Dog units deployed at The Village School as governors meet to make academisation decision

The Village School in Kingsbury appear to have hired dog units which are on site now, allegedly to keep staff off the premises when tonight's governing body meeting makes a decision on whether to convert the school into an academy to form a Multi-Academy Trust with Woodfield School.

Brent North MP, Barry Gardiner, had previously urged the governing body to hold their decision making meeting in public.

Tonight's Wembley Central and Alperton Residents' Association meeting cancelled.

The meeting of the Wembley Central and Alperton Residents' Association that was to be held tonight LINK has been cancelled because of the cold and icy weather.

I will post details of the new date when I have them.

Brent Council answers Cllr Duffy's asbestos queries

Brent Council has responded further to Cllr Duffy's queries about the Paddington asbestos issue following the statement made at Monday's Full Council meeting:

The independent testing that was done confirmed that the level of asbestos at the site is below the scientific detection level at 0.001%. This is consistent with background levels for this substance in soil in urban areas. The asbestos that you refer to as having been removed in May was found in a total of 30kg of mixed soil that was taken for testing. This subsequently confirmed the presence of asbestos at that time. It would be very inaccurate and misleading to suggest the low levels that were subsequently recorded over the wider site had been engineered as a consequence of the removal of this 30kg of mixed soil in May.

The extended audit investigation that is underway is seeking to establish the pathway, if any, of the asbestos that has been detected in the soil at trace levels at Paddington Old Cemetery. This will also determine whether there were any operational failings with respect to the transfer of the soil from Carpender’s Park in 2015 and whether that is actually relevant.

Your reference to 60kg of asbestos having been found at Carpender’s Park must again be challenged. A total of 60kg of mixed soil was removed at that time. It was thought the soil might contain a piece of asbestos.

It would also be misleading and potentially very hurtful to suggest that customers have paid £3k to have their relatives buried in builders’ rubble at Paddington Old Cemetery. The re-opening of graves has been undertaken by specialist teams as a precaution until the facts of this matter have been firmly established. We are now clear that the level of asbestos in the soil at the graves is at background levels, similar to that likely to be found in any garden in Brent.

The council has committed to consulting with the school and the workers at the site and to concluding this matter in a measured and transparent way. Further decision making will be based on the facts that have been established and we will seek to implement pragmatic solutions that are agreed with the various stakeholders.

The council has no plans for compensating grave owners. Asbestos is a naturally-occurring substance which has been detected at the cemetery at levels that are below 0.001%, and which would not draw regulatory sanction or be of any interest to the HSE. Given the concentrations encountered are typical of urban background levels, the council will carefully consider what action is merited in this case and any other cases where the contamination is present at such low concentrations. This will be considered in the context of previous decisions where Local Authorities have, under their statutory powers (Part 2A of the Environmental Protection Act 1990) determined that other sites including those with much higher concentrations of asbestos do not meet the threshold for definition as Contaminated Land.

Mili Patel accuses Cllr Warren of abusing his position, fueling fear and intimidating nursery

If the last Full Brent Council meeting was a curtain raiser was the May local elections it looks as if things are likely to get pretty nasty.

Cllr Mili Patel, lead member for children and families, is not well known for speaking at council meetings, but used the presentation of a petition about the College Green open space to launch an excoriating attack on Cllr John Warren, leader of the Conservative group.

College Green is, after all,  in Warren's ward and he had made a speech in support of residents after Jim Hogan had spoken to the petition. Cllr Warren said that residents felt they had welcomed the College Green Nursery School into the open space but it now seemed to them that the nursery was stabbing them in the back by wanting to erect a  screen around the open space. He said residents hadn't wanted to set up a petition but the nursery had refused to engage with them about the issue. The petition had been a last resort. In a conciliatory tone he asked for Mili Patel to agree to a meeting between the scouts who use the open space, the nursery and the College Green Preservation Society to resolve the issue as residents felt that this was a potential land grab. Residents didn't want a 'Berlin Wall' around the space. He asked that in her response Cllr Patel constructively engage so that residents fears could be put to rest.

Cllr Patel responded by justifying the fence on safeguarding grounds  and claiming that the council had engaged with residents but they and the Preservation Society had not attended the last meeting about the positioning of the fence. The issue was now that of the screening off of the area.

She then went on:

However the agenda for Cllr Warren was to bring it full Council rather than having a meeting outside. Brent Labour takes its responsibility for safeguarding very seriously. We know from previous comments that you see safeguarding as 'crumbs'. You are taking the opportunity to take advantage of the impending local elections, perhaps you're running scared. I ask you to stop abusing your position and fuelling the residents with fear and also the College Green Nursery with intimidation and actually working with your community and get the group together.

More calmly she agreed with Warren that they could get the group together and organise a meeting.

A somewhat stunned Cllr Warren pointed out that he had never said he regarded safeguarding as 'crumbs.'

Cllr Patel by concentrating her attack on Cllr Warren failed to address the issues that Jim Hogan of College Green Preservation Society had made in a cogent speech. He said the open space had been there for more than 100 years and enjoyed by the scouts for 50 years. In 1995 they had supported a nursery (now College Green Nursery School) moving on to the open space to preserve it. A 6ft 8inch fence had been erected around the open space by the nursery and they then fixed a screen around the perimeter of the fence - residents had got them to remove the screen.

Hogan said residents were vehemently opposed to any attempt to screen off the space and wanted the council to make an agreement that this would not be done. Hogan said that a screen would run counter to the council's own guidelines and cited:

• reduction of the sight lines of pedestrians crossing the busy junction
• impact of the loss of outlook by residents
• traffic safety
• effect on pedestrians
• effect on the character of a protected area
• effect on open spaces and nature conservation

The 1913 legal Covenant  made by All Souls college should be respected.  In the past there were real greens at Willesden Green, Kensal green and even Harlesden Green, that had been fenced, screened off and built on.  He went on:

Let's not let that happen at College Green.  The nursery refused to meet residents to discuss their concerns. Let College Green Nursery School show some respect for their neighbours. Let us enjoy the view of the open space which has never been part of their property. Let's get an agreement signed by Brent Council preventing the screening of the open space. It won;t cost the council a penny. We don't want to have to start another petition after waking up to find a screen has been put up around the open space.

There are very few open spaces left in Brent and they are constantly under attack. Most of our front gardens have disappeared as a result of off-street parking. Our open space contributes to the well-being of local residents.

We want to walk around College Green to enjoy looking at the sun going down behind the magnificent oak tree planted by the scouts in 1967. We want to watch the crows, foxes etc.

What is the meaning of community? We don't want College Green hidden from our view or stolen from us. We want to enjoy it. A simple agreement between the scouts, the nursery school and Brent Council.

 Let's hope that the upcoming election does not stop this issue being resolved.

Brent Civic Centre's 'Vanity Road' cost £852,000 and an extra £2,777 so far to repair

Collapse of the 'Vanity Road'

Brent Council has admitted that the block paving road outside the Civic Centre  on Enginereers Way cost £852k which was funded through Section 106 money. The cost of repairs to date is £2,777. In a response to Paul Lorber the Council said it did not keep records on the cost of officer time dealing with individual matters such as this. They confirmed that no costs had been recovered from the contractors and other third parties for the defects and repairs.

Following up the issue Lorber said that the cost seemed high for such a short stretch of road and asked for the comparable cost in tarmac. In addition he asked if the Council intended to pursue the contractor for the cost of repairs.

Value for money? Brent councillors' attendance record

It is interesting to look at the attendance record of our councillors as recorded on the Brent Council website before last night's last last Full Council meeting of this administration.

Attendance is recorded as how many meetings each councillor was expected to attend, how many they actually attended, and how many they attended where they were not expected. The latter may be because the councillor has a particular interest in the topic or it is of relevance to their ward.

Expected attendance is as low as 3 (Full Council  meetings) for those councillors without any committee or other responsibility to 23 for the councillor with the most responsibilities.

The councillor with the highest attendance was Cllr Shafique Choudhary with 19 out of 19 expected attendances and 3 additional ones. Cllr Pat Harrison and Cllr Janice Long at 18/18 and 17/17 had 100% attendance with the latter also attending 2 additional meetings.

Bottom of the table were Cllr Sabina Khan with only 2 attendances out of an expected 9 and Cllr Aisha Hoda-Benn with 2 out of 8. This means that they pocketed over £5,000 for each meeting.

The councillor with the highest number of expected attendances at 23 was Cllr Mary Daly and it appears that workload was too much as she only managed to attend 12 meetings.

On the Tory side Cllr Reg Colwill had the best attendance at 11 out of 11 and 2 extra meetings and  Cllr Joel Davidson who made only 5 of the 12 meetings he was expected to attend.

Table of attendancee HERE

Duffy puts forward his budget ideas for Brent

By Cllr Duffy

Over the last 10 years we have seen major cuts in government support. To a degree it is amazing how the council have successfully delivered services on many fronts particularly in Adult Social Care (indeed all social care) against the backdrop of an increasing demand. In my opinion we have also delivered improving services in our housing department, by taking the service in-house. Also the MetPatrol plus scheme seems worth while and should be affective once it fully operational , both of these without cutting workers wages.

However in my opinion the administration has made many mistakes, their first mistake was the failure to increase the Council Tax in 2014/15 to ensure we kept up with inflation and mitigated some of the government cuts. The first budget I was involved in 15/16 was frozen, while at the same time we were arguing the government had cut our grant to excessively. It is strange that the Leader of the council argued against raising the council tax with one member close to the leader saying they had to make "sandwiches for children at their school" and those pupils would suffer (they must have never heard of pupil premium ) if we put up the Council Tax by 25p a week.It very strange the same member  who is now a member of the cabinet is putting it up 84p a week tonight and says nothing now...I could never understand that argument as it lack any financial or intelligent basis and was a serious mistake. 

The mistake cost Brent Council over £4 million pound of income, over the last three years. If the Labour group had a financial and intelligent debate instead of the leadership steamrolling  the decision through, the council would be in a better financial position for the last 2 years and  would have more freedom on the level of council Tax tonight.

The administration somehow fail to understand because of government cuts it is important we produce policies that produce VFM,looked for additionally and even partnerships and above all  smart management to improved service outcomes. The Labour administration fail to understand their role is to instruct officers on the priorities of our residents and not for officers to instruct the administration on their priorities.The Cabinet continue to believe if their policies fail they can always make the resident pay via the council Tax to fund their failures.

For instances the attempted to privatise the Environment Enforcement Service employment by employing Kingdom Securities and cutting wages by 40% cost the council over £100k. So to make the money back the cabinet have decided to punish the residents for their own mistake.They have introduced a £35 charge for Household Bulky collections. The charged should be dropped because in the medium and long -term it will increase street dumping and residents should not be punished for failed policies.

The other problem remains that the cabinet have no co-ordinated approach to Environmental Enforcement, a schools environmental awareness programme or a street cleaning protocol and just rely on increasing costs to the residents. These issue are of low cost and should be funded by partnerships.

Green bins another service that the cabinet continue to increase charges to cover-up their lack of management. I have always believed the rule is  when you raise an Environmental Tax's they were based on the polluter pays. However this administration have change they rule into Environmental tax's means the recycler pays .I believe by cutting the cost to £25 a year for a bin and increasing participation to above 45% would make it cost neutral.  

It is now clear they over the last two years we having been burying many residents in builders rubble ( including Asbestos) while charging them for burial in earth The cost of that unethical behaviour will cost up to £900k in lost revenue and the removal of the contaminated waste. As usual the cabinet have come with a scheme to cover the costs by putting up burial charges for residents when that are at their most vulnerable. Again the cabinet making the residents pay for their own mistakes , they did not transport the contaminated waste to  Paddington Cemetery the council did. The increase in  burial  charges should be dropped .I believe the costs for the remedial works in Paddington Cemetery can still be managed within excising budgets over a three year period, with increase revenue for new burials once the contaminated waste has been removed. The council should not increase charges until they can guarantee the internal processes within the Cemetery service have improved.

The Conservative party argue that we should cut the reserves, in my view the reserves should stay and they are should be earmarked for the upgrading of fire prevention council housing blocks. Its approx.8 months since Grenfell fire disaster and all councillors should remember the council  took the decision that the cost would not fall on the Housing Revenue Account alone and would fall on the general rates , if the government refused to pay for the improvements .

Also remembering after the fallout from Grenfell senior politicians from all political parties said they have learn the lessons and communities like Grenfell  will not be ignored .Therefore it is important that the cabinet are not allowed to raid South Kilburn CIL which is due to the area following the regeneration works .This money was allocated to Kilburn because the residents have lived in a building site over the last few years  and is their money .The Kilburn CIL should not be used by the cabinet to cover up their inability to get additional [funding] and sponsorship and should be earmarked for Kilburn or other areas of deprivation. I hope the other 2 Kilburn councillors will argue for this and show empathy and solidarity with the residents of Kilburn and not allow much needed resources to be robbed from those in most need.

I will be voting for the 3.99% rise,  as I remain hopeful the Labour group will call the cabinet to account and stop them passing the costs of their failure onto the council taxpayer. 

Mayor of Brent to make statement on cemetery asbestos tonight

In response to Cllr Duffy's request Cllr Bhagwani Chohan, the Mayor of Brent, will make a statement on the Paddington Cemetery issue at tonight's Full Council Meeting. The statement will be made under Matters Arising from the Minutes and is expected early in the meeting around 7.10-7.15pm.

Cllr Chohan has asked officers to update him on any issues raised by Duffy's request.