Council criticised over apparent last minute changes to Perceval House plans

CGI of the new building as seen from Uxbridge Road

“Public faith in the council is ebbing away”, a member of the public warned Ealing Council bosses as the fallout over plans for the rebuilding of Perceval House continues.

Ealing’s top team met in a cabinet meeting on 16 March to discuss next steps for the demolition and redevelopment of the council headquarters building.

Despite facing heavy opposition from residents, campaign groups and Ealing Central and Acton MP Rupa Huq, the bid for new council offices, commercial spaces and 477 new homes including a 26-storey tower block was approved by Ealing’s planning committee on 10 March.

It had previously been deferred by the committee on 17 February due to a lack of family-sized homes.

Ealing cabinet members faced further backlash from a member of the public and the Conservative opposition leader during the meeting, which approved a “major change” to how the process of the redevelopment would go ahead.

The planning committee had not been informed about this at last week’s meeting when the scheme was approved..

While it was described how the decant and demolition would be done in two phases, cabinet have now given the green light for this to be done in one full move, citing the impact of Covid on remote working making the option more feasible.

This new operations plan could mean an additional spend of up to nearly £2.6m, and the project will be due to be completed 20 months earlier.

While no significant changes to council services were planned through the two-phase plan, the full decant means relocations will go ahead, with offsite locations such as Greenford Depot and Everyone Active Acton Centre being considered for staff use, combined with home working.

The public speaker however said the planning committee was “clearly misled” over the decant plans and questioned why the officer giving detail of the phased approach was not “forewarned” of the changes to come.

They said: “He [the planning officer] spent some time detailing the same decant strategy that has been part of this application from the start, yet we’re sitting here now less than a week after planning approval was granted debating a major change to the phase-in strategy that will create additional cost to the taxpayer…

“If the redevelopment goes ahead the new arrangements will transform the way council services are delivered in Ealing, the committee should be accurately informed about what’s in store and people in the community must be able to trust what they’re told.

“With the goalposts moving as quickly as they seem to be these days can’t the cabinet see that public faith in the council is ebbing away?”

Cllr Gregory Stafford, Ealing’s Tory opposition leader, also raised the question over the cabinet’s report or the planning officer being misleading over the plans relayed to the planning committee last week.

Council leader Julian Bell replied, “We had not made this decision at cabinet tonight and therefore the previous plans I guess were still in place, if you formally look at the decision making process.

“Clearly these plans were in the public domain then, I think that was an error and I think that has been apologised for.”

And reiterating his point to the public speaker, he added, ”We do want to be as clear and open as we can be in all of our decision making hence my happiness to let you speak and indeed if I had other requests I would have considered them.”

Cabinet members agreed to the decant proposals and Cllr Mik Sabiers, the housing and planning chief, also stressed what he claimed were the benefits of how the quicker development will mean affordable homes will be delivered quicker for people waiting on the housing list.

Cllr Yvonne Johnson also said, “Because of Covid many of our workforce have been working from home…we know many officers have worked very well at home, they can do their jobs at home so it won’t be necessary for so many people to be at Perceval House as there once was…

“I think this is a good move and I welcome the fact we’re going to have a regeneration in the centre of Ealing.”

MP Dr Huq however has told the Local Democracy Reporting Service, “It seems wrong that the biggest planning application central Ealing has seen for decades set to permanently affect its skyline has been bundled through during a pandemic with no consideration of the post-Covid climate, or fresh consultation to reflect this with barely a three week gap between first consideration where the developer was asked for revisions to bring it back with indecent haste with minimal change.

“I am deeply saddened by the latest turn in this application as I don’t want Ealing’s unique character ruined forever in a transaction to hand over the borough’s municipal legacy to a developer for mostly luxury private sale. The fight goes on however.”

She added, “I have asked the council for the most recent staff accommodation needs assessment that justifies the huge square footage of office space post-pandemic when white collar working from home for at least most of the week is the norm but still awaits. Good decisions are never made in haste and this risks being a huge white elephant but am hoping that sense will be seen eventually.”

Anahita Hossein-Pour - Local Democracy Reporter

March 17, 2021