Why all the secrecy about the agreed Lease?

UNLAWFUL secrecy was the main reason why the High Court quashed the first attempt to sell Alexandra Palace. But why was the secrecy about the Lease so great?

The Trustees remain embarrassed at what was revealed in court about what they were prepared to agree to and probably are still prepared to agree to, in the Lease.

The recent letter by the current trust chairman deliberately avoids relevant clauses in the final Lease agreed between the Council and Firoka.

A difference in weight attaches to promises made, on one hand, by a transitory councillor, to the public in a letter to a newspaper and on the other hand, promises made by the London Borough of Haringey to a property developer in a 125-year Lease, plus Master and Project agreements, all legally binding.

The Trust chair is a continuous supporter of the Lease. On 5 October 2007 he sat in court and watched it quashed. Within days he vowed to run it again.


Office Plan: the secret size: The figure for the area for commercial offices has not been denied. In the secret Firoka User Clause (No. 3.11.2.7) it is shown as 2,788 square metres, which sounds less than 30,000 square feet. This change-of-use alone might be worth £18 million pounds to Firoka.

The true size of office development was not even hinted at in the Palm Court Display and the sheer scale was one of the biggest secrets in the Lease. Sketchy outline proposals never showed how the huge swathe of offices might spill into the East wing.

Firoka’s architects’ plans showed – in place of the world’s first television studios – the single word ‘office’. There’s a difference between an office and thirty thousand square feet’s worth.

Surprisingly, the chairman holds up the Palm Court Display as a model of consultation. Yet he sat in court the whole day when it was analyzed for its worth as consultation. The Palm Court effort was found so unsatisfactory that it contributed to the High Court defeat (including costs awarded against the Trustees because of their conduct). However, in deciding on the unlawfulness of the overall Consultation, the biggest factor for the Judge was the secrecy of the Lease.

Unsurprisingly, the Trustees do not speak about this court defeat. Full details online at:

http://tinyurl.com/2yzlzf


Casino The council itself may not be keen on the idea of a casino, so why did they nonetheless agree to a casino in the Lease? The Firoka User clause contains:

• 3.11.2.6
  use as a small casino (as referred to in section 7(5)(c) of the Gambling Act 2005).

If, in order to licence a new casino, Council had to apply to the Casino Advisory Panel by the end of March 2006, as claimed, why did Haringey agree to provide for a casino in the Lease by the end of that year? If a casino was mere “talk … back in 2005” as claimed, why did the Council agree to the casino clause in the Lease in 2007?

The secret casino clause is in the contract stalled by court action in October, and it would be in force already, but for the quashing secured by Jacob O’Callaghan.

The chairman claims that “a casino is simply not possible”. Firoka must believe a casino is possible, otherwise they would not have thought it worthwhile to insist on the clause. Since the Council has already approved the casino-clause, it will be harder to refuse a casino licence at a later date; Firoka could lever this clause in court.

Casinos may become popular in the next 125 years and a future lessee could say that the Trustees are behaving unreasonably in withholding permission. The casino Lease clause is the fulcrum on which a future Lessee can force the Trustees to approve the casino already in the Lease.

Will the clause still be in the Lease that the Council still wants to run? Is APTL still applying for a permanent track-betting premises licence on behalf of Firoka? The clause and permission reinforce each other.


World’s first TV studios: After the 1980 fire, huge public monies were spent on rebuilding. One of the jobs undertaken was to remove asbestos from the studios. How much money was spent on the first removal work and why was that not completed? If Council-approved work was not done fully, how big a task would it be to finish the job?

Buildings are either contaminated or not, but it is claimed that the studios are contaminated “seriously”. Is this a smokescreen or is the councillor prepared to publish the inspection reports? Publishing these reports would be in the spirit of openness and accountability claimed.

Even if there is some contamination, would that be a good enough reason to demolish the world’s first television studios? Is Firoka aware of the magnitude? Thus far, the issue doesn’t seem to be a problem for Firoka, who would replace the studios with an ‘office’.

Asbestos is a mineral. It is not nuclear waste but asbestos dust is hazardous. If it exists, it is a technical issue and manageable. It is far easier to deal with, than the toxic talk of a trustee seeking to demonize an old building material for political purposes.


Fire-sale It took an Act of Parliament to permit a term as long as the 125 years of this Lease. If any lease is sufficiently long, in the marketplace it acquires the characteristics of a Freehold. For practical purposes, a ‘lease’ of this length is as bad as a freehold sale.

A long lease is a negotiable asset and can be used as security and borrowed against. The Lease can also be sold on, which could be how Firoka intend to make their killing. An ultra-prime seven-acre building-site with panoramic views over Europe’s biggest city is worth more than £1.5 million.

Much hot air is spoken about plans for Alexandra Palace. What counts is what is in the enforceable, legally-binding Lease. And that is the document about which the chairman says little.

Abridged version published in Ham & High Broadway
7 February 2007

• Alexandra Palace declared a no-pride zone

HARINGEY Council has declared Alexandra Palace to be a no-pride zone, extending to the boundaries of AP park. The zone is to be enforced against council staff who exhibit pride in the Palace’s history.

The Council agreed contracts for the fire-sale of the Palace to Firoka and these documents provide for the vanishing of the world’s original television studios.

The signal radiating 25 miles from the world’s first television mast is the basis for the stylized ‘lightning flash’. For 40 years it has been the theme for the Council’s corporate identity. Once, there was pride in this achievement. The symbol is still there, even on the Borough Coat-of-Arms.

Nine weeks after the deal was quashed by a judge, in December the Council served notice of eviction on their “preferred development partner”.

Even though Firoka failed to respond to the ultimatum to commit by 28 December 2007, Haringey are now begging Firoka to return. Not content that the Trustees agreed contracts allowing the destruction of BBC Studios A and B, our council are now imploring Firoka to return and destroy the potential UN World Heritage site.

A palace spokesman said: "A formal pledge has not been given and, based on Firoka's lack of correspondence, we cannot say whether it is still interested in the project or not … The board previously stated it is still a willing participant if Firoka is keen, and that statement still stands."

The “lack of correspondence” isn’t because Mr. Kassam didn’t put enough stamps on the envelope. The ultimatum expired some time ago and the continued pleading shows self-respect has evaporated. It’s undignified for a London Borough to prostrate themselves like this.
Historian Jacob O’Callaghan tried repeatedly to restore pride in the AP-zone but was shot at repeatedly. Enforcement is now formalized: the council’s no-pride memo lists phrases banned from use by council staff:

“Birthplace of Television”

“Most important building in the Borough”

“The Bletchley Park of London”

“Potential UN World Heritage site”

References to AP being the site of one of Britain’s greatest achievements of the last century and “leading the world” are banned. The Chairman of the Board has led the way by punctiliously avoiding the worst offending phrase “World’s first television studios”.

Transgressions of the new code will be brought to the attention of the Re-education Team, comprising Councillor-trustees Egan and Peacock. Repeat offenders will be whipped by the Chairman.

Original TV Studios vs. travesty of the TV ‘museum’

IN his letter published last month about the future of Alexandra Palace, the Chair of the Charitable Trust claimed, amongst other things:

“We are dedicated to ensuring that the main recreation goals of the project – namely: …, retention of the Willis organ and the television museum – are delivered.”

It is misleading to imply, as the Chairman did, that any television museum is being retained. No television museum exists. The real TV studios would either be demolished and/or used for other purposes – on the architect’s plans they are labeled as offices. No part of the so-called ‘museum’ would be in the famous studios. Since the Alexandra Palace Lease and related documents are still secret, what is meant by a television ‘museum’ we can only guess at. All we have to go on are Firoka’s architect’s concept sketches, see this web-page,

plus, that small part of the secret Project Agreement revealed in the High Court (in the case that quashed Haringey’s first attempt to ram through this shady deal). From Firoka’s plans, we see the studios are gone. As substitute for the world’s first television studios, off to one side, we see a square room of about 10% of the size of the real studios. Space for a mock-museum is given as a sop and if it ever got off the ground, it would in all likelihood be a short-lived affair.

Correspondence forced into the public domain via the High Court, includes a letter dated 13 February 2007 from the AP Trust’s Solicitor to the Charity Commission. This was more than five weeks after the end of the public consultation on the Lease. “This proposal [for ‘museum’ space] and the concept drawings has been incorporated into the agreed documentation.” Clause 9 (The Museum) of the still largely secret Project Agreement shows:

9 The Museum [this is a sop, fake, fiction and a travesty]

9.1 Having regard to the historic importance of the Premises as the first and former sole television broadcasting centre in England, the parties intend to allow the Museum Operator the opportunity of taking up an underlease of the premises … to accommodate a broadcasting museum and working recording studio (“The Museum”). The following provisions of this clause 9 are to apply accordingly as to the terms of the underlease and the premises to be available to the Museum Operator. [the TV broadcasting centre was not only first in England, but first in World. How generous of the parties to rent a room to a museum ‘Operator’ after destroying the original studios, currently owned by a charitable trust for the public in perpetuity]

9.2 The Landlord shall notify the Tenant of the identity of the Museum Operator as soon as reasonably practicable and in any event prior to completion of the underlease referred to in clause 9.1. [could lead to a rush to find any Operator]

9.3 The accommodation for the Museum is not to exceed 558 m2 [where does this precise figure come from? The area limit: (a) guarantees that any museum cannot later move to occupy the real studios, which are many times this size; (b) ensures any Museum cannot expand; (c) stipulates only a maximum area, (no minimum), and (d) suggests that the present place on the plans is not permanent.]
9.4 The Tenant shall provide the accommodation … to a specification agreed with the Museum Operator … [This is the strongest right enjoyed by the M.O. but Firoka is still in the driving seat.]

9.5 The underlease is to be offered for a term of not less than 15 years nor more than 20 years. [why 20 years? Will any TV museum be irrelevant after 20 years? Most retail leases are for 25 years. Does it perhaps mean that Firoka needs 20 years to amortize capital gains taxes? And then they want to be able to sell the whole building, without the ‘museum’? The 20 year maximum guarantees that Firoka will not have to tolerate any museum presence indefinitely.]

9.6 The rent of the premises is to be a market rent … exclusive of outgoings, service charges and insurance contributions … subject to rent reviews of a frequency according with current market conditions at the time of grant of the under lease. [any Museum would be set up to fail. These terms are intended to be so unattractive as to put off most would-be Operators right away. Yes, we are talking about what is now a Charitable Trust, the beneficiaries of which are all of us. As the real studios are demolished, Firoka will quietly wait while no Operator materializes. Until three years is up (see below). After then, even the sham Museum goes].

9.7 The underlease is to be on an interior repairing basis but subject to a pro-rated contribution to the cost of repairs maintenance and upkeep of the Premises (not comprised in an [sic] lettable area of the Premises) and recoverable by the Tenant by way of comprehensive service charge. [Firoka has in reserve all the power it needs to squeeze out any M.O. foolish enough to take on the underlease]

9.8 The underlease is otherwise to contain such other terms as are consistent in all material respects with the approved form of underlease referred to in clause 3.8.8.9 of the Lease. [this clause, like most clauses in the Project Agreement, is still concealed from the public, so we do not know the approved form of underlease. Presumably it will contain standard terms relating to a commercial enterprise]
…

9.11 If no agreement has been reached with the Museum Operator within three years after the date of this Agreement, the Tenant having endeavored in earnest to do so, the Tenant will then be released from the obligations under this clause 9 which are to lapse accordingly. [Who will judge whether Firoka has tried to reach an agreement with a M.O in earnest? By setting impossible conditions, the whole notion of a Television Museum would probably not get off the ground. Firoka does not want it there because it is inconsistent with maximizing their profit potential.]

The Trust Solicitor presents this one-sided deal as evidence of how generous are the provisions for a TV museum. After reporting the failures of the Trustees to secure funding in the past, the concluding comment by the Solicitor to the Charity Commission is that

“In these circumstances it is quite impossible for the Lease to contain any covenant specifying the nature and type of museum or to ensure that it will have the resources necessary for its running costs.”

With these words and by setting strictly commercial criteria, the Alexandra Palace Trust Solicitor seeks to set in motion a sequence of events that step by step, will drive out anything tangible from the historic site.

Any possible Museum is tolerated by the grudging permission of Firoka who will hold several levers to force out the unwanted underlessee after an interval. The intention of the limited time, limited space and especially the reviewable market rent, is to give every chance for any Museum Operator to fail and fail fast. Firoka want their unloved Museum Operator-underlessee out, not immediately and not publicly but nonetheless out.

Our Council has gone along with all of this.

If, in the highly unlikely event – in spite of all the obstacles – of the Museum ‘Operator’ being a commercial success, then the backstop from Firoka’s point of view is that the underlease is for a maximum of 20 years (after which time, the Museum Operator would presumably be forced out anyway). This is possibly the timescale that Firoka are contemplating after which they want to be able to sell-on the entire building, once their capital gains taxes are amortized. Is this the best deal that our Council could achieve?


Hot-dog Concession or future UN World Heritage site?
It is bad enough for Haringey willingly to agree to the demolition of the BBC studios A and B, the world’s first. But even the ‘Operator’ of their token-gesture museum would be dealt with by Firoka on the same basis as the owner of a long-term hot-dog concession. At the end of this Council-approved process, to which they turn a blind eye, will be a ‘Heritage Facility’ which could be no more than a display board. Do we want a Haringey Heritage Facility or do we want restored historic studios?

Britain led the world in 1936 with the pioneer work that is such an influence in the lives of billions of people. To mark where it all began, if we are lucky, Firoka might permit us to have that display board in a corner, once any Museum Operator fails as it has surely been set up to do. Is this good enough?

Neither Firoka nor the Council have any genuine interest in history or preserving something truly valuable for the enjoyment of future generations.

The present Trustees …

“accept … that the TV studios are part of the national heritage. However the Trustees are without funds.”

If the Trust/Council had wisely spent the £100m of our money they used up, and had managed it well, the whole place including the studios would have been a gleaming, thriving facility for many years now and attracting tourists from around the world.

That the present Trustees have chronically failed to organize a solution for a site of such huge potential, is more a reflection on their imagination and competence rather than any inherent difficulty, apart from the conflicts of interest inherent with political appointments.

Simply because the present Council trustees have failed to find a workable solution does not mean that no trustees could find a solution. The present situation is untenable. Do we want political hacks as trustees or high-calibre experts with a genuine interest in AP? We don’t need a new Trust but we certainly need new Trustees.

The current trustees have always been compromised by the conflicting roles of their duties as Trustees to the Charity and their duties as Councillors to the Council. They love the Palace so much they cannot wait to wash their hands of it. The Save Ally campaign does not want to hand this immensely valuable facility on a plate to a developer but put it in the hands of Trustees who will preserve the studios and develop the place with enthusiasm for the benefit of all the public.

The pride of Haringey

WHILST walking around in any street in Haringey on any day, one may catch sight of a familiar symbol on the side of vehicles, on the odd sign tied to a lamp post, even appearing on a flag flying from the town hall; yes it is the most famous sign in Haringey, you’ve got it, it is Haringey Council’s own logo.


The logo was taken from Haringey’s coat of arms created in 1965 when Haringey was formed. The emblem symbolizes the London Borough and Haringey has displayed it with pride. It’s on signs, buildings, vehicles, documents, letterheads and every page of the Council’s web-site.

Yet how many know the origin of this symbol? Haringey Council doesn’t care to remind people of its background and they would probably rather people forgot if they ever knew. There is a certain irony about the kind of web-site it took to reveal the history behind the symbol which stands for the Borough. On a Casino web-site (Cashour.com), there is a piece about our history:

The Haringey Symbol is based on a device in the Borough Arms. It is a stylised electric flash representing the first television transmission in Britain from Alexandra Palace

At some point in the Council’s past there was obvious and justified pride in this. Alexandra Palace is the highest place in the Borough above sea level, it is the most important building in the Borough and it is the Bletchley Park of London. It’s fame as the birthplace of television is known around the world. The world’s first television transmission came unsurprisingly, from the world’s first television mast (still standing) alongside the world’s first television studios, at Alexandra Palace.

“This is direct television from Alexandra Palace” were the first, simple yet immortal words spoken by Elizabeth Cowell on 2 November 1936 at the beginning of the first public television broadcast in world history. It happened at Alexandra Palace, Haringey, and fittingly this was celebrated in the symbol used throughout the Borough. The radiating zig-zags represents the transmission signal.


But one of the most important events in the history of Haringey – arguably of the world – is being forgotten. The pride in being home to the birthplace of one of the greatest engineering and technical achievements of last century is quietly being cast aside. Haringey want to get rid of the building to a favoured business partner for a reported £1.5 million pounds: a sum they have already spent in sale costs.

But Haringey Council has lost its former pride to such an extent that it has now agreed to the destruction of these television studios by Firoka, their favoured developer of Alexandra Palace. The story of the sale being attempted can also be seen online at saveallypally. The Council are still trying to flog the Borough’s most important and most historic building, for property development.

The world-famous studios A and B, just to the west of the BBC Tower, are still there. Waiting, either to be demolished by Haringey or to be declared a UN World Heritage site. The public are barred from entry on the pretext that the studios are riddled with asbestos (it was completely removed 10 years ago). Early television exhibits continue to be concealed from the public by Haringey Council. Today’s Council no longer speaks proudly of the television studios as first in the world, but refers to them as the ‘old’ studios or the ‘disused’ studios. Such has been the decline in self-respect.

Because the Council made such a mess of managing the Palace, the studios will be sacrificed in an effort to flush down the drain the evidence of Council incompetence. The ultimate price for the loss of control of rebuilding costs, after the 1980 fire, is to be paid by the Studios and to the cost of history and future generations.

Casino2all.com is another casino web-site that has a section on the Borough of Haringey. This source of interest in Haringey is surprising given that the Borough possesses no casinos – yet. Do they know something we don’t? See here.

It is fitting that I learnt about the history of the Borough’s symbol from on-line casino sites. Haringey’s favoured business partner, Firoka, is keen on having a casino in Haringey, having been thwarted last year in getting a casino in Oxford. Firoka’s boss spends much of the year in Monte Carlo, famous for its casino.

While the Council is still trying to win public approval for the sale, Haringey decline permission for that casino. But Haringey Council are nonetheless now assisting with Firoka’s first gambling licence at Alexandra Palace – they even offered to put the Application in the name of Alexandra Palace Trading Ltd, a Council-owned company. Haringey are currently asking themselves for a permanent gambling licence on behalf of their favoured business partner.

Are croupiers to be the glamourous new role models for Haringey’s youth, rather than boring old electrical engineers? If the Council is prepared to see demolished the history on which their corporate identity is based, why not be honest and get rid of the logo too? A vestige of such a leap forward in technology would be an anomaly after the Council allows the demolition of the world’s first TV studios.

After 40 years with the old logo, earlier this year Haringey decided to spend thousands of pounds of tax money in giving it a tweak. In March 2007, perhaps to disguise the now-embarrassing origins, the Council arranged for the logo to be tilted and coloured orange and green to become the current edition (once described as a squashed spider). Instead of symbolizing knowledge radiating out equally in all directions, the revised signal is twisted, contorted. The same signal is being slowly crushed, struggling to escape from a box of darkness (the Council of course prefers modern metaphors rather than allusion to what they see as ancient history).

But to truly break with the past, maybe Haringey should bring it more into line with the modern era and today’s new values and update it significantly. In order honestly to reflect the new priorities, perhaps the Borough’s symbol needs to reflect the likely change of use. It would represent not the world’s first TV broadcast in Haringey, but the future: the first casino in Haringey. Why not change the Council logo to a stylized roulette wheel?



[letter of 11 December 2007, unpublished by local newspapers. Was it unpublished through fear of offending Haringey Council?]

Haringey Council have agreed to demolish world’s first television studios – click on pic to enlarge …