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Islington Tribune - by TOM FOOT
Published: 27 June 2008

Town Hall contractors playing ‘fair?’

Concern over bids for council contracts after Office of Fair Trading investigation

A ROW broke out this week amid fears that Islington is not getting value for money from contractors who operate “unfair” practices.
It comes as the Office of Fair Trading accused two of Islington’s leading contractors at national level of forming cost-cutting cartels in an effort to rig developments.
By placing almost identical bids the contractors could skew the market, the OFT said, leaving councils like Islington with a poorer deal.
The latest concerns surfaced in a rowdy debate on Tuesday night over the sale of Moorfields School.
Labour councillor Wally Burgess revealed two bids being considered for an unnamed development in Islington were within a fraction of each other.
He told the meeting: “I have seen the documents, which I have been told I can’t mention, but I will say they are within just 0.02 per cent of each other. Is the council really getting value for money?”
Cllr Burgess was shouted down by Lib Dem chairwoman Councillor Jyoti Vaja and Lib Dem finance chief Andrew Cornwell who said: “I will not comment on commercially confidential matters.”
After the meeting Cllr Burgess said: “Normally you have a shortlist of bids giving different offers. To me it shows that the bidding process is still not being looked after properly. You would think someone would be investigating that – especially after the problems we have had.”
The outburst came during a meeting that almost saw Labour opposition leader Councillor Catherine West thrown out and the public were later told to leave.
Details of a multi-million pound deal to build a major housing complex on the Moorfields site in Bunhill Row – overlooking the historic burial ground of famous non-conformists – have so far been kept secret from the public.
Finance chiefs confirmed in the meeting the expected £7million from the sale of the site – part of a massive sell-off of council assets that has seen 70 owned properties sold to private developers this year – had already been spent in this year’s budget.
Moorfields School was put on special measures in 2004 following an Ofsted inspection. It was later closed and used as a temporary accommodation for pupils of Prior Weston School while their building was demolished and rebuilt. Those pupils have now moved into their new school in Golden Lane and the council says the Moorfields site has become “surplus to requirements”.
Cllr Cornwell said the sale was the culmination of a five-year plan and it would be “foolish” to stop the process now.
John Williams, a resident who lives close to Moorfields, said: “If you have had so long on this, why has no planning brief been made available to the public? We should know what the development is going to be before it is sold to the developers.
“We have tried to discover, through Freedom of Information requests, but have been constantly given the run-around.”
Campaigners cannot understand the cloak of secrecy veiling the development – believed to be in excess of eight storeys – and located in a conservation facing the historic Bunhill Fields.
It is the resting place of famous non-conformists and writers William Blake, John Bunyan and Daniel Defoe.
It would also overshadow Wesley’s Chapel, a Georgian townhouse where the Methodist preacher John Wesley was born, died and buried.
Cllr West asked Cllr Cornwell whether English Heritage, the National Trust or the famous heritage organisations maintaining the historic graves, had been contacted in the build-up to the sale.
She said: “Developers might not want to purchase it as there are historic obligations in the rebuild.”
Cllr Cornwell said they had and would not be contacted and blasted Labour politicians including Emily Thornberry MP, who has said she would attempt to block the application, as “hypocrites”.
He said: “This is absolutely typical of the hypocrisy of Labour – they call for more affordable housing but when it comes to making a decision they will not back it.”

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