Showing posts with label Wembley twin Towers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wembley twin Towers. Show all posts

Thursday 26 April 2018

Building plans for Wembley section of the Chiltern line green corridor


HUB developers have issued their early plans for a site alongside the Chiltern railway line in Wembley. They are already developing the former Chesterfield House site on the corner of Park Lane and the High Road.

The HUB website states:

HUB has purchased two pieces of Network Rail land on the Eastern Fringe of Wembley High Road, situated behind its Chesterfield House scheme.

Development of the sites will be carried out over two phases, delivering up to 300 homes, continuing HUB’s involvement in the revitalisation of Wembley High Road.

Glenn Howells Architects has been appointed to draw up plans for the first phase, which will consist of around 200 homes across two buildings.

HUB has been working closely with the London Borough of Brent to help ensure the sustainable and coherent development of the Wembley Housing Zone, within which this newest development will reside.

As its name suggests, the Wembley Link area is the crucial crossover between new developments in the town centre and those emerging in Wembley Park.
Given the height of the 'Twin Towers' that HUB are building on the site of Chesterfield House I asked HUB about the height of their proposed Wembley Link development.

The 'Twin Towers' with Chiltern line in foreground
 HUB responded:
At this point we are at the very earliest stage of formulating the plans for Wembley Link and so don’t have more information that we are ready to share. We will be conducting widespread engagement with the local community in advance of putting in a planning application, in order to ensure that the proposed scheme pays due regard to local aspirations and wider plans for the area. We will get in touch with you as soon as there is more detailed information to share.
Residents have expressed concern about the loss of  part of the 'green corridor' that not only acts as a passage for wildlife and provides a green space in a built up area but also helps alleviate air pollution and muffles the sound of trains to the benefit of residents.

Residents fear that following Network Rail's sell-off of land to HUB that the opposite embankment and that further north could also be sold for development.




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Thursday 5 October 2017

Cllr. Butt and hospitality from a property PR company – the details

Thanks to Philip Grant for this guest post. It is a long article but worth reading in full by anyone concerned about the relationship between Brent Council, its councillors and developers.



A recent blog on questions over “hospitality” for councillors, raised by Cllr. Duffy with Brent’s Standards Committee LINK led to many comments from “Wembley Matters” readers. In one comment, I drew attention to an entry in Cllr. Butt’s “Register of Interests” on the Council’s website, which raised concerns over its possible effect on planning matters in the borough:
'09/05/17 - Three course meal with developers from the construction industry. Estimated value between £30-40. Received from Terrapin Communications, London.'
I decided to seek further information from the Council Leader about this meal (paid for by a PR company which represents a number of property developers), so sent him an email and added the text of it as another comment. I had intended to put any reply received from Cllr. Butt as a further comment below that blog, but now feel that more readers could see it, and make their own judgement about the details given and their implications, if they are set out in a separate blog.

I was not optimistic that I would receive a reply from Cllr. Butt, as he has not replied to any emails I have sent him since September 2014. A number of these have included important questions, such as in February 2015, when I asked him (and repeated this in a blog, and in a letter published in the “Brent & Kilburn Times”) why he was still “protecting” two senior Council officers, Cara Davani and Christine Gilbert, when he had known about their misconduct in the Rosemarie Clarke Employment Tribunal case since at least September 2014? [I have previously suggested, only half-jokingly, that the reason he won’t reply is because he is afraid that anything he writes to me may be used in evidence against him!]

However, on 3 October I received an email from Brent, thanking me for my Freedom of Information request (I didn’t know that I had made one!) and saying that it had been forwarded ‘to the relevant department’. A few hours later, I received an email from the Chief Legal Officer, Debra Norman, giving the Council’s response to my FoI request. I don’t know why the Council Leader could not just provide the information himself, but at least the Council’s Monitoring Officer (Ms Norman’s “other hat”) realised that the points I had raised needed to be answered fully, and quickly. This is what she wrote (the numbered paragraphs begin with the six questions, in bold type, I had asked Cllr. Butt, so the answers are as if from him):-

Dear Mr Grant 
I set out the council’s responses to your request for information sent to Cllr. Butt which has been allocated to me via the council’s FOI system.  I have spoken to relevant senior officers concerning your request and the members and officers declarations of gift and hospitality have been reviewed.
  1. Who else from Brent Council (members or officers) attended that "Terrapin Communications" meal with you? 
·      Cllr Tatler  [Author’s note: Lead Member for Regeneration etc.]
·      Aktar Choudhury  [Note: Operational Director Regeneration]
·      Amar Dave  [Note: Strategic Director Regeneration and Environment]
The officers concerned declared the hospitality on 23.5.17 and 10.5.17 respectively.  Cllr. Tatler declared the hospitality on 10.5.17. Cllr Butt declared the hospitality on 09/05/17.

  1. Which companies were the 'developers from the construction industry' who were at that meal with you?
The guest list indicates the following companies sent representatives to the event: 
·      London Square
·      Dukelease
·      Dandi Living
·      Pinnacle
·      Henley Homes
·      R55
·      Stanhope
·      Countryside
·      The Collective



3.    What current or proposed developments in the London Borough of Brent are those companies (in question 2) involved with?

The relevant developer and addresses are included below.
·      London Square - 60 Neasden Lane
·      Dukelease and Dandi Living - York House – this is a permitted development
·      Pinnacle - Shubette House aka Pinnacle Tower
·      Henley Homes - Brent House
·      R55 - 255 Ealing Road and Minavil House
·      Countryside - Barham Park Estate
  1. What reason did Terrapin Communications give for inviting you to that meal?
To engage and enable developers to better understand the Borough and our aspirations. 
It is important that the council’s Cabinet Member for Regeneration, Growth, Employment and Skills (who is not the chair of the Planning Committee and who has a different role) promotes a clear understanding of the council priorities in respect of affordable housing and quality of design.
5.    Were any past, present or proposed developments in Brent discussed at the meal, and if so, what developments or proposals?
The discussions consisted of generalisations about the borough aspirations and what the council wants to achieve. Only one developer (Dukelease) raised a particular development, which was York House.
6.    Were any of the matters discussed at the meal passed on afterwards to any other Brent Council member or officer, and if so, to whom were they passed?
Aside from requesting a relevant officer to respond to a transport issues raised by Dukelease, no information was passed on as operational matters were not discussed.

Best wishes 
Debra Norman 
Chief Legal Officer

Now that we have the information, what are we to make of it? I will give a few thoughts of my own, and I would invite anyone who wishes to, including Ms Norman and the councillors and officers who attended the meal, to add a comment in reply, giving their own views.

I will start with the reply to question 4, the reason that the PR company gave for inviting the Council Leader, and Brent’s top “Regeneration” people, to a meal with a number of their developer clients. The first sentence may be what they said, but the rest looks like a “gloss” put on that, to justify the attendance of Cllr. Tatler. 

Frankly, there was no need for a get together over dinner, especially if (as the answer to question 5 states) ‘the discussions consisted of generalisations about the borough aspirations and what the council wants to achieve.’ Brent’s Regeneration aspirations, and the planning guidance in respect of them, are set out clearly on the Council’s website. For example, this is the online package for regeneration in Wembley LINK .

Terrapin Communications could also have given their clients the information they needed on these issues from its own experience the previous year, in advising Hub Group over its successful planning application for the “Twin Towers” development at the corner of Wembley High Road and Park Lane. This was the proposal for two blocks of flats, up to 26 storeys high, which Planning Committee approved in April 2016 by four votes to two, with two abstentions. It was opposed by hundreds of local residents, but recommended by Planning Officers, despite it not complying with Brent’s and London’s policies on density, carbon emissions, living space, open space, play space and the proportion of affordable housing.  LINK .

Terrapin, as a PR company, of course put a positive “spin” on this decision, when reporting it on their website shortly afterwards:

‘Residents in Brent are set to benefit from an exciting new community centre along with other public improvements thanks to a new development in the Borough.  Terrapin Communications helped Hub Group secure planning consent for the scheme.  Designed by Macerator Lavington, it will also include 239 new residential units in two new buildings, one twenty six stories, the other twenty one stories. Commenting on the success at the Planning Committee, Terrapin Senior Adviser, Christian Klapp, said "It was hard work but rewarding knowing the benefits the new scheme will bring for people in the local area".’

In my opinion, Terrapin’s reason for arranging the meal and inviting Cllr. Butt and others was to “engage and enable developers” to meet, and hopefully influence, key decision makers in the borough. I agree that Cllr. Tatler ‘is not the chair of the Planning Committee’, but she, and particularly the Leader of the Council (and of the Labour Group, which has seven on the eight committee members) are in a position to influence the decisions made by that Committee (even though it would be a serious breach of Brent’s Planning Code if they were to do so).

Turning to the answers to questions 2 and 3, the developers at the meal with Cllr. Butt and the other Brent attendees, and what developments in Brent they are involved with, there are definitely some areas of concern. I will focus on the developer R55. They are not a potential developer who needed to ‘understand the Borough and our aspirations.’ They already had at least one development under construction, and other planning applications “in the pipeline”. 

The meal took place on 9 May 2017, and at the Planning Committee meeting on 24 May 2017 R55’s application 16/2629, for a large mixed-use development (including blocks of flats up to 26 storeys high) at Minavel House, Alperton, was unanimously approved, even though the Council’s regeneration masterplan for this area had set a height limit of ‘up to 17 storeys’. In the declarations of interest at the start of the meeting, under “approaches”, the minutes record: ‘Minavil House - All members and officers received a brochure from the applicant’s agents.’ Although not opposing the development in principle, a speaker against the application ‘expressed concerns on behalf of the residents in the development to the south of the site regarding the scheme’s scale, massing, height and obstruction to light.’  LINK

Although not listed in the response to question 3 above, R55 also have a pre-planning application, 16/0445/PRE, on the agenda for next Monday’s (9 October) Planning Committee meeting. This is in respect of ‘land at 370 High Road, London, NW10 2EA and 54-68 Dudden Hill Lane’, ‘for a mixed use development consisting of 224 residential units, a supermarket, nursery, gym, café, workshops and amenity space.’ A previous pre-planning presentation had been made to the committee on 15 March 2017, when it appears that some councillors may have expressed concern over the proposed height of some of the blocks of flats, in the vicinity of Willesden High Road.

Many Brent residents, and residents’ groups, have been disappointed by Planning Committee decisions in recent years, allowing developments which seem to go against the borough’s own agreed planning policies. An opposition motion calling for an investigation of this issue was put to the Full Council meeting on 18 September, but lost – although the details are not yet available on the Council’s website, it appears from the webcast that most of the Labour Group’s large majority of councillors voted against it. Yet a number of Labour councillors have told me privately that there is “political interference” within Brent’s planning system.

In his email to Cllr. Allie, the Chair of Standards Committee, the comments on which gave rise to this blog, Cllr. Duffy said:
In my experience its best to keep clear of hospitality from developers as “When you dance with a developer, it’s always to their tune".’
I hope that Brent’s Monitoring Officer will endorse that view, when she considers the lessons which should be learned from this episode. The Codes of Conduct for both members and officers include a requirement to comply with the seven general conduct principles in public life. If citizens of our borough are to have confidence in the Council, a key principle is:
Integrity: 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.’
How does accepting an invitation to dine with developers, who may want you to help them get their planning applications approved, fit with that principle?


Monday 25 April 2016

Further concern that Brent Planning Department is not fit for purpose

Further to the concerns expressed by the Queen's Park Area Residents Association about the efficient running of Brent Council's Planning Department LINK in the wake of the departure of Andy Bates and Stephen Weeks, residents in Roe Green are also feeling frustrated as they challenge Powerleague Lucuzade's bid to build a facility on Kingsbury High School playing fields. LINK

Residents last Wednesday sent a 40 page document over apparent 'errors and omissions' in the Powerleague planning application to the Planning Department asking for urgent clarification. No response so far and the statutory consultation period is due to end on April 28th.

The planning office for the application is on leave until early May which makes it unlikely that the 501 consultees will get a considered response.

A further issue is that residents complain that their comments are not being registered on the Department's Planning Portal, even when they get over the initial hurdle of the website stating, 'Comments may not be submitted at this time.'   Email request for this to be removed have been ignored.

Those who did manage have received messages that their comments have been cut sort or timed out. A resident following up the problem was told that officers may not read comments thought to be too long.

It is alleged that residents telephoning Brent Council about the application have been discouraged from making a comment on the basis that the schools needs the money and therefore the application will probably go through.

Residents are also concerned that the Statutory Notice of 19th April  may be invalid as it was signed off by Stephen Weeks who left the Council some time ago.

Meanwhile Cllr Sam Stopp has met with residents over the 'Twin Towers' proposal for Wembley central that was approved by the Planning Committee.

Stopp told the Kilburn Times:
The Council not for the first time, didn't proactively engage the local community and a lot of residents living near the site came through with concerns that they weren't aware of this application.

There was a general sense that things were being decided behind closed doors rather than in an open way.

There are questions to be made about who is making decisions about which planning application goes ahead. What causes the the decision made at planning to be made? Is it just on the merits of the scheme or are there political angles there as well?

That's something I'm investigating more.
He took to Twitter after his surgery discussion with residents to say he had formally requested a  town hall-style meeting on the 'Twin Towers' issue.