Residents summonsed to Magistrates Court Tuesday for non-payment of Council Tax

Brent Council has summonsed residents to appear at Willesden Magistrates Court on Tuesday August 19th for non-payment of Council Tax.


Many hard-pressed households now expected to pay Council Tax are already finding it hard to pay rent and buy food for the family. They are likely to be charged £90 court costs on top of their arrears.

In November last year Brent Council leader Cllr Muhammed Butt was challenged by demonstrators outside Willesden Magistrates Court when the first of over 3,000 summonsed for non-payment  were due to appear LINK

A demonstration  will take place on Tuesday from 9.30am at Willesden Magistrates Court, 448 High Road, NW10 2DZ (260, 266, 297 bus or Neasden/Dollis Hill on Jubilee line)

No Minutes for Wednesday's Planning Committee Meeting

The Agenda for the Planning Committee due to be held on Wednesday August 20th states that the Minutes of the previous meeting are not available and will be presented at the next meeting.

The previous meeting on July 16th heard the controversial Kensal Rise Library application and some weighty legal advice was given by officers.

It is very unusual for Minutes not to be available more than one month after a meeting.  Perhaps this underlines the case for the recording of all Brent council meetings.

Missing or delayed Minutes for a school governing body would be an issue of grave concern to Ofsted inspectors or auditors.

Too much concealed in Copland plans to make a judgement

The Brent Cabinet on August 26th will receive an update on plans for a new school on the Copland site following its takeover by Ark Academies.  Frustratingly, many of the references in the report to detail in appendices are unavailable due to the following statement:

Note for publication ('below the line')
Appendices 2 (EFA option plan), 3 (Brent option plan) and 4, 4A and 4B (commercial matters) are Not for Publication.

The EFA Option (Appendix 2) is the plan for a new school from the Education Funding Agency and Appendix 3 is Brent Council's own plan.

The fact that they are confidential means that backbench Labour and opposition councillors are unable to compare the plans and reach an informed view, and the same goes for local residents, the local press and this blogger.

The report states that a new school could be provided within the current school's footprint but claims, 'this could result in a sub-optimal solution and will entail considerable disruption to the learning environment during the two year construction period'.

It adds, 'The EFA's objectives have firmly focused solely on delivering a new school at minimal development costs, whereas Brent officers have been keen to ensure delivery of the Wembley Area Action Plan and a sustainable locally well integrated new school design with connectivity to the local community'.

Officers claim that the EFA design option (which we are not allowed to see) is inferior to the Brent Council option (which we are not allowed to see) because it ignores the 'financial benefits of an improved regeneration area'.

The Brent design would mean loss of playing field space which would require the approval of the Secretary of State and relocating a public right of way that currently dissects the school playing fields.

The report says that the EFA option would result in a reduction of redevelopment/regeneration land at the High Road and claims that the Brent option would give the benefit of a..

...new and expanded (additional one form of entry) secondary school and an expanded primary school (Elsley will double in size to 4 form entry) along with new homes (including affordable housing) retail, commercial and community floor space in line with the ambitions of the Wembley area Action Plan. The transactions may generate a capital receipt that will help offset the costs of this proposals as outline in appendix 4 (which we are not allowed to see), some of which will be incurred irrespective of whether the freehold transfer proceeds or not.

A new school building is certainly required at Copland, and has been for at least a decade,  and so of course is affordable housing. However the link with commercial development, office and retail along the High Road, leaves me a little uneasy. Is the commercial tail wagging the educational dog?


Full report on Cabinet Agenda HERE

Kensal Rise Fake Email Investigation: Brent Council knows about progress but haven't told the public

Regular readers will remember that the Mystery of the Fake E-mails has not been solved. Muhammed Butt, leader of Brent Council,  having avidly pursued the matter early on seems to have lost his appetite for an answer to the question of who wrote the fake emails and to whose benefit? 

The emails were written in support of an earlier planning application for the redevelopment of Kensal Rise Library. Despite the investigation not being completed Brent Planning Committee approved the  recent planning application by the developer Andrew Gillick.

Now a Freedom of Information request has established that Simon Lane, Head of Audit and Investigations Team at Brent Council was last updated by Brent Police on the investigation on July 16th 2014.

Brent Council had no information on when the investigation was likely to be completed.

Surely it is of the utmost public interest for Brent Council  and Brent police to pursue this matter. An attempt was made to subvert the Council's planning process and in the course of this the identities of Brent citizens were stolen.

Rather than a Miss Marple mystery we now seem to have a rerun of the Hancock classic,The Last Page:

Proposed Selective Landlord Licensing Scheme stigmatises the poor and could lead to evictions

The Brent Council Executive on August 26th will be asked to approve a Selective Landlord Licensing Scheme in the private rented sector LINK  covering Harlesden, Wembley Central and Willesden Green wards. The charge to landlords will be £350 for the 5 year licensing period.

Here Scott Bartle of Brent Green Party gives a personal view on the proposals:

I thoroughly disagree with Brent Council’s proposed  Selective Landlord Licensing  Scheme. The basic premise is that selective licensing will reduce anti-social behaviour as opposed to the version Brighton and Hove Council LINK wishes to introduce which suggests that selective licensing will help tenants with rogue landlords.

Brent Council state that selective licensing will affect people from the lowest socio-economic demographics living in the lowest cost accommodation.

They are therefore in effect disparaging an entire group of people as trouble makers and are stigmatising people. 

In Reference Section 7 (pg 55) of the responses they acknowledge that the examples they used as 'anti-social behaviour' are covered by existing laws and that selective licensing will not have any impact.

In Reference Section 9 (page 56) it states that:

The council full accepts that tenants rather than landlords are responsible for anti-social behaviour.

References 7 & 9 clearly go against the core premise for introduction of this scheme. In Reference Section 15 the council acknowledges that due to austerity they have resource constraints and will have difficulty implementing the policy.

After reading the rest of the responses I'm convinced that this is part of the gentrification / social cleansing agenda and also a way to get money from people that will not be subject to the garden tax. They even state on the Equalities Impact section (pg117) that landlords could choose to withdraw from the sector leading to evictions with the risk  particularly pronounced for the people that this policy is specifically targeting

Housing groups call urgent meeting with Brent councilors and Brent Community Housing

Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group, Brent Housing Action, Housing 4 All, London Radical Housing Network, Residents of South Kilburn and Barham Park Estates and Unite Community have  jointly convened a meeting about housing in Brent.

They have invited Kilburn councillor Rita Conneely and lead member for Regeneration and Housing Cllr Margaret McLellan to the meeting along with Brent Community Housing staff.

A particular focus will be recent developments on the South Kilburn and Barham Park estates.

The meeting will take place between 11am and 1pm at CASA LATINA, PRIORY HOUSE, 10 KINGSGATE PLACE, NW6 4TA on Wednesday 13th August.

BACKGROUND

Barham Park LINK

South Kilburn  LINK

How should the community respond to 'Operation Skybreaker'? Brent Against Racism meeting tomorrow

Notice from Brent Against Racism Campaign (BARC)

Brent is one of 5 London boroughs currently being targeted in a new Home Office immigration operation, called Operation Skybreaker. This operation will see aggressive and heavy-handed raids on homes and businesses aimed at driving migrants out of the country. It is likely to result in racial profiling (i.e., stopping anyone who looks like they might be a migrant) and a number of “fishing raids” (random raids not based on specific intelligence).

Brent Anti-Racism Campaign will host a meeting with guests from RAMFEL (Refugee and Migrant Forum of Essex and London) and the Anti Raids Network to discuss the community response to this. 

Please join us on Wednesday 13 August, 7pm at Brent Trades Hall (Apollo Club), 375 High Road, London NW10 2JR (next to Willesden bus garage, 5 mins from Dollis Hill tube)

More info from brentantiracismcampaign@gmail.com or info@ramfel.org.uk. Facebook: Brent Anti Racism Campaign Twitter: @BrentAntiRacism

Peace for Palestine: Greens say 'Stop Arming Israel'