Harringay online

Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!

In a suit submitted to the High Court last August, Lendlease alleged that the council breached a contract between the two of them to form the Haringey Development Vehicle (HDV).

The HDV, which was predicted to be worth £4bn eventually, was a plan to transfer large swathes of council land into a jointly owned vehicle before demolishing estates, such as Broadwater Farm, and building new homes.

Haringey Council, in its defence documents, denied all wrongdoing, pointing out that the procurement documents for the vehicle said it “reserves the right at any time… to cancel or withdraw from the competitive dialogue procedure at any stage”. The documents also said: “For the avoidance of doubt, the authority and its advisory team have no obligation whatsoever to reimburse any bidder in respect of any cost, economic loss or other loss of profit.”

Lendlease claimed in court documents that it “had an enforceable legitimate expectation that in the event of abandonment they would be reimbursed by the defendant in respect of expenditure that was incurred in respect of the HDV”.

Nevertheless, the two parties have now settled out of court for an undisclosed fee, bringing a likely end to the long HDV saga.

The HDV was originally planned by Haringey’s Labour council but a wave of deselections by local members saw leader Claire Kober lose control of the council in the elections last May.

The new Labour administration, led by former anti-HDV councillor Joseph Ejiofor, voted to scrap the vehicle in July last year, saying it did not agree with the large-scale transfer of public assets out of public ownership and thought the risks to the council were too great.

After the vote, the council was forced to pay £520,275 to Lendlease to cover the council’s share of setting up costs. It had already spent a further £2.5m, excluding staff costs, on the HDV.

Reported by Inside Housing

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The settlement cost will have to be made public. This is the price the council - and fundamentally we - pay for the idiocy that was the scrapping of the scheme vs. attempting to renegotiate the aspects that made it unpalatable to the community. 

Demolition is part of what’s required for more homes to be built. The issues of right of return and % truly affordable housing were 2 areas that could have been revisited. But the symbolism of scrapping it is politicallly irresistible 

With 100s of millions of future income at stake birinigng the developers back to the negotiating table wouldn’t be inconceivable.

Yes, I would hold this view if I could have guaranteed right of return and compensation for all inconvenience caused. Is that so far fetched? 

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