WEMBLEY MATTERS News and views on local politics, the environment, climate change, culture and local history
A Quad Bike course is to open at Birchen Grove Garden Centre, Kingsbury, on Friday March 29th in time for the Easter weekend. Rides will be £2.
The course is part of a revamp at the Centre which already provides play for toddlers at Jane's Cafe.
Swings and climbing frames are already open. (Shame about the plastic grass!)
While I have been away from Wembley Matters in Australia, staff and parents of Byron Court Primary School have moved with impressive speed to resist being forced into becoming a Harris Academy after a poor Ofsted report. Harris itself ha a poor reputation for its treatment of staff and the enormous salary of its boss. Removing the school from the oversight of the local authority (Brent Council) removes democratic accountability. With support from Brent Education Department the school is already making great progress to address the issues highlighted by Ofsted and the process of academisation would in itself be disruptive to those efforts.
The community is mobilising to save its community school.
Joint Secretary of Brent National Education Union, Jenny Cooper, said:
Our position is that the workforce, as major stakeholders in our schools, should be part of the decision making about their future; as things stand, we see our members once again suffering with work-related stress and anxiety as a direct result of the damaging process we call 'Ofsted'. One-word judgements do nothing to support or help improve our schools; all they do is help steer our school staff on a fast-track to mental breakdown.
https://www.megaphone.org.uk/petitions/save-byron-court-primary-school-stop-the-academisation
⮞ JOINT PETITION BY 'SAVE BYRON COURT' PARENT CAMPAIGN GROUP AND BRENT NEU ⮜
Our school is being forced into becoming an Academy and join a Multi-Academy Trust, following a poor Ofsted rating. If this goes ahead:
🢜 everything that has made Byron Court an outstanding school before and a special place within the heart of our community will be lost;
🢜 there is no guarantee that any of the improvements or stability needed will be made; on the contrary, academisation could well bring plenty of new problems, particularly the loss of well-loved and valued teaching & support staff who could be forced out;
🢜 and yet Byron would never return to being a community school for all
Our own surveys have revealed that almost two-thirds of parents want Byron to remain a community school; the overwhelming majority of the staff want this too. Yet, we are currently locked out of any discussions and do not have a vote on the school's future.
How can it be fair or right that those who will be most affected - the staff, the families, the local community - are ignored?
We also recognise:
🢜 the significant failings with the Ofsted inspection itself;
🢜 recent changes introduced by Ofsted to make the inspection regime more supportive but which were brought in weeks after Byron's inspection;
🢜 Ofsted's 'Big Listen' consultation, which includes looking into the "impact of inspections on children, professionals, institutions and parent choices", implying an acceptance by themselves that significant change is needed;
🢜 and the school's progress, both already made and planned, under a Rapid Improvement Plan being closely monitored by Brent Council
The Secretary of State for Education has imposed an Academy Order on our school by force - this means that government officials will be making decisions behind closed doors about the future of our school. This is not fair, transparent, nor democratic.
BUT IT'S NOT TOO LATE!!!! Together we can fight to make things different
WE CALL ON GILLAN BARNARD, RICHARD STERNBERG & CLLR MUHAMMED BUTT TO:
🢜 Listen to parents, staff and the community
🢜 Fight against plans to academise the school without the consent or properly considering the views of parents, governors or the Council
🢜 Push for a delay in the transfer to any Multi-Academy Trust, to give sufficient time for improvements to be made in the school
🢜 Challenge Ofsted - express parent and staff concerns around the previous inspection; fight for re-inspection after sufficient time to review improvements, and under any new framework that comes out of the 'Big Listen' consultation
🢜 Give us the chance to remain a community school
WE CALL ON GILLIAN KEEGAN & DAMIAN HINDS TO:
🢜 Withdraw the Academy Order imposed on Byron Court Primary School
🢜 Ensure an equal, non-selective environment with a focus on the whole child, an approach that doesn't achieve academic excellence or good behaviour by excluding children or making them scared to be in school
🢜 Give a say to those that it will impact most - the staff, the families, the local community
🢜 Stop the privatisation of our children's education
HOW ELSE CAN YOU HELP?
Write to your local councillors: https://bit.ly/BrentCounc
Write to Barry Gardiner MP: barry.gardiner.mp@parliament.uk
Follow us: https://twitter.com/savebyroncourt
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/savebyroncourt
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/savebyroncourt
Donate to our Campaign fundraising page: https://gofund.me/c696a920
Is a Cabinet Report LINK about delivering 60 homes for Social Rent at Chalkhill what it seems?
Item 11 on the agenda for the Cabinet Meeting on 11 March is headed: ‘Proposal to deliver 60 homes for Social Rent on the Chalk Hill (sic) Estate.’ That’s great news, surely? But you have to read the Report to find out what it really means.
Social Rent is the most affordable of the “genuinely affordable” rent levels. It is the rent level at which the 2020 Brent Poverty Commission Report recommended the Council should build as many homes as possible, because most local people in housing need could not afford anything more expensive. And the Council has, so far, failed to build new homes for this rent level, unless they are existing tenants being moved from homes to be demolished.
But, hang on, does Brent own the Chalkhill Estate? Well, no. In the Report’s “Background” information section, it confirms that Brent Council transferred it to Metropolitan Housing Trust in 1996.
[It also claims that ‘Chalkhill was one of the major estates constructed in the borough by the Greater London Council in the 1960’s.’ Either current Council staff don’t know their local history, or they are trying to rewrite history, to distance themselves from the problems that led to the late 1960s “Bison” blocks being demolished only 30 years after they were built!]
In fact, it is now owned by Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing Association (“MTVH”), and it is their scheme which the Cabinet Report is considering. Cllr. Promise Knight’s “Cabinet Member Foreword” still maintains that: ‘we committed to deliver 5,000 affordable homes in the borough and are on track to achieve this.’
Her Foreword goes on to say: ‘This report sets out an opportunity to work closely with one of our strategic partners MTVH Housing to unlock 60 new social homes for residents by repurposing garage sites.’ [Note that these are now ‘social homes’, no longer ‘homes for Social Rent.’]
So, it is another infill scheme (something which Brent has not been particularly successful with so far - see my October 2023 guest post: Council housing – Does Brent know what it is doing?). But this time it is a Housing Association infill scheme, so why is Brent Council involved?
The part of the Chalkhill Estate involved in this scheme is the low-rise brick-built “Scientists” area at the eastern side of the 1960s estate. The land that MTVH want to build on ‘is subject to several outstanding third-party interests’.
It is Brent Council which has the statutory powers to over-ride these “third-party interests”, using compulsory purchase orders and stopping-up orders. As the Report puts it: ‘the scheme will be delivered by MTVH but the Council’s support will be necessary to enable delivery.’
If the proposed infill scheme does go ahead, it may produce ‘around sixty’ new homes. Although these will not be Brent Council homes, the Report does say ‘it is proposed all new homes delivered as part of the regeneration proposal on the Chalkhill Estate will comprise social housing, and the Council will hold nomination rights.’ Possibly some good news for the future.
UPDATE:
This, from the Council's website, is what was decided at Cabinet on March 11th:
'Cabinet RESOLVED:
(1)
To approve in principle the Council working with Metropolitan Thames
Valley Housing Association (MTVH) to support the development objective
of delivering new social housing within the Chalkhill Estate.
(2)
To approve in principle to make Compulsory Purchase Orders of land
interests within the Chalkhill Estate as identified on Plan 1 under
Planning or Housing legislation to bring forward the development
objectives, subject to a further specific resolution of Cabinet in
respect of the making of each order.
(3) To agree advancing
the preliminary stages of the compulsory purchase process on the
Chalkhill Estate, including, but not limited to, land referencing,
issuing section 16 of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions)
Act 1976 notices (section 16 notices), engaging, consulting and
negotiating with landowners, and preparation of documentation and
undertake all matters that the Council might need to undertake to inform
a further report to Cabinet to make, confirm and implement the CPO, if
required.
(4) To approve in principle to appropriate, subject
to planning,the land identified on Plan 1 under section 203 of the 2016
Housing and Planning Act, subject to a further specific resolution of
Cabinet in respect of the making of each appropriation.
(5) To
approve in principle to make stopping up orders using planning or
highways legislation for any land identified on Plan 1 and comprising
public highway.
(6) To note the potential for the delivery of
new social housing illustrated by MTVH’s current design proposals and
that the current proposal will be subject to further consultation,
design refinement and following that be subject of an application for
planning permission to the Local Planning Authority.
(7) To
delegate authority to the Corporate Director of Resident Services, in
consultation with the Cabinet Member for Housing, Homelessness and
Renters Security to enter into an indemnity agreement with MTVH to
indemnify the Council for all costs associated with the compulsory
purchase process on Chalkhill Estate.'
Dear Editor,
In August last year, South Kilburn residents received issue 1 of South Kilburn Regeneration News. A welcome sign that we might be kept informed of progress, despite the fact that `issue 1' came after regeneration has been going on for nearly 20 years, and in those preceding years there has been no attempt to let us know what is happening.
Rumours abound that the regeneration has hit the rocks and is stalling. Nothing seems to have happened with the Carlton Vale Boulevard scheme.. The medical centre promised for 2015 has yet to materialise, and in the meantime the building in which the Kilburn Park surgery was based has been declared unfit for use and then sold off. Rumours say the new medical centre will be opened early next year, but no information has been circulated, no explanation for the lateness or whether this medical centre will actually be up to the standard originally promised. A further rumour is that developers are pushing for an even smaller proportion of social housing than in earlier stages, with a preference for expensive market flats, would, if true, mean that any idea that this addresses the housing crisis is a bad joke.
Wembley Matters has carried several reports on the disgusting state of some of the blocks which tenants have been decanted to while waiting for new flats. Word has it that the stalling of regeneration means that many who have been promised new flats in South Kilburn will not be able to move into them for years.
South Kilburn regeneration has been plagued with problems throughout, with new blocks having to have scaffold up for years while cladding is removed, heating and mould issues in many new blocks and, most notorious of all, Granville New Homes blocks costing more to put right than the original cost. And the company that botched Granville New Homes given new contracts by Brent Council! On top of which many moved into new blocks find their rents and especially their service charges rising considerably. Many of the problems associated with new blocks have been denied by Brent, and there certainly haven't been issues of Regeneration News to tell us what is going on.
No-one attempts to give South Kilburn residents a truthful account of what is happening. Raising these issues at Brent Connects doesn't get any answers, let alone a commitment to inform residents. South Kilburn Trust, supposedly overseeing the regeneration of the Carlton/Granville site never reaches out to South Kilburn residents and appears to be totally unaccountable, despite claiming to represent the interests of South Kilburn residents.. Even those few who have time and ability to trawl through - often impenetrable - Council documents are often none the wiser.
Having endured 20 years of living in a building site, compounded by Brent Council persuading HS2 to build their vent shaft in the middle of the estate (with the support of South Kilburn Trust) rather than on a empty car park near Queens Park station, and facing probably another 15 years on a building site, residents really do have a right to clear, truthful information.
Pete Firmin, chair of Alpha, Gorefield and Canterbury Tenants and Residents Association, South Kilburn
Wembley Matters will be updated only occasionally over the nest few weeks. Comments will be updated when possible so leave any urgent news in the comments below.
