Running total #5.

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Chris Setz on December 7, 2017 at 21:41

Completely agree with you, Phillip!  One thing to remind you of, unless there is a general election in May, the voting turnout here is likely to be 35% - it reinforces your point that the Council doesn't have a mandate, but I think it's far more serious.

How can democracy work if 65% don't even bother to vote? We should accept responsibility for not voting - yes we can blame politicians, but they act in our name. It's almost as if the political class have conspired to normalise this situation - remember the Police Commissioner elections  - what if Haringey turnout fell to 15%? How low do we have to go?

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on December 5, 2017 at 16:29

The agreement between Lendlease and the Council - the so-called cast iron guarantee has not been settled. There's a wide gap. Which is one reason why the Council spokespeople are not telling the truth.

Amazingly, at least to me, and I was once a lawyer, agreement on the final draft has been delegated to a council officer to sign. The right of councillors and residents to see it, review it and have time to seek independent advice on it before signature has been strongly urged - with no such undertaken given and not even the courtesy of a substantive response.

Once more please bear in mind that most councillors and no residents have ever seen the secret yellow pages which form part of the agreement. Even when quite detailed maps show homes and other buildings to be destroyed council officers use weasel words like indicative to obfuscate. I cannot imagine that any of these developer's pals would accept such an arrangement if their own homes were the subject of a land grab like this.

This is how this diseased secretive Kober council now operates.

No more from me, Ossie's Dream or in response to any other anonymous posters who decline to give their real names and disclose any substantive interest in the situation. The people who matter here are the Haringey residents whose homes and lives are being blighted and threatened with demolition.

Some of them it's true may be reading these posts. In which case they are welcome to contact me directly.
Though of course when - not if - the HDV goes wrong - we will all be affected. At minimum when Haringey if forced to borrow when the commercial gamble doesn't pay off.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by 2eapisg6lxq2e on December 5, 2017 at 17:31

in this case doing nothing is vastly superior to bringing the HDV in to fruition if your on the waiting list. 
Unless like those supporting it you regard them as less than human ?

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by 2eapisg6lxq2e on December 7, 2017 at 21:40

fortunately those on the waiting list are beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel again , for years now our class has been pissed on but we now are leaving Europe getting a left wing Corbyn led government and retaking our council here in Haringey.
We might win the world cup again 

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Chris Setz on December 8, 2017 at 11:59

I don't agree with a lot of what you have written above, Ossie. You seem to think that any large property company is likely to fulfill their obligations, so there is no reason not to deal with them.

Would that this were true - we could just let them get on with it! The view that many (maybe the majority in the next election) take is that large property developers are not suitable partners. It's a political argument fundamentally and LBH is one of the  most left-wing places in the country. So, for the same reason that in right-wing areas, right-wing views and attitudes prevail, here it's 'power to the people' 

Large businesses are often evil, full of corruption - look at Big Tobacco - know anyone who used to smoke? The big UK banks have been fined over £50bn since the 2008 crash, globally banks paid £321bn in penalties for financial misconduct. Rolls Royce fined a massive amount for 'truly vast' bribery according to the Torygraph.  The list goes on and on. Not to mention the losses to fraud or sheer incompetence, usually hidden in the balance sheet.  'Mistakes' such as Tesco's. It is the nature of large business that is flawed - the short-termism, the 'Corporate veil', the inflated CEO salaries etc

Or the poor returns most shareholders earn.  It is smaller businesses that employ the vast amount of people here in the UK - large ones contribute little. They operate an informal, perfectly legal cartel where they try to inflate charges between them so it's too expensive for rivals to join in, justifying them charging those high prices to customers. It's a very masculine idea that big is necessarily good and business is very masculine, with women making up less than a quarter of boardrooms - nasty! 

We (society) licence business on the understanding that a public benefit is delivered. If not, we'll take your licence to trade away from you. Capitalism is based on this idea - the 'triple bottom line'. Globalisation (and centuries of clever government officials with vested interests) have allowed corporations to escape most of these commitments. It seems to me that everyone is waking up to this fact, the climate has changed. In the good old paternalistic days when greed was good, we looked up to the 'Rolls Royce' of business 'institutions' but nowadays the constant breaches of that trust are coming home to roost. EU governments are actively pursuing large business, seeking to change fundamental trading laws to plug the loopholes they depend upon for profit. Even the Irish, who tempted Apple into a garden of Eden, are now pursuing them for more than £10bn of tax they avoided whilst there.

Even the most business-friendly political ideology seems to have turned the corner, with The Tories seeming to accept that London might be operating a corrupt financial system. They've introduced a big change (many more needed), you now have to record beneficial ownership of companies registered here - long overdue.

We can't critiscise other countries because they come right back at us, claiming we're the money-laundering capital of the world. That laundering is often done through property, to our cost. It's often the large property companies that are right in the thick of it, often through the wheeze of ''off plan". It seems that the larger the development, the more likely it is to be corrupt and have corrupted others.  Maybe the roots of this habitual conduct are in Estate Agency? 

So there are reasons for not dealing with large property companies (many I haven't mentioned, don't want to try your patience). We'll all be better off because we can find a much better deal than this and it's Labour Party members who have stood up and insisted we do - it won't be easy, but I am confident we'll save a fortune and have better housing because of the anti-HDV effort.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by John McMullan on December 8, 2017 at 16:11

A huge number of cyclists are on the roads every day and to brand all cyclists as red light jumpers is ludicrous.

Yes there are dodgy people in all walks of life, I don't think there are proportionately more or fewer on bicycles.

These evil MAMILs will be cycling in Haringey now and in the future.

#fixedthatforyou

Permalink Reply by Chris Setz on December 8, 2017 at 17:39

I have worked for many large organisations across the spectrum including government (a few abroad too) so have gained my views after having hands on for more than two decades - I guess I'm older than you. If you're not aware of the low opinion people have of big business maybe your powers to assess risk have diminished?

The Public Sector have a key advantage they can deploy to get a better deal - time. Lendlease didn't exist 30 years ago and won't be there in future.

Housing needs cash and the result are low-risk assets they ought to be able to borrow against.  100% payback of the construction and financing costs can be obtained within three decades - those dwellings then yield income in perpetuity. The private sector deprives us of that profit too, far more over time than the short-term gains they make getting involved. 

Councils can borrow money if they want to. Lendlease are guaranteed 20% profit - that's enormous compared to what others like them make within the private sector! The Mayor has a 'developer' panel that can charge less and the VOA does economic viability assessments - Sadiq just had 330 homes built, 100% affordable - 13 firms bid.  What's the problem?

https://www.london.gov.uk/press-releases/mayoral/330-new-affordable...

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/sep/24/footballers-400m-so...

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by TimP on December 5, 2017 at 18:34

Using words like ‘diseased’ about people only sums you up far more than the person being described

Having now looked at your past posts it’s just full of polemic and spite at certain people

I expect at times you have something valuable to say but it’s all drowned out by the incessant obsessive agenda

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by John McMullan on December 8, 2017 at 12:44

Read the previous posts about the HDV yet Tim? BTW, he described the council cabinet as diseased.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Chris Setz on December 7, 2017 at 21:25

One sad result, John, is that the majority pro-HDV deselected will doubtless leave a parting gift for their opponents at Monday's Planning Sub-Cttee meeting; a vote to grant the massive overseas developer permission to privatise Hornsey Town Hall.

Our very own CE Cllr Doron will be replaced as Chair as is normal in the Chair's ward but even if it's by an anti-HDV Cllr, there aren't enough on the Cttee to matter.

Gives those from here pleading at the meeting an even harder task in their three minutes each to convince people on their way out not to lock the door behind them.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by TimP on December 5, 2017 at 19:56

thank you John. I will try to read later on.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on December 5, 2017 at 22:38

Thanks Pam for your efforts to place accurate up-dated information in the public arena. Unfortunately as we can see the discussion soon attracts trolls who won't give their names or spell out their interests.

(N.B. I'm not longer following this thread. As I mentioned, residents affected by the HDV are welcome to contact me directly.)

• ▶ Reply

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 6
• Next ›
• Page