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Sponsor’s link with cemetery scandal shocks protesters
Keep Pimlico Comprehensive campaigners demonstrate outside City Hall over Future plans
WHEN the leader of Westminster Council said he would like to see Pimlico become an academy before consultation had begun, campaigners fighting to keep the school comprehensive feared the worst.
Sir Simon Milton’s slip became a self-fulfilling prophecy in July when schools chiefs moved to transform the community school into an academy.
The decision stuck two fingers up to 96 per cent of the parents and teachers who objected during public “consultation”.
The shock appointment of the charity Future, run by venture capitalist and Conservative Party donor John Nash, as sponsor sparked a third demonstration by campaigners outside City Hall on Monday (right).
But news that his private equity provider Sovereign Capital – boasting a £450 million portfolio – acquired Cemetery Management Limited in 2003 has left them gobsmacked.
CML legitimately profited from the sell-off of Westminster’s cemeteries by Dame Shirley Porter in 1987 and has since been contracted to dig and maintain graves for Westminster in the East Finchley Cemetery.
Councillor Paul Dimoldenberg, author of The Westminster Whistleblowers about Shirley Porter and the “homes for votes” inquiry, said: “The more we find out about the academy sponsor the more questions are needed to be asked. It is quite extraordinary that John Nash is the owner of CML.”
He added: “It shows the scandalous days of Shirley Porter are alive and well in Westminster. And whatever Councillor Milton says, the story keeps coming back to haunt him 20 years after the event.”
CML was linked to one of the biggest scandals in local government history.
Dame Shirley Porter, the former leader of Westminster Council who was disgraced by the “homes for votes” scandal of the late 1980s, sold the cemeteries for 15p in January 1987 after she felt they had become too costly to maintain.
The cemeteries were passed through a series of off-shore companies ending up with CML which bought them for £750,000 in 1987.
The graveyards were stripped of their assets and left to ruin until 1992 when the deal was exposed and Westminster Council was forced to buy them back from CML for £4 million.
The journalist Andrew Hosken, whose book Nothing Like a Dame investigated the great cemeteries sell-off, said: “The passage of time has done little to dull the sense of amazement and contempt felt by the public towards the parties involved in the transactions. They were selling off the dead.”
The maintenance firm was replaced earlier this year but remains contracted for burials at East Finchley until 2012, according to the council’s East Finchley Cemetery Plan for 2007-2012, published in January.
A council spokesman said CML was replaced by Continental Landscapes in April 2007.
David Kerrigan, head of parks and leisure services, said: “Sovereign Capital Ltd did not buy CML until 2003, some three years after that contract was awarded. Sovereign Capital therefore had no involvement in the previous tendering process.”
A spokeswoman for Sovereign said: “Sovereign Capital acquired CML and its associated companies for an undisclosed sum. This follows Sovereign’s £21 million buy-out of Laurel Management Holdings Ltd, a leading UK group of funeral directors. The combined group, which will handle more than 10,000 funerals a year, has the opportunity to acquire and develop a number of new sites.”
Padraic Finn, secretary of Westminster NUT, in a deputation at a meeting in City Hall on Monday, criticised the decision to appoint Future.
He said: “We believe the decision to appoint Future was made a long time ago. The proposal would give a £35 million new building, paid for by taxpayers, to Mr Nash’s charity, on a 125-year lease. We want to know why Future was chosen ahead of the other potential sponsors.”
Mr Nash was a major player in the David Davis leadership campaign in 2005. He has sat on committees with Westminster councillors.
Cllr Milton told the meeting: “Let me make it absolutely clear that there is no link whatsoever between Future and any members of this cabinet. Future was not chosen because it was the last bidder standing, it is a very credible sponsor. I am truly inspired by the Nashes and their vision for children.”
Mr Nash said: “This is absolutely nothing to do with politics. We passionately believe that one of the largest issues facing our country is that we have children who perhaps don’t have in many cases the pastoral support they used to have.”
Steve Farnsworth, director of schools and learning, said: “Our ambition with Pimlico School has always been to find a provider which can deliver strong leadership, cultivate a diverse education for its children and secure a non-denominational and comprehensive admissions policy. Future is the organisation best able to provide these things.”
Westminster Unison’s branch secretary Rahul Patel said: “I don’t think that a decision can be made after three 10- minute meetings and no consultation. Given the experiences of the three academies on the north side of the borough, I think there needs to be a much more rigorous application process.” |
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