W14 website post by Richard Osband of the Steering Group on 19 January Comment by Richard Osband 3 hours ago 11th

January 2012 Meeting - Part 2 This is the second and final part of my report on the 11th January Meeting. The 11th January 2012 meeting was with me on the one side and Nick Johnson, the Councils Lead Consultant on the Development, Philip Morris, Senior Regeneration Officer, Sarah Lovell, Regeneration Officer, Richard Budge a Partner of SNR Denton and senior external solicitor advising the Council and Jon Gorst, Senior Principal Environmental Services Lawyer of the Council, on the other side and held at the offices of SNR Denton solicitors. I then raised my concerns about the present consultation. (The Consultation Package was delivered to Residents and the local area on the 7th January 2012 and residents have until the 17th February 2012 to respond - not enough time as this consultation is the key document which the Council will use to justify signing the CLSA. Click here for key consultation document.) I said I could not agree that the consultation was in any way adequate since it provisionally recommended the CLSA whilst hiding most of the details of the CLSA. I had been, in a previous meeting with Phil Morris and Sarah Lovell, informed that the consultation documents had been written in a particular form by a Barrister acting for the Council so as not compromise the Councils case at the judicial review. The present Consultation was undertaken because the Barrister for the Council advised one was necessary as a defense against the judicial review. I already knew because I had been informed by Council Officers, the Conditional Joint Venture agreement envisioned in the 9th October 2009 Collaboration Agreement had become the Conditional Land Sale Agreement, effectively a call option agreement, which would allow EC Properties Ltd the right to buy mini sites within the whole site ( the West Kensington Estate and Gibbs Green Estate) on a timescale to suit themselves, with no obligation to do so but subject to certain conditions. I was most concerned to find out that the West Kensington Estate and the Gibbs Green Estate were to be included in the Comprehensive Scheme which means in the Collaboration Agreement the development of land in the Earls Court Regeneration Area by means of the Conditional Land Sale Agreement scheme, which as you will see is a call option, which if exercised allows EC Properties to include the Estates in the development of land in the Earls Court Regeneration Area if EC Properties Ltd want but with no certainty that the Estates will be included. I learned at the meeting that EC Properties Ltd could requisition the next mini site to be cleared when it had built replacement homes, when the Council had completed assisting the clearance by getting Compulsory Purchase Orders to force residents out who refused to move, and so long as EC Properties Ltd did not make existing services unoperable such as gas, electricity, sewage and water. In return for the call option to buy the mini sites at their own leisure and timing, EC Properties Ltd are to pay the Council approximately 100 million pounds. The amount to be paid under the CLSA is confirmed in the consultation document.

The team present confirmed that the main priority of the instruction to Pricewaterhousecoopers PWC was to recommend the improvement or beefing up of EC Properties Ltd to make sure the Council got its 100 million pounds over the five year period and was not to ensure the solvency of EC Properties Ltd over the period of the call option. The Law Clerk Associate at Ashfords Solicitors, Keith Oliver, who has acted for me and some other residents, a Senior Planner and member of the Ashfords Planning Team, was actually employed by the London Brough Of Hammersmith and Fulham in 1973 when the West Kensington Estate as it stands today was developed. The following is from an email that Keith Oliver wrote to me on the 10th January 2012: Richard I started working for Hammersmith in late 1973 at which time the towers were at an advance stage of construction. The low rise houses were less well advanced. This was also a time of recession in the housing market. The following is my recollection of events. The site had been acquired some time previously from, British Rail (it had been a coal depot) plus a CPO of properties fronting north End Road. The acquisition was under the Hammersmith (North End Road Railway Sidings) Compulsory Purchase Order 1967 (the 1967 CPO) made by the corporation on March 18 1968 under section 97 of the Housing Act 1957 for the purpose of providing housing accommodation. The CPO was confirmed without modification by the Minister of Housing and Local Government on September 5 1969. Notice to treat was served on October 30 1969 and possession was taken on July 15 1970. The previous Tory administration at Hammersmith had entered into some form of joint venture arrangement with Gleeson Industrial Buildings which was a special purpose company formed by Gleesons (then one of the biggest construction companies) to build this estate. As I recall the deal was that LBH provided the land and GIB built the development with the Council taking the high rise and Gleesons selling the houses to fund or part fund the new social housing. The towers are concrete frames in filled with block walls. My main recollection was that the concrete floor beams were supposed to site on the concrete frame at each level. However they were too short and were sitting on the inner skin of the walls. Long before the tower was finished the blocks started compressing and the floors sank noticeably. The cost of rectifying this error forced Gleesons Industrial Buildings into liquidation, and the Council eventually did a deal with the administrators that it would take all the low rise houses as compensation for the cost of remedying the towers. I think it took several years to sort out. Keith Oliver Associate Ashfords LLP

I read this email to those present at the 11th January 2012 meeting and asked those present what was being done to beef up or improve EC Properties Ltd so the Borough would be protected from something like a repeat of the 1973 fiasco. I asked what guarantees were negotiated to ensure that EC Properties Ltd were going to be solvent after the end of the five year period, by when the Council would have pocketed the 100 million pounds. I expressed the view that there were extensive risks that EC Properties Ltd would become insolvent because of the complex engineering problems which would have to be solved to complete the development. I mentioned as an example of the complex engineering problems that need to be solved, the dda compliant slope from the decking over the Lillie Bridge Depot to the North End Road, which will involve a fall of some 6 metres, to be built while we live on the estates. I was informed that PWC were only instructed to beef up or improve EC Properties Ltd to ensure that it remained solvent for the five years it would take for the Council to get its one hundred million pounds. I was told that the Council were taking no steps to ensure the solvency of EC Properties Ltd for the entire length of the development or the life of CLSA call option. I was also told CapCo could sell EC Properties Ltd or allow outside investors to take an equity interest in EC Properties Ltd or its subsidiary companies on or after the end of the five year period without any due diligence on the part of the Council or any right to veto a sale, or veto dilution, or transfer, of ownership. There is therefore no knowing who could eventually be the developer. Already CapCo have announced a conditional sale of part of Seagrave Road to elements of the Kwok family. I was told EC Properties Ltd have five years from the start of the CLSA to get planning permission. If EC Properties Ltd do not get planning within the five year period is there is a break event in the draft CLSA which could terminate the agreement. I then asked the next natural question what was the life of the CLSA, in technical terms what was the longstop or longstop date. I was told by the team present that it was a very long longstop. I was not told the exact length of the longstop. I was told by Richard Powell, the Development Director of EC Properties Ltd, at our breakfast meeting the next day that it was agreed the longstop was to be twenty years. I understand based on what I had been told previously that this means twenty years after the option date, which commences on signing the agreement. I then asked what arrangements there were to be for terminating the the CLSA if EC Properties Ltd did not perform. An example of not performing would be if EC Properties Ltd rear ended the Borough by starting work on the mini sites between years 15 to 20. I was genuinely shocked and disturbed to hear that no early termination agreements were in place. I expressed the view that there should be regular performance tests throughout the length of the CLSA which if EC Properties failed would enable the Council

to terminate the agreement. Following the 11th January meeting, on the 12th January 2012, I met again with the Council, with three other residents present, this time with a team from EC Properties Ltd present also to discuss phasing. I was told by Phil Morris that Nick Johnson had given his apologies for missing this phasing meeting because he has an urgent meeting with the Leader, Stephen Greenhalgh, to discuss my point about the lack of performance monitoring and termination arrangements in the CLSA as presently drafted. I expressed the view that the lack of performance targets and termination arrangements or break clauses would motivate EC Properties Ltd to rear end the Borough and the Residents. The sole details of the CLSA made public by the Council are on page 7 of the Consultation. On page 7 it says If, after consultation, the Council decides to include the estates in the comprehensive redevelopment proposals it would enter a land agreement with EC Properties. The land agreement would grant EC Properties the right, for up to five years, to purchase the land in phases on satisfaction of a number of conditions This is a lie because actually the Council will agree (unless they now make changes) to grant EC Properties the right, for up to five years, to confirm the purchase of a call option by which EC Properties may if they chose, and at a timing to suit themselves, purchase the land in phases on satisfaction of a number of conditions, but without the Council having the right to terminate the option agreement early should EC Properties not adequately perform, but at the longstop date, twenty years from the option date, EC Properties loses the right to purchase the unpurchased land.