Another Sandwell Labour Lothario?

Given that Sandwell Labour Councillors never lie (oh look, there's a pig flying over Oldbury) what, I wonder, are we to make of the news from the two The Skidder bumped into recently that one of their male comrades has been "playing away" from his missus?

Labour have been collectively shafting the people of Sandwell for years, of course, but they tell me this lusty Labourite is not one of the "usual suspects" in the serial shagging department. In the, er, incestuous world of local Labour, however, they tell me he has at least kept things in the "Socialist family" by squiring the daughter of a fellow councillor!

Yes, Sandwell is one classy place alright!

Turning to other matters, many of you will know that The Skidder recently came under a joint attack from both the Labour "leader" Darren Cooper and the person who purports to be Sandwell's Chief Executive, Jan Britton, who both tried to criminalise me and use West Midlands Police to close this blog down. One particular bone of contention was that I referred to Cooper as a xxxxx xxxxx [redacted temporarily for ongoing legal reasons] although I pointed out to WMP that this was a factually accurate description. Take a look at the following and make your own minds up.

We all know that Cooper's twitter feed would be condemned as inane drivel if coming from a daft teenager but - leaving all the evil, malicious, stuff out - it is particularly alarming from a person who is, laughably, the head of a large council (and who, incredibly, wants to run the new Combined Authority talk shop). Hence why he has been ordered by Labour to clean up his act but has simply carried on supporting, and directly associating with, troll accounts who are pouring forth vile abuse. (Incidentally, my brilliant archivist is helping with a blog whereby hundreds of Cooper's troll-associated tweets are being displayed for posterity).

For reasons that are far too tedious to explain, Cooper and his Unite the Union ally, Brian Rickers, pretend that they are having lunch together most Sundays. It does not say much that this pair think this so hilariously funny that they repeat this babyish twaddle ad nauseum. Here is just a small selection from Smethwick's intellectual titan who, unbelievably, is already second in command of the "shadow" Greater Birmingham! It won't make you laugh but it may make you want to weep......

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Rouf House - SMBC Sale Price!

After MONTHS of battling on your behalf, The Skidder can finally disclose the amount Sandwell Labour sold the large plot of land (formerly occupied by 8 - eight - terraced houses) for to Labour Councillor Mohammad Rouf's son.

(This post has cost me well over £30 in Land Reg fees and so buy me a beer of a coffee when you see me.....).

Let me just set the scene (apologies to regular readers who will be familiar with some of this). On 10th July, 2008 Cllr Rouf made a legal declaration that he owned two properties in Smethwick - 88 Shireland Road and 23 Wellington Road. As far as Shireland Road is concerned this was transferred to one of his sons, Mohammad Shauib, seemingly in or around July, 2005.

Shauib has been the sole owner on Land Registry records for some time but then transferred it to one Saleeman Begum (a relative of Rouf) in February, 2015. But now here's a curious thing since on 12th March, 2015 - whilst Rouf was living in a SMBC Council House (below) - he signed a new legal declaration stating that, once again, he has an ownership interest in this property!!!! Here is his current legal statement:

Question: State:

4. Any beneficial interest in land which is within the area of the Borough of Sandwell.

Answer:

33 Trafalgar Road, Smethwick, B66 3SE 

88 Shireland Road, Smethwick, B66 4QJ

Dated: 12/3/2015

Rouf is continuing to lie about his Council house at Trafalgar Road which is registered at HM Land Registry as belonging to "The Borough Council of Sandwell" under title WM946677. Why is his declared ownership interest in 88 Shireland Road not declared to the Land Registry? (I have once again reported this to SMBC's so-called "Monitoring Officer", Neeraj Sharma, but have had no response)

Rouf sold his other (admitted) property, the Wellington Road address, for - officially - £125,000 and as far as once can tell from Land Registry records, this was in or around April, 2013.

Rouf had, of course, also completed a legal declaration for Sandwell Council claiming to be unemployed but this blog exposed that he was still the holder of a private hire taxi licence with Birmingham City Council (now surrendered).

A trick used by at least 2 Labour Councillors in Sandwell is to hide the fact that they have been awarded council housing by claiming to own the property. The multiple-named Steven Frear is one such and Rouf was another. Fortunately, my Smethwick informants alerted me to the fact that even though he had disposed of the Shireland Road (allegedly) and Wellington Road properties and was working, Rouf was lying when he said in his legal declaration that he owned the property he was then living in at 33 Trafalgar Road, Smethwick and a Land Registry search quickly showed that he had, in fact, been given a Council house by the comrades. I have been trying to get West Midlands Police to investigate this (and certain other matters) for some time but to no avail but then we know Labour Sandwell Council is apparently a "no-go area" for them.

Sandwell Leader [sic] fraternises with local council house resident at taxpayer-funded beano!

In the meantime, Sandwell Labour compulsorily purchased eight terraced houses in what used to be known as Poplar Grove, off Florence Road, Smethwick and then us taxpayers paid for them to be demolished - leaving a nice clear building plot apart from an old electrical sub-station on the site. Oh well, I hear you say, building plot prices have risen dramatically in the last years so this is going to be a "good news" story for the taxpayer isn't it?

On 27th October, 2011 Cllrs Hussain, Eling and Ian Jones secretly agreed to sell the plot and the official record was redacted - a curious thing to do, you might think, if the sleazy Sandwell "socialists" wanted to get the best price for it on the "open market".

The SMBC employee who (no doubt accidentally) provided false information about the bog-gate scandal in a Freedom of Information Act reply said the large plot was marketed (though he does not say how) for "4 to 5 weeks" and sealed bid were invited. Bidders had to pay £75 each to bid. Three bids were allegedly received. One bidder hadn't paid the fee and so was disqualified leaving two in the race. Happily, the successful bidder over the unidentified underbidder was the aforementioned Mohammad Shauib -  a son of Cllr Rouf. The scandal-ridden Council insist everything was above board! So that's alright then.

All very odd given the versions given to me by other interested parties. A number of callers told me they were interested but were never told about having to pay £75 to "bid". Some were told that the property could not be sold until the electrical sub-station was moved. One local family who were extremely interested were also told this and specifically also told that the property had been withdrawn from sale as it was to be auctioned....... All very odd but West Mids Police can't be bothered to take a look even though there is an ongoing Regional Fraud Team investigation into er, Labour Sandwell Council still ongoing! It would be helpful, eh readers, if they took a peek just to make sure no terrible "mistake" has been made......

(Incidentally, it proved very easy to move the electrical sub-station as, er, Labour Sandwell Council kindly provided land for it in the car park on the corner of Shireland Road and Florence Road. Who paid for it to be moved remains a mystery at present).

Sandwell Labour has fought for months to avoid stating how much they sold this publicly-owned land for (!) and the Rouf family have been able to keep this secret by the simple expedient of failing to register the title at HM Land Registry.

BUT DRUM ROLL PLEASE.....

Rouf's son paid £65,000 for this very large plot according to Sandwell Council. (This, in itself, is slightly odd as a number of my contacts have said Rouf personally told them his family had paid "50 grand" for it).

Well you might say, that's not too bad is it? The Rouf family have had to pay to build their seven-bedroom mansion where 8 affordable homes had once been:

Rouf Towers now occupied but has Mo moved in?

Let's go back to the original purchase of the eight terraced houses - 13 to 20 Poplar Grove. Two of the houses, numbers 13 and 19, were on the same legal title and no purchase price is available. This is certainly not going to be less than £40,000 for the two and may have been quite a bit more. Here is what the you, dear taxpayers, paid for the others:

No 14 - £27,000
No 15 - £23,000
No 16 - £27,500
No 17 - £27,000
No 18 - £28,000
No 20 - £25,000

So that is £157,500 plus a minimum of £40,000 for the other two houses plus legal costs plus demolition costs. Accordingly the Labour w*nkers who run the local dictatorship paid over £200,000 for this site but then flogged it to a Councillor's son for £65,000. That is "open market value" in sleazy Sandwell WMP. Good eh?

You probably feel like vomiting at the moment but just to add insult to injury.....

Many readers will know of the similar large residential property occupied by a Councillor in McKean Road, Oldbury and that the fairly substantial parking in front of the house is clogged with a fleet of flash and expensive cars with "overflow" being parked on the street. Happily, there will be no such problems in Florence Road since SMBC are offering residents the opportunity for an annual parking permit at the car park on the corner with Shireland Road for just £20 (that is not a misprint - just 5p a day) for the first vehicle and £25 thereafter. How very convenient for the Rouf family and their pharmacy business next to the car park! And the Order made just in time for the move too!

Regular readers will know that Rouf told me to my face on 16th January, 2015 that he personally would NOT be moving into Rouf Towers (see the link below to my post of 17th February, 2015 below - "Cllr Mohammed Rouf - An Oasis at The Midnight"). Anecdotal evidence suggest he may have had a change of heart in which case, what has happened to the Council house in Trafalgar Road?

The joke Leader [sic] of the Labour politburo, Darren Cooper, has spent two years constantly making the "alarming and distressing" allegation that my whole blog is "lies" without putting forward a single piece of evidence by way of rebuttal. Now he has his social media spokesperson, Andrew Hipkiss (behind at least one troll account already suspended by Twitter), making the same allegation:

Mr Hipkiss publicly says he is mentally-ill......

Come on then, Cooper - I'll give you 48 hours to tell us all what is untrue about any of the above. That's fair isn't it?

Don't forget the police Regional Fraud Team are still investigating possible misdeeds at Sandwell Council - phone DS Wayne Haynes on 0121 251 2175

The full Rouf House story:

http://thesandwellskidder.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/forget-bedroom-tax-its-seven-bedroom.html

http://thesandwellskidder.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/now-whats-labours-councillor-rouf-up-to.html

http://thesandwellskidder.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/sandwell-labours-rouf-on-skid-row.html

http://thesandwellskidder.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/cllr-rouf-unemployed-my-arse-another.html

http://thesandwellskidder.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/cllr-mohammad-rouf-oasis-at-midnight.html


THE SANDWELL SKIDDER - A COMMUNITY BLOG - READ THE SKIDDER, KIDDER!

email:  thesandwellskidder@gmail.com                   twitter:  @bcrover (Vernon Grant)

Confidential phone no:  07599 983737

Frank Skinner - How Much, Jim?

Labour Sandwell Council are still refusing to answer my Freedom of Information request from - I kid you not - 11th March, 2015 in respect of the so-called "celebration" statue dodgy deal.

Regular readers will be well aware that Jim Cadman has refused to answer detailed questions about his private business deal to erect a hideous statue of three of my great heroes in West Bromwich. Nor will he provide accounts for the cartoonish depiction of WBA legends, "The Three Degrees". He has also declined to provide accounts for any of his other statue "enterprises" up and down the country.

Here, Labour Sandwell Council decided to divert planning gain money for infrastructure improvements into this private business project and, again, regular readers of this blog will know the sordid history and that in a Freedom of Information (FoI) request they admitting paying "someone" (though they have yet to confirm precisely who) £30,000 of public money for this mockery. Even though they allege this is a private business project (but not one they put out to tender) to an individual who had done business with the Council in the past and whose recent business record is "interesting" to say the least, they themselves put in a planning application for it. When I questioned this, they then decided that there was no need to withdraw the application as it had not been necessary in the first place! This is what is called "good governance" in the "socialist" paradise!

The comrades have almost totally destroyed any arts provision in the benighted Borough but then diverted public funds and Arts Council money destined for the 2014 "blink and you'll miss it" Sandwell Arts Festival into a vile racist stunt for this private business - and supposedly, er, "anti-racist" - deal where black actors who were meant to portray three black footballers were forced to be sprayed gold. A total of £1,429.90 out of an already miniscule festival budget was used to support a private businessman's secret deal and, unbelievably, even though the wretched statue is to be dark brown and not gold, the cost of spray-painting the three actors was £380!!!!!

Needless to say the "leader" of the Labour Council, Darren Cooper,

 thought this foul fiasco was "brilliant" and widely publicised himself with the unfortunate actors.

Whilst Cooper has not missed an opportunity to publicise this private scheme, the officials at SMBC have been more reticent.

In 2014, SMBC said they had no plans to put any more public money into this hideosity but then in the budget documents this Spring there was an item stating that £160,000 had been set aside for it - yes you have read that correctly - One Hundred and Sixty Thousand Pounds (at a time when, for example, they are slashing the budget for the already disastrous Children's Service Department).

In view of this major discrepancy in what SMBC were telling me I made a further and very detailed FoI request. Here is the chronology:

11/03/15 - Detailed FoI submitted by email which is not returned. SMBC later say they never received it.

02/05/15 - I sent a further email (which was not returned) direct to Jan Britton, the person SMBC hold-out to be their "Chief Executive". SMBC appear to be denying that this was received too! Did he or didn't he?

07/07/15 - I send a complaint to the Office of the Information Commissioner (ICO) about the apparently misleading comments already made by SMBC and that the Request of 11th March, 2015 remains outstanding and a full copy is sent to Sandwell Council. More particularly, the whole request etc is also placed by me on this blog so that the whole world can see it:

http://thesandwellskidder.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/technical-post-appeal-to-information.html

Now even if it was true that Sandwell Council were not aware of my request before, they were certainly aware of it now as they pick over the blog to see if they can close it down. (Britton himself is an assiduous reader and has recently reported me to West Midlands Police).

30/07/15 - finally a response from SMBC saying that they did receive my email of 07/07/15. Nothwithstanding the misleading information they gave me in 2014 and the gross delay already - they say categorically in writing:

"..the Council will respond in accordance to the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act but no later than 20 working says from the date of this email".

Well folks, it is now 16th September and no response has been forthcoming. Accordingly, I have had to go back to the ICO and more expense will be incurred to the public purse - entirely because of Sandwell's cover-up.

And so what of the money raised by Jim Cadman? He has received £30,000 of public money but we do not know where it has gone and he won't say. Back in 2013 he followed the usual pattern with his statue business projects and organised a huge fundraising event at Birmingham Town Hall which was, I am told, very well attended. Here is the actual advert put out by Birmingham Town Hall where this was alleged to be a "charity gig". Cadman has steadfastly refused to confirm that his appeal has any charitable status and it is a matter of public record that it is most definitely NOT a registered charity (which, if it was a genuine charity, it actually should be given the large amounts of moolah flouting about here). So who wrote this grossly misleading copy for the following Birmingham Town Hall publicity?

"Town Hall/Symphony Hall website = event 24/07/13 £40 plus transaction fee.

West Bromwich Albion legends of the 1970s and 1980s including Cyrille Regis, Brendon Batson, Ron Atkinson, Tony “Bomber” Brown, Gary Owen, Alistair Robertson, Derek Statham and John Wile will appear at a one-off charity gig at Birmingham Town Hall to raise funds for The Celebration statue, hosted by lifelong fan Frank Skinner.

The statue, which will be unveiled in West Bromwich town centre in July 2014, highlights the careers of pioneering black footballers Laurie Cunningham, Cyrille Regis and Brendon Batson who played for West Bromwich Albion in the late 1970s and paved the way for future generations of black players in this country.

The fundraising project is being led by Black Country businessman Jim Cadman with the support of Sandwell Council. Leader of Sandwell Council, Councillor Darren Cooper, said:

It is fantastic to see Frank, one of Sandwell’s most famous sons and fellow West Brom fan, getting involved and supporting this great cause. We’re looking forward to seeing this excellent sculpture in the borough next year and this event will help make that a reality".

You will note that tickets were £40 a head and here is Cadman himself boasting about the success of the event:

Sharper readers will have already worked out that, unless Cadman gave lots of tickets away, he raised £32,000 at this alleged "charity gig" from ticket sales alone (800 x £40) plus donations, raffles etc although we don't know what his overheads were and how much was actual "profit" as he won't tell us, nor publish any accounts.

There is also the question of Frank Skinner's fee. One might get the impression that he was somehow doing this as a bit of a freebie as a famous "son of Sandwell" [does anyone actually call themselves that?] but anecdotal evidence suggests he received a substantial figure. Alas, I did not receive any reply from his agents to the following email I sent them. Frank's management are saying nowt and so we will have to rely of Sunny Jim to put us in the picture! "Lol"!

"I write a community blog concerning Sandwell and I have written a number of posts concerning a scandal surrounding a proposed private statue in West Bromwich of "The Three Degrees" - three black footballers who played for West Bromwich Albion.

Mr Skinner was involved at a large fund-raising event for this project at Birmingham Town Hall on 24th July, 2013.

I appreciate that this is a delicate matter and you may not wish to publicly comment but I would like to know whether Mr Skinner received a fee for this event and, if so, how much? I would also like to know precisely who actually paid him ie which account did the money actually come from?

Any assistance you can give me will be greatly appreciated."

On his website, Jim Cadman also boasts of profits from an art exhibition - sponsored by "Bentley of Birmingham" - but, once again, he will not disclose what the figures for this were.

Yet another dinner is featured on the website - "The Manchester United 5-3 Dinner" and the publicity photos show a familiar Labour figure - yet again:

As ever, no details of cash raised are available. Did Cllr Cooper pay for his ticket or was he an invited "guest" as a thank you for £30k of public dosh? No doubt the "leader" himself will hasten to tell us......

Last year, Jim upped the ante and tried to organise the "Laurie Cunningham Tribute Dinner" in Brum at just NINETY POUNDS a head but this flopped. Thus he held a more modest do at The Hawthorns in March this year (although I think the tickets were still around £50 a head) and having braved the dog excrement-smeared streets of Sandwell that night to observe, I can tell you that it was actually very well attended. So how much did that event raise, Jim? What were the ticket sales, the overheads and the "profit"? What was the fee for your goodself?

Of course, sleazy Sandwell Labour shouldn't be putting public money into this crappy private project in the first place but if they are going to go ahead and divert more money to Cadman and/or the sculptor, Graham Ibbeson, why the hell are Jan Britton's staff not asking these questions themselves? How do they know how much of our money to put in if they don't know how much Cadman himself has "raised"? No doubt when they get the answers they can answer my FoI and save the ICO a lot of money too......!

And finally, you would have thought Tesco would have wanted to keep their noses clean given their recent disastrous trading history and massive losses to shareholders (declared interest - my wife is one, though on a very small scale - fortunately). They own New Square, West Bromwich and agreed to make a plot available for this awful object. Despite protracted communications they are flatly REFUSING to tell me whether they dealt with Cadman or with the crafty comrades on this. Perhaps there is a small clue in that in our final conversation they insisted they would say nothing further and I must speak not with Sunny Jim but, er, "with the Council".......

Ever been had?

The police Regional Fraud Team still want to hear from you if you have evidence of possible wrongdoing at Sandwell Council. Phone DS Wayne Haynes and his team in confidence on 0121 251 2175.

THE SANDWELL SKIDDER - A COMMUNITY BLOG - READ THE SKIDDER, KIDDER!

email:  thesandwellskidder@gmail.com                    twitter:  @bcrover (Vernon Grant)

Confidential phone no:  07599 983737

More Land in SMBC Fraud Enquiry!

Breaking News: The Skidder has just uncovered (many thanks to an anonymous informant) that the removal of a restrictive covenant on land adjacent to The Plough Inn, Tividale Road, Tipton is forming part of the current police investigation into Labour Sandwell Council.

The Labour Council, currently mired in scandal, have stated:

"As you will be aware , allegations of misconduct or unlawful behaviour are currently being investigated and the information you have requested now forms part of this investigation".

Apologies for the brevity of this post but The Skidder is currently under unprecedented and concerted attack and is fighting to keep this blog afloat.

Wayne Haynes and his team still want to hear from you if you have evidence of possible wrongdoing at Sandwell Council. Phone the Regional Fraud Team on 0121 251 2175 in confidence.

THE SANDWELL SKIDDER - A COMMUNITY BLOG - READ THE SKIDDER, KIDDER!

email:  thesandwellskidder@gmail.com                twitter:  @bcrover (Vernon Grant)

Confidential phone no: 07599 983737

Breaking News - Providence Place

This post must (mercifully for you) be short due to my current commitments but the truth about the 1 Providence Place disaster is now coming out thanks to a Freedom of Information Act request which I made on your behalf.

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)

Confidential phone no: 07599 983737

Sandwell Muslim Organisation

My Muslim friends in Sandwell tell me that there is still simmering discontent within the local community about the circumstances surrounding the demise of the Sandwell Muslim Organisation (SMO) in which Cllr Mahboob Hussain was such a leading light. Not to mention other Labour luminaries like Shaukat Ali and, of course, our dear old friend, Mohammad Rouf.

Tireless voluntary worker and the Sage of Smethwick
(A familiar figure right behind.....)

The curious story of the SMO's ownership of their large property opposite The Oldbury Kremlin was set out in my blog post of 17th October, 2014:

http://thesandwellskidder.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/how-to-win-friends-and-influence-people.html

but let us have a quick look at the salient facts again in the light of a partial response to a Freedom of Information Act request which I made on behalf of concerned locals.

On 20th October, 2003 the Birmingham Evening Mail reported that there were problems with the SMO which was receiving large amounts of cash from Labour Sandwell. In particular, the Committee were operating as a "closed shop". The Chief Executive of the time, Nigel Summers, launched "an inquiry" (where have we heard that one before eh, readers?)

In the true, incompetent, style of Sandwell Labour this was shutting the stable door after the horse had bolted since just two months beforehand, and apparently without any due diligence, the crafty comrades has conveyed the large double property at 33/35 Birmingham Road, Oldbury on 13th August, 2003 to (1) Abdul Fazal Hussain (apparently no close relation to Oldbury's most celebrated amnesiac) and (2) Mohammed Azad.

It is now Autumn 2015 and the shifty sh*ts are STILL refusing under a Freedom of Information request to say how much the taxpayer actually received for these two large properties in 2003! All that they will say is that they obtained an "open market value" decided by a "qualified surveyor". Unfortunately, this property expert was employed by, er, Sandwell Council!

The price would have been less than an open market value since Labour thoughtfully protected the taxpayer by insisting on a restrictive covenant preventing SMO from selling other than to another charity for 25 years......

Happily taxpayers, in early 2004 Mr Summers was able to announce that he had only discovered "minor irregularities" at SMO and our money kept on flowing. Almost immediately, SMO started negotiations to change the terms of the restrictive covenant to get a better deal.

Much of what we know then is shown in the blog post mentioned above but suffice to say here that only weeks later SMBC were starting a new, er, investigation into the charity and by Autumn 2005 it had collapsed with much anger and recrimination. It is not clear what happened to Mohammad Azad but it appears that in 2007 Abdul Fazal Hussain had become sole owner of the property at HM Land Registry.

In my earlier post, I mentioned the mystery surrounding the date of Mr Hussain's subsequent planning application in 2012 and this is what I said then:

"Another oddity is that the declarations on the application are signed 7th June, 2012, as was the separate fee form, but the application was allegedly not received by Sandwell Council until 17th September. Someone, somewhere, appears to have been waiting for something to happen....."

The problem, of course, was that the properties were still subject to the restrictive covenant. But now Mr Bubalo himself, no less, has confirmed that "consultations" took place between "officers in Legal Services and Property Services" at the request of Mr A. F. Hussain in JULY, 2012. It won't surprise you to note, readers, that Mr A. F. Hussain got the mine and, as usual with Sandwell Labour, the people of the Borough got the shaft! The "officers in Legal Services and Property Services" had apparently decided that their predecessors in 2003 had f*cked the whole thing up and, in fact, the restrictive covenant was UNENFORCEABLE! Thus Sandwell Labour would not seek any payment whatsoever from Mr Hussain for the increase in value of the property without the covenant. Accordingly the taxpayer would fund Sandwell Council's preparation of a Deed to remove the covenant (ie to prepare a legal document to say that it was, er, unenforceable!) but Mr A. F. Hussain graciously agreed to pay his own legal costs.

In went the planning application which was quickly granted by Mr Bubalo who insists that the planning application "had no bearing on the matter" of the covenant which is odd as the application had clearly been delayed until the Council had decided to remove it. The Deed was executed saying the unenforceable covenant was "released" on 12th Octover, 2012 and the property was duly sold and then converted into six flats.

No reason has been given by the cunning comrades why the Council's own covenant was deemed to be "unenforceable".

It is not known whether Mr A. F. Hussain has distributed any sale proceeds to Muslim causes and I shall be pleased to hear from him in this regard. Meanwhile, Councillor Rouf has moved on to become a trustee of the Smethwick Pakistani Muslim Association (incidentally, Sandwell Labour are STILL refusing to say how much they sold the plot at Florence Road for to his son even though they confirm that the property was finally conveyed on 30th March, 2015. Rouf's son has avoided the information being publicly available by the simple expedient of failing to register the property at HM Land Registry - as of last week).

An SMBC insider told be that the removal of covenants was on the cards elsewhere and I have already referred in this blog to the huge piece of land sold subject to covenant to Tipton Mosque for just £25,000! Let us hope the covenant there is not also "unenforceable"...... The Labour jokers tried to do the same thing with a huge piece of land in central West Bromwich going to the Dartmouth Street Mosque until The Skidder exposed this nonsense. However, another insider has told me of "the big one" where a very senior SMBC officer has allegedly told staff nothing will happen on the particular piece of land until everything has died down after the fraud investigation. Of course, that is just scurrilous gossip and cannot possibly be true........

Don't forget to keep voting Labour for more of this y'all!

Remember the police Regional Fraud Team investigation is still ongoing and DS Wayne Haynes and his team are still anxious to hear from you if you have information about possible fraud and corruption at Sandwell Council - 0121 251 2175.

THE SANDWELL SKIDDER - A COMMUNITY BLOG - READ THE SKIDDER, KIDDER!

email: thesandwellskidder@gmail.com            twitter:  @bcrover (Vernon Grant)

Confidential phone no: 07599 983737

Hussain's Son Sells Lodge Street!

No doubt many of you have hastened down to Lodge Street in Oldbury to visit the showhome on the 14 house development currently being built there. I just thought I would up-date you on the latest news.....

Regular readers will remember that this nice, cleared, "development-ready" site was marketed by Sandwell's failing Labour Council via a glossy 20-page "prospectus":

file:///C:/Users/Julian/Downloads/Lodge_Street-StoneStreet_Development_Prospectus.pdf

but despite all this the crafty comrades then decided to sell the large plot for the price of a terraced house - just £145,000 - to the son of Cllr Hussain, Azeem Hafeez, who was, at the time, also working in Nick Bubalo's "Regeneration and Economy" department. (Is he STILL employed by SMBC?)

The planning permission for this "major" development was nodded through and Cllr Roger Horton moved that other planning matters for this major development would be delegated to, er, Nick Bubalo in consultation with the Chair of Planning, the multiple-named Cllr Frear, and the Vice Chair, Cllr Downing.

The application was for just FOURTEEN three and four bedroom houses but an application was later made to include one five bedroom house among the 14. Happily, Mr Bubalo readily agreed "in consultation with the Chair and Vice-Chair of Planning".

Employee Azeem has now sold the whole plot for, er, £145,000 to Broadwell Developments Limited of Digbeth, Birmingham and so has got a few quid in his pocket. Oh well, I suppose he won't now have to pay any personal Capital Gains Tax on the land having sold it for what he paid for it.

Broadwell have borrowed £450,000 on the security of the land - presumably - to fund the rest of the building works.

In the meantime, the shifty "socialists" have (sort-of) confirmed that employee Azeem has only bought two properties off Sandwell Council but that he has also unsuccessfully bid on "approximately 30" other Council properties over the last two years! The comrades are very conveniently refusing to disclose details of the properties their employee has bid on pursuant to a Freedom of Information request as they claim it will take over EIGHTEEN hours to locate the information! It would be lovely to know who the successful bidders were, wouldn't it readers? The letter refusing disclosure has been signed by none other than Mr Bubalo himself whom one may have thought may have been aware of the bids one of his own department's staff was allegedly making on publicly-owned property. Obviously not.

Azeem has set his lawyers on The Skidder but perhaps it would be a nice conciliatory gesture if he now contacted me with the details of his unsuccessful efforts.

And so Azeem's interest in Lodge Street is no-more. Oh, hang on a minute, I "forgot" (Hussain-style) to mention that the former registered office of Broadwell Developments Ltd was 51 McKean Road and that there is a single director of the Company who owns 100% of the shares. Step forward Mr Azeem Hafeez!

THE SANDWELL SKIDDER - A COMMUNITY BLOG - READ THE SKIDDER, KIDDER!

email:  thesandwellskidder@gmail.com             twitter:  @bcrover (Vernon Grant)

Confidential phone no: 07599 983737