• No independent Trustees for Ally Pally

SO FAR, Haringey Council appear to have learnt nothing over the past three years from the botched sell-off, of Alexandra Palace.

The new Charity Trust Board line-up comprises politicians. This, despite the exposure of their Flog-it policy as misconceived and, as shown by the independent investigation of the Walklate 2 Report, executed recklessly.

Despite calls for an independent Board, or even some independent trustees, or at least an independent chair, the council's majority group has again arranged the Board as a political instrument, by ensuring that majority group members will always outvote others (4 to 3). Only the transient politicians can vote.

This guarantees that council majority group policy is implemented. It means in effect, that the Board continues as no more than a puppet. Minority group members and the non-voting observers are there for window-dressing.

This is not how a Charity is supposed to work.

One of the worst abuses of majority voting occurred when the last annual accounts were "approved" by a majority-only vote and not unanimously. The 2007 accounts saw a £3,000,000 loss, including huge losses attributable to the Firoka Licence period, pushed for by former AP Chairman, Councillor Charles Adje, of the council majority group. The effect was to sweep the loss under the carpet.

A few months ago, the nominally independent board "requested" the council to lift the £37,000,000 of bogus debt.

In the next Board meeting of our Charity (30 June), we may hear whether or not the council has 'responded' to the 'request' to lift the bogus debt, which has long hobbled AP's future. This would also have the effect of burying even more deeply, the losses caused by Councillor Adje, who has a list of questions to answer.

Removal of the bogus debt would be to do the right thing for the wrong reason.

The other constructive thing that the council could do, if it chose, would be formally to renounce the discredited policy of the "holistic" sale of AP, a goal towards which the council has been working for 12 years.

Holistic sale meant selling Alexandra Palace lock, stock and barrel as a "developer shell" to the favoured property developer. This led to a running down of AP's trading business, a running up of debt and the retention of many expensive advisor hangers-on.

£1,000,000 was wasted on Haringey's lawyers and a single PR company. Haringey wanted to demonstrate to the Charity Commission that AP was haemorrhaging money and to provide more evidence of this, they burnt truckloads of (our) cash.

In dealing with Listed buildings, a frequent developer tactic is to neglect repairs or even encourage deterioration. Our council appears to have anticipated the needs of their preferred bidder; repairs appear to have been deliberately ignored.

In the 1980s Haringey paid unknown sums to remove all asbestos from the BBC studios. Completing this task was never a priority. The real reason that the council was unwilling to finish the asbestos removal job in the studios, was that their preferred bidder wished to turn the world's first TV studios into 30,000 square feet of commercial office space. The recently departed general manager emphasised the cost of asbestos removal. But cost was never an objection to the approximate equivalent amount of £200,000 that the Board spent on the PR company.

There has been no public apology for the chronic waste and grand-scale mismanagement. The deceit, secrecy, misleading and untruths uttered in furtherance of the sale have been shameful.

Trust Haringey to select a partner that ends up suing them (us) for millions. None of the Trustees are personally liable for any debts of the Charity as the Council indemnifies them (with our cash) This has encouraged irresponsibility.

There has been no renunciation of the long-held sale strategy. Until that happens the policy remains in place and the council will be hoping that, after a decent interval, they can begin again with another run at a sale with another developer-of-last-resort.

Haringey has yet to demonstrate that it has learnt anything, while any new potential property developer needs to look well at the Firoka fiasco before partnering with the council.