Willesden Green consultation process a misleading travesty says local resident

A local resident has kindly consented to share her submission regarding the Willesden Green planning application with readers:

Objection to Planning Applications 12/2925 and 2924,

Willesden Green Library Centre, 95 High Road, London, NW10 2SF Associated application for Conservation Area Consent

I object strongly to the above proposals for a major project to construct 92 flats and a small library building on the above site.

·        The replacement library has been misrepresented as a “benefit” to the community when in fact it is diminishing the facilities which are currently available to the public.

·        The proposals do not respect the character of the conservation area

·        The proposed replacement buildings are not of the highest architectural quality or design - they are an over-scaled and insensitive intrusion  which will destroy and dominate the High Road’s sense of place.

·        The proposed blocks of flats in the new housing scheme constitute a form of town cramming. On height alone they are unacceptable, breaching  SPG17 guidelines that  residential development should be no higher than 2-3 stories.

The Council is breaching its own policy commitments, national policy and GLA guidelines; in so doing it is betraying public trust.

BREACH OF BRENT'S PLANNING CODE OF PRACTICE AND DUE PROCESS.

Misrepresentation

The Council has sought throughout, to misrepresent its role in this matter, trying to pretend that the developer is the sole applicant for this planning permission.

Both the site and the buildings on it are council owned and therefore Brent is a joint "applicant" and an "interested party" in the application.

It is clear that this is a Council project from every statement made by the Council, from the  announcement in the 2010 Corporate Strategy that “we will be redeveloping Willesden Green Library”, and all subsequent committee reports.

The Council is, in truth,  seeking to grant itself planning permission to develop this land.

Breach of Brent's Planning Code of Practice.

The conduct of both officers and councillors is in breach of Brent's Planning Code of Practice. (see item 12 in respect of officers)

The Planning Code of Practice is also relevant to the conduct of the planning committee: if any member of the Committee has been involved in any way with promoting the scheme for Willesden Library they will be unable to vote on the planning application. As Planning Committee member Cllr. Ann John was clearly involved in promoting this redevelopment scheme; she is therefore partial and should be barred from discussion of the plans, or voting on them.

MISREPRESENTATION of  “PUBLIC BENEFIT”

The proposed replacement buildings offer no benefits to the local community that it does not already enjoy. The proposed redevelopment will seriously reduce public benefit.

The Council and its partners have persisted in misleading the public with false statements.

·        The proposed scheme represents a net loss in square footage of Publicly owned land and a reduction of amenity in a public amenity building,

·        The new public open space will be much worse, hidden away at the back of the building in a shady, steeply terraced passage-way which compromises public safety.  The change of ground levels has not been factored in to the design. The scale on the drawings has been misrepresented to imply a larger outdoor amenity.

·        Loss of parking

·        Detriment to a much-loved historic building.

With the closure of  6 libraries in Brent any replacement of the Willesden library needs to offer  a much larger building.  This proposal barely offers the same amount of library space as is already there and expects to cram in several other uses, such as increased council offices, onto a smaller site. The proposals are dense, cramped, and over-scaled in relation to neighbouring properties. The proposed architecture is at odds with the surrounding Edwardian neighbourhood.

BREACH OF GOOD PLANNING PRACTICE

The Council has failed to follow due process at every stage of this application:

·        to develop an LDF for Willesden Green, although this is an essential part of Town Planning and Spatial Strategy 

·        to produce a planning brief for the project, despite a written commitment to do so

·        to observe government constitutional guidance, Local Gov Act 2000, on “Key decisions”

·        to abide by the Willesden Green Conservation Area Character Appraisal/Management Plan 2006,

“There is a need to conserve the best of our built heritage against pressure for redevelopment and unsympathetic alteration”.

·        to abide by the Council’s UDP on Conservation-Led Regeneration and preservation of locally listed buildings and conservation areas, policies:

            BE24 LOCALLY LISTED BUILDINGS,

            BE25 DEVELOPMENT IN CONSERVATION AREAS

·        to abide by guidance in the new National Planning Policy Framework

o  in creating a strong sense of place

o  promotion of design that responds appropriately to local context.

para. 132  'Significance can be harmed or lost through alteration or destruction of the heritage  asset or development within its setting. As heritage assets are irreplaceable, any harm or loss should require clear and convincing justification.'

·        to abide by London Plan policy 3A.18

o  it will not provide equal or enhanced community use floorspace.

o  The facilities will not be of equal or better quality to those that are being demolished,

o  It will not improve the existing offer to local people.

The Council accepted a planning application without uploading any of the details or drawings onto the Planning Web portal, thus making it impossible for the pubic to inspect the plans, thereby denying the public the right to the statutory period of reply.

CONSULTATION

The Council has flouted every single possible duty and commitment to properly consult on this scheme, and has attempted to mislead the public at every stage, by misreporting and misrepresenting such consultation as has taken place. 

This began with its first public announcement in Brent Council Magazine, issue 107, October 2010,  which misrepresented the Corporate Strategy announcement for Willesden as: "improve Willesden Green Library Centre providing more community facilities", when in fact the Corporate Strategy 2010-2014 itself states: “we will be redeveloping Willesden Green Library”

This was fundamentally misleading.

All subsequent consultation has been no more than a box ticking exercise outsourced to private companies.

The most recent in August / September this year was run by a private company calling themselves  the Library Lab, thus misleading residents into supposing that they were connected with the Brent Library service.

The people running the meetings tried to control  what was said; to stop people from asking questions or expressing their point of view, and even told questioners 'not to be disruptive'.  

The numbers attending the meetings were derisory: barely 200 out of a population of potentially 130,000 or so who live in the South of the borough,  or 13,000 who live in Willesden; certainly far fewer than the  number who wrote letters of objection. 

The reports of these meetings put out by this company are a shameful travesty of the truth. 

The whole exercise has been in breach of  Brent Council Constitution:

“The purpose of the Constitution is to support the active involvement of citizens in the process of local authority decision-making;”  and  “create a powerful and effective means of holding decision-makers to public account;”

FIDUCIARY DUTY

It is not the role of a democratically elected Local Authority to sell public assets cheap to facilitate profits for commercial developers on publicly owned land. A case could be made that Brent will be in breach of its fiduciary duty to the tax-payer in encouraging the developer to shortchange the public with reduced and inferior public facilities in return for large profits at the tax-payers expense. Councillors have endorsed plans that mislead the public.

There is also a question to be answered as to why the current, relatively new building was allowed by the Council to deteriorate to the point where it is claimed it is beyond repair.

For all these reasons these proposals should be rejected.

In by-passing all due process in this matter the Council has tainted the planning process.

There is little point in having any planning policies at all if they can be broken so easily.

The Council should prepare a proper planning brief for the site, which will be properly consulted on, and provide real benefits for the borough, rather than maximum profit for the developer.

A personal reaction to the latest consultation

A member of KWG has sent in this impression of the recent 'consultation':

I attended a meeting on September 25th  at the “Library Lab”, at Willesden Library under the impression that it was  a Council “consultation” for the public. It was advertised as being   “for you to share your ideas on the future of the WGCC”. 

I found it was no such thing. A girl from the  “Library Lab”, who appeared to be in charge, had a rigidly structured agenda which focused exclusively on the development of the current proposals and wanted to exclude all discussion of whether the public wanted these proposals in the first place.

It was made clear to her by members of the public attending, that they would not accept her agenda for the meeting, and wished to state their objections to the proposed scheme.  Many people there had only just heard about it. 

ATTEMPTED DENIAL OF FREE SPEECH

 On several occasions this person tried to prevent residents from stating their views and from asking questions. She appeared not to have any understanding of how a meeting advertised as a consultation should be run in a democratic country that prides itself on free speech. 

Who was this person? Is she a council officer? If not, why was she running a public consultation meeting about  Council facilities on a council owned site?  What authority did this person have to try to dictate to the public how they could make their contribution to a Borough consultation? Was it even a proper borough consultation? 

What is the Library Lab? And what is its status in terms of the relationship between the electorate and their elected representatives?  The Brent Council website gives no explanation.  It describes  the Library Lab as  “a hub of local entrepreneurial activity in Willesden Green Library Centre, .........part of the New Windows on Willesden project” telling us that “our vision [is] to regenerate Willesden High Road and reduce local unemployment”.   Whose vision? On whose behalf does this organisation  arrogate to itself such grandiose claims? And by what right does it intervene in a consultation that should be between the Borough Council and the electorate?

Council Officer Beth Kay was in attendance still peddling mis-information. The new building will be much smaller than the present one; the developers themselves admit this and it is clear from all the plans.  Many members of the public  pointed out that library space was to be smaller.  Ms Kay now claims that because of consultation feedback the Library space in the building has been increased so that it will be the same size as the current provision. But since the building footprint has not increased  that means that other facilities must be reduced. How is this an improvement on what we already have?

TOWN CRAMMING

I tried to raise the issue of  the blocks of flats to be built on the car park which will degrade the environment of all the residents whose houses surround the site. This Ms Kay dismissed as a “planning matter”.  It is indeed. It is a degradation of all good planning practice which was designed to prevent town cramming and overlooking.

PREDETERMINATION

Ms Kay’s only suggestion was that these plans had been passed by our elected councillors. She  did not seem to appreciate that such a statement amounts to telling us that the scheme is “predetermined”.  That is illegal.

COUNCILLORS TREAT THE ELECTORATE WITH CONTEMPT

But where were our “elected councillors”?  The room was full of developers and their representatives.  Why were these meetings not run by the councillors? They have abysmally failed in their obligations under Local Government Act 2000 to make themselves “accountable” to the people. They treat the public with contempt, failing to answer any emails, questions or anything else about this wretched scheme. They are not fit to govern. That is why there is such widespread public  anger.

ASSET STRIPPING

As one attendee at the meeting said, the whole scheme is nothing more than asset stripping. Far from denying this, Beth Kay appeared to agree,  as she replied to the effect that it would not be the first time a borough council had acted in this way. This is shameful. The Council  should remember that these assets were not secured for the people of Brent by their initiative, or that of their predecessors, nor solely at their expense. The Council should therefore be scrupulously careful to observe the conditions upon which our Library was vested in them and to avoid anything which may seem to infringe these conditions.

A DENIAL OF CONSULTATION

These meetings have been advertised to the public as consultations under false pretences.  In fact it was intended to allow people to “share your opinions and suggestions” only “on the programming and functionality” of the predetermined scheme for Willesden Green Library Centre.

Having failed to go through the proper planning and consultation process for this “Key decision”  ( a statutory designation), the Council is still avoiding any proper public consultation on the principle of this development and ignoring public protest. It is trying to force the public to discuss a scheme it does not want.  That is not consultation by any stretch of the imagination. It certainly does not comply with Brent Council’s stated commitments both in policy documents and in its constitution:

Brent Council Constitution:  “The purpose of the Constitution is to support the active involvement of citizens in the process of local authority decision-making;”  and  “create a powerful and effective means of holding decision-makers to public account;”

Brent Local Code Of Corporate Governance:   –to ensure that stakeholders have confidence in the decision making and management processes of the authority, by conducting genuine consultation, providing access to full, accurate and clear information.

Partners for Brent Community Consultation, Engagement & Empowerment  Strategy  2010 -2014:    Partners for Brent will develop and put in place regular and effective processes which enable all Brent residents to influence and control the services and quality...........  Involve people from the outset and throughout the whole process;

New council constitutions: guidance to English Authorities; Local Gov Act 2000,

7.2 Key decisions which have significant effects within the community.... will need to be identified and properly consulted on.

THE RAPE OF A COMMUNITY

The Council’s conduct can be seen in the context of a wider malaise afflicting the country’s institutions. From MP’s expenses, civil servants’ abuse of government credit cards, Leveson, Hillsborough, Rochdale – the list goes on and on and is added to almost by the  week.  The Bishop of Liverpool in announcing the findings of the Hillsborough Inquiry spoke for many of us: “It is timely for us to reconsider how people in positions of power, whoever they may be, behave in a transparent and accountable manner to..........win back the trust which is so vulnerable at the moment in our society”.

No-one has been killed or injured in Willesden, but a community feels that it is being raped and tyrannised by those who portray themselves as public servants.  It is one more small addition to the bitter disaffection felt by the governed for their “elected dictators”, throughout the land.

New Willesden Green designs to be consulted about on September 25th

Following the consultations on Willesden Green earlier this month I have now received the following letter:

Dear Resident,

Following the withdrawal of the planning application for the proposed new Willesden Green Cultural Centre in July, Brent Council and Galliford Try have engaged in further consultation with the community. During this process fresh ideas and perspectives were sought for how the building should look and what role it should play in the area. This consultation process has yielded a new set of potential designs and we would like to invite you to a consultation session to view these plans.

You will be able to see the latest plans and meet with the project team to discuss them at an event to be hosted at the Library Lab on the 25^th September 2012, between 5.00 pm and 8.00 pm. Further to this, the plans will be available throughout October in the Library Lab as well as the foyer of the Willesden Green Library.  

We hope to see you at the event and look forward to discussing this latest stage of planning. If you have any queries please do not hesitate to get in touch.

Best wishes,

The Project Team

Council's presentation on Willesden Green Regeneration

Brent Council's August 8th Presentation to the Public can be found below:

Vague vagaries on Willesden Green consultation

The August 8th 'consultation' has now been belatedly advertised on the Brent Council and Linden Homes/Galliford Try websites.  Still remarkably vague (are Remarkable PR still involved?)about content, future events and even end date....

It looks as if we will have to visit the Library Lab to find out timings for the 8th and what is organised for September.

From Brent Council website:

Willesden Green Cultural Centre

Who is consulting?

Regeneration and Major Projects

Why are we consulting?

The planning application for the proposed new Willesden Green Cultural Centre was withdrawn by Galliford Try at the beginning of July.

The Council and Galliford Try are now proposing some further engagement activities with local people and other stakeholders to explore the design for the Cultural Centre including what the building will look like and also what activities will take place in and around the building.

How can you take part?

An open day will be held on 8 August 2012 at the Willesden Green Library Centre in the Library Lab to update all stakeholders. You are welcome to drop in at any  time during the day and we will be available to answer questions. There will be presentations at set times during the day and further information on this will be available at the Library Lab.

Thursday 8 August

11am to 8pm at the Library Lab at the WGLC

Please note we will be holding further events in September, more details on these will be available at the Library Lab over the next few weeks.

When is the consultation taking place?

Start:     August 2012                    End:     September 2012

Who is being consulted?

Target Group:                    All residents and local stakeholders and businesses in Brent and all users of the Willesden Green Library Centre

Geographic:                       Willesden Green

Invite to 'view final proposals' on Willesden Green development

Dear Resident,

 

Proposals for the Willesden Green Cultural Centre

 

I am writing to you about the proposed new Willesden Green Cultural Centre (WGCC), a project that is being developed by the London Borough of Brent and Galliford Try.

 

As you know, over the course of the last two months we have been carrying out a community consultation on the detail of these proposals, including a series of one-to-one meetings held in February and a public exhibition in March.

 

We have had a large number of responses and have considered all the comments that have been received. As part of the next step in this process we would like to offer those that have expressed a keen interest in the development a further opportunity to meet the project team and to view the final proposals before they go on display to the wider public in early May.

 

The project team will be available to meet on Tuesday 17 April at a time of your choice between 10.30am and 6:30pm. The meeting will be held at the Willesden Green Library Centre.

 

In advance of these meetings, we have uploaded a comparison table to the project website that gives a full breakdown of the sizes of both the proposed Cultural Centre and current Library Centre. We hope that this will be a useful document and will help inform our discussions.

 

If you would like the opportunity to discuss the proposals then please contact me, or my colleague Tom Hewitt, on the project’s information line – 0800 298 7040 – to arrange a convenient time.

 

As we will be booking slots on a first come, first served basis, I would encourage you to call at your earliest convenience to avoid disappointment.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

The Project Team

Willesden Green Cultural Centre

 

www.willesdengreencc.co.uk

@Will_GreenCC