On eve of Cabinet Brent Cycling Campaign tackle Muhammed Butt on his failure to properly plan and implement Low Traffic Neighbourhoods

 

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Healthy Neighbourhood (LTN) schemes to be discussed at Brent Scrutiny on Tuesday

 I understand that Healthy Neighbourhood schemes (LTN - Low Traffic Neighbourhoods) are to be discussed at the Resources and Public Realm Scrutiny Committee on Tuesday (6pm) under the standing agenda item 'Topical Issues'.

The Brent Cabinet has the officers' report recommending the removal of four of the schemes on its agenda. Cabinet takes place tomorrow at 10am.

Newly honoured Richard Evans (late of the 'Copland 6') blames Brent Council and Met Police for his heart attack after 'pointless' fraud battle

 

Dr Richard Evans

Dr Richard Evans, now teaching in Mill Hill, but previously Deputy Headteacher at Copland High School in Wembley, was awarded an OBE in the 2022 New Year Honours to add to the MBE awarded in 2003 for services to education

The OBE was for charity work during Covid.  The story in the Barnet Post LINK did not mention what Evans had been involved in before taking up his post at Mill Hill but Evans himself brought it up in an interview with Schools Week, which he may have thought would complete his rehabilitation. LINK

Evans was accused along with five others, including the Copland headteacher Sir Alan Davies, of defrauding the school  out of more that £2m and was suspended and then sacked. The case only came about because of whistleblowwing by a member of staff and union representative.

Evans was (is?) close to the Conservative Party and advised David Cameron on education, and was a former Westminster councillor. He organised fundraising dinners for the school at the House of Lords and was expected to receive a knighthood. Ironically, Alan Davies lost his knighthood as a result of the affair.

Schools Week reports:

Evans, who teaches at Mill Hill County High School in Barnet, ran the 2020 London Marathon for charity having survived a heart attack the previous May. He was treated at the Royal Free Hospital, to which he had delivered food parcels for frontline staff just days before.

Evans told Schools Week that he laid the blame for that heart attack squarely at the door of his ex-employer, the London Borough of Brent, and the Metropolitan Police.

Evans was originally said to have taken £600,000 in excessive payments LINK but the Schools Week article says:

Evans, a former education adviser to David Cameron, maintains he had no idea he was being overpaid as he believed the payments, described as bonuses, had been approved by the local authority.

“The whole experience, quite bluntly, was terrifying,” he said. “When you go through something like this, you question every sinew, every bit of what you held to be important. There’s no sense of apology.”

Not to notice that amount of extra money in your pay packet is pretty amazing!  Local authorities don't award bonuses to school staff.

Evans was also a director of a company set up to put together plans for the Copland school site, Copland Village Developments Ltd. LINK Following academisation of Copland as Ark Elvin a new school building was built at the back of the Copland site and the former street frontage is being redeveloped as flats and retail outlets.

Brent Council tells Schools Week that this was money that should have been spent on the children of Copland High School, children who came from some of the most needy areas of Brent. (Ask Raheem Sterling)

In a further twist to the sorry story Keir Starmer, then  Head of the Crown Prosecution Service became involved in the High Court case. Alan Davies agreed to plead guilt to 6 of the less serious of the 8 charges , in return for the two most serious charges being dropped (that of conspiracy to defraud and money laundering).  It was agreed that charges would be dropped against the five other defendants and Sir Alan pleaded guilty to false accounting.  He was given a two year suspended sentence by Judge Deborah Taylor and charges were dropped against the others.  There is some disagreement over whether this meant they were 'cleared' of the charges.

Richard Evan now blames Brent Council for trying to get justice. Schools Week says.

The council spent £1.7 million of public money on the High Court case and was ordered to pay more than £260,000 in costs. Evans’s tribunal alone cost Brent more than £100,000; he had been told to pay back just £46,000, with the remainder statute-barred.

Separately, legal aid bills in the High Court case ran to half a million pounds.

To date, Brent has recovered just £450,000 of the overpaid cash – plus a Rolex watch that used to belong to Alan Davies.

Evans said his standing in the community had been devastated. “Immediately,” he said, “my name was in the papers. People Google it. Walking down my street, the abuse I got was phenomenal.

“Councils have to learn from this. It was pointless and destructive.”

Does he mean that the allegations should not have been investigated or legal action  taken  and it would have been better not to attempt to recoup any wrongful payment?

 

FOOTNOTE

 There is more murk in the case of the valuable paintings given to the school by artist Mary Fedden. LINK

Cabinet to approve changes to Brent Housing Allocation System on Monday

 Following a consultation Brent Council's Cabinet will discuss recommended changes to the Council's housing allocation system at tomorrow morning's meeting.

These are the main changes, further details can be found in Section 6 of the officer's report starting on page 5.

a) Change 1: Give reasonable preference to homeless households 6.2 to 6.4 of report embed below
(b) Change 2 - Give priority to existing Council tenants, who need a transfer, to bid for all new build properties 6.5 to 6.12

(c) Change 3 - Emergency Management Transfers 6.13 to 6.19 

(d) Change 4 - Transfers due to Overcrowding as set out in paragraphs 6.20 to 6.24
(e) Change 5 - Award Priority Band A to Special Guardians 6.25 to 6.28
(f) Change 6 - Decant moves for essential repair 6.29 to 6.33 

 

 

 

 

Soaring communal heating bills likely to add to the troubles of residents in Brent's new developments

 

An article in yesterday's Guardian set alarm bells ringing for people in Brent who are buying or renting some of the new developments that have communal heating.  

LINK

Guardian Money explained:

While households with conventional heating systems have been told they could face 50%-plus increases to gas and electricity bills when the cap is increased on 1 April, people who bought or rent apartments in one of the 17,000 blocks in the UK that rely on communal heating and hot water systems are facing fourfold increases as suppliers pass on the huge wholesale price increases unchecked.

It is thought that up to 500,000 people live in developments where at least some of the heating or hot water is provided by a centrally controlled system, usually administered by the company that manages the estate.

Apartments in these developments are all supplied by a single energy supplier, and because this is classified as a commercial deal rather than domestic supply, the residents have not had bills protected by Ofgem’s price cap.

The article gives the example of a Manchester owner of a two bedroomed flat whose energy bill went up from £80 in November to £260 in December.

Individual occupiers cannot change their energy supplier so will be reliant on the managers of the developments to negotiate a deal. Systems designed to reduce carbon and lower bills may unfortunately prove to be an additional burden to people already facing high service charges and in some cases costs for cladding removal, building defects remediation and fire watches.

The Agenda for a June 2021 meeting of residents in George House, South Kilburn, gives a flavour of the range of issues facing residents at an L&Q development LINK:

Proposed agenda for 22^nd June Swift George Residents Association meeting

1. Clarification/update on works to heating & hot water pipe work (including explanation of recent system outages).
2. Update on replacing terracotta cladding & issuing of EWS1 form 3 and clarification of fire safety policy
3. Update on safety of windows following the failure of hinges in another L&Q development (we believe we have the same hinges)
4. Update on service charge refund (the review Rob Hunter had been carrying out).
5. Energy meters & billing – energy meters appear not to be working or faulty.
6. Pigeons – reports received of them nesting on the roof of George House and leaving deposits on the flat roof of the 6th floor
7. Any Other Business (AOB)
   

Some of the heating issues may have been resolved see HERE

Wembley Matters would be interested in hearing from residents in the South Kilburn, Wembley Park and Alperton regeneration areas who have communal heating  systems if they have been impacted by higher energy costs.

Barry Gardiner responds as Beijing cash allegations resurface

 

The Times February 4th 2017

Barry Gardiner's receipt of funds from Christine Lee and employment of her son was first covered by Wembley Matters 5 years ago when allegations were made by the Times newspaper. At the time Gardiner made the following statement on his website:

“Christine Lee & Co have generously supported my work as a Member of Parliament over many years since we first worked together to fight against plans to redevelop Oriental City and the loss of homes, livelihoods and community ties in Brent. The firm has enabled me to appoint a strong research support team to hold the government to account. This has always been transparently and appropriately recorded in the register of members’ interests. The Times article has revealed nothing that was not already in the public domain and they themselves admit that the secondment of staff was properly declared and state that “there is no suggestion of impropriety”.

The statement is no longer available on Gardiner's website but was included in Wembley Matters' coverage

LINK

 

It wasn't just Tories under the influence (The Times February 4th 2017)

 

At the time the sum involved was put at £180,000 and 5 years later is said to be c£500,00 between 2015 and 2020 by some accounts. The new circumstances are M15's warning to parliamentarians and the worsening US and UK relationship with China and the clampdown in Hong Kong. Back in 2017 Barry Gardiner was a prominent supporter of Jeremy Corbyn's shadow cabinet and had been praised for his media appearances.

Yesterday's annoncement is of course concerning and raises questions about Gardiner's judgement (as does his friendship with Modi)  but has been seized upon by Tories to help deflect attention from 'partygate' and the government's culpability in the many deaths that would not have happened with better management of the Covid crisis.

In contrast to Boris Johnson, Gardiner appeared on LBC yesterday to answer questions from the presenter Iain Dale and his listeners. I leave it up to readers to make up their own mind when they watch the recordings. Gardiner said he regarded Jennifer Lee as a friend and felt betrayed by her.

 

Recordings can be found HERE on the LBC website.

It is worth recalling the prescient comment made by Wembley Matters contributor Philip Grant on Barry Gardiner's 2017 statement:

Oh,come on, Barry! You may have declared the "donations" you received from Ms Lee's firm in the register of Members' interests, but the standards of conduct in public life require that:-

'... you should not place yourself in situations where your integrity may be questioned, should not behave improperly and should on all occasions avoid the appearance of such behaviour.'

Ms Lee's firm acts as a legal adviser to the Chinese Embassy / Barry Gardiner MP (recipient of £180k in staff costs from that firm) was a strong supporter of Chinese involvement in the Hinkley Point nuclear power station project. Is that not placing yourself in a situation where your integrity may be questioned?

One of the staff funded by the £180k from Ms Lee's firm was Ms Lee's son, who worked in Barry Gardiner MP's Westminster Office, so presumably has a "pass" enabling him to access parts of Parliament not generally open to the public.

Given Ms Lee's links with the Chinese Embassy, does that not pose a security risk, and again raise doubts over whether our MP has put himself in a situation where his integrity, the appearance of his behaviour, and his judgement, could be called into question?

LETTER: Issues facing disabled people in Brent that require advocacy, information and support

 Dear Editor,

Brent Advocacy Concerns closed down in September 2021 but before we went, we attended the most recent Disability Forum last July, followed by a special meeting in August where we informed the board's consultation about what we felt should be included in their strategy concerning Brent's estimated 50,000 disabled people and elders.

We are pleased that as part of our legacy, the Board have agreed to include 'non -statutory advocacy' within their future commissioning plans (page 30 of the strategy) and hopefully the board will be able to provide services to all those disabled people looking for advocacy, information and support.  Today the main issue facing disabled people in Brent is the 'Cost of Living Crisis', especially the increasing cost of energy, while the following year several thousands of Brent's residents will be looking for advice regarding  the new Social Care plans.

Before Brent Advocacy closed, we had many disabled people requesting our help to enable them or access 'continuing healthcare' and had we remained open, we would have been able to support many more disabled and elders in accessing some of the new social Care  provisions but now there is no one left in Brent able to take this on.

Finally, Brent Advocacy Concerns offered a unique service to Brent's disabled and elders for 33 years, as it was free to everyone who came to us and sometimes a client woul come to us with one issue before we discovered that they had other issues that needed solving. But we always tried to help everyone who came to our office in Willesden and I can honestly say, we never turned anyone away.

Thanks 

 

John Healy.

Contract for 1 Morland Gardens – Brent’s response to an open letter

Guest post by Philip Grant in a personal capacity

Last month I sent an open letter to Brent’s Strategic Director for Regeneration, and Lead Member for Education, explaining why it would not be a good idea to award a Design & Build contract for the Council’s proposed redevelopment at 1 Morland Gardens. Notice of the intended decision to award a contract on 4 January 2022, dated 3 December, had appeared on Brent’s website.

 

The Key Decision had still not been announced on the Council’s website by the evening of 11 January, but I did receive a response to my open letter then. I will ask Martin to attach that at the end of this article, so that anyone who wishes to read it can do so. The response confirmed ‘that the council intends to proceed with the proposed scheme of works’.

 

Architect’s visual impression of the proposed scheme for 1 Morland Gardens

 

However (as is becoming common with Brent Council, if you can get a reply from them), the response raises as many questions as it answers. It does, of course, begin by referring to ‘the very many benefits that the scheme will provide.’ 

 

This ignores the fact that if Council Officers had followed Brent’s own, and national, planning rules over heritage assets at the start, they would never have come up with this scheme! It involves the demolition of an irreplaceable locally listed heritage building. And if the Planning Committee in August 2020 had been properly advised, they would have known that this heritage asset was too “significant” for them to decide that the “public benefits” of the proposals outweighed the importance of retaining the beautiful, architectural and historic Victorian villa.

 

Extract from Brent Council’s May 2019 Historic Environment Place-making Strategy

 

The response lists one of the benefits of the scheme as ‘65 social rented homes.’ Will these really be homes let to Council tenants at genuine social rent levels, or is this just another example of Brent officers (and Lead Members) misusing the term ‘social rented homes’ when they are actually referring to “affordable housing”? 

 

Brent originally told the GLA that the new homes at 1 Morland Gardens would be for “social rent”, but at the planning permission stage in 2020, the Council had changed this to 'all of the 65 units would be delivered at London Affordable Rent.' In a comment on an earlier blog, I pointed out that £6.5m of the cost for these homes was meant to be funded from the GLA’s Affordable Homes programme for 2016-2021. Even though the end date for that was extended to construction beginning by 31 March 2022, that £6.5m is unlikely to be available. Does a change back to “social rent” mean that some of Brent’s funding from the 2021-2026 GLA programme will now have to be used for this project?

 

Are you are wondering what is behind the "little dig" in the response ('I know from previous correspondence that you are concerned with the pace of delivery of social rented accommodation in Brent ....')? It refers to my attempts to get Cllr. Shama Tatler or Mr Lunt to explain properly why they propose that 152 of the 250 new homes on the Council-owned vacant former Copland School site at Cecil Avenue (Wembley High Road) should be built for a private developer to sell at a profit, rather than all 250 being genuine affordable rented housing for people in urgent housing need. I have yet to receive an answer to that!

 

Moving on to Brent’s responses to the six reasons why they should not award this contract, the “answers” to points 1, 2, 3 and 6 are similar. The Council has not yet done anything about the legal requirements over stopping-up orders, appropriation of land for planning purposes or the planning condition that it needs to “divert” (that is, dig up and move!) the water main in Hillside / Brentfield Road. 

 

It could have begun these tasks, which it admits are necessary to complete before construction can commence, at any time after receiving full planning consent in October 2020. Instead, it now says that ‘the council will complete the first stage of the two-stage design and build contract and finalise and obtain the necessary legal pre-requisites in order to begin any construction works.’ But there is no guarantee that at least one of these ‘legal pre-requisites’, the stopping-up orders, will be obtained! Why even pay for the first stage, when you don’t know whether the proposed construction work could go ahead?

 

The Victorian villa which Brent Council’s project would demolish. (Photo by Irina Porter)

 

Reason 4 was the effect of the proposed demolition on climate. As Brent Council has declared a “Climate Emergency”, you would think that Senior Officers and Lead Members would take that matter seriously. But here the response is: ‘Whilst the proposed redevelopment will emit CO2, the benefits the project brings can go some way to justify this.’ Have they quantified the climate damage, and measured the harm this will cause as compared to the alternative option, retaining the Victorian villa, which I have suggested? Or is this just another example of Brent Council making fine-sounding promises, but not following them in practice?

 

The response to reason 5, the Design & Build Contract itself, leaves a very important point unanswered. I had asked: ‘Why is it proposed that ‘the contractor is undertaking design work’ and ‘design liability’, when full planning permission was given for a detailed design by architects Curl la Tourelle Head?’ 

 

That point has been ignored. Is Brent Council proposing to pay the contractor to come up with a new design, or make significant changes to a detailed design it has already paid a firm of architects to prepare for it? And if there are any significant changes to the building plans that were approved in 2020, won’t that mean a new application for planning permission? Surely those are important questions that need to be answered!

 

The response tells me that: ‘The council has appointed technical consultants to ensure the designs by the contractor meet the council’s requirements ….’ How much will these consultants cost, and will that cost have to be met out of the budget for the project agreed by Brent’s Cabinet two years ago?

 

A bigger reason why I was concerned about the proposed two-stage contract was this: ‘If the contractor given the proposed D&B contract wishes to keep within Brent’s maximum price for the scheme, there is a severe risk that they would cut corners, both in modifying the design and carrying out the building work.’

 

Brent’s answer: ‘the technical consultants will be monitoring the contractor’s progress to ensure the build meets the requirements in terms of materials used, methods of construction and quality of finishes. It is expected that this monitoring will prevent any issues with the quality of the finished building and any issues can be dealt with under the defects liability (including latent defects) responsibilities set out in the contract.’

 

Do you have confidence in the Council’s expectations that there won’t be any “issues” with a ‘cross-laminated timber structure’ (one of the tallest buildings in this country to use that method), with ‘innovative hybrid steel reinforcement’ supporting external cladding? Or that if there are any “issues”, they will be dealt with by the contractor ‘under the defects liability’? Given Brent’s experience over Granville New Homes, I have a feeling that history might repeat itself, IF the Council continues its insistence on pursuing its flawed 1 Morland Gardens project.

Philip Grant