#Boggate - Those Sandwell Coincidences Again!

Last Wednesday I was at the Oldbury Council House ("The Heart of Darkness") for the very well attended Chance Glassworks Heritage Trust beano. It was gratifying to see that Sandwell Labour had not done their usual trick and forced one of their own onto the Board of Trustees although there were an alarming number of "the comrades" at the event - the ones I could see were Messrs Eling, Marshall, Sandars, Piper, Gavan and Trow. In my dealings with the Borough I have often found that where there are flies there is sh*t!

The Trust introduced a relatively new Board member, a Mr Afzal Hussain. I am afraid that Sandwell's most celebrated amnesiac, Mahboob of that ilk, has rather diminished the Hussain name in the benighted Borough and so I asked two VERY SENIOR local Labour figures if, by chance, the young man and the friend of the cops were related. Both replies were in the negative and that may indeed be the case.

I don't normally believe in coincidences when it comes to matters "Sadwell" but, hopefully, this odd little situation is one such.....

Regular readers will be very familiar with the #Boggate scandal. I refer here only to the Albert Street bogs in Oldbury which were sold at a gross undervalue to Abdul Naeem Quyam (ANQ) - a relative by marriage of Cllr Mahboob himself. A planning application went in to change the building to a taxi office. The certificate of ownership was signed by someone who was most definitely NOT the legal owner but Nick Bubalo of SMBC (who has been directly involved in all the bent land deals featuring in this blog) said it didn't matter!

What I had missed (despite a local informant tipping me off) is that a later planning application went in to amend the application. This time the true owner - ANQ - did sign the Certificate of Ownership although the applicant was a Mr Amer Khan of Tividale Road, Oldbury. Planning permission was granted and this is how the bogs look now:

And a Land Registry search tonight shows that the bogs are still owned my Mahboob's family member (by marriage).

So who is running the "information hub" in the former sh*tters? A Company called "The Healthy Employment Hub CIC". Two of the three directors are the aforementioned Amer Khan (who was permitted to lead the planning application on behalf of ANQ) and one Soubia Shabir Hussain, She gave the address for the bogs - now cheekily called Chaudry House (!) which has upset a number of local members of the Muslim community - to Companies House. But she also runs another company called Catalyst Programme Management Limited giving Companies House her home address which is 2xx Montague Road, Smethwick.

Which just so happens to be the same address as Mr Afzal Hussain of the Chance Glassworks Heritage Trust and a director of other companies too (some dissolved).

By heck it's a small world in Sadders!

NB - there are just a couple of places left on the UK's first "Corruptour" on Sunday 2nd April at 10.30am. The tour starts at Oldbury Council House at 10.30 so if you just rock up you may get on (first come, first served). The tour will visit the Sandwell Council hotspots of fraud, cronyism and incompetence in the southern part of the Borough for around two and a half hours (with a short break). Ironically the tour is due to finish at the Albert Street bogs! Only £3 per head so come on down....

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