In accordance with bent Sandwell Labour's plan to destroy much of the green space in sh*thole Sandwell a new "plan" has been hatched to develop Lion Farm Fields following the collapse of the corrupt shopping centre deal. As usual with this amoral and venal Council, all this has been going on in secret.
Regular readers will know that I have been campaigning against the destruction of the massive 19 ha green space for many years (Skidders passim). In an astonishingly bent deal starting in 2011/12 corrupt Labour agreed to a top secret "options agreement" with Tory Party donor and multimillionaire, Jeremy Knight Adams (JKA), for him to build an "up-market designer shopping village" on the vital local green lung.
Lying Cllr Simon "The Sandwell Slasher" Hackett was in on the deal right from the off as was Cllr Paul "The Cipher" Moore. Bent Labour went to great pains to hide the deal referring to it in such documents as they had to make public by absurdly misleading names such as "Land at Junction 2, M5" Initially I exposed the corruption and was part of a local campaign against the proposed despoiling development. This pressure led to some panic in bent Labour and, ignoring the material fact that JKA had not fulfilled his part of the deal, then Labour "Leader", the tyrannical Steve "Squealing" Eling and his close associates, simply declared - in the teeth of the contrary evidence - that all was above board, and purported to give retrospective legality to this "deal". Once again, Paul Moore was heavily involved in this unlawfulness, putting his name to a mendacious and grossly inaccurate Council Report. Others involved in 2017/18 (at the latest) were current Leader, Kerrie, Dim Kez, Carmichael and corrupt liar, Cllr Syeda Khatun.
The destruction of green space continues apace under Labour. Only Sandwell Valley is safe (at least for now) and Labour has already destroyed Londonderry Fields, and agreed to destroy a substantial part of the old Brandhall Golf Course. [Warley Woods is safe as Sandwell Labour can't destroy it for legal reasons.] The new Labour national Government has already said that it doesn't give a sh*t about wildlife etc., and is intent on concreting-over as much green space as possible.
Folks local to Lion Farm Fields were initially opposed to the proposed development, but it is clear that the residents of Langley and Tividale Wards don't give a f*ck anymore. Indeed, in Langley, they even voted in Dim Kez's mum who is guaranteed to support her daughter's enthusiasm for this despoliation in the midst of an urban dystopia. There was also ambivalence from the b*llshitting friend of JKA, former Tory West Midlands Mayor, Andy Street, but he has - thankfully - been booted-out. The local ever-shrinking band of Tory Councillors have generally pretended to be against Labour's plan to destroy The Fields, but they played that same deceitful game with Brandhall, and then turned round and p*ssed over the strong local campaign Group. Still, if the locals want another 19 ha of concrete on their doorsteps (no doubt with a miniscule "eco-park" in the middle) good luck to them.
Sharp-eyed readers may have noticed the use of inverted commas around "for sale" in the title of this post and wondered about this. The fact is that whilst the Fields are technically on the open market, bent Labour is yet again trying to do a secret deal with favoured friends without a fully open and transparent process.
Sandwell has disclosed a lot of heavily redacted documents to me via a Freedom of Information request. What is certain is that the "Options" deal with multimillionaire JKA is dead having expired on 5th July, 2024. What is not clear is whether bent Labour had to pay him to go away (and I am still working on that).
In fact, even before this, in a secret Cabinet meeting in May, 2023 Carmichael and her chums agreed to:
"Designate the site for a mix of residential and employment use with a suitable proportion of open space".
Note that is when the Government Commissioners were in situ and supposed to be preventing anymore bent deals although, of course, Lead Commissioner Kim Bromley Derry also has a very lucrative side-hussle working for a major, er, property developer.
Thus bent Labour has stated in writing:
"The land is currently available for purchase to an appropriate developer"; and
"The piece of land subject to this request is currently available and the Council is open to discussions with developers".
The Council has a legal duty to dispose of the land (assuming it faces no opposition to development which seems likely given the fecklessness of locals) at the best price, and so the obvious thing to do would be to put the huge green space on the open market. But that leaves less option for corruption and kick-backs and so, yet again, bent Labour has chosen to deal with only certain developers who have somehow "found out" about the end of the JKA nonsense and "expressed an interest in the land at Lion Farm".
It goes without saying that Labour are hiding the names of the mystery developers it is already talking to, and Chief Executive, Shokat Lal, has come up with this absurd reasoning for concealing their identities:
" ... the name of the companies will reveal who the council is willing to engage with in terms of the development of land and give an advantage to other developers." [My emphasis].
Surely the more interest, the higher the amount the taxpayer is likely to receive from this scandalous situation but Lal has made it clear that only people Labour want to bid can get involved here. This is, at the very best, extremely poor practice which I will be drawing to the attention of Sandwell's arse-licking external auditors, Grant Thornton.
Alas, another very sad Sandwell story. Farewell to the Fields.
[In the unlikely event that anyone actually does want to contest this appalling vandalism I can send the large amount of new documentation by sharing a Google Drive file. That offer excludes Peter Durnell and his proxies.]
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| Labour Cllr Paul "The Cipher" Moore |
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