A New Bog-gate Mystery!

Isn't it funny how "coincidences" keep cropping up in Sandwell?

Now anyone can be paid to put up an advertising board but just as a starter before the main course, take a look at this:

Taxi Advert

Regular readers will be familiar with the name of this Oldbury building - 12 Unity Place - owned by our old friends Abdul Naeem Quyam and Abdul Amean. Obviously by complete chance, the taxi firm advertised happens to be a limited company whose sole owner is one Adnan Hussain of another familiar address, 51 McKean Road - home of Sandwell Labour's joint deputy "leader" and spiritual guru, Cllr [sic] Mahboob Hussain. Adnan is one of his sons.

And now for the main course....yes, it's the bogs! In particular, the set in Albert Street, Oldbury. Yesterday there were some signs that there may be something happening. The signs say that "24/7 Cars" were due to open months ago in January, 2014. The only address I can find on the internet for 24/7 is 12 Unity Place. They might have to take the above board down!

Now here's a funny thing.... The owners of  the Albert Street bogs needed to apply for a change of use of the building from a pissoir to a taxi office. The big problem is that the roads around have parking restrictions - not ideal for a taxi business with drivers hanging about. But in an earlier post I mentioned that there is a large car park immediately behind the building which belongs to Labour Sandwell Council. Clearly it would be very helpful if a deal could be done......

The application for planning approval DC/13/56493 was dated 23rd October, 2013 and was signed by an agent for the applicant, Mr Anthony Hope, an architectural technologist from Kinver. Mr Hope felt able to sign this legal declaration on behalf of the applicant:

"Certificate of Ownership - Certificate A Town and Country Planning (Development Management Procedure) (England) Order 2010 Certificate under Article 12

 I certify/the applicant certifies that on the day 21 days before the date of this application nobody except  myself/the applicant was the owner (owner is a person with a freehold interest or leasehold interest with at least 7 years left to run) of any part of the land to which the application relates, and that none of the land to which the application relates is, or is part of, an agricultural holding (‘agricultural holding” has the meaning given by reference to the definition of “agricultural tenant ‘ in section 65(8) of the Act)."

So the applicant owned the property for 21 days before 23rd October, 2013. But hang on a minute. The applicant is NOT the owner of the bogs, Abdul Naeem Quyam, but a Mr Bobby Jandhu of 22 Chapel Ash, Wolverhampton!

Again, regular readers will note that address was (a) the office of Future Estates (b) one address used in Companies House documents by Abdul Amean and (c) the base for the business of Sukhdev Singh Jandhu. I am not sure if the latter is one and the same as "Bobby" Jandhu but as Quyam was the legal owner at HM Land Registry under title number MM8966 from 13th August, 2012 to, at least, 11th August, 2014 (when I did a search) Mr Hope appears to have told a massive porky in the planning application!

Wait! It does get even more "mysterious". Although the planning application was only submitted in late October, 2013 the "applicants" - whoever they might actually be - were confident enough of success for them to advertise the business opening in January, 2014. but things didn't quite go according to plan. There was a petition of 23 signatories against the change of use. Happily, however,  applicants need not have worried as the "socialists" were able to ignore this and grant the planning permission to, er, Mr Bobby Jandhu, on 19th December, 2013! Quite why the office hasn't opened yet remains a mystery. No doubt Jan Britton will hasten to investigate the apparent discrepancies in the application (snigger, sniff, burst out laughing....)

And yet there is another strange coincidence here. Mr Anthony Hope is also the agent for Oldbury property developer, Azeem Hafeez. Hafeez has built three houses on the corner of Broadwell Road and John Street, Oldbury pursuant to Sandwell planning application DC/13/55827. He owns the adjoining piece of land and has Sandwell planning permission for two shops and a flat above fronting Birmingham Road (DC/13/56514). More notably, he has planning permission for 12 apartments adjacent to 2 Clifford Street via DC/13/56501. But the icing on the cake is planning permission for 14 houses on land at the corner of Lodge Street and Old Street, Oldbury (DC/13/56684) which he managed to buy from the comrades themselves at Sandwell Council for a very "fair" £145,000. Mr Hafeez makes no secret in the planning documents that he is an employee of Sandwell Council AND the son of Cllr Mahboob Hussain.

It's all very odd but at least it does prove the old saying that "where there's life there's Hope!"

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