I am worried about all the money the council could have made but hasn't. Most are aware that the London Borough of Ealing owned the old YMCA for 6 years left it empty and made little if any profit from it when it was sold. How could this be?
The Guardian said that a company Berkeley Group has successfully persuaded planning authorities that it could not make a profit from its developments if it met affordable housing targets. Yet it raked in £2.9bn of profit in the last seven years.
Who did LBE sell the old YMCA site to in 2018. Berkeley Group. In business you chose friends carefully. Mice don't regularly do business with cats. Yet I hear that LBE are to send a delegation of 6 mice to MIPIM (international property fair in Cannes) this spring. Oh and a clothing allowance. I bet to encourage the mice they are being paid for by the cats. Has all this intimacy got anything to do with uncollected planning gain money or community infrastructure levy. All those flats going up in West Ealing should be generating funds that might keep libraries afloat. I would urge mice not to go to Cannes and to start producing balanced books instead to shut up people like me. |