April and 14 May 2024, so I have asked for an Internal Review of that response!

 

There was an Appendix to the Report, headed "Advertising Lease Bid Evaluation", and I had also asked for ‘all the information in that Appendix 1 which was not exempt information.’ That request has also been refused:

 

‘The appendix includes commercially sensitive details related to an ongoing procurement process, as well as market-sensitive information. The public interest in keeping this information confidential outweighs the interest in disclosing it, as premature disclosure could harm the commercial interests of the bidders and the council.’

 

But the procurement process is not ongoing (it ended at the Cabinet meeting on 28 May!), and I had only requested the non-exempt information, not any commercially sensitive details. Again, I’ve asked for an Internal Review of this response. What is Brent Council trying to hide?

 

I feel that the treatment I have received in trying to pursue my complaint demonstrates a “cover-up culture” at Brent Council, which appears to go right to the top of the organisation. That is not a healthy state of affairs, especially for a public body paid for at our expense!

 

Philip Grant.