Another Sandwell Scandal - Spot the Difference?

In my blog of 18/12/13 "The Public - Odds and Sods", I made reference to a proposed deal for the Queen's Square (QS) Car Park to be demolished and an ice rink built in its place. The sordid details are slowly beginning to emerge...... I should say that the Wolverhampton section of Sandwell Council's (SMBC's) press office - aka The Express and Star - slipped out a "report" on this on Boxing Day when most of us were otherwise engaged and I missed the "killer fact" mentioned therein.

SMBC is, of course, a Labour party fiefdom which is run by a so-called "cabinet". That body has a sub-committee called the "Asset Management and Land Disposal Cabinet Committee" which was due to meet on 18th December last. As with most things in the secret state of Sandwell, a large part of the agenda was redacted and not available for public view. Besides the approval of the minutes of the previous meeting there were 10 other items on the agenda including the ice rink proposal. Just as with matters concerning The Public, much of the proposal was secret ie Item 11 and Item 11a. There was a further item 11 deemed suitable for the taxpayer/voter to see but this, in itself, was heavily redacted. (These are the items marked with an "X" below).

In the agenda it specifically says (and I kid you not): "The Council has been approached by company xxxxx xxxx, who wish to develop an ice rink within West Bromwich. Officers have had a preliminary meetings with company representatives and a mechanism for the delivery has been agreed in principle".

It went on to say that the Council already has "a demolition partner". I take this to mean that a contract for all demolition work within the Borough has been awarded to a single company - presumably after open tender/competition (?) It was proposed to knock down the QS Car Park and hand a nice clear site to the "ice rink developer". This Car Park is a very large multi-storey job right in the Town Centre adjacent to the recently opened New Square/Tesco Development and the Queen's Square shopping centre which is currently undergoing major refurbishment. Nevertheless, SMBC have deemed it surplus to requirements and proposed to "grant aid" (ie use taxpayer's money to pay for) the demolition at a secret cost of £XXX. You would have thought the demolition of this large structure would merit individual tendering/competitive quoting but no, and the "demolition partners" kindly provided a secret quote of £XXX for the job!

The idea was that the secret developer would build the ice rink under licence (please don't tell me Interserve are involved again....) and then lease the site from SMBC but only at a peppercorn rate ie at a purely nominal rent and not at a commercial market rate. Why? Under this daft idea SMBC would not only lose the car park revenue but would not get any rent to offset against it.

In passing, The ice rink developer proposes to close another ice rink in a different local authority area if this scheme goes ahead and so any arguments about "job creation" will, presumably be offset by job losses at the facility that is to be closed - although I am sure that will be of no concern to the "socialists" at SMBC.

SMBC are even trying to claim that it is a good thing to develop derelict/underused sites but it will only be derelict when the building has been demolished at PUBLIC expense to help the developer! Clearly it is also not a great vote of confidence for West Brom as a shopping centre since SMBC say the car park is not necessary given the New Square parking (even when the revamped Queen's Square centre comes on stream). Lest we forget, SMBC's favourite consultant, Mr Farrell of Jones Lang LaSalle, also  referred to the "unattractive demographic profile of people currently (July 2012) frequenting the town centre" but the ice rink developers appear to have a different view.

SMBC also say they want to stimulate the night-time economy in West Brom which is a bit rich having just closed The Public!

As with The Public the mysterious "Strategic Finance" department of SMBC prepared a report but, as with The Public, it is secret. Nevertheless, the agenda stated that the score for this project was XX%. We now know that this was 54% which EVEN SMBC admit "is below the level which would secure unconditional approval".

But then it gets even worse! At the meeting itself there were just 3 "councillors" ie Hussain, Crompton and Ealing. Not only did they give this plan the go-ahead but they quietly dropped the lease idea and agreed to pay to clear the site with public money but then to SELL it to the ice rink developer now identified as Planet Ice Property Leisure Limited - the price and conditions to be agreed by the Area Director - Regeneration and Economy (ie Mr Nick Bubalo who scrapes by on a, for SMBC, lowly remuneration of £104,789) in "consultation" with,er, Hussain and one other unspecified "cabinet" member.

And so, just like The Public, a multi-million pound deal is being stitched-up behind the scenes on the basis of secret reports which the taxpayer is not allowed to see. There has been no tendering nor open competition (as with the Interserve/Sandwell Futures deal) for an ice rink let alone for any other use (including, presumably, selling it as a car park). Once again, we have to assume that no councillors (or council workers) are "on the take" and so it must surely be utter incompetence that drives SMBC to agree a deal with a single developer and to bend over backwards to provide them with a clear site at public expense.

All this must be subject to planning permission but, of course, the developer is obviously confident that SMBC will not stand in its way since it is said demolition will start in the spring and building in the autumn of this year. (Of course, the person who advised that planning permission was NOT required for the interior destruction of The Public was,er, Nick Bubalo......) Some readers may feel moved to object when the planning notices are available.

Council's are not supposed to provide "state aid" to private companies but SMBC have waived their responsibility to police this and state they will "ensure THE DEVELOPER provides written confirmation of compliance with state aid regulations." Oh Yeah?

Again, as with the College deal, SMBC are dealing with one favoured party only and so how is the price for the cleared site to be agreed? Will yet another expensive firm of consultants be instructed to come up with an answer suitable to the parties? How can an objective view be formed if, again, there is only one game in town? Why is a so-called Labour Council so anxious to assist certain developers?

The Committee wants some minor points to be cleared-up but they have resolved to do this deal.

With the reading of the minutes plus nine OTHER agenda items the whole meeting on 18th December - including this vitally important matter for central West Brom - took just 30 minutes.

The "leader" (sic) of SMBC, Cooper, keeps blaming the Government for "cuts" to the budget but as shown in my last post (and some to come) huge amounts have to be paid out each month in respect of borrowings and payments under PFI contracts BEFORE any money can be spent on statutory or frontline services. Even if Planet Ice stump up a reasonable sum (unlikely if they were originally going to get a long lease at a peppercorn rent) this money will disappear into debt repayment (eg for the borrowings to afford the multi-million, untendered, Public contract).This is the reality of Cooper's Sandwell "wongaland".

BREAKING NEWS:

A very detailed Freedom of Information request has been submitted in respect of the so-called "Concordat" ie the still secret deal between SMBC and Sandwell College by Mr Darryl Magher. Go to www.whatdotheyknow.com  Cooper went on Twiiter recently and falsely alleged that all the details are on the SMBC website - look yourselves, they are not. The agreements could easily be photocopied and released TODAY but we shall see what actually happens.........

As ever, info about this or other Sandwell Council matters (or Sandwell College) can be sent anonymously or otherwise to:

VERNON GRANT, BOX 374, 27 COLMORE ROW, BIRMINGHAM B3 2EW

Twitter: @bcrover   (#icestink for this story).