Hundreds fill Bridge Park leisure centre to stop Brent Council

Hundreds fill Bridge Park leisure centre to stop Brent Council selling off community’s vital land

PUBLISHED: 11:26 11 December 2018  by Nathalie Raffray

 

Bertha Joseph adds her voice to save Bridge Park Community Centre. Picture: Jonathan Goldberg

Hundreds of supporters packed a Stonebridge leisure centre to let the council know their community centre won’t be sold and destroyed without a fight.

 

Christala, sat beside Jay Mastin, speaks passionately over threat to close Bridge Park Community Centre. Picture: Jonathan Goldberg

Members of the Save Bridge Park Campaign, formed by Bridge Park Community Council (BPCC), held a public meeting on Sunday afternoon Dec 9, 2018 at the Bridge Park Community Leisure Centre, in Harrow Road, to gather support.

Speakers, including Bridge Park co-founder Leonard Johnson, and BPCC chair Jay Mastin roused the crowd with impassioned speeches and urged them to donate so they have a chance of winning a High Court battle with Brent Council.

A massive fundraising drive has started to fund a legal fight, with £25,000 already raised.

Mr Mastin said the meeting was “about the legals” adding: “Many times we’ve gone to represent ourselves to local authorities, we’ve marched, we sent in petitions, and despite what people say, they are still proceeding with the sale.

Dawn Butler, MP for Brent Central speaks at the meeting to save Bridge Park Community Centre. Picture: Jonathan Goldberg

 

“The only way we can block them is how we block them at the moment and that’s with the might of the law.”

Black Child Agenda founder, Cheryl Phoenix, whose son was stabbed two years ago, said the crime “cycle needs to break”, before adding: “We as black people need this building, we as people need to do what we need.”

Brent Council is to apply for a summary hearing to lift restriction that the land registry has placed on Bridge Park after BPCC successfully applied for protection on the land in August 2017.

In June 2017, Brent Council entered into a conditional land sale agreement with Stonebridge Real Estate Development Ltd, a new subsidiary of the Luxembourg-based General Mediterranean Holdings (GMH), for the sale of Bridge Park Complex land.

Huge crowd protest over threat to close Bridge Park Community Centre. Picture: Jonathan Goldberg

 

The plans include a hotel, retail space and new homes in the empty Unisys office next door to the site, already owned by GMH, and a new £12.25million replacement sports centre, with a gym, sauna and swimming pool.

However, a strict condition of the sale is that the land must be free of all interests.

Adding her support to the group, Brent Central’s MP Dawn Butler urged the crowd to fill in the questionnaires, with cries of “I never got my letter!” when she told them Brent Council had only received 50 responses to the “thousands of letters they sent out.”

She told the Brent&Kilburn Times: “Bridge Park was born out of the Brixton riots becoming a valuable symbol of the unity in Brent where there were no riots.

“Far too often we lose community centres and then wonder why our kids are out on the streets.

“We need centres where generations can get together and grow and where businesses can start and flourish.

“I understand the argument that Bridge Park didn’t seem to be well run or run by the community for years.

“On Sunday the community, made up of all generations, came together to declare that they are ready to stand together to run a community centre. It was great to see the activism and enthusiasm in our community.

“There’s a desperate need for a centre of excellence in Brent. I am fully behind a centre of excellence professionally run by the community.

“A generational community hub for all; an educational place where people can work, rest and play.”

Cllr Margaret McLennan, deputy leader of Brent Council, said: “On several occasions the council has offered to work on the redevelopment project with members of the community, however, they refused.

“This was even before Mr Leonard Johnson started a legal process to claim ownership of council land.

“Whatever the court decides, it doesn’t change the fact that we are fully committed to working with the local community to ensure that any proposals taken forward are done so with the aim of improving the lives of our residents.

“Carrying out such a project is not a straight forward process and this application to the court is to clear up a few legal matters.

“By resolving this as quickly as possible we can move forward and deliver the much needed new community centre, affordable homes and new jobs.”

To sign the petition to save Bridge Park visit:

www.bridgeparkcomplex/urgent-petition

News

Bridge Park community demands halt of land sale in Stonebridge

The community at the Bridge Park Community Leisure Centre demand the halt of Stonebridge’s land sale to GMH holdings

A community battling to save a leisure centre from developers in
Stonebridge are demanding that the council halts the controversial sale of
the land it sits on.

Crowds accused Brent Council of delivering a “fait accompli” at a heated consultation event at the Bridge Park Community Leisure Centre, in Harrow Road, on Thursday night and refused to engage with a process which they said was “not relevant yet”.

Jay Martin, of the Bridge Park Community Council, defending the site, said: “This is not a consultation, it’s a fait accompli. It looks like this deal has already been done and decided. There are moral questions and legal questions to answer. There’s the possibility that this whole thing might end up in a judicial hearing.”

He said they had “an alternative plan” with affordable homes, commercial and
community space, adding: “Halt the sale and start again.”

In January Brent Council approved a conditional land sale with Stonebridge Real Estate Development Ltd a new subsidiary of the Luxembourg-based General Mediterranean Holdings (GMH).

The plans include a hotel, retail space and new homes in the empty Unisys office next door to the site, already owned by GMH, and a new £12.25million replacement sports centre, with a gym, sauna and swimming pool.

Brent Council’s chief executive Carolyn Downs, council leader Cllr Muhammed Butt and Cllr Krupesh Hirani, the community wellbeing leader attended the consultation with GMH representatives to talk about the deal.

The council had set up three separate displays highlighting ‘community
leisure/community vision’, the ‘overall development’ of the site, and the ‘land sale’ at the back of the room where people could simultaneously choose the questions they wanted answered by a representative.

Instead the community accused them of avoiding their concerns and angrily
demanded that they be listened to.

Cllr Butt said: “We held a consultation in 2013, we are here today to re-engage and listen to what you want in this new leisure centre. If people are talking about a community space we can talk about that, that’s what we are here for. We need to understand what the community wants and needs.”

Please donate: Visit: www.bridgeparkcomplex.com/donations

News

The murk behind Brent Council’s Bridge Park deal

The murk behind Brent Council’s Bridge Park deal that was opposed by the community last week


Bridge Park Complex with Unisys on the horizon

 

The Kilburn Times LINK today reports on a heated consultation meeting regarding the redevelopment of Bridge Park, Stonebridge, and the surrounding area including the Unisys landmark building. There were demands for the land sale to be halted.

The newspaper quotes Jay Martin of the Bridge Park Community Council as saying:
This is not a consultation, it’s a fait accompli. It looks like this deal has already been done and decided. There are moral questions and legal questions to answer. There’s the possibility that this whole thing might end up in a judicial hearing.

The moral and questions that Martin refers to are presumably directed at Brent Council’s off-shore partners in this development.

The late and sorely missed Cllr Dan Filson who, while a Labour councillor, had a strong streak of independence, responded to Cllr Pavey’s suggestion that tax havens had to be tackled at national level rather than local government, with this comment on Wembly Matters LINK:
I must say I was surprised that whilst mentioning the two companies involved were neither incorporated nor registered in the UK, the Cabinet paper did not mention that they were registered in tax havens namely Luxembourg and the BVI, nor that the leading shareholder in the holding company was a convicted fraudster. A quick Google search revealed this.

Possibly the council officers preparing the report felt these issues did not matter given the safeguarding phrase that the decision of Cabinet would be subject to meeting financial scrutiny (quite how these financial checks would succeed given that they had not succeeded in the months leading up to Cabinet was not made clear!).

The wider issue of the ethics of dealing with tax haven companies wasn’t touched upon at all nor the fraudster angle. I understand Councillor Pavey’s position that it needs government action to deal with tax haven companies (to say nothing of persons being company directors of overseas companies who, by my book, should be disqualified from holding any positions of trust in any company trading or owning land in this country).

However Brent can have its own policies; but what should they be here? The land south of the North Circular Road at Stonebridge Park has been a derelict eyesore for a couple of decades. Brent can engineer development here by intervention using such land as it has as a bargaining tool. If we take the ethical route and don’t treat with tax haven companies will we get better or worse terms from other companies? Conceivably could Councillors be surcharged for not getting “best value” in a deal? Will any action happen on this site at all for another decade?

I don’t know how I would respond on these issues. My disappointment was that no attempt has been made to address them before this particular decision came to Cabinet despite the identity of these 2 companies being known for some time, years even. So the Cabinet was obliged to agree to a deal involving these two companies without a financial appraisal in front if it and without a stated policy on dealing with tax haven companies. It leaves an unpleasant taste.
Ex Inspector of Taxes, Philip Grant, LINK revealed a link with Quintain:
When offshore companies are involved, that will always raise suspicions about who is really behind them, and whether tax avoidance may be involved, although in this case you can read a little about GMH on Wikipedia:-

‘The General Mediterranean Holding (GMH) is a financial holding company established in 1979 in Luxembourg City, in southern Luxembourg, founded by Anglo-Iraqi businessman Nadhmi Auchi.

GMH is a diverse business group with activities in Banking & Finance, Real Estate & Construction, Hotel & Leisure, Industrial, Trading & Pharmaceuticals, Communications & IT and Aviation.’

The (publicly available) details do not say in which overseas territory Harborough Invest Inc. is incorporated, or resident for tax purposes.

By chance, I have come across GMH’s “agent”, Nick Shattock, before, when I was an Inspector of Taxes, and he was a director of Quintain Estates and Developments Plc (having previously been a partner in a firm of City solicitors). That information is on public record, and (of course) I cannot disclose anything which happened when I was responsible for dealing with the Quintain group’s company tax affairs, because of Civil Service confidentiality.

As a (past) director of Quintain (the developer behind Wembley Park), it is likely that Mr Shattock has already had dealings with Brent’s Strategic Director of Regeneration and Growth, Andy Donald. The report to Cabinet proposes that negotiations over the “deal” between Brent and GMH should be left in the hands of Mr Donald (as the “deal” with Galliford Try over the Willesden Green Library Centre redevelopment was).

Persuaded? Definitely not!
In January of this year Cabinet approved the land deal for Bridge Park nd Labour defeated Cllr John Warren’s move at Full Council to have it debated. The is an extract from my report of the meeting:
In the course of the resultant discussion Cllr Warren, speaking to Muhammed Butt, Leader of the Council, referred to ‘Your friend Mr Auchi’. Sir Nadhmi Shakir Auchi is Chairman of the off-shore British Virgin Islands company General Mediterranean Holdings (GMH) which is Brent Council’s partner in the redevelopment of Bridge Park. Muhammed Butt is the lead member for the conditional land sale of the Bridge Park site to GMH.

At the Brent Cabinet on January 16th Cllr Margaret McLennan, Deputy Leader of the Council, said that she was ‘thrilled’ by the Bridge Park deal. LINK

Auchi is controversial because of a 2003 allegation of fraud LINK and of course the whole issue of tax havens and tax avoidance is a current political issue with Jeremy Corbyn promising action by a future Labour Government.

Cllr Thomas intervened to call for Cllr Warren to withdraw his statement about ‘Your friend Mr Auchi’ directed at his leader, as the Council Meeting was being streamed and he wouldn’t want a ‘wrong impression’ to be given. Warren, saying he couldn’t remember exactly what he’d said,went on to say, ‘Mr Auchi has connections with the Labour Party. Let me say that. That is what I was referring to.’
The alleged link goes back to 2001 when the Guardian published an article entitled ‘A Tycoon, a Minister and Interpol’ LINK and involved Keith Vaz MP