For the record, Hussain instigated the communications with the College for them to take over The Public in West Brom but Jan Britton's senior staff lied about this is a written "Fundamental Review" of the scandalous transaction which was then presented to the full Council.*
I am sure I will be writing more about unpopular Assistant Chief Executive Melanie Dudley very shortly but suffice to say here that we all know that the top echelon of staff under (ouch) the joke "Chief Executive" Jan Britton were totally "up the arse" of Cooper and Hussain but members of Mel's own staff physically attended the very first meeting Hussain arranged with the College. Yet in a Freedom of Information reply SMBC seriously expect us to believe that the fragrant eyelash fluttering Mel knew absolutely nothing about the deal until it went through. This is wholly incredible but important to the lying comrades and Britton because the Cooper/Britton regime gifted a £6m contract to Interserve Plc without putting it out to tender or any other competitive process. To try and get round the illegality of this, Cooper/Britton claimed that the deal could be done under the already defunct "Building Schools for the Future" scheme which had been stopped by then Education Secretary, Michael Gove. Thus the multi-million pound secret deal had to be channelled through a company called Sandwell Futures Limited and a director of that company was, and still is, "Sadwell's" answer to Imelda Marcos, Mel herself! Clearly there is the most egregious conflict of interest one could imagine here and so the sleazy socialists have simply lied about the true facts. Unfortunately, they overlooked the fact that even though they said Mel had no knowledge of the deal she herself felt able to SIGN the aforementioned Fundamental Review shafting the already doomed arts centre!
Cooper, Hussain and Britton agreed the deal and announced it to the media before going through the legal formalities and, worse, without actually agreeing a deal with the Spon Street scum. We all know Cooper was a thick moron but, as reported often in this blog, the College then played hardball and had the class-dunce's pants down in no time at all.
Cooper and Hussain put it about that the College would be having the building for 25 years and paying "rent" of over £400,000 per annum. This outright lie was slavishly published by the Wolverhampton c*ck-suckers on a number of occasions and despite this blog proving the true facts about the bent deal.
Yes, the lease was for 25 years but the Ofsted-rated second-rate College had insisted on break-clauses being inserted into the lease - two, in fact - with the first being after just 10 years and not the "quarter of a century" the woman-bullying thug Cooper was then boasting about.
The plan was to get Interserve to destroy most of the ground floor of the iconic building and insert a few sh*tty shipping containers with windows as classrooms at a cost of nearly six million pounds. Because the College itself is funded by us taxpayers anyway there was no way even the crafty comrades could simply pay this money to them and so the bent deal provided that the Council would borrow the £6m and then lend it to the College who would pay it back with a very low interest rate over the 25 years of the lease (with other provisions if the College walk away from the building they have gratuitously destroyed after just 10 years or some other period). Cooper claimed this was "rent" when it is no such thing but Harrison and his merry men were happy to keep repeating this massive porky.
It gets worse.... The College negotiated that they pay NO RENT WHATSOEVER as pointed out here many times. Mr Harrison or his underlings could very easily see this by examining the lease (which Cooper and the College fought vigorously and managed to keep secret from taxpayers for many months) for a few minutes. Just in case he still can't get it here is the relevant screenshot of the actual provision from Schedule 3 of the Lease - incontrovertible evidence. The lawyers may have called this "rent" but it is the repayment of the refurb loan (ie TC "the total cost") and NOT rent:
As the College is STILL getting taxpayer funding they are getting a hidden subsidy not enjoyed by other colleges in the area and I am STILL awaiting a proper response from the Government with regard to this.
But hang on - it gets even worse. In a 25 year lease of this type the lessee - the College in this case - always pays to maintain the building. It is almost unheard of for the arrangement to be otherwise but Cooper and Hussain - having boasted of the deal before it was actually agreed - were over a barrel and the College decided to f*ck them and us taxpayers right up the derriere by also insisting that the imbecilic Labour Council pays for this TOO! And they did!!!!
Ah well, you might say - the Council have provided a Freedom of Information Act reply today to The Skidder and us taxpayers have only subsidised the College for a further £11,973.17 since 1st September, 2014. Wait for it..... Credit where credit is due, thanks to the direct intervention of the relatively new Leader of the Council, Steve Eling (and in a new spirit of openness now that Cooper is happily out of the picture), they have further disclosed today that Sandwell Council also spent a sum for rectification of various faults which were NOT included in the Interserve "concordat" as payable by the greedy bastards at the College and which, hitherto, has been kept secret. Clever folk who noted the title of this piece will guess roughly how much but the actual figure was a shocking £507,377.23. Over HALF A MILLION POUNDS!
No wonder Britton's Council and the College (where one Governor is unbelievably, er, Jan Britton) fought so hard to keep all this secret. And shame on you Harrison and Co for helping them to deceive us all.
* I am assuming they lied because. if they did not, they have known the legal document they all signed was false for at least two years but have made no attempt whatsoever to rectify the record.
(Please not the Skidder phone is temporarily out of order and a new number will follow shortly. Email is working normally.)
THE SANDWELL SKIDDER - COMMUNITY NEWS - READ THE SKIDDER, KIDDER!
Email: thesandwellskidder@gmail.com Facebook: Julian Saunders
PROUD TO HAVE BEEN TROLLED BY DICKHEAD DARREN COOPER (DECEASED)
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