BELLEVUE MILLS - CHAPTER 2
Paakwa’s unravelling of this multi-million pound affair has taken many months, and is not yet complete. Some new facts have just emerged however which – to a mere frog – can only be described as truly shocking.
Whilst Paakwa has always known Craven District Council to be inept in financial matters (except when it comes to remunerating its own Chief Executives, senior Financial Officers and Council Leaders), this naïve frog had not suspected there are even murkier revelations lurking in the shadows.
As a taster of the civic mendacity that will be revealed in the near future [watch this space!], readers might like to mull the following …
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Contracts were signed in July 2010 which should have been agreed by the Head of Finance - strangely that Head of Finance appears to have been against such a move - to lease around 18,000 square feet of office space at Belle Vue Mills at a cost of £170/sq.ft. The lease alone is over £3 million and there is no parking for staff. The floor area is around half of what was stated to be necessary, meaning that CDC will be sharing some space with North Yorkshire County Council for the next thirty years . Of course financial details on this shared area are also murky - will CDC have to pay for more in 30 years? CDC may well not even have a reception desk then unless yet more money is paid over, as that is part of the shared area paid for by NYCC - who have only taken a 30 year lease!
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However, the former HML building in Skipton Town Centre has been up for sale for well over a year, and was always going to be available once their new building was constructed - on land which we had virtually given to them. That building is 41,000 square feet at the asking price of £61/sq.ft and around one third of the cost of Belle Vue Mills! Alternatively the HML building can be rented at a mere £8.50/sq.ft/annum. The property would comfortably accommodate both CDC and NYCC, moreover the purchase (offers around £2.5Million for the whole) or rental prices for the HML building are negotiable downward. Even at the asking price the HML option equates to a huge saving over the Belle Vue Mills deal.
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So strapped for cash is CDC that in order to fund the leasing of Belle Vue Mills it is having to take £1.2Million from its pension fund*, a pension fund which at the last report was some £27million in deficit - around £100,000 per employee.
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A local property valuation firm, Westlake & Co, was commissioned to give a ‘best value’ report on Belle Vue Mills, but the firm was instructed that they must only consider the options available on the Belle Vue site. Westlake was also told that that other site options had been considered, and rejected, by CDC. This ‘evaluation’ was carried out in 2008, when the property was owned by Novo homes.
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A Freedom of Information request by Paakwa reveals that CDC has never evaluated the HML building, despite a recommendation from its own Head of Finance (in a leaked email to Cllr. Knowles-Fitton in November 2009)that it offered the ‘best value’. That particular head of finance left very swiftly, and by ‘mutual consent,’ just as did a slightly earlier Chief Executive. Neither was it deemed necessary to undertake another best value report which would include the HML building, despite financial happenings in the country meaning that property prices crashed. We do not know as yet who deemed such a report unnecessary, but we will find out.
Within the next seven days Paakwa will publish full information disclosing how and when CDC bulldozed through a property deal that seemingly comprises an obscene disregard for taxpayers’ money, and how ‘economies with the truth’ were used in connection with the state of Granville Road etc. But be warned – the revelations are not for the faint-hearted …It may even fall under the steely gaze of North Yorkshire Police.
One swift word of caution for all councillors, especially those on planning - You can expect to experience considerable pressure to sell anything and everything which taxpayers own and which is controlled by CDC - areas such as Green Lane; 9 High Street; Elsey Croft; or Granville Road - all will be pushed in the near future - by a council which is provenly financially incompetent.
Within the next seven days Paakwa will publish full information disclosing how and when CDC bulldozed through a property deal that seemingly comprises an obscene disregard for taxpayers’ money, and how ‘economies with the truth’ were used in connection with the state of Granville Road etc. But be warned – the revelations are not for the faint-hearted …It may even fall under the steely gaze of North Yorkshire Police.
One swift word of caution for all councillors, especially those on planning - You can expect to experience considerable pressure to sell anything and everything which taxpayers own and which is controlled by CDC - areas such as Green Lane; 9 High Street; Elsey Croft; or Granville Road - all will be pushed in the near future - by a council which is provenly financially incompetent.
* This taking money from pensions reserves appears to be a common practice at CDC, so that in three short years from 2007 to 2010 the deficit grew from £15Million to £27Million almost matching the meteoric rises in the salaries or allowances of certain CDC officers and councillors. Paakwa has been assured that CDC is a ‘dead cert.’ for the ‘Captain Bob’ award.