Firoka is out for good

The Alexandra Palace Trust issued the following
press release this afternoon (19 August 2008):

The Alexandra Palace Charitable Trust has received notification from Firoka Ltd that the developer is no longer interested in being involved in the future of Alexandra Palace.

This comes after over a year of negotiations between the Trust and Developer.

Matt Cooke, Chair of Trustees, said:

'As this option for moving forward closes I am determined that we will grasp the opportunity this now gives us to explore new ways of realising our objective of securing Ally Pally's future in an exciting and sustainable way.

'I will be taking proposals to the next meeting of the Board which will be about that future and learning the lessons of recent months, years and decades. The Trustees will now focus on reviewing the various options open to them in order to ensure that the charitable objectives of public resort and recreation are maintained. We will take this opportunity to ask the difficult questions and seek realistic proposals for the Palace's future.

'During this period of negotiation we have not been idle and a tremendous amount of work has been done in reinvigorating our trading company culminating in the appointment of a new Managing Director last week. This work gives us a solid foundation for the future - a future which could be tremendously exciting for the Palace.

'Local people and beyond see pure potential in the Palace, and we have a duty to Haringey and all of London to secure and realise this tremendous asset's future.'

Secrecy in Council decision-making

Or, Alexandra Palace and the code of omertà about the sale

THE intense secrecy pervading the sale of Alexandra Palace continues. The Palace is a Charity, paid for by all of us and whose beneficiaries are all of us. But its disposal, as a Developer Shell by Haringey Council to their favoured property developer, doesn’t feel like simply the sale of surplus land.

The sale is treated with all the secrecy of a big arms deal to a dodgy third-world dictator. Replete with bribes, kick-backs, immorality and government-subsidy, together with excuses of ‘commercial confidentiality’ – unlawful, but said to be in the interests of National Security. It’s surprising the press hasn’t been slapped with a D-notice!

Again and again, the Council uses commercial confidentiality to excuse the mystery about the deal. This is despite the fact that entering into these arrangements was ruled unlawful in the High Court last October and not least, because these arrangements were in defiance of the specific promise of a Government Minister in Parliament in 2004. The shady deal is currently stalled; since the High Court defeat, the silence from the developer himself has been deafening.

Even some Trustees of the main Trust Board have difficulty obtaining basic information from the coterie of council-cronies who control our charity.

Sometimes it is possible for the public to attend an entire Trust Board meeting. But often press and public are told to leave when the meeting agenda reaches Exempt Items. The items the council wants to conceal from the public are always labelled Exempt. These are said to be commercially sensitive but are probably politically sensitive or just plain embarrassing. They might reveal details of council ineptitude and the level of quality of the legal advice that the Council receives.

Some of the current negotiations about the sale of a Lease of 125 years, are believed to be about the need to provide for full disclosure (during the required Public Consultation) and to maintain commercial confidentiality (!)

Month after month, the general manager provides either verbal or written reports which say that there is nothing to report. The Council has been furnished with an Opinion from leading Charity Counsel, that shows that any Lease of AP cannot be solely for commercial purposes. But Haringey is unable to face the fact that this unlawful deal has to be called off.

What little information is released to the public, is carefully channelled and spun via the PR firm Lexington Communications, which our council-controlled Trust has employed at great cost since January 2005.

As for the two nominally autonomous committees which might be expected to have a say about the future of our Palace, the Council cares little what they might say. Nonetheless, the Council has artfully managed to muzzle those two watch dogs: the Statutory Advisory and the Consultative Committees.

Haringey council corrupts their proper independent functioning, by inviting favoured members of those committees to have access to documents on the strict condition that they are sworn to secrecy. By granting access to some members of those committees, the council divides those committees and extends the conspiracy of silence.

Those members selected for access will feel special and privileged and may do more than just keep quiet. They are likely to stifle any reservations they may have had and defend council policies against attack. But by agreeing to such restrictions, these members loose any basis for arguing that the documentation should be open to all, as it should be. Their position is compromised and their independence is shot. The Council has deployed the insidious technique of omertà in order to pervert both committees.

Each committee is also dependent on the council organisation for resources and facilities including venue, Minutes, administration and legal “advice”. The Consultative committee is chaired by the same Councillor who chairs both the main Trust Board and the Palace’s trading company.

Secrecy in local government is probably never likely to lead to good, well-rounded decisions. It can cover-up mistakes. An absence of scrutiny allows a culture of waste and inefficiency to develop. Councillors and council officers, of course, feel more comfortable in such a climate but it is not good governance.

• £3 mlln. loss to Council at Alexandra Palace Trust

IT IS REPORTED there is a £3,000,000 hole in the Council’s accounts caused by losses at the Alexandra Palace Trust. Mismanagement has been a chronic problem at the Council-controlled Trust, but the past year saw a ballooning of waste, mistakes and irresponsibility. The Council recklessly tried to give our Palace as a ‘developer shell’ to their favoured property developer (Firoka). And now the Charity Commission has opened a case about the matter, with two officers appointed.

The Trustees’ decision last year, to grant a temporary trading licence to Firoka, was like agreeing to sell one’s house for say, £1.5m. Then, on the day of Exchange-of-Contract, handing the keys over and giving vacant possession—without waiting for completion. All this, without taking any deposit, let alone receiving the purchase price.

Then, after you move out, you continue to pay the rates, gas, electricity, phone and insurance bills on your old house. You also still pay the wages of your old cook, cleaner and the gardener at your former home. And you pay for an odd-job man, plumber and electrician just as the new ‘owner’ requires. To do this, you’d have to be either a half-wit or Haringey Council.

The councillor-trustees agreed—probably unlawfully—to a similar sketch for our charity. With this background, is it any wonder that Firoka enjoyed such a long, profitable time in our house at our expense, before the Council reluctantly evicted them?

Despite spending three quarters of a million pounds on their own lawyers, the council appears meekly to have just signed every document placed in front of them by Firoka’s lawyers.

In May 2007, the current Trust Chairman inherited problems from the previous AP chairman, in the recurring cycle of this depressing saga. As the chairman has now been reappointed for another 12 months, sooner or later he and his fellow Trustees ought to begin to take responsibility. The likelihood is that in another 12 months the chalice will be passed on, without progress, to another set of inattentive amateurs.

As for this year’s £3.1 million loss that Haringey taxpayers are expected to make good, the chairman had this to say, probably drafted by Lexington Communications, the PR company employed by our charity:

“The Palace’s accounts are always discussed in open forum and this years’ discussions were no different, these figure have been a matter of public record for months. As unanimously agreed by councillors, a provisional deficit of £3.1 million is in line with the revised budget allocation confirmed by Haringey Council in the last financial year. Alexandra Palace Charitable Trust’s accounts are currently in draft and will be audited and agreed later this year as normal.”

Lexington’s language  in effect means, ‘move along, there’s nothing to see here’. In attempting to pass off this huge loss as business-as-usual, the Board Chairman is correct in this respect: the poor decisions by the Councillor-Trustees are typical and they will continue – as long as Trustees are Councillors. A disaster is presented as not merely normal, its almost a matter for celebration. A unanimous vote that there is a deficit, is almost a triumph.

It seems presumptuous to state ahead of time and publicly, that the accounts … will be audited and agreed. An auditor of a private sector company would rightly take umbrage at such a statement, which no real CEO would be likely to make. Auditors are supposed to be independent. The chairman’s statement seems intended either to intimidate the auditor (as the trust bullies the Charity Commission), or it demonstrates little regard for the importance of the auditor’s function as an objective check on the Trust accounts.

The chairman also stated categorically that “We are not subject to any investigation by the Charity Commission”. And yet, when a member of the public asked the Council for an unredacted copy of the licence that permitted Firoka to occupy our palace, it was refused in writing by the Council itself, on the grounds that there was an on-going investigation. The apparent contradiction of this with the chairman’s statement, could be accounted for, if the running of our charitable trust by the Council is the subject of investigations by multiple regulatory agencies.

Most of the Trustees take little interest in this multi-million pound business. Trustees that do try to take an interest, are obstructed in obtaining the most basic information from the coterie of council-cronies who control our charity. One Trustee was informed that he would need to complete a formal Freedom of Information application to obtain a basic document.

Obsessive secrecy has long been a feature of this unfit-for-purpose body and the lack of scrutiny has led to huge losses. One bad decision begets and another bad decision. As a whole, the Trust Board has no shame and take no responsibility for their ineptitude. Meanwhile the opportunities of a community-based solution are brushed aside and council tax payer pick up the bloated bill for bungling.

Edited version
"Bill for Bungling has passed £3m"
Ham&High Broadway

'Pally finances still in disarray'
published in Hornsey Journal,

16 July 2008

• Is the Firoka deal dead or not?

THE CHAIRMAN of the Alexandra Palace Board of Trustees (for at least another month) recently wrote that “the Trust continues to explore” how to achieve the significant investment needed for the palace.

This may or may not be news to Firoka, the property developer with which the London Borough of Haringey signed a 125 year lease for our charity’s asset.

For some time now, the Trust and its PR company Lexington have claimed that Firoka will deliver £75m or £55m or - most recently – £45 million of “investment”. Why does the exploration for cash continue? Has the Trust in fact lost its way?

The contract with Firoka specifically promises a Casino in the User Clause section. Despite much obfuscatory bluster, this is not denied. The chairman has not yet offered an explanation for the casino clause or even acknowledged it. Is the reason for no comment that this Clause is a matter of embarrassment to the Council? Perhaps the next chairman will address it.

Another sign the deal is dead is that the Chairman has, for the first time, publicly opined that the casino “would be totally inappropriate at the Palace”. Is the reason that this was not said earlier, because of a fear of offending Mr Kassam, who insisted that there was the promise of a casino in the contract? But if the whole deal is off, it is now safe to make such a bold statement? Is this leadership?

If a casino fails to materialize at AP, it will be because either the whole Firoka deal is off or because Haringey renege on its promise to Firoka of a casino in the legally enforceable lease. The later to cost the Council a lot of money, but hey, its only our money they would pay to Firoka in damages!

For the past two years, the Council has described Firoka as its “Preferred Development Partner”

When Firoka were evicted from Alexandra Palace in December, following their unlawful occupation, the Trust issued some kind of ultimatum to Firoka.

This was followed in January with what the chairman then described as receipt from Firoka of a statement expressing the “clarity” the Trustees had been seeking and “fresh commitment” from their preferred partner. The commitment that was fresh then, now looks stale and even rancid.

And recently we heard a renewed offer to takeover AP from the current London Mayor, in which the Haringey council leader expressed glee and interest. Is this another signal the Firoka deal is dead?

The chairman is keen on always being clear, or at least saying he wants to be clear. Can he please clarify whether or not the Firoka deal is on or off? Will the Trust proceed with the Firoka deal or consign it to the dustbin where it always belonged? The uncertainty is not helpful and some of the Trust’s concerned beneficiaries would like to know.

The chairman’s commitment to openness “in the coming months” was first made last Christmas, four months ago. Since then we have had the normal secretiveness and repeated exclusion of press and public whenever there needs to be discussed something that is politically embarrassing. The public – the beneficiaries – needs fewer vacuous platitudes and more information from this shady Trust.

Published
Hornsey Journal
30 April 2007

Trust the lawyers, charity begins at home

MORE than £800,000 has been incinerated in Haringey Council’s futile attempt to sell our charity’s main asset, Alexandra Palace, by payments to law firms.

Via the Alexandra Palace Trust which it controls, Haringey has once again lost control in a firestorm of spending on lawyers. The following figures were obtained from the Council only after formal requests under the Freedom of Information Act.

They comprise £345,000 paid to the Trust Solicitor’s firm Howard Kennedy and a further £452,833 went up in smoke to Berwin Leighton Paisner (in both cases, only for the 24 months to November 2007). The monies paid to another law firm, Bates Wells and Braithwaite, is an undisclosed amount. All these law firms have a vested interest in flogging the dead horse of the sale of our People’s Palace.

On 13 February 2007 the Alexandra Palace Trust Solicitor wrote to the Charity Commission (para. 5.2.7):

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

But he could easily have added,

“but thankfully that problem doesn’t apply to my firm”.

The Trust’s Solicitor has enjoyed that role for many years. The regular turnover of Trustees, due to their being elected politicians, has meant that in practice, the persistent managers and advisors enjoy unusual and overweening power that they are able to exploit.

One of the reasons our Trust has less money than it would otherwise have, is because so much of our Charity’s cash has been transferred to the law firm hangers-on in connection with the flawed and failing attempt to sell the People’s Palace.

The Trust Solicitor guided the Trust through the field of Charity Law in the effort to dispose of AP to a property developer. The trail eventually lead to the High Court with the Trustees listed as the First Interested Party. Last year, the Trust’s Solicitor’s fees to our Charity were even larger than normal for two reasons.

Firstly, with the Judicial Review, the Trustee’s costs were run up in the belief (wrongly, as it turned out) that those costs would eventually be awarded against the Applicant, Jacob O’Callaghan. Secondly, not only was the Trust obliged to pay its own self-inflated costs, but the Judge also directed that the Trust, thanks to their conduct, must pay half the costs of Mr O’Callaghan.

Thus, the ordinary taxpayer has been burnt twice because of the conduct of the Trust and its principal legal advisor.

The process of needing to satisfy various statutes lead to an unusual situation which would be unfamiliar to many lawyers. It was at least as important to get the deal finished as to get a good deal for the client paying him (the Council controllers). In order to convince the Charity Commission of the merits of the case for sale, the lawyer advising his client as seller was also, in effect, representing the interests of the buyer.

We now know that it was a terrible deal for us public as beneficiaries of the Trust, whose interests appear to have been represented by no one.

This blurring of normal legal relationships lead to unusual representations. For example, on 7 July 2006, the Trust Solicitor wrote to the Charity Commission (extract from letter forced into the public domain thanks to the Judicial Review) arguing,

“that casino use does fall within the objects of the Charity as a recreational activity”.

Was he acting for us beneficiaries of the Trust, or for the property developer? The Council’s favoured property developer is well known to want a casino at Alexandra Palace and casino use was later specifically agreed to by the Council at User Clause 3.11.2.6.

Huge legal bills will keep burning for the foreseeable future as the Trust is hell-bent on flogging the Palace to Firoka. If the process ends up in the High Court again, the Trustees will be defeated again and legal costs will be generated again.

Just two things seem to be missing in this farrago from the Council: judgement and leadership.

• Crisis too big for crisis managers

AP crisis not responsibility of PR crisis managers

THE High Court defeat (October) of the Alexandra Palace Trustees saw costs were awarded against them, severe criticism and the quashing of the shady sale of the whole Palace to Firoka for £1.5m.

It could be said that the policies of the Board of Trustees (Haringey Council) are in crisis and in need of the attention of professional crisis managers.

But shouldn’t the flawed policies of the majority group be defended by the elected politicians responsible for them, rather than getting one of London’s most expensive PR companies to put a gloss on what is going on?

More than that, why are our funds, public funds, nay, charity funds being used for this purpose? Wouldn’t it be better that this money was spent on maintenance of our Trust’s main asset, something Haringey has been remiss over in recent times?

For example The chairman now claims the world’s first TV studios are “riddled” with contamination and that that contamination is “serious”. Why wasn’t this job – started 20 years ago – finished? It is said that an extra £225,000 is needed to finish the job, so the public can visit them again.

In the last two years, our Alexandra Palace Trust, a registered Charity and overseen by local Councillors, has paid over £182,000 to one of London’s largest public relations companies. Lexington Communications boast on their website that they specialize in Crisis Management.

Some of this vast sum was spent in an effort to show that the publicity for the tendering exercise was huge and so as never to be repeated. The tender that lead to a “preferred development partner” (i.e. the developer-of-last-resort) that lead to the consultation and then to the High Court.

Alexandra Palace, mismanaged by Haringey Council since 1980, is certainly in need of better public relations but spending all that money on PR doesn’t change the facts on the ground.

The local Council lost control of re-building costs after the fire of 1980 and (unlawfully) lumped their huge cost overruns onto the accounts of the AP Charity. Now other costs appear to have been allowed to spiral away. Who is in control?

PR spin cannot substitute for well-thought-through policies in the first place. They cannot disguise the fact that Haringey has made a mess of the sale of AP in the same way that they’ve made a mess of the management for years.

In truth, we need new, non-political Trustees. Trustees who have the long-term interests of AP at heart and who are not trying simply to sell the idea of a sale. We need spokesman who do not need to speak through PR firms at great public expense in order to persuade us, because they would be committed, responsible people of integrity and would naturally speak the unalloyed truth.

Open letter from Jacob O'Callaghan

"To the Mayor and all Councillors, London Borough of Haringey as Trustee of Alexandra Palace

Dear Mr Mayor and Councillors,

ALEXANDRA PALACE

YOU know from previous letters to you all that I challenged the financial information on which the application to the Charity Commission was made for the "holistic" disposal of the whole Palace. I then successfully applied for Judicial Review of the Commission's Order authorizing the lease, on the obvious grounds of insufficient information given to objectors. The Alexandra Palace, a building of national and international importance, is governed by Acts and Orders of Parliament.

IN COURT the judge placed heavy emphasis on the undertaking of Fiona Mactaggart MP to Parliament in proposing the 2004 APP Order that there would be sufficient public consultation about any proposed lease. He was astonished that the Commission, and the Trustees, appeared to have ignored this solemn promise to Parliament.

OF COURSE, what Ms Mactaggart had also solemnly promised Parliament during the debate in answer to concerns raised by MPs, and the Commission and Trustees and their advisers had equally overlooked, was that any proposed lease would not be allowed simply to be a commercial one.

I AM sending to you with this letter a copy of a legal Opinion I have obtained on behalf of the Save Ally Pally Campaign from Francesca Quint, a well- respected charity law barrister who has been legal adviser to the Charity Commission, about the extent of the legal powers and restrictions of the Mayor and Burgesses of Haringey regarding leasing the Alexandra Palace, This has already been sent to the Charity Commission and the Attorney General via the Treasury Solicitor. Our solicitor sent it to Howard Kennedy, solicitors to the Board, so that it be brought to the attention of the trustees as well. I am re-sending it now to members for ease of reference in time for Tuesday's Board meeting.

WHAT this Opinion now confirms is that the 2004 APP Order does not allow the grant of a long lease of the Palace simply to earn a financial return. The User Clause of any lease granted by the trustees must continue to safeguard the continued free use of the Palace for recreational - that is, charitable recreational and educational - purposes. ("Recreational" has, in a charity context, a more restrictive meaning than its common use.)

WE are advised, and we feel it would be in the interests of all parties and helpful to pass on this advice to the charity trustees, that the scope of consultation by the Commission about any new application for an Order authorizing any lease would have to take account of the principles in Mrs Quint's analysis, if that consultation is not to be again challengeable by judicial review.

WE have now had sight after various FoI applications of most of the putative Master Agreement, the Lease and the Project/Building Agreement. So we are, additionally, quite confident on the basis of this Opinion that these agreements would have in any event not survived a separate challenge in the Chancery Division under charity law should the JR not have succeeded, as will any similar new agreement most if not all of whose terms, of course, will now have to be disclosed to the beneficiaries of the charity in connection with any new consultation.

WE believe that the trustees must require of those negotiating for Haringey that the basis of any negotiations must be that any new agreement must be fundamentally different from the former one, in the light of this Opinion and the continuing public concern and opposition to what has been disclosed including ensuring public access to and preservation of the historic TV studios, to CUFOS and to other areas, by a requirement to sub-lease them at a peppercorn or no rent to charitable or not-for-profit bodies, which the trustees have powers to do, and ensuring preservation of the Willis organ.

HOWEVER Keith Holder, who has been conducting the negotiations with Iain Harris, has told the recent meeting of the Statutory Advisory Committee that he thought that there would be no fundamental change in the terms; in which case the trustees should direct that no further time nor money is wasted on pointless further talks with Firoka.

IT IS irrelevant, though ironic, that while I and the Save Ally Pally campaign were imaginatively accused by an anonymous poison pen letter of somehow being both a front for the Liberal Democrat party and at the same time in the pay of the unsuccessful bidder for the lease, the company which a Labour council were proposing to make an agreement with, Firoka Limited, contributed (as is its right) £10,000 to Mr David Cameron's election as Leader of his party, and another £8,000-odd to the Conservative Party itself, as recorded on the Electoral Commission's current register on their web site. In fact our campaign has members of all three main parties, and none.

HOWEVER, since the Palace is an educational charitable trust and you also must undertake due diligence, please do carefully reconsider a 125 year lease to a developer

• whose principal was described in an Evening Standard article as going "From slum landlord to Mr Ally Pally" (2 February 2006, and see entry on Mr Kassam in Wikipedia);

• whose dealings with Oxford City Council regarding Oxford United's ground, and what they have ended up with, are now publicly bitterly regretted by that Council (not to mention Oxford United fans) and apparently the subject of challenge by Oxford's District Auditor for not providing best value (see for instance

http://archive.oxfordmail.net/2006/3/17/91771.html

and subsequent articles);

• who proposed gambling casinos, which are known to attract crime, as suitable uses both at Oxford and in the Palace, an educational charity much used by children;
  
• who apparently demanded, and got, a late change in the Master Agreement so that it could claim completion of the lease while the Order was yet subject to Judicial Review;
  
• who then threatens you with possible court action;
  
• who occupied the Palace for eight months, under yet another secret arrangement, at the charity's expense, during which time we and local press were sent accounts of allegedly terrible staff relations, and
  
• who it seems pocketed, under this agreement, perhaps over a million pounds of profits which should have gone to the charity, thus necessitating a huge subvention from council funds; and

whether some of this surely merits just a few second thoughts about what Haringey and London may be saddled with for 125 years.

Perhaps Board and Council members should also give some thought to who was responsible we do not really know for advising them and protecting their and the charity's interests, regarding all this.

Surely there are better alternatives to that. Save Ally Pally is saying that there is an alternative. We have, of course, no connection whatever as a group with any unsuccessful tenderer: we simply believe that another option is viable and preferable and in the best interests of the charity. Some of our members are helping to prepare a formal submission to you and the Commission, because the presence of viable and preferable alternatives to alienation of the main asset must weigh on the Commission in reviewing any renewed application by the trustee for an Order.

I am writing personally to you because firstly, I really do not want the charity or the council to clock up any more bills than necessary for legal correspondence; and secondly because we should surely be all on the same side as residents of Haringey, in wanting the best deal for both the people of London as beneficiaries, and the council taxpayers of Haringey, in ensuring the future of this landmark, world-famous building and its park.

We would rather we did that in partnership than at loggerheads, and the energy and passion of our campaign was applied constructively in finding permanent solutions ensuring the Pally's future rather than years of legal battles with the trustees. The choice now lies with yourselves.

Best wishes

Jacob O'Callaghan

cc Lynne Featherstone MP, David Lammy MP, Howard Kennedy, Solicitors to the Trustee

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.

A BEGINNER’s guide to AP - click pic for bigger

ALEXANDRA Palace disorganisation chart. 

Note: this diagram does not reflect the Board's serving notice of eviction on their ‘preferred development partner’ (!) in early December 2007, but it still shows the main relationships. Note the number of committees, in practice mostly disregarded by the Council-run Trust. Tangled or what?!

• CHAIRMAN’s blog Xmas day, 2007

The Christmas day message of the Chairman of the Alexandra Palace Trust.

IT was good of the Ham and High to offer a forum to facilitate a meaningful debate about the future of Alexandra Palace (editorial, 29 November). Unfortunately, the proponents of the current policy – getting rid of the whole building for a paltry £1.5 million – seem not to want to join a debate.

This is a pity, because the public - mere beneficiaries of the Charitable Trust - are often excluded from listening to the Trust Board’s deliberations; still less do they have an opportunity directly to influence the decisions that the Board makes on their behalf’s.

In his Christmas day message from Brighton the Chairman of our Trust had this to say in his Blog about the future of the Palace:

It's funny picking up a copy of the Ham & High and reading things which people attribute to you personally which are either hugely wide of the mark, totally untrue or so widely speculative that you could drive an articulated lorry through most of the arguments that are put forward by spokespeople for status quo and/or unrealistic ideas about ally pally's future.

If there is anything in the Ham & High that is ‘wide of the mark’ the chairman owes it to himself to spell it out clearly and if there is anything ‘totally untrue’ about him in the paper, he needs to identify it and insist on a correction, so we are all better informed. If Cllr Cooke honestly feels that he is being misrepresented, he should represent himself by joining the debate which the Ham & High offered to host.

If Councillor Cooke thinks ‘you’ could drive an articulated lorry through most of the arguments [of his opponents] … why doesn’t he climb into the cab and drive it forward himself? He does have an HGV licence doesn’t he?

Even defeat in the High Court, costs being awarded against his Trust and scathing condemnation by the judge, have failed to persuade Cllr. Cooke that his Trust’s ideas about Ally Pally’s future are unrealistic.

There seems to be a readiness to engage in bluster, but an unwillingness to address specific points. The Board avoids talking about detail – indeed they avoid saying anything at all - and prefer to speak through a PR company.

When Cllr. Cooke attempts to make a detailed point, like the (false) claims of asbestos in the TV studios, he is quickly shown not to be in possession of the facts. Cllr. Cooke - in person - claimed to me and two members of local residents associations, that it was a myth that a Casino was a part of Firoka’s proposals (the casino is shown in Firoka’s architects’ plans which are a matter of public record). It is a myth that young Matt is fully familiar with his brief.

Cllr Cooke and his fellow trustees are reluctant to talk about the world’s first television studios and refuse even to utter that phrase, lest it draws attention to the fact that his Trust is acquiescing in their eventual destruction.

I have previously referred to several of Cllr Cooke’s claims, including his denying there was any Casino proposal, his (scurrilous) claim alleging asbestos in the TV studios and his claims that everything about AP’s future was in the public domain (dissembling, to put it mildly).

In the Ham and High others have drawn attention to the false claims about wheelchair inaccessibility and misleading claims about BBC disinterest in the Studios. The huge, chronic misleading about finances is too great a subject to cover here; for them moment, I say that the Council has not been accurate over its claims of debt owed to it by AP.

The unwillingness to join open public debate is no surprise. Obsessive secrecy has been the hallmark of the scandal of the sale of Alexandra Palace, something which Cllr. Cooke has done nothing to rectify since becoming chair in May. He regularly insists on excluding the press and public from Trust Board meetings. Cllr Cooke has personally mislead about the extent of the secrecy, notably in a council debate in July when he said that the future of Ally Pally was all in the public domain: utterly, outrageously, untrue.


In his Christmas message, Cllr Cooke goes on to say:

What I really hope to achieve through the coming period as chair is for a period of calm reflection about how things could have progressed differently over the last year or so at the palace and how we move forward in a way which is informed by that past whilst also being visionary and having the confidence of local people …

(Funny there was no mention of his Trust’s defeat in the High Court in October and the fact that costs were awarded against his Trust because of his Trust’s conduct. He does not quote the Judge’s remarks: “The Trustees are the authors of their own misfortune”. We will look for content in the blog in the weeks ahead.)

At the end of the waffle about moving forward and being visionary, Cllr Cooke seeks the confidence of local people. Fat chance. His Trust had done everything in its power to limit the public consultation and restrict information available to the public. He may not have noticed that of the 328 people wrote in to the Charity Commission, 324 wrote in expressing at least some concern about his Trust’s proposal (i.e. 99%). This may be unprecedented for a Charity Trust asset disposal.

If we assume the 4 (four) people who wrote in support are probably connected to the Trust, it is safe to say that the Trust’s proposals do not enjoy the confidence of local people.

It is surprising that the Chairman does not go into any detail on his own personal Blog, where he need have no fear of being contradicted, misquoted or misrepresented. He could have taken the opportunity to refute any wrongful things said about him. He seems to be ambivalent about which are the matters best left to the public relations company.

Is Councillor Cooke prepared to stand by the press releases of the PR firm that he is paying with our money? Our Charitable Trust is using Charity funds to employ one of London’s leading public relations firms (Lexington Communications) to mount a PR campaign on behalf of the Trust. They have their work cut out. Is our Charitable Trust paying enough money to the PR company in order to get their message over? Cllr. Cooke’s complaints about press coverage seem to suggest the PR company have not yet succeeded in the PR campaign and more of our money may yet have to be spent in order to persuade us.

The Councillor is sure of the righteousness of the Trust’s flog-our-heritage policy, but because he is convinced he knows best, he won’t get into any detail, beyond misleading claims that AP is costing the Council money.

While the chair engages on quiet meditation over the weeks ahead as to where it all went wrong, the practical consequences of the failed policies pile up. We can only hope that the chairman takes a genuinely fresh look at the Palace and questions the fundamental assumptions of the get-rid-of-it policy.

The one thing we can all agree on is that the present situation cannot continue. It is (typically) misleading of the chairman to speak of saveallypally.com as proponents of the status quo.

The “status quo” comprises Council-appointed trustees pursuing a bankrupt policy of trashing our history and heritage and flogging Alexandra Palace for £1.5 million, a sum almost certainly exceeded now by the sale costs.

The positive alternative proposed by saveallypally.com, is for the Council to agree to a hand-over of the Trust to new, non-political Trustees. New independent Trustees would be unlikely to do a worse job of stewardship than the Council has over the past 27 years, and would quite possibly do a very much better job. Such a change would probably enjoy more public support than the proposals supported by Cllr Cooke. New Trustees would be the first step to a brighter future which would not involve a total betrayal of the Trust’s original charitable objects.

Let’s get the politics and the politicians out of our Charitable Trust of which we are all beneficiaries.

letter sent to and published
by the Ham and High
10 January 2008

THE ULTIMATUM: Alexandra Palace Trustees and Firoka

IN the disposal of Alexandra Palace, the weakness in the Council’s position, vis a vis Firoka, is now fully revealed. The attempt at obtaining a firm commitment from the so-called ‘preferred development partner’ has fallen flat.

The levers of power must be satisfying to operate, even if little thought appears to lie behind their exercise. The young chairman of the Trust since May, seems to have relished his powers to evict members of the press and public from meetings of the Charity Trust Board.
Then in early December, the Trust proudly announced that they were serving notice on their preferred partner (!) from Alexandra Palace and, if that eviction wasn’t enough to demonstrate how tough was the Council’s new position, they also gave Firoka an ultimatum, reported in the press as:

“The time has come for Firoka to decide whether to move ahead in partnership with us as preferred development partner at the palace. If there is a will to progress, we are prepared, ready and willing to move forward.”

The only will demonstrated so far, has been a will to treat the Council-run Trust with contempt. The ultimatum expired on 28 December, without any apparent response from Firoka. The bluff by our Council - with their empty hand - has been called by professional players.

The Trustees do not admit publicly that they learnt anything from their defeat in the High Court, apart from learning the way ahead was now clarified (?!). But they probably did learn one thing: that the bluff of Firoka could be called - as it was called finally by the High Court judge - and Firoka does not necessarily walk away as they threatened.

In their earlier negotiations the Trust had buckled each time Firoka had threatened to walk. The custodians of our history, the Council, even agreed to the demolition of the world’s first television studios in their craven desire to appease commercial greed. The Council-Trustees should have called the bluff of Firoka a long time ago and pretended to Firoka that the Trustees were competent partners to be respected.

The recent attempt at a tough position came far too late and with its failure, the feeble position of our council is exposed still further.

Chamberlain’s speech to the House of Commons after the failure of his ultimatum to Hitler is well known, but do not expect any statement from the trustees along similar lines:

“Sir, that was a final Note. No such undertaking was received by the time stipulated and consequently this Trust is now at war with Firoka.”

Instead, expect an increasing bunker-mentality from the beleaguered Trust. Expect no public comment, but actions that signify the following statement:

“Ratepayers, that wasn’t actually a final request to commit (nobody really believed us, did they?). Although no undertaking was received by the time stipulated, the Trustees will continue to beg, bungle and grovel to Firoka to take Alexandra Palace away from us.

We now know we are rubbish negotiators, we don’t have any Plan B, and no exit strategy because we have burnt our bridges. We will get an awful deal on behalf of the Trust beneficiaries (the public).

We must appease Firoka before they turn on us and sue us for millions due to misleading them over the need for a public consultation. We (the Council Trustees) deliberately ignored the promise of a Government Minister and we may yet end up paying a far bigger price than merely the costs that were awarded against us in the High Court.

We have no choice but appeasement. You ratepayers will suffer, but hey, you’re going to suffer anyway!”

Having the local Council running a big asset disposal is like an anemic hemophiliac trying to get a good price for a blood-bank from a vampire.

31 Dcember 2007

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

• LBH unable to distinguish truth from falsehood

THERE is an old Turkish proverb which holds that, no matter how far you’ve gone down a road having taken the wrong turning, go back. Haringey Council has yet to demonstrate they understand this.

A total of 328 people wrote to the Charity Commission during their ‘Consultation’ over granting of a 125-year Lease of Alexandra Palace last December. I was one of the smaller number of 324 who wrote expressing concern and who were ignored.

Haringey Council is determined to turn a blind eye to the destruction of the world’s first TV studios and site of the first TV broadcasting - and was seeking to cover it up. They gambled that no one would be brave enough to take them on and they lost.

The High Court of Justice recently ruled that the Consultation (about Haringey’s shady deal) was unfair and fatally-flawed. The Palace’s Trustees had tried to bulldoze it through. After the damning double defeat by the Judicial Review, many questions are now raised about our Council that manipulates the AP Trust Board.

The Judge was so cross with the Trustees and their behaviour that he awarded costs against them (he said that the Trustees were “the authors of their own misfortune”). Unless the Board Chairman is found personally liable, this cash will come out of the hide of us ratepayers along with all the other money Haringey have wasted along the way.

Will anyone take responsibility for this debacle? Was there no one on the Board who saw this coming? The Chairman of the Alexandra Palace Trust Board will need to consider his position. The quality of advice received by the AP Trust Board from the Board’s Solicitor has to be called into question. The Trustees were prepared to - and did – bully the Charity Commission and drag the Commission’s name into the mud. The quality of advice and the behaviour of Haringey’s in-house legal advisors might also be questioned.

Does Councillor Cooke feel so wronged by the High Court decision that he will Appeal it? The puppet Trust may even have left themselves open to legal action from their preferred developer, Firoka, on the grounds that Firoka was mislead by the AP Trust over the requirement to make the Lease public.

The current Board Chairman, Councillor M. Cooke, was not responsible for the original misconceived policies of the Board. The previous boss Charles Adje vacated the hot-seat in the nick of time, earlier this year. But when Cllr. Cooke accepted the poison-chalice promotion, he continued the same misguided policies with real zeal.

Cooke set about a personal attack of questionable truthfulness on a private citizen (Jacob O’Callaghan) who had the temerity to ask inconvenient questions about AP. (What drives an elected politician to behave like this towards an honest historian?). But that resident was not cowed and was still confident enough to initiate a Judicial Review. And he now has the satisfaction of having a High Court Judge rule in his favour and see issued a stinging judgment against the Charity Commission. But can we now trust the very ‘Interested Party’, Cooke’s Trust?

Cllr. Cooke’s bulldozer, fuelled with high-octane hubris, has hit the steel wall of the law. Cooke had earlier accused O’Callaghan of being incorrect, misleading and wrong and had asserted that a copy of the AP Lease was on the resident’s website. Mr O’Callaghan is owed an apology, together with the hundreds of other people who wrote in to the Charity Commission expressing concern about Haringey’s shady deal.

In a debate on The Future of Alexandra Palace in a full Council meeting of 16 July 2007, that I attended, Cllr. Cooke blustered:

"All of this has been discussed, is in the public domain."

Reality check:

Since December 2006, and under the Freedom of Information Act (2000), I have sought documents from Haringey about the disposal of The People’s Palace, but without success.

Despite repeated requests, Haringey Council’s Corporate Legal Services (HCLS) refuse to confirm that the Chairman’s statement is true. They studiously ignore the fact that they are well-placed to give an authoritative answer:

The arm of the Council dealing with these requests (i.e. stonewalling) is none other than HCLS. And they knew better than anyone that the future of the Palace is not in the public domain: because they are the very outfit whose job it is to make certain that the sale documents remained concealed from the public!

The secrecy that surrounds the sale of AP is obsessive. Even the building survey, which we paid for, is marked Confidential.

Haringey’s lawyers really owe more loyalty to their political bosses - regardless of the truth - than to the public. If HCLS are unwilling to give an opinion it will need to go to the UK Standards Board unless some contrition is shown. The public deserves more integrity.

At the first forum in which Haringey was obliged to fight about AP on a level playing-field which they were unable to manipulate - the High Court - they were comprehensively defeated. Will they learn from this or attempt to drive on as before? Unfortunately, this dénouement is only the latest chapter in a story of deceit and incompetence by Haringey over AP that goes back years.

To Cllr. Cooke I say: park the bulldozer, switch off the engine and climb down. Stop attempting to flog the People’s Palace for peanuts, or at all. Talk to the many people who have more vision and knowledge about AP than the current Trustees and whose attention is focused on more than just getting rid of AP at any price.

If you cannot do these things for the citizens of this Borough, indeed for this city and nation, hand over to a more competent, experienced operator who can.

[letter to local newspapers
15 October 2007]