10 years on a planning application for Welsh Harp site returns

Existing

Planned

Ten years ago both Barnet Council and Brent Council turned down applications to build housing on respectively the Woodfield Nursery site on Cool Oak Lane and the Greenhouse Garden Centre in Birchen Grove. Both sites have the same owner.

Now a planning application has been lodged by Taylor Wimpey to demolish the greenhouses at Woodfield Nursery and build 41 houses and flats plus a reprovided landscape contractor premises.

The new plans are for 27 houses at market rates (including 11 four bedrooms), 2 houses 2 bedrooms) and 8 flats at social rent, and 2 houses and 2 flats at intermediate rates.

Barnet Council turned down the last application on the following grounds:

 1. Inappropriate development on Metropolitan Open Land with no special circumstances cited for development.
2. Loss of existing employment on the site.
3. Non-compliant flood risk assessment.
4. Insufficient information on the impact of the proposed development on biodiversity and nature conservation.
5. Insufficient information on whether the development would provide future occupiers with adequate levels of amenity, particularly with regard to the proximity of the Hendon Rifle Club.
6. Insufficient information of the development's impact on the amenity value of trees, including those protected by Tree Preservation Orders.
7. No energy strategy or assessment of the energy demands and carbon dioxide emissions of the development submitted with the application.
8. No formal undertaking in the application to enter into a travel and traffic management plan.

Some of those issues remain although employment is retained in the new application for the existing landscape contractor business and there is a new Arboricultural Report which aims to preserve more trees and mitigate any loss LINK.  The Ecological Report overall suggests little ecological impact on the site itself LINK but merits close examination.  I can see no travel and traffic management plan on the document list - pleas email me a link if you can see one.

So far there are no comments on the Barnet Planning Portal for this application but areas of consideration include.

Woodfield Nursery is an an area of Metropolitan Open Land and development would be contrary to the Barnet Unitary Development Plan.

The site is in an area of an SSSI (Site of Special Scientific Interest)

Development would disturb bird and wildlife on the site and in its proximity.

Development of 41 dwellings would contribute to traffic on what was originally a winding country lane which has single file traffic over Cool Oak Bridge to the new West Hendon development.

Increased traffic on the lane would increase the possibility of accidents to  pupils at the nearby Woodfield Special School who arrive by school buses and taxis.

There is  no public transport in the immediate area.

The Barnet-Brent Welsh Harp sited has already suffered from the West Hendon development on the opposite bank and further development would set a precedent for more applications to develop this rare and much valued open space, including perhaps the Birchen Grove Garden Centre site. (I have checked the Brent Planning Portal and no application has been lodged so far.)

A significant comment is made by Armstrong Rigg Planning on behalf of their client Taylor Wimpey:

Pre-application discussions with the Council have unfortunately proven unhelpful and inconclusivewith officer’s initial positive stance towards the development of the site having been replaced with one that is diametrically opposed. This has been extremely frustrating for the applicants and has placed them in a somewhat difficult position, and one we as their advisors have never experienced before. Having sought legal advice, they feel that they have no option but to proceed with the submission of a planning application, and an appeal thereafter, if necessary, in order to obtain a conclusive response.

Their document goes into detail on this conflict with planning officers. LINK 
 
You can comment on the application HERE

All the documents can be accessed HERE

Sign this petition for a Restorative Compensation Scheme for the Windrush Scandal victims

Patrick Vernon has contacted me to ask that I publicise his petition calling on on the Home Secretary to adopt a restorative compensation plan for the victims of the Tories' Hostile Environment regime.

The petition can be signed HERE

To: The Rt Hon Priti Patel MP The Secretary of State for the Home Department

Restorative Compensation Scheme for Windrush Scandal

To ensure the Windrush Compensation Scheme reflects the principles of restorative justice and fairness to the victims of the Windrush and repair the harm of the hostile environment and impacts on the African and Caribbean communities and others from the Commonwealth. We want the Home Secretary to adopt a 10 point plan to write the wrongs of the Windrush Scandal. MPs have the opportunity to make amendments to the Windrush Compensation Bill at the Second Reading of the bill in February

Why is this important?

As we approach the 2nd anniversary of the Windrush Scandal in April 2020 we must remember the public support where over 180,000 people signed my UK government petition and 100,000 38 Degree members who also signed petition demanding to establish an amnesty for anyone who was a minor that came to Britain between 1948 to 1973. The media stories of the victims sharing experiences of the hostile environment and the lobbying of Caribbean diplomats and race equality and migrant charities all contributed to a perfect storm to force the government not only to apologise but to publicly humiliated at an international level by causing one of the biggest human right abuses of British citizens since WW2.

In April 2019 the government launched the Windrush Compensation Scheme. There are many thousands of people that have still not come forward to resolve their status as there is still lack of trust with the Home Office and public bodies who implement the hostile environment policy and procedures. In addition, many of the survivors are frustrated with the implementation of the Compensation Scheme. In the Big Issue in 2019 I interviewed several survivors to share their experiences:

Michael Braithwaite who was born in Trinidad but lived in Barbados but came to Britain in 1961. After working for over 15 years as a teaching assistant in a local school in Islington he lost his job as a result of the scandal. After 12 months since the Windrush Scandal he is still traumatised, but he is now sharing his experience at through media interviews, community and trade union events to campaign for justice.

Michael states:

‘Over the last two years my life has been turned upside down . The mental stress and turmoil that caused me I’ll health still impact my daily life. The government compensation scheme has not been fairly documented , it was constructed behind closed doors, no public input and no one to represent the Windrush victims.’

Stephanie O ‘Connor and her siblings are still coming to terms as result of the death of their mother Sarah O’Connor who at the age of 57 died of hypertension in September 2018 as result of the stress involved in losing her job and facing bankruptcy. Sarah came to Britain in 1967 as a six-year-old and worked for most of her life till losing her job in 2017. 

Stephanie states:

‘The Windrush scandal impacted my mum, Sarah not only on her health but emotionally. Before the scandal was exposed, she felt on her own and like she had done something wrong despite contributing to the country for many years. For my mum the compensation scheme has come too late and I’m so disappointed that it is still taking this long for people to get what is owed to them. I just hope that people get compensated fairly for everything that they have been through. This scandal has ruined people’s lives and in today’s world it is terrible that we have allowed that to happen to this extent.’

We now need MPs to lobby Priti Patel MP when it comes to the 2nd Reading of the Windrush Compensation Bill in Parliament in February to make the following amendments for restorative justice and fairness below for proper compensation to the survivors of the Windrush Scandal.

1.The Compensation Scheme needs to be managed by another government department or independent body along the principles of restorative justice and fairness as the Home office is still implementing the Hostile which is a conflict of interest which is clearly inherently racist in nature and breaches the Public Sector Equality Duty.
2. The Home office needs to create immediately easy read and make accessible Windrush Compensation forms application forms for survivors of the Windrush Scandal and community organisations in line with best practice under the Equality Act. The current forms act as deterrent to the vulnerable and family members who are traumatised. In addition, the scheme should not discriminate with anyone who has a criminal record.
3. Home Office to fund community groups, faith and small civil society organisations to support ongoing or planned outreach and advice work intended to help people affected by the Windrush crisis.
4 Anyone that has been directly affected by the Windrush Scandal should have an automatic payment of £10,000 without proving any documentary evidence of hurt or financial loss
5.Remove all tariff and caps on all compensation claims and that all claims to receive interest payment as results of costs incurred for immigration and legal fees on the same basis as PPI awarded by banks for mis-selling financial products.
6. All offer letters for compensation should contain have a full apology recognising the failure of the Home Office treatment as a result of the scandal.
7. It has been estimated that over 500,000 individuals were given wrong official advice regarding naturalisation and gaining British citizenship since the creation of the 1971 Immigration Act. The government needs to issue a formal apology and to repay back with an interest the costs incurred to legal and immigration fees.
8. The government should fund a Windrush Endowment Fund of at least £1 billion to support the preservation and legacy of the Windrush Generation and the history migration. The Fund Provide could provide core funding to organisations like Black Cultural Archives.
9.The current Windrush Day Grants and Memorial Committee which is sponsored by the government department DCLG needs to be an independent organisation like the Holocaust Memorial Education Trust. A £5million to support Windrush Day activities, develop learning resources for schools and to influence the national curriculum.
10. We require a nationally funded health and wellbeing programme programme on post traumatic impact of the hostile environment on the Windrush Generation and their descendant for culturally relevant and specific organisations who can provide range of therapeutic, art therapy and counselling services.

See also this discussion with Amelia Gentleman taling to Patrick Vernon - Windrush: The Scandal Isn't Over.  LINK

Brent Central CLP backs Starmer for Labour Leader and Butler for Deputy

When I was campaigning in the Barnhill by-election a resident told me confidently that Momentum had taken over Brent Council.  I chuckled.

I respect many of the local activists in Brent but they are nowhere near taking over Brent Council which remains a stronghold of Labour managerialists. Although Brent Momentum had mobilised to campaign for Gaynor Lloyd  in Barnhill the other candidate was Muhammed Butt's brother-in-law. Mo Butt joined Momentum not out of an ideological commitment to socialism but in order to keep an eye on his potential challengers. He is by no means a Momentum activist- indeed someone suggested the group rename itself Mentum in order to remove Mo.

Last night Brent CLP met to nominate their candidates for the Labour leadership and narrowly nominated Keir Starmer for the Labour leadership rather than Rebecca Long-Bailey the Momentum supported candidate, and loyally supported Brent Central MP Dawn Butler for the deputy leadership rather than Richard Burgon.

Dawn Butler made her pitch for the deputy leadership on Novara TV LINK:



Meanwhile some Green Party members were quite impressed by Rebecca Long-Bailey's pitch on climate change

Brent Cabinet fails to take scrutiny seriously

Interventions by Cllr Neil Nerva and Cllr Roxanne Mashari at the Brent Resources and Public Realm Scrutiny Committee on Wednesday centred on the failure of the Cabinet to properly consider the recommendations made by the Committee and its Task Groups.

An example was the recent Air Quality report where the Cabinet merely 'noted' its recommendations. This could mean that officers go away and make detailed action plans or just that the recommendations are vaguely borne in mind or put on the back burner.

The most telling document presented at the Committee was the 'Tracker' which records the Executive/Cabinet response to the two Scrutiny Committees' recommendations. Out of 18 reports only one - the Air Quality Report has a response, and that was just to 'note'.

Click bottom right for full page:

Cllr Mashari questioning officers on the latest Council Assets report complained that there was less information in the latest reports than previous ones that had been referred back as inadequate. She was told that information had been withheld because of 'commercial considerations.'

Cllr Nerva demanded proper responses based on good practice. The information below may help both councillors in their demand for proper process. However well Scrutiny Committees do their work they are of little use if then ignored by the Cabinet.

The Centre for Public Scrutiny publishes a Good Scrutiny Guide LINK 

1.2.1 Powers in relation to councils: in general,
1.2.1.1. Scrutiny can:

• Require information from the council. Councillors sitting on scrutiny committees have broad information access rights which means that they can and should be able to have access to information even on matters exempt for reason of commercial confidentiality, and the other exemptions found in Schedule 12A of the Local Government Act 1972. More information on information rights can be found in section 4.1 below and at section 5 of the guidance.
  
  
• Require attendance from council officers and councillors. Members of the executive invited to attend scrutiny committee meetings, and council officers issued with similar invitations, are expected to do so. While the law does not specify the seniority of officers who should be invited to give evidence, it will usually be most appropriate for senior officers to attend, even where questions are being asked about operational delivery. More information on engagement with councils officers and executive-side councillors can be found in section 2.1 below.
  
  

• Require that the council provides responses to scrutiny’s recommendations. Importantly, it is for scrutiny to determine the nature of the response. It is legitimate, for example, for scrutiny to require that a substantive response to each recommendation be made individually, with timescales for implementation; scrutiny can require that the executive do not respond to recommendations simply by “noting” them. More information on recommendations and impact can be found in section 5 below.  

Some councils continue to codify how and in what timescales this should be done – see pts 12 and 13 (below) in Camden Council’s constitution) . Brent does not appear to do this.

11. POLICY REVIEW AND DEVELOPMENT
The specific functions relating to policy development and review functions of Scrutiny Committees are detailed in Article 6 in Part Two of this Constitution. In addition, the terms of reference of the Resources and Corporate Performance Scrutiny Committee are listed in Part 3.

12. REPORTS FROM THE SCRUTINY COMMITTEES 

a.     The Scrutiny Committee may develop a protocol for the production of reports.

b.    Reports from the Scrutiny Committees shall be submitted within a reasonable
time of their completion to the Proper Officer for consideration by the Cabinet and/or the Council as appropriate.

c.     The Cabinet and/or Council shall send a written response to the Scrutiny
Committee within a reasonable time of considering a report, with a copy to the Proper Officer 1.

1 Section 21 B of the Local Government Act 2000 now imposes a time of limit of two months for the Cabinet/Council to reply

13.MAKING SURE THAT SCRUTINY REPORTS ARE CONSIDERED BY THE CABINET

a) The agenda for Cabinet meetings (including any meetings of single members and the Cabinet (Environment) Sub-Group) shall include an item entitled ‘Issues arising from scrutiny’. Reports of the Scrutiny Committees referred to the Cabinet shall be included at this point in the agenda within one month of it being submitted, unless either they have been considered in the context of the Cabinet’s deliberations on a substantive item on the agenda or the Cabinet gives reasons why they cannot be included and states when they will be considered. The Cabinet shall send a written response to the Scrutiny Committee within a reasonable time of considering a report, as set out in Rule 11 above.

It is worth remembering Barry Gardiner's warning after Labour won the overwhelming majority of Brent council seats. LINK