Lion Farm - More Secrecy!

At the bottom of this post is the so-called "report" to bent Sandwell Council's Labour "Cabinet" prepared by new director Dr Alison Knight. Knight had been employed by Sandwell before and had been heavily involved in a disastrous project called "Click Sandwell." In my recent blog, "Twice a Knight", I quoted an outside senior observer with knowledge of the programme and local government who stated, "it is without doubt the worst project I have ever seen."

I wondered how Knight had come to be re-employed following this catastrophe and mentioned the rumour that she has "friends in Derbyshire". Another SMBC employee heavily involved in the Click debacle was one Pamela Pulsford, now Pamela Eling, wife of the embattled Council Leader, Steve "The Milkman" Eling. It is said that Knight is one of the very few people who has been prepared to "out" herself as a "friend of Pamela". No doubt this was all declared when the grovelling "Chief Executive" of Sandwell Council, Jan Britton, re-appointed Knight despite the Click fiasco!

http://thesandwellskidder.blogspot.co.uk/2018/02/twice-knight.html

Knight had only been back with the corrupt Council for a couple of months when her political masters had her prepare the report which, as before, was hidden from obvious view by using the false and misleading title "Junction 2 Regeneration". The presenting Cabinet member, an employee and puppet of Tom Watson MP, Paul Moore (pictured), accepted it without question even though it contained such nonsense as there being environmental benefits in destroying 19ha of green space to build a shopping centre!!!

But the "report", either deliberately or negligently, contained one particularly egregious omission ie that in 2016 the very same venal Council had approved planning permission for another shopping centre by Sandwell & Dudley Station to huge retail operators, Hammerson. Accordingly, I wrote this email to the sleazebags:

"From: Vincent Alexandervich <thesandwellskidder@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Apr 24, 2018 at 10:45 AM
Subject: Lion Farm - serious omission from Cabinet Report
To: Jan Britton <jan_britton@sandwell.gov.uk>, Paul Moore <paul_moore@sandwell.gov.uk>, sharon_davies@cllr.sandwell.org.uk, mahboob_hussain@sandwell.gov.uk, yvonne_davies@sandwell.gov.uk, maria_crompton@sandwell.gov.uk, peter_allen@cllr.sandwell.org.uk, suzanne_hartwell@cllr.sandwell.org.uk
Cc: Pete Durnell 


THIS IS NOT A PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL COMMUNICATION

Dear Sir,

I write with regard to very serious issues arising from the Report to Cabinet in November last - Agenda Item 14 - prepared by Dr Alison Knight and presented by Cllr Paul Moore.

The Report as presented was grossly misleading in that it totally failed to even mention highly material facts since the original secret deal in 2012/13 ie the grant of planning permission in May, 2016 to Hammerson plc to develop their own retail/leisure centre close to Lion Farm at The Junction site in Oldbury - to be provisionally known as Fountain Retail Park.

This is an an obvious gamechanger. In 2012 SMBC made the ludicrous claim that Lion Farm would attract £200m of investment and create 2000 jobs. That nonsense is repeated at Para 3.2 of Dr Knight's report as historical detail but then represented as fact at paragraph 6.2.

At paragraph 4.2 Dr Knight states that the plans for Lion Farm will show "the differentiated nature of the offer from local centres such as West Bromwich" whilst totally ignoring the Hammerson planning permission.

Was Dr Knight's omission of highly material information deliberate? If so, why? Alternatively, was the egregious omission the result of gross incompetence?

Were all cabinet members who voted to extend the option in November aware of Hammerson's planning permission.? If so, how were they made aware of it and why is there no mention of it in the minutes of their decision?

The Cabinet decision was put to the full Council in January. How many of the Councillors were aware that the Cabinet had not been fully aware of key facts when making their odd and controversial decision? 

I am sending a copy of this mail to Hammerson. 

Julian Saunders"

At the time of writing Mahboob Hussain was still a Councillor.

This is the shocking and facetious reply from Britton*:

"From: Jan Britton <jan_britton@sandwell.gov.uk>
Date: Tue, May 8, 2018 at 2:14 PM
Subject: RE: Lion Farm - serious omission from Cabinet Report
To: Vincent Alexandervich <thesandwellskidder@gmail.com>

I have considered your email below and I do not agree with your assertion that highly material facts were omitted from the report presented to Cabinet in November last year. 

Jan Britton
Chief Executive"

You will see the list of Councillors I sent this to (I accidentally omitted Cllr Bob Price who has hitherto supported the campaign to save Lion Farm Fields) and I have to say, knowing some of them, that I was surprised they were happy for Britton to write in this way given the facts. I will now be sending a questionnaire to all Councillors who were at the January meeting of the Council and waved Paul Moore's destructive plan through whether THEY were aware of the true facts.

The Skidder's Freedom of Information Request

Regular readers and folks who attended the Lion Farm public meeting will know that a Freedom of Information (FOI) request was submitted which Jan Britton arranged to be only partially answered. When I queried this his staff - presumably acting on his instructions - attempted to "split" the FOI so that part of my queores became a "new request" and the other part went for internal review.

Jan Britton seems wholly incapable of applying the law of the land to FOI requests and this was no exception with SMBC failing to then answer either part of the self-imposed "split" request. I duly appealed to the Information Commissioner and his office have now written to bent Sandwell asking them to answer the request. Watch this space! (So much for Herr Eling's false promises of transparency, eh readers?)

Lion Farm Email

Many of you will now that a public meeting was recently held on Lion Farm. Before the meeting the Lion Farm campaigners asked politely for the documents referred to in the Land Registry search that are not available electronically via the website. Again, in Herr Eling's new "open" "lol" Council you would have thought that these documents might be forthcoming. But even though this was a polite enquiry Jan Britton turned it into a Freedom of Information request. He has refused to supply the documents forcing the Lion Farm folk to spend money on further Land Registry applications and is refusing to say what the secret deal is with Jeremy Knight Adams on the ground of  "commercial confidentiality" which is a bit rich when Knight-Adams was introduced to the Council by Hussain, no minutes of secret meetings were made and then he was given an option at a meeting where the public were barred from seeing documents and were not permitted to attend! All other parties including big companies like Hammerson and INTU (the Merry Hill people) were equally kept in the dark and all competitors locked out. This is NOT a confidential deal it is just a SECRET deal! The Lion Farm folk have applied for an internal review!

This from the Lion Farm Campaign:

"Date: Wed, Apr 18, 2018 at 4:22 PM
Subject: Lion Farm
To: jan_britton@sandwell.gov.uk
Cc: paul_moore@sandwell.gov.uk, petedurnell@hotmail.com, bill_gavan@cllr.sandwell.org.uk, Yvonne Davies <yvonne_davies@sandwell.gov.uk>, sharon_davies@cllr.sandwell.org.uk, Robert Price <robert_price@cllr.sandwell.org.uk>, maria_crompton@sandwell.gov.uk, peter_allen@cllr.sandwell.org.uk

Dear Sir, 

We wrote to you on 29th January, 2018 asking you to keep us appraised of any developments with regard to Lion Farm. We did not get the courtesy of a reply.

We have done a revised property search at HM Land Registry on the relevant title - WM951363. For some reason the plans referred to on the title are not available online. 

We have a public meeting about the Playing Fields on Sunday. Can you please have your legal department supply the following as a matter of urgency:

1   The deed of 8th May, 2012 made between the Council and The National Playing Fields Association (now Fields in Trust) plus the plan dated 8th May, 2012;

2   The Agreement and plan dated 21st May, 2013 between SMBC and Jeremy Knight Adams.

Due to the constraints of time we are happy to collect the documents from OCH (either Mr Durnell or a nominated representative) and we will meet your reasonable copying charges."

And this the so-called "Freedom of Information" Reply:

"Information Request - FS-Case-73371676

Thank you for your Freedom of Information request. In response to your request I can confirm the following:

Thank you for your Freedom of Information request as per the following details. Please see below also the Council's response. Dear Sir, We wrote to you on 29th January, 2018 asking you to keep us appraised of any developments with regard to Lion Farm. We did not get the courtesy of a reply. We have done a revised property search at HM Land Registry on the relevant title - WM951363. For some reason the plans referred to on the title are not available online. We have a public meeting about the Playing Fields on Sunday. Can you please have your legal department supply the following as a matter of urgency: 1 The deed of 8th May, 2012 made between the Council and The National Playing Fields Association (now Fields in Trust) plus the plan dated 8th May, 2012; 2 The Agreement and plan dated 21st May, 2013 between SMBC and Jeremy Knight Adams. Due to the constraints of time we are happy to collect the documents from OCH (either Mr Durnell or a nominated representative) and we will meet your reasonable copying charges. -- Pete Green (Admin) Save Lion Farm Fields Campaign Acting Chair - Pete Durnell Dear Mr Durrell, Many thanks for your recent email concerning Lion Farm Playing Fields. You raise two specific points and I am able to advise you of the following information: • Firstly, you ask for a copy of the deed of 8th May 2012 made between the Council and the National Playing Fields Association. This document is available at the Land Registry online at https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/land-registry, at a cost which can be confirmed by the Land Registry. The Council does not usually provide copies of publicly available documents. • Secondly you ask for a copy of the agreement between the Council and Jeremy Knight Adams dated 21st May 2013 . This document is Commercially Confidential Under the Freedom of Information Act, the Council has the obligation to confirm or deny whether it holds the information requested and to disclose it, unless an exemption applies. Section 43(2) of the Freedom of Information Act states that information is exempt from disclosure if it would or would be likely to prejudice the commercial interests of any person (including the public authority holding it). In this case, the Council believes that disclosing the information you requested would prejudice the Council's commercial interest. This is because the information being requested is in the process of being negotiated or re-negotiated and the disclosure of the agreements during this process would have a prejudicial effect on those commercial negotiations. Section 43(2) being a qualified exemption, its application must then be balanced out with the public interest. In this case, the Council is satisfied that the public interest in withholding the information is greater than that in disclosing it. This is because the Council believes that during negotiations/re-negotiations the early disclosure into the public domain of the requested information would not be in the best interests of all the parties, especially the Local Authority who will be endeavoring to ensure monies from or to the public purse are as advantageous as possible. As a result, the Council believes it is entitled not to disclose the requested information to you. If you wish to receive further information in regards to this request or wish to submit a Freedom of Information Request please forward your request to info_management@sandwell.gov.uk or Information Management Unit, Sandwell Council House, Freeth Street, Oldbury, West Midlands, B69 3DE"

Once again certain councillors including Gavan were copied in on this and are seemingly happy with this awful response. (Gavan said before the election he was going to fight to save the Fields which is a bit odd as he is another of Watson's boys thus pitching him against another Tommy puppet, Moore (see above)! Gavan made very aggressive claims that he would attend the public meeting but chickened-out. He has been re-elected and so we shall see what he does next...... Bearing in mind he claims to support the Save Lion Farm Fields he used a tirade of four-letter words telling them never to communicate with him again. What a f*cking joke!)

Spellar

The Lion Farm folk wrote to Spellar but still await a response. As Watson is involved and is allegedly trying to save Spellar's arse from unpleasant allegations within the Labour Party it seems unlikely that Brave John will step up to the plate!

*For newcomers to this blog through the Lion Farm campaign Jan Britton had a very thin CV and was promoted to "Chief Executive" above his pay grade and abilities by the late Darren Cooper, current "leader" Steve Eling and now-disgraced ex-councillor Hussain. He agreed a policy where professional staff would kowtow to these three and other councillors and despite a very high salary he totally failed to notice ANY of the fraudulent/corrupt episodes referred to in this blog (or at least that is what he says and he has apparently never been interviewed under police caution.) Some might think that if he IS telling the truth he is guilty of gross incompetence for his failure to see what was happening and should be fired immediately without compensation but I couldn't possibly comment... Oh, and by the way, this arse-licker extraordinaire presided over the implosion of the bent Council's Children's Services Department so that the Government had to intervene and take it over!

THE SANDWELL SKIDDER - COMMUNITY NEWS - READ THE SKIDDER, KIDDER!

07930 361831

Facebook:  Julian Saunders              Email:  thesandwellskidder@gmail.com

PROUD TO HAVE BEEN TROLLED BY DICKHEAD DARREN COOPER DECEASED!

Here is the link to the Cabinet Report:

https://cmis.sandwell.gov.uk/Cmis5/Document.ashx?czJKcaeAi5tUFL1DTL2UE4zNRBcoShgo=vJuZ7DFwBmaEWqXNeKlz7GgVZ2sezxLNVHYIH8jjVwW0BYF9EWPUMw%3d%3d&rUzwRPf%2bZ3zd4E7Ikn8Lyw%3d%3d=pwRE6AGJFLDNlh225F5QMaQWCtPHwdhUfCZ%2fLUQzgA2uL5jNRG4jdQ%3d%3d&mCTIbCubSFfXsDGW9IXnlg%3d%3d=hFflUdN3100%3d&kCx1AnS9%2fpWZQ40DXFvdEw%3d%3d=hFflUdN3100%3d&uJovDxwdjMPoYv%2bAJvYtyA%3d%3d=ctNJFf55vVA%3d&FgPlIEJYlotS%2bYGoBi5olA%3d%3d=NHdURQburHA%3d&d9Qjj0ag1Pd993jsyOJqFvmyB7X0CSQK=ctNJFf55vVA%3d&WGewmoAfeNR9xqBux0r1Q8Za60lavYmz=ctNJFf55vVA%3d&WGewmoAfeNQ16B2MHuCpMRKZMwaG1PaO=ctNJFf55vVA%3d