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2023-03-31-accounts

Trustees' Annual Report for theperiod
From Period start date T
o
Period end date
01 04 2022 31 03 2023

Section A Reference and administration details

Charity name Harlesden Neighbourhood Forum Other names charity is known by HNF

Registered charity number (if any) 1188490

Charity's principal address Unit 2, Ajax House 16A St Thomas's Road, London Postcode NW10 4AJ

Names of the charity trustees who manage the charity

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Trustee name Office (if any) Dates acted if not for whole
year
Name of person
(or body) entitled
to appoint trustee
(ifany)
Sandra Gillian White Chair 12/07/2021 Forum members
Colin Edwin George Forum members
Amandine
Alexandre-Hughes
Forum members
Margaret Cox 21/10/2020 to 25/07/2023 Forum members
Jose Trueba From 13/07/2022 Forum members
Paul Anders Treasurer 21/10/2020 to 29/03/2023 Forum members
Julieta Marlene
Galarza
Forum members
Nouh Abukar 21/10/2020 to 04/10/2022 Forum members
Gavin Bond From 19/09/2023 Forum members
Names of the trustees for the charity, if any, (for example, any custodian trustees)
Name Dates acted if not for whole year

Names and addresses of advisers (Optional information)

Type of adviser
Name
Address
Type of adviser
Name
Address
Type of adviser
Name
Address
Name of chief executive or names of senior staff members (Optional information)
Ilaria Esposito – Coordinator

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Section B Structure, governance and management

Description of the charity’s trusts

Type of governing document

Constitution

How the charity is constituted

CIO Association

Trustee selection methods

(eg. appointed by, elected by)

Elected by the membership, with others appointed by the board of trustees as set out in the constitution

Additional governance issues (Optional information)

You may choose to include additional information, where relevant, about:

Harlesden Neighbourhood Forum has been a registered charity since March 2020. The Forum is an NCVO member and uses the latter’s induction and training programme for new trustees through Croner HR services.

We have recently amended our constitution; we are reviewing the following policies:

o Health and safety

o Grievance

o Data protection and GDPR

o Safeguarding children and vulnerable adults

o Conflict of interest (including register and DOI)

o Financial

o Volunteering

o Equality and diversity

o Reserves

Developing the following:

o Lone working policy

Current operational priorities include funding diversification and

organisational development and reviewing our HR policies and procedures (creating a handbook, updating our policies and terms and conditions to reflect changes in employment law).

Harlesden Neighbourhood Forum is a neighbourhood planning forum with a designated area within the Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation (OPDC) and London Borough of Brent (LBB). The Forum was the first neighbourhood forum to be designated by OPDC on 26 November 2015. The Town and Country Planning Act 1990 (as amended) requires neighbourhood forums to apply to their respective Local Planning Authority (LPA) for re-designation every five years. Harlesden

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Neighbourhood Forum has successfully applied to OPDC and LBB to be re-designated. The Forum currently has 90 member organisations and 496 individual members. Its work is of benefit to the overall Harlesden population (~19,000 inhabitants)

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Section C Objectives and activities

The objectives of the Forum are:

Summary of the objects of the charity set out in its governing document

• The prevention or relief of poverty in Harlesden; • To develop the capacity and skills of the members of the socially and economically disadvantaged community of Harlesden in such a way that they are better able to identify, and help meet, their needs and to participate more fully in society; • To promote for the benefit of the inhabitants of the area of benefit the provision of facilities and activities in the interest of social welfare for recreation and leisure time occupation with the object of improving their conditions of life. • To promote high standards of planning or architecture in or affecting the area of benefit. • To secure the preservation, protection, development and improvement of features of historic or public interest and public amenities in the area of benefit. • In furtherance of the above objects but not otherwise the trustees shall have the power to establish and/or maintain a neighbourhood forum for the area of benefit to promote and or improve the social, economic and environmental well-being of the area.

We can confirm that all trustees have read the guidance issued by the Charity Commission on public benefit and have agreed to the terms stated within.

Since April 2022, when we were able to renew the Coordinator contract with the funding received from Trust for London, Young Brent Foundation we have delivered a surprising amount of activities.

Summary of the main activities undertaken for the public benefit in relation to these objects (include within this section the statutory declaration that trustees have had regard to the guidance issued by the Charity Commission on public benefit)

  1. Conduct the recruitment and induction of 1 Forum volunteer supporting the Planning team. Training has also been delivered to two new trustees. 2. Implement trustee portfolio development, creating work plans for key workstreams: funding, community, environment and planning. 2.1 The Forum applied for additional core funding through the City Bridge Trust and is working on an application for the National Lottery to attract core funding to run and grow as an organisation. 2.2 Extension of boundaries towards Church End and Roundwood wards. The Forum delivered face-to-face and online consultations during the year to understand to what extent residents in the Church End area want to be part of the Harlesden Neighbourhood Forum. Maps and the final report will be presented to Brent Council, and the OPDC will be ready for the AGM 2024. 2.3 Planning team and strong relationship with the Planning department at Brent Council. We now have an established planning team that screened and commented on over 120 planning applications and recalled Brent Council on important planning policies to implement enforcement where developers or owners did not respect them.

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2.4 Working hand in hand with local councillors. The Forum had several meetings with local councillors from Harlesden and Kensal Green and with the leader of the Council to make sure stakeholders would work together for Harlesden's better outcome. As local councillors are by law members of the Planning Forum we are working closely with them to look at issues on which we can collaborate. 3. 16 newsletters have been shared with 496 members and 90 member organisations/businesses involved directly with our work, plus 85 people/organisations who are not members but who subscribe to our newsletter. 4. Quarterly public/members’ meetings have occurred, and attendance is growing steadily. We held the last meeting of the financial year in March 2023 at the Trinity Centre 5. Social media and online presence continue regularly with the following website reports: at the end of March 2023, Google reported a +200% increase in traffic from organic search. Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn have increased the number of shares and posts, reposts, and retweets. Social media followers have increased by 15% in 2022 - 2023. Several activities and workshops have been delivered to the membership: • Harlesden Heritage Action Zone programme, including an art design competition. One thousand years of Harlesden • Harlesden Neighbourhood Forum has supported implementing the Council's strategic plan through the Heritage Action Zone (HAZ) initiative by coordinating six local groups to create a consortium that eventually attracted £100k of funding to the high street. The programme is funded by Historic England and managed by the Young Brent Foundation (leading the consortium) and Brent council. • Five projects have been approved by the council to be delivered in the town centre from September 2022 to March 2023, focusing on Harlesden's past, present and future. Due to limited funding for the HAZ project, the Forum has presented a proposal to access different funding apart from the HHAZ and got additional funding (5K) from the Elevate grant (John Lyon Charity) to deliver in quantity and quality. b) Activity Date October 2022 - March 2023 c) Activity Type (i.e., capacity building) Art and design competition and workshops to celebrate and brand Harlesden's cultural heritage. d) Output Type (how many planned) - 4 art workshops, - 105 people attended (a mix of children and adults), - 72 artwork submitted,

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4 art workshop in different locations

Curzon Crescent Family wellbeing centre - 20th October 2022 Royal Oak - Pub - 28th October 2022

Roundwood Park Lodge cafe’ - 19th November 2022

Safari Restaurant (Somali culture and heritage) - 20th November 2022 Summary of the number of attendees, volunteers,

Highlights

Clean air and the environment are growing as a priority in Brent, and the Forum has implemented the following actions and activities since the last report:

a) The Forum has been monitoring air quality on the high street since March 2022, thanks to a Breathe London node. The Forum has access to

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live data online and uses this in its work, mainly to hold Brent Council accountable for action to reduce traffic in Harlesden. At the end of last year, the Forum asked Brent Council to apply to the Mayor's AQ fund on our behalf to cover the costs of keeping the Breathe London node alive for an extra 2 years. The node is essential in order to monitor pollution levels on Harlesden high street where nitrogen dioxide (NO2) levels are the highest in the whole of the UK based on a study led by Imperial College London, one of the Breathe London programme partners. The Brent Air Quality Action Plan (AQAP) for 2023-2027 - published on December 22nd 2023 - also reports that: ' Harlesden High Street (location BRT55), where a slight decrease was observed in 2019, but an increase in 2021 was reported, which exceeds 2016 levels for annual mean NO2 concentrations.' Considering the detrimental impact of nitrogen dioxide on people’s health, HNF is keen to keep monitoring air pollution levels and share the data with its members. b) Following our lobbying for properly enforced School streets , Brent Council has made permanent some of the local emergency School streets created in 2020 (St. Joseph RC Primary School and Crownhill Road, where three schools are located) by installing Automatic Number Registration Plate (ANPR) cameras at the end of 2022. At the end of 2023, the council consulted residents on expanding the Crownhill Road School Street to discourage even more parents from driving their children to school, as requested by some residents and the Forum itself. As part of Clean Air Day last June, we held one coffee morning in St Joseph’s RC Primary School (NW10 9LS) parents to raise awareness of the impact of air pollution on children’s health and encourage families to use alternative ways of travelling to and back from school. We also delivered a presentation to John Keble Primary School during an assembly. On September 22nd, we participated in a Car-free day event organised by Brent Council on Crownhill Road. It was the first time that the commission organised such an event. We think that we played a decisive role in Brent council organising such an event as we had enquired in June about the possibility of organising a similar event on another school street in the area. c)The Forum is a Green Neighbourhood Ambassador for Brent. Last summer, we attended and promoted the consultation process to implement Green corridors between Church Road and Roundwood Park. d) We also promoted sustainability in the 1000 years of the Harlesden project through the following guiding questions: What does the future hold? What traditions did your culture have to preserve the planet, and how can we use those in Harlesden today and in the future? e) The Forum has supported several businesses and organisations this year to become members and support clean air and clean environment policies in the Neighbourhood Plan: Harlesden Mums Who Cycle, Leap, Sally’s Scooter, Kaleo Cafe, and Nilly Flowers.

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f) The Forum has worked closely with Brent Council officers to highlight the need for protected cycle lanes in the borough and more specifically the implementation of the Wembley to Harlesden TFL project - formerly Wembley to Willesden project.

g) We have also established a connection with waste management firm Powerday, whose leading site is near Willesden Junction, to look into actions that will reduce HGVs coming into Harlesden alongside using new technology.

Green spaces:

a)The Forum created a consortium of organisations interested in improving services for the community in Roundwood Park. The Roundwood Lodge Edible Community Garden project, funded by the Our Space Award from Groundwork London and the Together Towards Zero grant from Brent Council, is a partnership between Harlesden Neighbourhood Forum, Roundwood Park Lodge Café, and the specialist organisation Forest & Family.

It has cleaned up and enhanced formerly unused space surrounding the cafe, transforming it into a welcoming community space, a Nature Connection Centre (NCC) and an edible garden with a new water harvesting and composting system. By co-designing with residents, more than 500 people have been engaged to date. We created a wildlife-friendly environment and multipurpose facilities where residents can engage in conservation activities. The partnership was renewed last year as the NCC has piloted and delivered an ambitious programme of outdoor community events, talks, workshops, holiday camps and meetings over this time, benefiting and impacting many residents, children, families, schools and community groups. On 7[th] October 2023, local Councillors unveiled the Our Space Award plaque provided by Groundwork London and the 2[nd] Church End & Roundwood Environmental Network took place there, enhancing the vision and sustainability of the space. b) We have conducted a significant consultation, including face-to-face fieldwork and an online/paper survey for Tubbs Road Pocket Park redevelopment near Willesden junction. We have worked with the park department at Brent Council to finalise the design and agree on a budget. We have applied for Brent community funding (formerly called NCIL) for the park refurbishment and expect to find out whether we’ve been successful in March of this year. c) Both Roundwood Park playground and Bramshill open space playground have been refurbished thanks to the joint work of the local community and collaboration with the Council. Work to create an orchard in Bramshill will start when funding is available. The consultation about the orchard has been delivered to residents. d) We have strengthened the relationship with Harlesden Town Garden and worked with HTG to improve the surrounding area by ensuring that the planning rules are enforced adequately by Brent council.

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Town centre:

a) The Forum, in partnership with Harlesden residents and partner organisations, gathered data and organised responses to object to a planning application to open an adult gaming centre in Park Parade as the Applicant objected to the decision in 2022. The concentration of anti-social behaviour in this area is already high, and the premises would be close to a school. There was a close collaboration with residents of Park Parade, Councillors and the Forum to look at the situation from the planning perspective and planning rules and from the public health point of view. This experience made the Forum consider reviewing planning policy at the council level or in the Neighbourhood Plan.

b) Harlesden Neighbourhood Forum updates the community thanks to the meeting with CVS Brent about the Picture Palace community provision. The refurbishment of the building is now scheduled to be completed by the end of 2024 as the Council needed to invest additional money for the work to be completed.

c) As many as 18 councillors and Council officers have attended trustee and public online meetings over the last 12 months. d) As part of the Inclusive Growth project, Harlesden Neighbourhood Forum continues to have a close working relationship with the Harlesden Town Centre Manager through monthly meetings and with the Metropolitan Police with the Safer Neighbourhood Team in Harlesden and Roundwood formed by a dedicated team of police officers that are countering ASB in Harlesden with the support of the community. Local economy and regeneration are big topics as many shops are vacant, and Harlesden is having problems attracting big brands to the area. We recently lost our unique charity shop and are trying to attract a new one to the area with the support of the town centre manager.

Various activities have provided opportunities for members to support local community space development and increase their contributions to meetings, groups and panels, including the review of local plan examples, including:

Additional details of objectives and activities (Optional information)

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We have a volunteer policy and a process for recruiting volunteer ambassadors who carry community engagement work on topics of interest to the local community:

You may choose to include further statements, where relevant, about:

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Section D Achievements and performance

Summary of the main achievements of the charity during the year

We set ourselves expected outcomes and the following explains our achievement.

Outcome 1: Community members have greater involvement in local development and planning matters and other decisions affecting the local area.

· We have monitored and responded to 110 planning applications and matters since September 2022.

Outcome 2: The town centre is improved according to a vision established by the community as identified by the Harlesden Heritage Action Zone and the Harlesden Neighbourhood Plan.

(i). As part of the Brent Local Plan and in line with the Harlesden Neighbourhood Plan, Brent Council won funds to improve the High Street through Historic England. HNF pulled together a consortium of local groups who could bid and work in partnership with the Council, and £100k is now available for the consortium to improve the High Street alongside the Council's work with specific heritage shop fronts. More than 13 local organisations engaged.

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erformance p

Outcome 3: Increased championing of good planning and economic development, i.e. via

Neighbourhood Planning.

· The GLA contacted the Forum to discuss the following Recommendation 7: The Committee welcomes the ambition of Neighbourhood Priority Statements to simplify and widen access to neighbourhood planning, including the protection of small businesses and localities to aid resilience and recovery. More details are needed from the Government on how it will address the most significant challenges facing neighbourhood planning. Therefore, the Government should set out how it will improve accessibility of funding and contribute to capacity building and technical support for neighbourhood planning groups. You can read the full set of recommendations in the report here

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Section D Achievements and erformance p

· the University of Kent approached the Forum for urban planning and resilience research and included our membership in participating.

· One of our member organisation is committed to redesigning and improving the area around Station Road, involving 40 residents in the area alongside the local authority.

Outcome 4: Residents have increased access to green spaces and knowledge of new spaces in use, including housing.

Roundwood Lodge Edible Community Garden project funded by Our Space Award from Groundwork London.

Project funding ended. However Forest and Family are looking at the sustainability and maintenance of the place with the new gardening club. Please read the report sent to Groundwork London here

The Harlesden Neighbourhood Forum / Roundwood Park Lodge Café, and Forest & Family have cleaned up and enhanced the unused space surrounding the park cafe transforming it into a welcoming community space and edible garden with a new water harvesting and composting system. By co-designing with residents (more than 200 engaged), we created a wildlife-friendly environment and multipurpose facilities where residents can engage in conservation activities:

  1. Pollinator programme, which ran from May to September 2021 - see pics here

  2. Refurbishment of a multi-purpose, eco-friendly education and community edible garden space:

  3. Light exterior works to the old garden centre area (painting/seating)

  4. Removal of mixed waste sitting in the main garden

  5. Building edible garden (including soft fruit bushes, blueberry, and raspberry)

  6. Planting five fruit trees

  7. Adding a rainwater harvesting system used to water plants in the springtime and summer

  8. Building compost area for the cafe to compost vegetable and fruit peelings and to.

  9. Educate children on the natural process of food waste to nourish and regenerate the soil. (Blueberries need a special kind of compost called ericaceous compost).

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Section D Achievements and erformance p

We are proud to share one unexpected outcome: we have galvanised residents to tackle local anti-social behaviour issues on their streets linked to local drug dealing and late-night socialising. A trustee and resident have been central to bringing together various stakeholders, including police, residents, businesses and local councillors, to establish a way forward.

We have created new consortia of organisations that want to improve Harlesden from all points of view.

In the last six months, and as identified earlier in the report, we have achieved clear outcomes across all areas. This drives our development and strategy to develop our work based on a community development trust model in the future. As a membership organisation, we liaise with our members and stakeholders monthly with updates and information via our newsletters and hold quarterly forum meetings in addition to projects related to planning, clean air and the environment, transport, safe and active travel and the safety and vitality of our neighbourhood. Since the last report, there has been the addition of a monthly planning meeting, including only planning matters, which have been prioritised due to the nature of our work and several consortium meetings linked with sites we are redeveloping with other members.

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Section E Financial review

Brief statement of the

charity’s policy on reserves

The reserves that we have set aside provide financial stability and the means for the development of our principal activity. We intend to maintain our reserves at a level which is at least equivalent to 6 months of operating expenditure.

Details of any funds materially Not applicable in deficit

Further financial review details (Optional information)

Trust for London, a London-based charity funder, is the primary source of funding for this period. This is restricted funding to be spent primarily on staffing costs and other costs as specified in the grant conditions.

You may choose to include additional information, where relevant about:

The second source of funding for this year has been the Young Brent sources of funds (including Foundation for the Heritage Action Zone, Groundwork London and Brent any fundraising); Council for the development of the nature connection centre and edible ● how expenditure has garden and the Forum Green Neighbourhoods activities. supported the key objectives of the charity;

Section F Other optional information

Section G Declaration

x[The trustees declare that they have approved the trustees’ report above. ] Signed on behalf of the charity’s trustees

Signature(s)

Full name(s)

Sandra Gillian White

Position (eg Secretary, Chair, Chair etc)

Date 31/01/2024

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----- Start of picture text -----
Harlesden Neighbourhood Forum 1188490
Receipts and payments accounts CC16a
For the period Period start date Period end date
To
from 01/04/2022 31/03/2023
Section A Receipts and payments
Unrestricted Restricted Endowment
Total funds Last year
funds funds funds
to the nearest £ to the nearest £ to the nearest £ to the nearest £ to the nearest £
A1 Receipts
LB Brent - 1,140 - 1,140 20,000
Mailchimp refund 9 - - 9 1,492
Love Where You Live - 90 - 90 4,740
Trust for London - 41,500 - 41,500 -
Wix refund 67 - - 67 -
Young Brent Foundation - 8,920 - 8,920 -
- - - - -
- - - - -
Sub total (Gross income for
76 51,650 - 51,726 26,232
AR)
A2 Asset and investment sales,
(see table).
- - - -
- - - - -
Sub total - - - - -
Total receipts 76 51,650 - 51,726 26,232
A3 Payments
Staff costs - 21,432 - 21,432 15,445
IT revenue costs - 670 - 670 511
Insurance - 626 - 626 595
Other administrative costs - 2,038 - 2,038 1,191
Project delivery & Forum meetings - 6,168 - 6,168 1,353
- - - - -
- - - - -
- - - - -
- - - - -
Sub total [ - ] 30,934 - 30,934 19,095
A4 Asset and investment
purchases, (see table)
- - - -
IT equipment - - - - 352
Sub total [ - ] - - - 352
Total payments - 30,934 - 30,934 19,447
Net of receipts/(payments) 76 20,715 - 20,791 6,785
A5 Transfers between funds - - - - -
A6 Cash funds last year end 8,848 14,090 - 22,938 16,152
Cash funds this year end 8,924 34,805 - 43,729 22,937
----- End of picture text -----

CCXX R1 accounts (SS)

31/01/2024

1

Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period

Categories
Signed by one or two trustees on
behalf of all the trustees
B5 Liabilities
B3 Investment assets
B2 Other monetary assets
B4 Assets retained for the
charity’s own use
B1 Cash funds
Details
Details
Total cash funds
Unrestricted funds
Restricted funds
Details
Details
Details
Signature
Unrestricted
funds
Restricted
funds
to nearest £
to nearest £
8,924
-
-
34,805
-
-
8,924
34,805
Unrestricted
funds
Restricted
funds
to nearest £
to nearest £
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Fund to which
asset belongs
Cost (optional)
-
-
-
-
-
Fund to which
asset belongs
Cost (optional)
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Fund to which
liability relates
Amount due
(optional)
-
-
-
-
-
Print Name
Sandra Gillian White
Endowment
funds
to nearest £
-
-
-
-
Endowment
funds
to nearest £
-
-
-
-
-
-
Current value
(optional)
-
-
-
-
-
Current value
(optional)
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
When due
(optional)
Date of
approval
31/01/2024

CCXX R2 accounts (SS)

31/01/2024

2

Independent examiner's report on the accounts

Section A Independent Examiner’s Report

Report to the trustees/ Harlesden Neighbourhood Forum members of On accounts for the year 31[st] March 2023 Charity no 1188490 ended (if any) Set out on pages Above

I report to the trustees on my examination of the accounts of the above charity (“the Trust”) for the year ended 31/03/23.

I report in respect of my examination of the Trust’s accounts carried out under section 145 of the 2011 Act and in carrying out my examination, I have followed the applicable Directions given by the Charity Commission under section 145(5)(b) of the Act.

Independent examiner's statement

I have completed my examination. I confirm that no material matters have come to my attention in connection with the examination which gives me cause to believe that in, any material respect:

I have no concerns and have come across no other matters in connection with the examination to which attention should be drawn in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached.

Signed: Date: 31/01/24 Name: Tomas Wilcox Relevant professional FCIE qualification(s) or body (if any): Address: Counterculture Partnership LLP Unit 115 Ducie House, Ducie Street Manchester, M1 2JW

Section B Disclosure

Only complete if the examiner needs to highlight matters of concern (see CC32, Independent examination of charity accounts: directions and guidance for examiners).

October 2018

IER

Give here brief details of any items that the examiner wishes to disclose .

N/A

October 2018

IER