stop the tower!

NEW COUNCILLORS

As you’ll know, the May local elections unseated the three pro-tower incumbent councillors in Queen’s Park and two of the three in Kilburn, replacing them with LibDem councillors who campaigned as being anti-tower.

This was great news as not only did it give us sympathetic local councillors for the first time but it also changed the balance of power in Brent Council generally so that rabidly pro-tower Council Leader Ann John was replaced by Paul Lorber, leader of the LibDems.

Many thanks go to everyone who leafleted for STT during the election. The result was very close and it’s likely that without STT’s campaign we’d have ended up with a very different outcome.

NEW BRIEF

The new councillors met STT soon after taking over and listened to our longstanding request that the planning policy for the site be changed to include a height cap.

The LibDem council leadership put this to Brent Planning, asking them to come up with a new policy.

Brent Planning, with typical slipperiness, came back with a document that specifically precluded a height cap, and had dodgy clauses in it that would have made a low-rise development difficult.

HEIGHT CAP

Brent Planning’s document went before the council Executive on the 23rd of August. Fortunately, the LibDem leadership invited STT to make a written submission and speak at the Executive, so we were able to make our case against Brent’s dodgy new policy.

Crucially, Council Leader Paul Lorber then put forward an alternative motion, calling for a predominantly low-rise building of mostly 4 to 5 storeys, with the highest part restricted to no more than 12 storeys. This was approved, so Brent Planning now have to draw up a new policy that reflects this. This is a great result for everyone who has supported the campaign to stop giant blocks being built in QP.

WHERE WE ARE NOW

12 storeys is more than most people want. The QPARA survey showed that 66% want 8 storeys or less, and that the majority of local people want fewer than 6. STT’s poll gives the average maximum height that the local community would accept as 7 storeys.

However, since the existing policy calls for tower blocks up to 20 storeys tall, a height cap of 12 storeys is a big step in the right direction. And Paul Lorber’s motion specifies that the tall part of the building must only be a small part, the rest being low-rise.

In addition, it was made clear at the Executive that a cap of 12 storeys was just that – a cap – and not a mandate to necessarily build that high. So the finished building can still be lower.

STAKEHOLDER FORUM

Brent Planning’s rigged Stakeholder Forum finished its work last month. Despite what you may read elsewhere, there was no consensus on the designs put to it. Brent hired Munkenbeck and Marshall (an architectural firm with a good reputation) to come up with some alternative ideas.

Brent extended the site under discussion (it now includes Cullen House and the bus stop part of Premier Corner as well as the car park and Kenniston Press). Munkenbeck and Marshall put forward a courtyard design, mostly low-ish but with a tower at one corner.

This is the context behind the reference in Paul Lorber’s motion to a “small part” of the development which is taller than the rest.

It’s not clear which corner will have the tower under the current proposals. STT prefers having it on the South-East corner, where the land is lower.

WHAT NEXT

Munkenbeck and Marshall’s courtyard proposal seems preferable to Genesis/O’Hara’s huge blocks. But it’s not necessarily optimal – it was the only option presented to the Stakeholder Forum, despite residents’ requests to be shown a range of options. It’s not the product of a competition, or even an involved design process.

Fortunately, Paul Lorber’s motion calls for consultation on the new policy, so this time residents will get a chance to have some input - something that didn’t happen when Brent drew up their tower block policy.

We’ll do our best to keep you informed of when and how the consultation is happening. October/November is the likely time.

Finally, Stop The Tower remains unaffiliated to any political party. If this email sounds pro-LibDem it’s simply because, thus far, the new councillors and leadership are delivering on their election promises.

That’s it for now.

Barney for STT

You may have received a letter from the Labour party (dressed up as from “fellow residents”) claiming that there’s no threat of Labour building a towerblock in Queen’s Park.

We’d like to make sure you know the truth before casting your vote on Thursday.

• Labour Brent’s current policy is for a 20-storey tower on the station carpark. This is spelt out on page 84 of the 2005 Supplementary Planning Document. Labour Brent refuses to change this policy.

• Labour’s letter says it is “not true” that Labour is backing a 26-storey tower in Queen’s Park. But we never said they were. Their policy is for a 20-storey tower – something they don’t deny in their slippery letter.

• Stop the Tower has been trying for seven months to get Labour Brent to listen to the over 400 people who wrote to the Council objecting to the towerblock plans. But Labour Brent has refused even to consider the possibility of changing the 20-storey planning policy.

• Instead we’ve had a waffle-shop (the “Stakeholder Forum”) designed to kick the issue into touch until after the elections. The Forum has met once in the five months since it was promised by Labour leader Ann John. Its membership has been rigged by Brent. Local people have been excluded. And it hasn’t been allowed to consider building height.

• The Labour candidates’ woolly “commitment” that any new planning application must be “sympathetic and suitable” and have “wide community support” is the sort of bureaucratic blather we hear from Brent whenever we try to get a clear answer on anything tower-related.

Brent describe their policy for a 20-storey building as being “broadly supported by the community” despite having held only three public meetings on it, all in the same week, and with attendances of 10, 11, and “approximately 6″ people respectively.

• Labour Leader Ann John’s alleged promise that the tower “will be no higher than the surrounding buildings” is dangerously vague. Which surrounding buildings does she mean? Does she include the 15-storey blocks on Carlton Vale? Does she include Trellick Tower? Residents who attended the Area Consultative Forum in December 2005 will know how dismissive Ann John is of residents’ concerns over her towerblock plans.

• Labour quote QPARA’s Colin George saying “the tower is dead”. We have to ask - how would he know? We’ve been at the same meetings he has, and there has been no commitment to a low-rise building on the site. Indeed, a motion for a height cap was put to the council and Labour Councillors voted against it.

• Labour’s claim that the Genesis application for a 26-storey building was withdrawn thanks to pressure from Labour Councillors is laughable. 400 local people wrote to Brent to protest. Meanwhile, Labour Councillors manned the Genesis-sponsored tent at Queen’s Park day to try and sell the highrise development to the community.

• The Labour candidates were in office when Brent drew up the towerblock policy in the first place. How good a job did they do of involving you in the so-called public consultation on the policy? And, once it was adopted, how good a job did they do of letting you know about the new policy and what it meant for your neighbourhood?

• The Labour candidates were still our local councillors when the Genesis proposal was put in - how good a job did they do of informing you about the proposal and, in particular, the height of the buildings? Did they want your opinion, or did they try to slip the towerblock through on the quiet?

• One of the signatories to Labour’s letter, Steve Crabb, has written to us to say that neither he nor Natasha Finlayson gave permission for their names to be used in this way.

Stop the Tower is not a politically-aligned group. We receive no support, financial or otherwise, from any outside source. Many of us have been life-long Labour voters so taking this stand has not been easy. But we feel it’s essential that the people of Queen’s Park and South Kilburn know what’s going on.

A VOTE FOR LABOUR IS A VOTE FOR THE TOWER

You might be interested to know why South Kilburn New Deal For Communities (SKNDC) are so keen on the tower block - it’s because no one wants to live in them.

Sounds weird? Well, the SKNDC council tenants were balloted on what they wanted to live in, and they said 6 storeys or less.  As a result most of the new buildings in South Kilburn will be low-rise.  This means that to hit density targets in South Kilburn as a whole, Brent has to build tower blocks near the station to compensate for the lowering of the existing estate. If you think this sounds like simply shifting the problems of tower blocks north and westwards, we’d agree with you.  And if you think raising the other buildings from six storeys to seven would be better than building a tower block, we’d also agree with you.

We got this information from Peter Jones at the Stakeholder Forum. You may be interested to know that the head of the pro-tower SKNDC, Jack Davies, and his deputy have just been suspended from their £100k/year and £80k/year jobs for using a flat provided for NDC office-use as a London pied-a-terre.