Huge chunk of Wembley Park to go to US company in Quintain deal

Quintain Estates and Development are recommending a  £700m bid by US private finance company Lone Star to shareholders. Quintain own land around Wembley Stadium and Wembley Arena as well as the London Designer Outlet.

This is how Business Insider reported a dealing frenzy this morning:

Quintain has planning permission to build 5,500 homes in the area and 835 are currently under construction.

Angus Dodd of Lone Star in a statement said:

The proposed acquisition represents a unique opportunity for Lone Star to gain further exposure to resdiential and commercial assets in London

Wembley Park is one of the largest and most exciting urban renewal projects in Europe and complements our experience in this segmewnt of the market.

We intend to contribute significant additional financial resources to help Quintain in its next phase of growth to accelearte delivery at Wembley Park, building more homes more quickly and continuing the creation of a cohesive and exciting new community.

I wonder how many of the new homes will be social housing?

It will be interesting to see how Brent Council, Quintain's development partner, get on with the new landowners.

Reuters report HERE
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Another accident at Wembley ASDA junction tonight

I came across another accident close to Wembley Asda about 40 minutes ago.  Locals have become increasingly concerned at the number of accidents, including collisions, at this site.  Cars leave several lanes to exit from Asda to turn right into the southbound carriageway of Forty Lane.  Others turn left into the northbound carriageway, while cars also enter King's Drive from Forty Lane.

The satellite photograph above was taken before the opening of the new petrol station at Asda which resulted in a new road layout within the Asda site and increased traffic and the Click & Go facility has now had its hours extended.

The French School is due to open in September at the former Brent Town Hall and will eventually have 1100 pupils adding to the traffic.

At the timeof the school run and just after northbound traffic on Forty Lane is often bumper to bumper across the junction with cars exiting Asda trying to squeeze in when the lights change.

Thankfully injuries tonight appeared to be only minor but clearly this junction needs urgent review.

Brent Council 'cannot legally disclose any details' of Cara Davani leaving arrangements

Question to Brent Council Press Office on July 27^th

I would appreciate answers to the questions below in response to concerns raised by residents on the Wembley Matters blog.

1. Can Brent Council confirm that there has not been, and that there will not be, any financial payment by the Council to Cara Davani in connection with her leaving the Council’s employment as Director of HR and Administration, other than her normal salary payment up to 30 June 2015?   YES or NO.

2. Can Brent Council confirm that it has not agreed, and will not agree, to pay any award of compensation, damages or costs made against Cara Davani personally, as a separately named respondent from Brent Council, in any Employment Tribunal or other legal proceedings in which she and the Council are named parties?   YES or NO.

Many  thanks,

Martin Francis

Answer from Brent Council Press Office July 29^th

Dear Martin,

The council cannot legally disclose any details of arrangements relating to Ms. Davani’s departure.

 

Sufra food growing, fresh veg collection and cooking opportunities

 

Work starts ar St Raphael's Edible Garden

From Sufra NW London

Today Marks & Spencer launches a national campaign called Spark Something Good, which aims to encourage people to take action for social good. Over the next 24 hours, 24 projects across the capital will be transformed – and the derelict site on St. Raphael’s Estate is one of these projects.

Across the day, M&S employees will be joined by our own volunteers, as well as volunteers from Sudbury Town Resident’s Association and Brent Housing Partnership to clean up the site, build raised beds and plant the first seeds of what will become one of the largest communal food growing spaces in North-West London. We do aim high, don’t we!

It’s going to be a manic day, with volunteers working onsite till 10pm tonight. For regular updates on what’s happening on site, make sure you follow us on Twitter.

Fruit & Vegetable Collection Pilot

On the subject of food growing, tenants at Birchen Grove and Bridge Road allotments will notice that some unusually bright yellow bins have appeared on site. Across August and September we’re piloting a new initiative, encouraging allotment-holders to donate fresh produce to the food bank.

Every year, many tenants find that a successful harvest quickly turns miserable at the sight of wasted fruit and vegetables, which are surplus to their need. To reduce food wastage, and ensure that we can help vulnerable people maintain a healthy diet, we’re offering tenants the opportunity to share their harvest with Sufra.

Collections from both allotments will be on Tuesday mornings, so it’s best to pick your harvest as close as possible to the collection day. There are separate bins for soft and hard fruits/vegetables because there is nothing more depressing than an overgrown marrow landing head-first on a pile of tomatoes.

And Fahim will not be impressed, when he has to clean out the bins. Please don’t upset Fahim.

Summer Academy

Keeping with the food growing theme, we’ve had a lot of enquiries about our Summer Academy, an intergenerational project that celebrates food growing and experimental cooking. Each session includes a visit to Sudbury Court Drive Allotment where participants harvest fresh produce (courtesy of Michael and Patrick’s frantic efforts since early February) and return to Sufra to cook a delicious meal.

What’s more, there are no chefs and no recipes! It’s truly experimental and a chance for people to learn cooking skills from one another. Or watch, and be entertained. The Summer Academy is open to young people aged 11-19 years and older people aged 60+ years... but we’re happy to slip in a few eager beavers. You can attend as many or as few sessions as you like, so why not give it a try?

The sessions run from 10am to 4pm on: Tuesday 4 August, Thursday 6 August, Tuesday 11 August and Thursday 13 August. To take part, download a Registration Form here. There are no spaces remaining on the first session (sorry, but you should have registered early!).

Food Academy for Young Carers

Sometimes experimental cooking doesn’t quite hit the mark!

We know that many young people who care for a disabled or unwell parent or sibling, often face the challenge of having to cook for the family. In partnership with Brent Carers Centre, we’re organising a special week-long Food Academy for young carers from Monday 24 August to Friday 28 August.

Across the week, young carers will learn how to cook 10 different dishes, as part of an accredited certificate in cooking. We’ve also thrown in a visit to King’s Cross Skip Garden (we’re really getting into this food growing malarkey) and a workshop on healthy eating run by a nutritionist. Participants who complete the accredited outcomes will be treated to a night out at Jimmy’s Restaurant at Wembley Outlet Centre to sample a world buffet.

If you know a young carer who would benefit from the course, get in touch or download a Registration Form here.

Cabinet approves Tudor Gardens changes despite impassioned plea by relatives and carers of vulnerable residents

The speech by Ken Knight on behalf of relatives and carers of Tudor Gardens residents
 
The deregistration of the Tudor Gardens Residential Home was the most emotional issue discussed at yesterday's Cabinet. The proposals were covered in an earlier posting HERE.

There was a calm but passionate presentation by Ken Knight whose sister is a resident at Tudor Gardens.  He sought to demonstrate that an original Equality impact assessment which had found a negative impact on residents of the proposed changes had been changed to a positive one, with the original not made available to Cabinet.

He said the change went well beyond 'updating' as a result of further consultations, although that was contested by Phil Porter, Strategic Director of Adult Social Care, and suggested the documentation had been 'doctored'.

In a briefing pack  supplied by Knight he contrasted: The policy will have a positive impact on residents because it will promote independence and give choice and control how they live their lives. to the original 'This policy will have a negative impact on clients who have no capacity to make decision.

Knight noted, 'Relatives and carers don't believe any resident has this capacity, Aga Ambroziak thinks some might. We want high quality, objective, functional asessmewnts (like the WHO ICF), carried out by an independent clinical psychologist, to settle matters before anything else happens.

Knight said that  the residents who had the mental capacity of a 3 to 4 year old, did not need to be given any more 'choice' than they had in the home already: they needed safeguarding and the 24-7 care that they had already.

He said the manager of Tudor Gardens had already left because as a result of the changes she would have lost £20,000 in salary. Other care workers stood to lose £10,000. Protection through TUPE regulations did not apply as  most workers were on fixed term contracts. The proposed new contractor had boasted that their staff were on zero hours contracts.

Cllr Mashari said that she was concerned about the Equality Impact assessment and asked if it was usual for them to go from a negative to positive impact in the public domain.  Christine Gilbert said that there were attempts to mitigate the negatives revealed at the first stage of the assessment but did not know about a move from negative to positive.

Cllr Hirani, lead member for Adult Care said that savings were on housing costs, residents would be entitled to Housing Benefits under the new arrangements, and not on care. He recognised the importance of safeguarding.  He said that the Council needed to reduce spending and at the same time cater for more people. The Council would help the residents apply for allowances that could give them £4,000 more income annually. They would also have security of tenure.

Cllr Southwood asked for reassurance around the safeguarding of vulnerable adults and was told that there would be a team to monitor the required standards and that the changes should have no impact on the quality of care.

Cllr Mashari appeared to still have doubts. She asked if there was a detailed record of the 'journey from negative to positive' and suggested that in the light of the issues involved the item should be revisited.

Cllr Pavey said he did not think that was necessary and that officers would supply a note on the Equality Impact Assessment changes.

Cllr Mashari asked for an update on progress in six months time.

Ken Knight summed up the relatives' and carers' case to the Cabinet:

Right at the beginning of this process relatives and carers said they were opposed to supported living and wanted the residential care home to stay as it is BUT that if change was forced upon us we would do our best to ensure the best possible future for the residents of Tudor Gardens. this remains the case. in return officers promised transparency, openness, honesty and that we would be working together. I leave you to judge if this has been delivered.

At the very least, and before you vote on it, can this process be paused for internationally recognised functional assessments to be done by an independent clinical psychologist, with full involvement of relatives, cares and Tudor Gardens staff.

Voting for supported living now means paying people to make decisions for residents who can't do it for themselves by virtue of their lack of mental capacity. It obviously won't give them 'more independence, choice and control' - it'll just hand it over to different people. Those who exercise this power now on their behalf have proved themselves care, trustworthy, altruistic, reliable and competent. That's why we want to keep them. There are no guarantees we will if supported living goes ahead.

It seemed very clear from last night's discussion and a conversation with the Tudor Gardens Unison representative that the retention of staff trusted by residents and their relatives and carers is unlikely.

The Cabinet approved the proposal.

Anger as thriving Preston Community Library faces curtailment

Preston Library campaigners went to Cabinet last night to raise concerns over the School Expansion report which will mean the Preston Library Community Hub restricting its activities to weekends from September.  The Council has decided that the former library building is needed for primary classes from Wembley High School as building work there is behind schedule.

Philip Bromberg from the campaign told the Cabinet that he was not convinced that there was no alternative buildings available (the report lists the former Anansi Nursery as available from July 2016 until July 2018 but states 'this building is no longer required').

He told the Cabinet about all the activities that are available at the Hub, including a cinema, with visitor numbers doubling. He said that the Community library was doing things that the Council had pulled out of and 'doing them very well'.  He told the Cabinet that if the Council could not succeed in cooperating with a large and successful group such as the Community Library and Hub, he could not see its strategy succeeding elsewhere.

After an optimistic letter from Cllr Mashari about joint design of the new facility in April little had happened with the promised collaborative approach and now the use by Wembley High was being discussed just 3-4 days before their licence ended, with no direct word to the Library from the Council.

A local film maker told the council about the sucecss of the cinema which had been funded with a £4000 grant from the council and had become a vital part of the local community with all showings at capacity. The grant would be a waste of money if the Library did not  continue.  He invited councillors and the governors of Wembley High School to visit the Community Hub. Campaigners were keen to establish as positive a relationship with Wembley High as they'd had with Preston Park Primary but this had not happened yet.

Michael Pavey agreed to amend the term 'pop up' used in the report about the library when a speaker said that it was a fully fledged community library with 663 visits in June.

Cllr Margaret McLennan, responding to the delegation, said the Council had always made it clear that the priority needs of the borough were school places and housing. These came ahead of the policy to bring buildings back to life. She substituted a new paragraph for one in the report which would now say that there was no prospect of disposal of the Preston library building until 2017-18 and options would be looked at for commercial or community disposal in August 2017 at the earliest.

To protests from campaigners Cllr Mashari said that she did not appreciate Philip Bromberg's claim that the council had reneged on a deal and had not responded to campaigners. She said that they had made it 'extremely clear' before the election that school places were a priority and the building had never been promised to one particular group. She concluded that the library supported 'fantastic community activities - but don't misquote us'.

Philip Bromberg asked for a right of reply to what he saw as a personal attack but Cllr Pavey refused.

Cllr Ruth Moher, lead member for Children and Families, said that places were needed so that schools had a 5% vacancy rate as required by the government. At present the soare capacity in Brent schools was only 2.3%. She was not expecting things to get any better in the near future but would eventually like to see buildings used as the community desires.

This is a relatively new requirement (I am not sure of its statutory basis) which is claimed to enhance parents' choice but also has the knock-on effect of increased pupil mobility, particularly in less popular schools, making it harder for them to improve.

Resisting the Trade Union Bill Meeting Tomorrow

Cabinet warned over 'dealing with a convicted fraudster' in Bridge Park development

Cllr Dan Filson, Chair of Scrutiny,  made a dramatic intervention in the discussion of the Bridge Park redevelopment at last night's Cabinet meeting.

He drew attention to a paragraph in the report about the Council's development partners:

General Mediterranean Holdings SA and Harborough Invest Inc are both in overseas ownership and not registered at Companies House, As such the process for carrying out financial checks on these companies cannot be completed in the normal manner and the required financial information in an appropriate format is awaited. Finalisation of negotiations and entering into Heads of Terms with these companies will be subject to confirmation of satisfactory financial standing.

 Filson pointed out that the companies were not registered at Companies House but instead were overseas registered, a Luxembourg Holding Company and the British Virgin islands. This meant that the usual financial checks could not be carried out.

The founder and chairman of General Mediterranean Holdings is Sir Nadhmi Shakir Auchi. In 2003 LINK Auchi was convicted of fraud following his involvement in a $504 million corruption scandal centred on the French oil company Elf Aquitaine which Wikipedia says was described as 'the biggest political and corporate sleaze scandal to hit a western democracy since the second world war.'

Auchi was given a $2.8 million fine and a 15 month suspended jail sentence. Filson warned that the council is dealing with a 'convicted fraudster'.

Earlier Philip Grant had posted this comment on an earlier blog LINK:

As Martin suggests, this article did attract my interest.

When offshore companies are involved, that will always raise suspicions about who is really behind them, and whether tax avoidance may be involved, although in this case you can read a little about GMH on Wikipedia:-

'The General Mediterranean Holding (GMH) is a financial holding company established in 1979 in Luxembourg City, in southern Luxembourg, founded by Anglo-Iraqi businessman Nadhmi Auchi.

GMH is a diverse business group with activities in Banking & Finance, Real Estate & Construction, Hotel & Leisure, Industrial, Trading & Pharmaceuticals, Communications & IT and Aviation.'

The (publicly available) details do not say in which overseas territory Harborough Invest Inc. is incorporated, or resident for tax purposes.

By chance, I have come across GMH's "agent", Nick Shattock, before, when I was an Inspector of Taxes, and he was a director of Quintain Estates and Developments Plc (having previously been a partner in a firm of City solicitors). That information is on public record, and (of course) I cannot disclose anything which happened when I was responsible for dealing with the Quintain group's company tax affairs, because of Civil Service confidentiality.

As a (past) director of Quintain (the developer behind Wembley Park), it is likely that Mr Shattock has already had dealings with Brent's Strategic Director of Regeneration and Growth, Andy Donald. The report to Cabinet proposes that negotiations over the "deal" between Brent and GMH should be left in the hands of Mr Donald (as the "deal" with Galliford Try over the Willesden Green Library Centre redevelopment was).

I have written before about Andy Donald's philosophy LINK but it is worth bearing in mind this particular comment of his:

The decision makers are never going to read all that text. There is a massive disconnect between the decision makers and the officers.

Andy Donald was unwell yesterday but the decision makers, the Cabinet, went ahead and approved the Bridge Park report.

I had pointed out in my earlier posting that the Officer's report made the Appendix on the sliding scale of affordable housing restricted so that the public are unable to see it. Cllr Margaret McClennan said that the developers had offered 10%  (50 homess out of the 500 planned) against the Council's target of 50%. She said that Brent Council wanted at least 30%. Cllr Pavey said the despite the gain of a leisure centre and swimming pool officers should be pushing for a greater amount of affordable housing.

Cllr Mashari said that the Cabinet should not get so caught up in the detail of affordable housing that 'we forget the marvellous facility that Brent would get through the development.'

Questioned about the fear that the housing would be sold abroad as had  happened at the Willesden Green Library development Cllr McClennan said that the Council would demand that the homes be first marketed locally.

The Recommendations adopted by the Cabinet 'delegate authority to the Strategic Director of Regeneration and Growth (Andy Donald) in consulation with the Chief Finance Officer and Chief Operarating Officer to enter into negotiations, finalise and enter into a land sale agreement with General Meditteranean Holdings SA and Harborough Invest Inc.'

Asked about how any issues that might arise from the negotiations and financial checks would be dealt with the Cabinet were told that the lead member, Margaret McClennan, would be consulted.

The fear that several members of the public were left with was that, given the overseas status of the companies involved,  Brent might be able to do little to persuade them on the proportion of affordable housing and marketing front.