Burning issues and a blocked Pipe
Special issue No. 4, March 21, 2006
© Andrew Veitch
So Labour’s declared attempt to stop the property scandal becoming an election issue has failed. The campaign starts next week and the decision by the public enquiry to recommend that the council repossesses 14 Dalston Lane properties, sold for £1.8m to a Bahamas-based company four years ago, puts Mayor Jules Pipe and the ruling Labour group in a difficult position.
The recommendation to take out a compulsory purchase order (CPO) came from two senior Labour councillors: Jim Cannon, who chaired the enquiry into property sales, and Bill Hodgson from Queensbridge ward who’s also the planning chairman. Neither will be running for re-election on May 4, but they carry clout.
As Cllr Hodgson put it during the final meeting of the enquiry team in the Town Hall: “It’s important that we recommend some sort of compulsory purchase. It would be my desire to see some of the people who have suffered from the Broadway Market debacle relocated.”
A message should go out to developers, he added: “You can’t just buy property in Hackney, let it burn down, and get planning permission for something else.”
The Tory member of the enquiry panel, Cllr Andrew Boff from Queensbridge, backed the CPO recommendation for Dalston Lane which means it is now Tory policy. Conservatives are contesting every ward and they would make much of a Labour decision to reject the recommendation.
But even if Labour agrees, the Tories will use it as an example of continuing incompetence; why has the council allowed the developer to let the properties rot (according to Cllr Hodgson they have been “firebombed”); and how much more will it cost to buy them back?
It is a measure of the ongoing chaos in the property department that officials apparently hadn’t told their incoming boss, Fiona Fletcher-Smith, that Price Waterhouse Cooper’s audit of her new department, completed 12 months ago, was a final report, and that recommended improvements (of which there are many) are due to be implemented by April 1.
It was pointed out to her that the report was titled, in large letters, on the first page: “Property Disposal Review - Final”. She told the enquiry: “I hadn’t seen this, I should have.”
The PWC auditor told the enquiry earlier that he would be checking on which recommendations had been implemented and would report back by the end of the financial year - in other words before the election.
It’s that sort of muddle that makes Mayor Pipe’s boast last week that the Local Government Ombudsman had not upheld a single complaint against Hackney Council in the past year, sound pretty hollow. That and the inability of senior Labour councillors to stop Markets Department officials trying to sabotage Broadway’s Saturday market; and Clissold Park - the list goes on.
Senior Labour figures in Hackney admit in private that in too many areas they have not been able to ensure that officials enact council policies. Tories will portray that as the mark of an incompetent administration, and while they may not have a realistic hope of taking control, every seat they win in Hackney will cause concern at Labour head office.
Wratten tomatoes
Finally, congratulations to Arthur Shuter and friends (Don’t say “comrades”, Ed.) for erecting an effigy of Roger Wratten in the market in Saturday, and providing a pile of rotten tomatoes to throw at it. But it was sad to see an effigy of Deputy Mayor Jessica Crowe next to the man who evicted Tony Platia and destroyed his café.
Despite her reported remarks about community groups and ex-Trotskyites, she has been the market’s most powerful ally. She has repeatedly asked the market inspectors to cooperate with Broadway Market Traders and Residents Association (BMTRA) in running the market.
Would that explain why the manager of the markets department, Keith Crawford, on a rare visit, demanded to know “what that's all about”, stalked menacingly over to the stall, saw the tomato-stained effigy of Ms Crowe - and walked away? One can only ask.
Department of error
Last week we reported that in a blunder by the council’s property department, numbers 183-187 Stoke Newington High Street were listed as sold twice at the same price, to the same company, on the same day. This was wrong. The latest (legible) print out of the property sales list shows that they were sold twice for the same price (£1.3 m) to the same company - ten days apart. Our thanks to the council’s legal officer, Mr Meic Sullivan-Gould, for making that clear...
Links: broadwaymarket.co.uk
34broadwaymarket.omweb.org
hackneygetsrippedoff.blogspot.com
hackneyenvironment.org.uk
opendalston.blogspot.com/
Special issue No. 4, March 21, 2006
© Andrew Veitch
So Labour’s declared attempt to stop the property scandal becoming an election issue has failed. The campaign starts next week and the decision by the public enquiry to recommend that the council repossesses 14 Dalston Lane properties, sold for £1.8m to a Bahamas-based company four years ago, puts Mayor Jules Pipe and the ruling Labour group in a difficult position.
The recommendation to take out a compulsory purchase order (CPO) came from two senior Labour councillors: Jim Cannon, who chaired the enquiry into property sales, and Bill Hodgson from Queensbridge ward who’s also the planning chairman. Neither will be running for re-election on May 4, but they carry clout.
As Cllr Hodgson put it during the final meeting of the enquiry team in the Town Hall: “It’s important that we recommend some sort of compulsory purchase. It would be my desire to see some of the people who have suffered from the Broadway Market debacle relocated.”
A message should go out to developers, he added: “You can’t just buy property in Hackney, let it burn down, and get planning permission for something else.”
The Tory member of the enquiry panel, Cllr Andrew Boff from Queensbridge, backed the CPO recommendation for Dalston Lane which means it is now Tory policy. Conservatives are contesting every ward and they would make much of a Labour decision to reject the recommendation.
But even if Labour agrees, the Tories will use it as an example of continuing incompetence; why has the council allowed the developer to let the properties rot (according to Cllr Hodgson they have been “firebombed”); and how much more will it cost to buy them back?
It is a measure of the ongoing chaos in the property department that officials apparently hadn’t told their incoming boss, Fiona Fletcher-Smith, that Price Waterhouse Cooper’s audit of her new department, completed 12 months ago, was a final report, and that recommended improvements (of which there are many) are due to be implemented by April 1.
It was pointed out to her that the report was titled, in large letters, on the first page: “Property Disposal Review - Final”. She told the enquiry: “I hadn’t seen this, I should have.”
The PWC auditor told the enquiry earlier that he would be checking on which recommendations had been implemented and would report back by the end of the financial year - in other words before the election.
It’s that sort of muddle that makes Mayor Pipe’s boast last week that the Local Government Ombudsman had not upheld a single complaint against Hackney Council in the past year, sound pretty hollow. That and the inability of senior Labour councillors to stop Markets Department officials trying to sabotage Broadway’s Saturday market; and Clissold Park - the list goes on.
Senior Labour figures in Hackney admit in private that in too many areas they have not been able to ensure that officials enact council policies. Tories will portray that as the mark of an incompetent administration, and while they may not have a realistic hope of taking control, every seat they win in Hackney will cause concern at Labour head office.
Wratten tomatoes
Finally, congratulations to Arthur Shuter and friends (Don’t say “comrades”, Ed.) for erecting an effigy of Roger Wratten in the market in Saturday, and providing a pile of rotten tomatoes to throw at it. But it was sad to see an effigy of Deputy Mayor Jessica Crowe next to the man who evicted Tony Platia and destroyed his café.
Despite her reported remarks about community groups and ex-Trotskyites, she has been the market’s most powerful ally. She has repeatedly asked the market inspectors to cooperate with Broadway Market Traders and Residents Association (BMTRA) in running the market.
Would that explain why the manager of the markets department, Keith Crawford, on a rare visit, demanded to know “what that's all about”, stalked menacingly over to the stall, saw the tomato-stained effigy of Ms Crowe - and walked away? One can only ask.
Department of error
Last week we reported that in a blunder by the council’s property department, numbers 183-187 Stoke Newington High Street were listed as sold twice at the same price, to the same company, on the same day. This was wrong. The latest (legible) print out of the property sales list shows that they were sold twice for the same price (£1.3 m) to the same company - ten days apart. Our thanks to the council’s legal officer, Mr Meic Sullivan-Gould, for making that clear...
Links: broadwaymarket.co.uk
34broadwaymarket.omweb.org
hackneygetsrippedoff.blogspot.com
hackneyenvironment.org.uk
opendalston.blogspot.com/
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