Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Assets of Haringey Council (allegedly)
ACCORDING to a survey of all councils by the Tax Payers Alliance, the assets of Haringey Council, include:
- 1 x golf course
- 14 car parks
- 2 x swimming pools
- 1 x theatre
- 1 x pub
- 1 x restaurant
- 29 x shops
I cannot immediately identify these assets, but in we live in times of cuts to front-line services to ordinary residents.
If their list is accurate, one has to wonder if all of the assets need to be retained ... and what they might be worth on the open market. Should these kind of assets not be sweated before those open freely to the public, especially our public parks?
On the link above there is a downloadable spreadsheet that lists the alleged assets of all Councils including LBH.
I was surprised to read that at 1 April last year, Barnet Borough Council – AKA EasyCouncil – owned 10 golf courses (whereas we are said to own only one).
CDC
Haringey Councillor
Liberal Democrat Party
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by pamish on
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Tax Payers' Alliance is such a bunch of far-right zero-state nutters people that I try to hide my eyes from what they say. All these assets bring in rent. Where on the TPA list are the houses owned by LBH, many of which (100 a year) are lost to us by right-to-buy, so LBH has to house homeless families at enormous tax-payer cost?
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Permalink Reply by Martin (Woodside) on
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Are these not pension-fund investments?, I saw a list of pre-privatised PO/BT pension investments in the 1970s and they even owned a shopping centre in Paris, the Galleria in Hatfield was owned by the Electricity Board pension-fund.
I suppose it is better for pensions to be invested with profitable return rather than drawn straight from the ratepayers.
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Permalink Reply by Gordon T on
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Would the 'golf' course be the pitch and putt in Alexandra Park? (don't think I don't know the separation between AP and Haringey.....). Ditto, the disused theatre in AP? If so, it nullifies to some extent the finger-pointing from the TaxPayers Alliance's neolibertarian economists.
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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter on
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I cannot place these assets, but nothing from our Charitable Trust ought to be included on their list. The local Council merely happens to be the Trustee – but that need not be forever.
Though there has been gross mismanagement in the past, of Ally Pally by the Trustee, nothing in our park should be sold off. I was an active member of the Save Ally Pally group that by action in the High Court, successfully stopped the Trustee from selling off our Trust's asset to a former slum landlord.
As for the swimming pools, the Council appear to have leased them off already, something about which I have reservations.
However, 29 shops? We don't know if they're vacant or whether they're achieving an adequate rental. If it's a good thing for the Council to own shops, why not 129 shops?
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You can ask where they are and let us know, they must be on a balance sheet somewhere...
and - if 22 storeys are good, why not 42 storeys?
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Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson on
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Surely as an elected representative, if you are concerned about this you should be asking for the detail. I'm sensing a tad of hypocracy too. Off-load stuff you don't approve of but Alexandra Palace, hands off.
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As Clive is the only current councillor who dares to post on HoL, be gentle.
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You're right Pam and I apologise Clive. The minute I see anything quote where the source is the TPA my blood pressure rises and rational thought leaves the room.
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Michael the background – as I'm sure we all know – is that more cuts are on the way whether we like it or not. All but a very few, don't like it.
Many Council assets are being looked at with a view to flogging off or extracting a higher return. (BTW, AP is not a Council asset: it is owned by our Charitable Trust, notwithstanding the Labour Council's attempts between 2006–2008 to sell it to a former slum landlord).
There are probably a few sacred cows (that I am not about to identify) and there are probably assets that should not be sold: nor indeed, sweated hard: as our local park is about to be sweated.
I put the TPA's list there to foster debate; I suggest that you try to disregard the source/messenger (and their possible motivation) and just think about the contents of the list, that are independent of the TPA.
The TPA's spreadsheet has nine headings, to cover the whole country and I'm pretty sure it's non-exhaustive. Most of us are taxpayers.
Here's a local taxpayer group that is doing great work; in a small way I try to support them.
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The problem I have with selling assets is that they cure the problem for one year. Once they're gone, they're gone. If an asset is being in in income surely it's better to look at it as being a longer term investment. My other worry is when assets are offloaded in a panic to balance the books. The best price isn't always achieved and, sometimes, the value of the transaction questionable. This isn't only a local government issue. The sell of of the final public (i.e. owned with our money) share of Royal Mail seems at best short sighted and at worst in pursuance a political agenda.
On the TPA, the problem IS the messenger. They have an extreme right wing/libertarian agenda and a lot of the data I've seen from them is either so slanted as to be unusable or just plain wrong. I remember that a little while ago, The Mirror newspaper website created a random TPA press release generator. Even though it just spliced together random sums of money and names of government departments, it read just like it had emerged from the TPA press office.
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Thanks Michael - it's a wonderful spoof of some of the TPA headlines.
I think though that Clive is right not to disregard their list completely. They may have inflated some figures (accidentally, of course), but equally there are probably some assets left out.
It's a starting point for discussions such as this one; and the important thing for any council is surely to keep an open mind on how to make best use of its assets. That process should include the strong arguments that you, Clive and Pamish have made in favour of caution when considering sales.
And if it is decided to sell an asset, in the interests of transparency (so as not to be accused of FIFA-like tendencies) going to tender would seem to be advisable, as well as likely to bring in more.
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