The Asset Management & Land Disposal Committee meet on Thursday under the laughable chairmanship of inexperienced councillor and Sandwell Labour "Business Ambassador" Bill Gavan who, as shown in a recent blog, has been involved in a whole string of companies, er, dissolved at Companies House!:
http://thesandwellskidder.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/only-in-sadwell.html
Unemployed Bill is refusing to confirm that he is one and the same as the "William Gavan" who donated £5,000 to West Bromwich East Labour Party in April, 2015:
http://thesandwellskidder.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/dear-bill.html
Don't bother to turn up to the meeting on Thursday as, apart from the reading of the minutes of the last meeting, the whole thing is to be held in secret. If you try and take a look at the minutes you will see that they are also heavily redacted so that us plebs are kept well and truly in the dark.
There are three items on the agenda. I am only interested here in one but the other two make interesting reading. One item deals with the disposal of the Union Street Car Park in West Bromwich which is supposed to be surplus to requirements despite paragraph 6.2 of the SMBC report stating "there is a significant demand for car parking in this area generated by surrounding commercial uses"! As in some of the other disastrous land deals on Chief Executive [sic] Jan Britton's watch, Nick Bubalo has "estimated" what the sale of the park would raise (a secret of course) but the report helpfully sets out that Labour could grant a short lease instead and it doesn't have to be for full commercial value as long as the public are not shafted for more than £2m! You don't think they might already have someone lined up for a deal do you readers? I am sure Bill Gavan will find out (ROFLMAO).
The second deal is timely with the election coming up and votes to be bought (sorry, garnered). Once again the agenda is heavily redacted but in 2010 Labour granted a 10 year lease of the old Housing Office in Harwood Street, West Bromwich to the Confederation of Bangladeshi Organisations who now run the Garretts Green Resource Centre there. As it is International Women's Day we should, perhaps, remind ourselves of the turnout for the opening:
The Confederation (a registered charity) were given a 10 year lease in 2010 but now want to take over an adjoining parcel of land which is currently part of an amenity space for the local area and cancel the remainder of the existing lease in favour of a new 25 year lease instead (to also incorporate the extra land). The comrades want to agree this long lease at a subsidised rent for a massive 25 years even though the Charity's last accounts show that Labour also gave them grants of a whopping £89,252 in year ended 31/03/15. And all this has been left to Ms Neeraj Sharma and Mr Nick Bubalo to sort out without having to take into account any commercial considerations. We know what fantastic deals Neeraj and Nick negotiated for the public in the land sales to the sons of Cllrs Hussain and Rouf and so I am sure we all hope they will be as tough on the Bangladeshi Community before election day (now weeping bitterly onto my keyboard....)
(Incidentally, even though this small charity wants a 25 year lease for Harwood Street they also feel the need for another property too and are said in the accounts to be purchasing 8-10 Carters Green. Presumably they are expecting plenty more dosh from the comrades for a few years to come in addition to their subsidised rent! Strangely, they also refer in the accounts to an £80,000 interest free loan from "an affiliated group" without actually specifying who this "group" might be.)
And now to the final item - sale of yet more open space but an interesting one. Yet again the comrades are trying to keep most of the details secret but this involves the sale of heavily contaminated land at the old T & S Elements site off Hall Green Road and Needwood Grove, West Bromwich for housing. Part of the site was owned by a company called Judmick Estates and the other part - officially designated as open space - by SMBC. Judmick wanted to develop the whole site ie not just their bit. It is claimed in Council documents that this was also the only game in town for us taxpayers and any other interested parties were to be locked out (where have we heard that one before, eh, readers?) Judmick sold their part of the land on to Christchurch Land Limited (such is the carelessness with which Jan Britton's out of control staff operate, the minutes for Thursday's meeting calls this company "Christ Church Limited" when no such company actually exists).
Christchurch Land began clearing-up their site and made a planning application - DC/12/54434 - both in respect of their patch and the publicly-owned land. They had been involved in direct discussions with various people in planning and directly with some Labour ward councillors.
In May, 2012 the, then, Land Disposal Committee of Hussain (currently under voluntary suspension from the Labour Party), Eling (who lied about the Casino costs fiasco and was the main architect of the disastrous Council Tax Benefit fiasco) and Ian Jones (proven liar on BBC radio and also currently under voluntary suspension from the Labour Party) agreed to sell the land to Christchurch Land on terms to be agreed by, er, Neeraj Sharma and Nick Bubalo but with an important qualification - that this pair should SPECIFICALLY consider deferred purchase or profit-sharing agreements. In other words, even these three could see that the developer was getting a good deal by SMBC locking everyone else out and selling to them and they wanted a piece of the action (this did not always work with the sleazy "socialists" as the dodgy sale of the plot at Florence Road, Smethwick to Cllr Rouf's son was done via a type of deferred purchase arrangement and us taxpayers were still shafted right up the axxx!)
Unfortunately, the SMBC website is not allowing me to access the planning application documents today and so I cannot tell you about that. Yet more "openness" from Jan Britton's shambolic organisation:
No doubt Bill Gavan will be demanding to know full details of the "deal" which Bubalo recommends must be done on his figures.......... I do hope Mar City will be happy with the tough deal Bubalo "negotiates"...... We need Nick and Neeraj to finally be tough b*stards!
Oh and by the way - Mar City Homes Limited is one of a number of "Mar City" companies some of which are said by Companies House today to have failed to comply with the law and file their accounts which is normally a source of considerable worry for most people:
Mar City Developments Ltd - accounts due 31st January, 2016 overdue;
Mar City Properties Limited - FIRST accounts not yet due;
Mar City Land Limited - accounts overdue from 2nd October, 2015!
Mar City Homes Limited which Nick is so anxious to do business with must have changed their accounting dates since Companies House say accounts are not due and yet this Company has not filed accounts since year ended 31st December, 2013!!!!
Floating above all this is a Public Limited Company - Mar City Plc - where even stricter rules apply but even that plc has overdue accounts from 31st December, 2015:
No doubt Darren Cooper's secret state of Sadwell is intent on acting in our best interests. Fear not readers, all will be well! And Bill, just get on and do what Darren and Mahboob have told you to do.....
THE SANDWELL SKIDDER - COMMUNITY NEWS - READ THE SKIDDER, KIDDER!
PROUD TO BE TROLLED BY DARREN COOPER AND ANDREW HIPKISS
email: thesandwellskidder@gmail.com facebook: Julian Saunders
Confidential phone no: 07599 983737
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