£267,983 CIL grant to Preston Community Library for 'fitting out'

Brent Cabinet last night approved the granting of a larger than usual Neighbourhood Community Infrastructure Levy (NCIL) grant of £267,983 for the fitting out of Preston Community Library.

The community library is housed in the building which used to be the council run Preston Library, closed by a former Labour administration as part of the so-called 'Libraries Transformation Project'. After closure the building became an annexe to Preston Park Primary School but is no longer needed by the school.

Under the management of the volunteers in the Preston Community Library campaign, the building has become a well-used community hub with a cinema and classes as well as an adult and children's lending library.

The site is ear-marked for redevelopment so the grant is subject to receipt of formal approval for the 'wider development' of the site which would include room for the community library.  Brent Council's Property Team would be responsible for construction and Preston Community Library for internal fixtures and fittings.

Former councillor James Powney, architect of the Libraries Transformation Project,  has signalled his opposition to the deal, stating on his blog LINK,  'I think this raises a number of legal issues and I have written to the officers to that effect.'

Possible fraud over Queens Parade consultation responses checked out by Brent Council

Mapping consultation respondents

Guest blog by Scott Bartle, Secretary of Brent Green Party

As detailed in Wembley Matters last week  LINK the proposal to demolish Queens Parade is due for a decision to be heard on Wednesday March 14^th. The developers seek to replace the 12 units that have been used as business incubators with a staggered 8 story building comprising of 117 student accommodation units and just 5 commercial units. The Queens Parade (with the support of Mean While CIC) has offering opportunities to more than 25 start-up businesses, 6 charities and voluntary organisations creating job opportunities and apprenticeships for 67 people and enabling 47 people to test their products and ideas from a visible space. It has hosted 242 public events, including hosting Green Party meetings. 

Residents in Electric house are understandably concerned about the environmental impact a development of this size will have upon natural light to their properties. One resident reports a projected drop in light from 12.17 to 0.91 citing a Right to Light protected under common law, adverse possession and the Prescription Act 1832. Although The Right to Light has an arbitrary 20 year time limit placed on its acquirement and Electric House is a new build, this does not meant that those elected to represent residents and make planning decisions should not respect it anyway. What might also be of concern to residents is the loss of so many commercial units on our high street, by more than half and the opportunities for small business that would have been presented. Particularly given Brent has a third of people living in poverty, almost a third of people earning less than the London living wage and above average rates of unemployment (link). 

The officers’ report recommended approval based upon ’50 letters in support of the development’, which is a rarity for a development to muster. In fact, the ‘letters of support’ on the online system consists of the same copy/pasted statement attributed to neighbours within Yates Court, 228 Willesden Lane, NW2 5SJ and another copy/pasted statement attributed to multiple house numbers within Walm lane, each ending with a statement beginning ‘as a local businessman in Willesden Lane’. The odds are of course pretty slim that each person who has registered support from addresses in Walm lane is actually a ‘local businessman’. 

I requested Amar Dave (Head of Brent Regeneration) to investigate as I’m aware there are many people who have been convicted of various fraud offences for writing fictitious letters to a council in support of planning applications. Amar stated that they take allegations of fraud seriously so asked Alice Lester (Head of Planning) to investigate. Amar reported that Alice created a map of where the letters originated (see image above) and checked the names of some of the supporters from residential properties and they were listed as the addresses given. They said it's not possible to discount a ‘campaign’, but one consisting of ‘local businessman’ in support of less commercial space and student accommodation seems a bit strange to me. 

Thoughts from readers?

 Officers' Report
Application on Planning Portal

Brent Easter Egg Hunt March 24th St Rapahel's Children Centre

New cemetery asbestos public meeting

The Friends of Paddington Cemetery have arranged a new public meeting on Wednesday evening (March 15th)  at the Kilburn Housing Co-op, Kilburn Square, NW6 at 6.45pm.

The meeting will  deal with issues around the discovery of asbestos in the cemetery, how it arrived there and whether Brent Council responded in a transparent way.

Unlike the last meeting, where the chair was Amar Dave, head of Brent Regeneration, this meeting will have an independent chair.

Cllr Duffy, who has been pursuing the issue for months,  has requested that at least one of the panel from the previous meeting takes part, and is also asking for a trade union representative to be present.

Why is Brent Council fixing a South Kilburn council property rent at 'up to' 80% of the market rent?

Click on image to enlarge

I've been banging on about the meaninglessness of  'affordable housing' when used by the planning officers in the 'London Borough of Brent and Quintain' for some time and you're probably bored with it.

However, the term is used again in LocataHome, the free sheet of council and housing association homers available in five West London boroughs. Locata guidance says:

At the moment Housing Associations rent most of their homes out at Social Rents. Housing Associations will now be allowed to offer some tenancies at higher rents which could be up to 80% of a market rent. This is called “Affordable Rent”. 

Housing Associations will be able to charge the “Affordable Rent” on new build homes and will also be allowed to let some of their existing properties to new tenants at Affordable Rents. Tenants will still be able to claim housing benefit to help with their rent.

The 2 bedroomed flat advertised in the March 12 edition of LocataHomes (No 529) advertises a two bedroomed flat in Gorefield House, South Kilburn at a weekly rent of  £249.23 per week and adds 'Only applicants in employment should bid for this property.' The landlord is NOT a Housing Association - it is Brent Council. It is NOT new build.

As you can see in the above advertisement a similar property at social rent is just under £100 cheaper.

Brent's Draft Housing Strategy of 2017 had an appendix LINK which looked at what people in Brent could afford.  This table shows the gross income required to pay rent at a level of 40% of income.

So at 80% of market rent for a 2 bedroom flat the family would require an income of £54,971 per year. Incidentally 'up to 80%' in rent terms is the reverse of the 'up to' used for broadband speeds. For housing 80% is most likely while the broadband speed is rarely, if ever, reached!

The London Mayor is quoted in the draft strategy document as giving these figures for the London Affordable Rent and you will see that for a 2 bedroomed property is £152.73, around the same level as the Leighton Gardens flat above.

So I have three questions for Brent Council:

Why are you advertising council housing property on South Kilburn at a rent which does not meet the Mayor's affordability criterion and clearly envisages the tenant has an income well above the Brent median income?

On what basis are you charging a so-called 'affordable rent' for a property which is not new build and where you are the landlord?

What Council policy allows you to stipulate that the prospective tenant must be in employment?

Caroline Lucas challenged the whole concept of 'affordable' on Channel 4 News last night:

"The idea that affordable should mean 80% of market rent is nothing less than obscene."

Green MP Caroline Lucas gives her view on what she calls the UK's “housing crisis”. pic.twitter.com/D3KfBVfoim

— Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) March 6, 2018

Green Party champions children's right to access to nature

Since I became ill about a year ago I have suspended my work with primary school pupils engaging with nature in Fryent Country Park LINK but was very pleased when the Green Party passed a motion at last weekend's conference asserting children's right to access to nature.

I have seen for myself how children can become enthralled by contact with nature. I remember one child emerging from the woodland and gazing over the meadows and exclaiming, 'This is like Paradise!'  On another occasion a child was chatting happlily to me as we walked through a meadow and a teacher ran up to ask, 'Was she talking to you?' I replied that we had been having a chat about all the things she had seen. The teacher drew me aside later and told me that the child was an elective mute and had never spoken to an adult in school. 

Natalie Bennett, former leader of the Green Party, moved the motion at Conference and has written about it in the Ecologist LINK. This is part of what she had to say.  I think it fits in very well with the move I have been supporting over recent weeks to make London a National Park City.

--> When I was a small child, five or so, I first went blackberrying in Australia. At the same time, I was taught to find yabbies (freshwater crayfish) in the streams around my grandparents’ house in a national park near Sydney with a piece of meat tied on a string. (A few years later all the yabbies’ disappeared – pesticides, it was said.)

I also collected the shed shells of cicadas, and learnt about metamorphosis. It was also where I learnt to use a crosscut saw, built childish dams across a muddy stream, and to shower under a waterfall.
These are the kinds of experiences that the Texas City of Austin - perhaps a politically unlikely location - has decided should be the right of every child. In 2016, its council, with not a Green Party member on it, unanimously adopted a Children’s Outdoor Bill of Rights, guaranteeing its young people the right to many of those activities I so enjoyed as a child.

We’re increasingly understanding that these activities aren’t just fun, aren’t just educational, but are essential for human wellbeing – will develop skills, knowledge and expectations that will take people through a lifetime of better health and wellbeing.

And of course they’ll prepare people for physical activities – develop the practical skills that equip people to be active in a society where many are suffering from obesity, diabetes and other health issues arising from inactivity.

Lack of opportunities and exercise of these activities has been identified as “Nature Deficit Disorder”. It’s something that many children now suffer from. 

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature has prepared a major report on children’s need for access to nature, pointing out that as well as the health, wellbeing and skills that time spent in nature provides, its essential that if we are to care for our natural world in the future, coming generations have knowledge of and love for it.

Acknowledging this research, and reality, Green Party members before its spring conference, held in Bournemouth, made a motion on the issue their top policy priority for conference.
In it the party backed the call for access to nature to be recognised as a human right, operating at the international level, but also acknowledged that this is something that cities and local government can implement at a local level.

In many parts of the country Green councillors are already fighting to save local parks and green spaces, from the Sefton Park Meadows and Rimrose Valley Park, to Sunderland and Stoneham.

But the framework of a children’s right to nature, something that’s particularly likely to be denied to those in the poorest communities, that acknowledges also that barriers can be lack of knowledge and opportunity as well as lack of access, is an important additional tool, that you can expect to see wielded for the benefit of our children, and our world.

Strike planned at Leopold Primary School over bullying allegations

National Education Union (NEU) members at Leopold Primary School in Brent have voted by a clear margin to take strike action over alleged bullying and harassment by the Headteacher. The first strike action is scheduled for 20^th to 22^nd March.

Last Autumn 13 members of staff, the majority NEU member,  submitted formal grievances against the Head. An independent investigator was appointed who submitted his report to the Governing Body and the London Borough of Brent in December. 

 The NEU claim that the complainants have still not been informed of the outcome of the investigation, in clear breach of the Grievance Procedure. Meanwhile they allege that several of those members have been subject to disciplinary allegations, at the instigation of the Headteacher.

The NEU have asked that the Head be suspended on full pay, and have no involvement in any disciplinary procedures until the issues arising from the grievances have been resolved. The NEU say that Brent  Council and the Governing Body have failed to respond.

Phil Pardoe NEU Regional officer said:

This is outrageous. The allegations are very serious. It is completely unacceptable for the Governors and Brent to sit on the report, and refuse to take any action to protect our members. We still hope to find a negotiated solution, but our members have reluctantly decided that they have no option but to take strike action in the face of the unacceptable behaviour of the Head and the seeming indifference of the Governors and Brent. 

Queens Parade planning application to be heard on March 14th

Queen's Parade now

Proposed new student accommodation building

New building in townscape

A planning application that will transform the Walm Lane, Willesden Lane and High Road junction in Willesden Green comes up for decision by Brent Planning Committee on Wednesday March 14th.

Planning Officers recommend granting of planning permission for 1-12 Queens Parade, Walm Lane, for demolition of the existing one storey shopping parade and its replacement by a part 6, 7 and 8 storey building housing 117 student accommodation units with 5 retail units on the ground floor and a basement retail warehouse space.

The shops are currently let on a 'meanwhile' basis pending redevelopment.

The officers' report LINK states:

-->

The key planning issues for Members to consider are set out below. Members will need to balance all of the planning issues and the objectives of relevant planning policies when making a decision on the application:

Principle of use: There is no objection in principle to the redevelopment of the site to provide student accommodation and five retail units. The site is considered to accord with Council policy in relation to the provision of student accommodation due to its location within a town centre and good transport links. The submission demonstrates a need for the student accommodation in line with Brent and London Plan policy. The retail units would contribute to the viability and vitality of the Willesden Town Centre. The principle of development is therefore considered to be acceptable.

Representations received: Objections were received from 20 local residents and one Councillor raising concerns regarding the loss of the retail units; harm to the high street; suitability of student accommodation at the site; parking/servicing, overdevelopment; impact on conservation the area and impact on neighbouring amenity. In addition to this 50 letters of support were received from local residents who stated that the existing buildings do not make best use of the site; the proposal will boost the local economy; the new units will improve the town centre; and the height is considered to be suitable.

Demolition of existing building: There is no objection in principle to the demolition of the existing retail units. While they are in a Conservation Area, the existing buildings do not share the distinctive characteristics which define the Willesden Green Conservation Area. The Site Specific Allocation encourages redevelopment of the site with a more intensive and better use of land. The loss of these buildings is considered to accord with policy provided the replacement building is of an acceptable design.

Character and Appearance: The proposal is considered to have a high quality design that has regard to the character of its surroundings including the conservation area and to not inappropriately challenge or dominate surrounding development.

Impact on Neighbouring Amenity: The development has been assessed against loss of light and sense of enclosure on all neighbouring properties. It has been found that the relationship between the proposed development and all surrounding properties is considered to be acceptable, according with relevant Brent standards and BRE guidance.

Parking & Servicing: It is considered that the use of a ‘permit free’ agreement secured by condition would mitigate against parking concerns in the area. It is considered that the proposed servicing arrangements would be suitable for the site and would not materially harm the surrounding area.