The cock-up comrades of Sandwell Labour of their own free will (ie nothing to do with the nasty Tories etc) entered into the ridiculous "Transform Sandwell" [sic] contract with BT. Chief Executive Jan Britton trumpeted the marvellous deal but, as with other cases involving Cooper's Circus, the other party had the Council's metaphorical pants down and the taxpayer was shafted yet again.
I have already blogged about the totally bizarre lease agreements the Labour incompetents entered into (which included a provision that the massive rent WOULD INCREASE BY 3% PER YEAR!) The original landlord sold out to a company with the seemingly local name of Invista Foundation (West Bromwich) Limited which was, in fact, registered in the tax haven of Guernsey and they were sitting pretty as the rent was effectively guaranteed to be paid by the taxpayer.
Sandwell Labour were are also on the rack since BT still occupy half the building under a lease between them and the Council but are believed to be planning to move out in October, 2017 which will then saddle the taxpayer with the rent for the whole building (which, incidentally, you dear readers, are paying £593,970 - ie well over half a million pounds - per annum to service and maintain).
And so the local clowns bought the freehold from the Guernsey Company. They still look like losing the rent for half the building from October, 2017 and, presumably, the associated business rates so that the taxpayer has now been saddled with this white elephant:
The joke "leader" insists that SMBC will not be leaving the Oldbury Kremlin (he said this publicly in a full Council meeting) whereas all the Council's own documents released to date state unequivocally that Sandwell Council will be moving in. So, according to Cooper, the taxpayer will be paying for this building AND The Kremlin! No wonder they are cutting £7m from their already disastrous Children's Services department meant to be protecting vulnerable kids because they say they are short of money!!!!!
But it gets even worse. As part of the purchase of the freehold, Labour had to pay for an expensive report from posh property consultants. I assume their own lawyers were involved at considerable expense to the taxpayer. It is not known if they had to also pay the costs of the Guernsey Company who had them over a barrel.
But they still had to fork out:
£22,750,000 for the freehold;
£904,402 Stamp Duty Land Tax;
£910 Land Registry fees.
I assume the Council is able to reclaim the VAT which amounted to a cool £4,550,000!
Therefore, dear readers, excluding legal costs, surveyors report etc you paid £23,655,312 in August, 2014 to own this ghastly building. The good news is that less than two months later Labour forked out for another firm of surveyors to do another valuation of the building and that was, er, £20,653,431. And so in less than eight weeks we were all shafted by the comrades for over THREE MILLION POUNDS - £3,001,881 to be precise!
Oh, and by the way, the sleazy socialists have BORROWED £14.8 million to buy the building and will have to service interest on the loan as well!
"Regeneration" Sandwell Labour-style!
Folk in Sandwell keep voting Labour in and the good folk of Blackheath will get to vote in a by election tomorrow. You only have yourselves to blame in Sandwell if you keep wanting more of the same......
Addendum 10/09/15
I thought you might be interested in seeing Darren Cooper's babyish and spiteful response to this apparently huge loss of taxpayers' money:
(The person who favourited was Cllr Paul Sandars, Cooper's stooge on The Public board).
THE SANDWELL SKIDDER - A COMMUNITY BLOG - READ THE SKIDDER, KIDDER!
email: thesandwellskidder@gmail.com twitter: @bcrover (Vernon Grant)
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