Comment from LBHF

Readers may be interested to read comments at the bottom of our 3rd September post....

All eyes back on Earl's Court

Apologies for the long post this morning but it is worth the effort.

With Battersea Power Station seemingly drifting out of sight, all eyes are now back on Earl's Court.  LBHF's cabinet recently rubber stamped the CLSA with CapCo, flying in the face of the residents of the two estates, West Ken and Gibbs Green. We expect the matter to get fierce and political in coming months with the residents vowing to fight the development through the courts and you can see what they think if you use the links in our previous blog.

However, Chelsea are not idle on the matter either. In February they lodged an objection in the planning documents for the Seagrave Road element of the development and have done so again for a paper on the 12th September, when the scheme goes up for outline approval. 

We have for some time been explaining that Chelsea have been quietly working up plans and ideas for Earl's Court, playing the political system and seemingly getting support for a stadium at EC from Boris. Their submission to the planning committee is very explicit; Chelsea would bring speed and cash to the project and the opportunity area guidelines and London Plan leave open - nay, demand - the possibility of a stadium there. Indeed, CFC contend that the current master plan contravenes the expectations of the London Plan by not including sufficient cultural or leisure facilities.

Below we print the text from the planning paper. The first thing to note is that this text is written by a planning officer from LBHF and is his interpretation of the submission from Chelsea. In bold are three statements of interest; the first is a curiosity insofar as we are interested what other borough locations have been explored. The second perhaps offers a clue as the grounds upon which Chelsea might make a legal challenge and the third is a line we were amused by...the officer has chosen not to list the benefits CFC believe a stadium would bring to the area! 

Chelsea Football Club

Submit that the current application fails to take advantage of the potential for a
new strategic leisure, cultural and visitor attraction such as a new stadium
development, with associated conference and exhibition spaces.
• Also consider the application to be premature until the "OAPF has been fully
adopted."
• CFC have been "exploring options to relocate elsewhere in the Borough. These
options are limited but it appears that the ECWK OA could accommodate the
club's requirements."
• Support the efforts of the authorities and landowners to comprehensively
regenerate ECWKOA, but consider that the current applications does not fully
recognise the opportunity the site presents to provide "a strategic leisure, cultural
and visitor attraction" as identified in the London Plan.
• State that the overall level of leisure, education, health, community and cultural
uses in the proposed development "account for only approximately 3% of the
overall floorspace applied for".
• Submit that the "creation of a new stadium, as well as additional conference and
exhibition space at ECWKOA could facilitate regeneration and create a high
quality flagship development, providing a gateway for London and meeting the
objectives of the London Plan to provide "a strategic leisure, cultural and visitor
attraction within the Opportunity Area."
• Want to ensure that the opportunity is taken to "explore fully how a new state of
the art football stadium can be integrated into this major development
opportunity", and consider that "such a component in the opportunity area would
make a significant difference in terms of the deliverability and quality of the
infrastructure needed to make the area a success in the shortest possible time".
• The letter goes on to list a number of specific benefits that CFC believe the
incorporation of a stadium would offer (these not repeated in this report as there
is no stadium proposed in the planning application currently before the
committee).

-------------------

This next text is from a story in CoStar news

Capco set for Earls Court all clear as Chelsea FC lobbies for stadium
By Paul Norman - Thursday, September 06, 2012 15:35

Capital & Counties is poised to gain outline approval for its redevelopment of Earls Court in west London but Chelsea Football Club continues to lobby vigorously for a major new stadium to be included within the 10.04m sq ft scheme.
Capco lodged two other outline applications in June of last year for a Sir Terry Farrell-designed 11.4m sq ft scheme that in total proposed demolishing the Earls Court One and Two exhibition centres and building up to 7,500 homes and 2m sq ft of offices, retail and leisure including two hotels.

It also lodged detailed plans for the 7.5-acre Seagrave Road site proposing 808 residential units. These detailed plans were approved in February of this year.

Following widespread consultation, Capco has subsequently revised the overall plans, reducing it from 942,861 sqm to 932,831 sq m (10.04m sq ft). The proposed total number of residential units has been increased from 5,759 to 5,845 while business space has reduced by 20,064 sq m to 84,701 sq m.

Planning officers have recommended that at a 12 September committee meeting next week, subject to there being no contrary direction from the Mayor for London, that Hammersmith & Fulham council authorises the Executive Director of Transport and Technical Services to grant permission upon the completion of a satisfactory legal and section 106 agreement and subject to a series of conditions.

Officers write glowingly of the scheme saying it would "contribute to the regeneration of the area, improve education and employment opportunities, and promote sustainable economic growth".

The proposed development would be a "high quality development which would make a positive contribution to the character and appearance of the Earls Court and West Kensington Opportunity Area".

European football champions Chelsea FC however remain among a number of objectors seeking significant changes to the proposals.

Chelsea, owned by Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, has been linked on several occasions to the site alongside other nearby major development sites including the BBCs White City site and Battersea Power Station, which it was an unsuccessful bidder for earlier this year.

However, the club, advised by CBRE, is understood to favour a site at the north of the Earls Court project as it is closest to its current home and is well served by transport.

The club initially objected to the plans claiming a decision should be deferred until a Supplementary Planning Document for the area is adopted taking into account its preference for the overall development to include a new stadium with conference and exhibition spaces.

In March Hammersmith however adopted the Supplementary Planning Document covering the Earls Court & West Kensington Opportunity Area and supporting the planning policy basis for the consideration of Capcos application.

Chelsea has now written to again oppose the application because it "fails to take advantage of the potential for a new strategic leisure, cultural and visitor attraction such as a new stadium development, with associated conference and exhibition spaces".

It now considers that the application is premature before the "Opportunity Area Planning Framework has been fully adopted".

Hammersmith writes that CFC has been "exploring options to relocate elsewhere in the Borough. These options are limited but it appears that the [Earls Court opportunity area] could accommodate the clubs requirements."

The club, which is currently at the top of the Premier League table, does however "support the efforts of the authorities and landowners to comprehensively regenerate ECWKOA, but consider that the current application does not fully recognise the opportunity the site presents to provide a strategic leisure, cultural and visitor attraction as identified in the London Plan".

It also adds that the overall level of leisure, education, health, community and cultural uses in the proposed development "account for only approximately 3% of the overall floorspace applied for".

Chelsea FC says the "creation of a new stadium, as well as additional conference and exhibition space at ECWKOA could facilitate regeneration and create a high quality flagship development, providing a gateway for London and meeting the objectives of the London Plan to provide "a strategic leisure, cultural and visitor attraction within the Opportunity Area."

Chelsea calls on the council to ensure that the opportunity is taken to "explore fully how a new state of the art football stadium can be integrated into this major development opportunity", and consider that "such a component in the opportunity area would make a significant difference in terms of the deliverability and quality of the infrastructure needed to make the area a success in the shortest possible time". 

-------

So what does this all mean?

There are a number of interpretations that can be extracted. The context, we believe is that CapCo have been keen to incorporate a stadium in order to bring capital and a real shot in the arm to the project. You all know by now that this was the reason behind the share buy back last October. CapCo are rumoured to be less than swimming in cash. The most optimistic of the possible outcomes is one where the club know they have sufficient support from the Mayor and will challenge the development at each stage, eventually persuading him to call the development in.  The most pessimistic is that Chelsea, despite their persistence, are flogging a dead horse. A project of this size rarely follows a simple path and within a year everything can change, especially with the toxic issue of the two estates becoming ever more prominent.

We have heard that there are in existence images of a stadium design at Earls Court and we would very much like to see the club publish those.

We would also strongly propose that all Chelsea fans direct their efforts to applying pressure on the council to loosen their position on Earl's Court rather than taking their unsubstantiated claims of SB expansion and trying to beat the club with them.  We have said it before; if they are apparently happy to countenance a 55-60k stadium at SB (which simply isn't feasible) then they ought to be comfortable with the club moving a few hundred yards along the railway track and so cfcretaining the financial benefits to the area they profess to be so keen to maintain. We should be asking WHY they are so resistant to Chelsea's obvious desire to bring cash and benefits to the project. When you think about it, it doesn't make any sense at all really does it?

Earls Court: A Missed Opportunity

Chelsea fans may be interested in the Cabinet Meeting taking place at LBHF tonight. The sale of the West Ken and Gibbs Green estates is crucial to CapCo's plans to develop Earl.'s Court and produce a healthy wedge of cash for the council. We print below the press release published by residents of those estates and it makes a very serious charge of gerrymandering against the council. It also offers up an interesting challenge to the Prime Minister.

We have little doubt that the council, despite the consultation results, will force through the plan to sell and demolish the estates but it would appear that the whole issue could begin to generate quite a bit of controversy at a local and perhaps national level.  It also puts into context the challenge that Chelsea have been facing with this issue. Not acquiring the shares a year ago was a lost opportunity as CapCo were ready to do business with the club at the expense of the council. A shame. 

Is EC lost as an option should these plans be approved? Well, it isn't going to get any easier, that is for sure.

Here is the full press release:

Prime Minister faces final Big Society test: Will he let his favourite Council bulldoze our community? 

At 7pm on the 3^rd and 12^th of September 2012, Hammersmith & Fulham Council intends to agree the sale and demolition of our homes against the wishes of the overwhelming majority of residents. 

The Cabinet meeting on 3 September is for the Council to decide as landlord whether to sell the West Kensington & Gibbs Green estates to developer CapCo for demolition as part of the £8 Billion scheme to demolish Earl’s Court. The Planning Applications Committee on 12 September is for the Council to decide as planning authority whether to approve the whole scheme – demolition of the Exhibition Centres, the Lillie Bridge rail depot and West Kensington & Gibbs Green. 

Once it has made its decisions, the Council intends, in March 2013, to apply to the Government for consent to sell off our estates, and our MP, Andy Slaughter, shall insist that the Government reviews any planning permission. We shall lobby the Government to refuse consent for the sale of our homes and to throw out planning permission to demolish our community. We expect the Government to help us implement the Big Society. 

Three times since 2009, we have proved methodically that we are overwhelmingly against demolition and in favour of community control. But the local state rode roughshod over our needs and wishes to impose the very type of speculative property development that ruined the national economy. According to the former Leader Stephen Greenhalgh, who’s now in charge of the Metropolitan Police, the Council’s motivation is to obtain party electoral advantage by driving poor people out of politically marginal areas. 

We championed the Prime Minister’s goal for a more responsible local society, where communities take control of their assets and greater charge of their neighbours’ welfare. We pioneered cross-party localist policy for council estate communities to own their homes, mobilising residents to determine their future so they can contribute socially and economically to national recovery. We stood up for the economic powerhouse of Earl’s Court, a goose that lays golden eggs for this country’s culture and prosperity. 

What will the Government do next year when the Council applies for consent to dispose of our homes? Will the Prime Minister champion his Big Society by refusing the sale and demolition of the People’s Estates? Will he empower us to take charge, or will he impose the politicians and property and financial speculators on us? We don’t want to see him in the driving seat of the bulldozer that destroys our community and removes the last shred of credibility from his most heartfelt belief! 

Sally Taylor and Diana Belshaw, Chairs of the two residents associations, said: 

We remain true to the principles of the Big Society, and we stand firm by our belief that local people should take greater charge of where they live so they can exercise more responsibility for their environment and assume better care of their neighbours. We occupy the ground; these are our homes; and we shall restore ownership to the local community. Politicians and profiteers may come and go, but we the people shall never surrender.

Wise and harrassment

It is hardly a surprise that Dennis Wise has decided that he has better things to be doing with his life than suffer the harassment and vilification of a few people and has wandered off into the sunset, resigning his position on the CPO board as he does so. His body language at the quite absurd January AGM suggested he was ready to walk then. Doubtless the horrendous (and as it turned out totally inaccurate) accusations aimed at his friend Frankham after the recent EGM put the final nail in the coffin.

There is no question that there are some who wish to see the CPO ungovernable by all but those determined to thwart the club's development at any cost. We would urge Frankham to stand absolutely firm against such intimidation, abuse and harassment. Even Wise, one of the most cussed and unquenchably determined of modern footballers has clearly decided that he cannot submit himself to the bullies any longer. Does he need it? Obviously not. The report in the Standard that "opponents of the Chelsea bid" had been intruding into his private life is an outrageous development. We have a very strong suspicion of who this is and if necessary, action should be taken against them. But Frankham cannot and must not acquiesce, must not allow them to taint and sully his reputation and he should resist any urge to appease them; as with all bullies, any weakness is fed upon. We hope the chairman and his remaining directors are determined to ensure that the ordinary fan is engaged with the process, uses the votes they have or is encouraged to acquire the right to have one.

Most of all, the board must continue to marginalise those dwindling few who shout and scream and wail from their sparsely populated corner of the room. Don't give them the oxygen of attention. They have their votes so let them use them and be counted, giving them no more than the value their shares carry. Beyond that they are merely the disruptive child in the classroom doing their best to spoil it for everybody else.

The replacement for Dennis Wise must be chosen carefully. He or she must not be affiliated to any known group. He or she should also be very thick skinned.

Comedy

We are often not sure if SayNoCPO are actually serious with their pronouncements.

They have welcomed Fulham's permission to expand their stadium. We had to laugh at that one.

Apparently, "all sides agree" that 55k is possible at Stamford Bridge "if certain egress problems can be overcome".  We had another - even bigger - laugh at that one. 

They are also promising to monitor future share sales in CPO "for evidence of further gerrymandering or profiteers". This would be a different kind of gerrymandering to the gerrymandering they were furiously tweeting about recently; namely that they would try to buy up over 400 of the 1000 shares available annually to block votes. After their misjudged and enormously wild accusations regarding proxy votes of the chairman, one would think they would be taking a slightly lower profile. At this point we were breathless on the floor with mirth.

We at CFCTruth shall be monitoring things carefully for evidence of gerrymandering and profiteering......

Comments on this and other websites

CFCTruth allows moderated comments on this website. We have had complaints that we do not. There is a link beneath the posts that shows published comments. We may consider allowing unmoderated comments but this will likely require some form of registration to the website. We do not believe people wish to do that. Let us know if you have problems leaving comments.

And on that point, we do not, ever, leave comments on other websites. Others claiming to be us may do so in order to try to discredit us. Our advice to website owners and bloggers is to consider them false and delete them. We will make our views known via this blog and twitter.

"F***** cowards and liars"

The heading refers to things said in an open EGM to the chairman of CPO.

CFCTruth has been disturbed to read some outrageously ill-informed and speculative articles by indignant shareholders as to the nature of the vote on resolution 3. Firstly, some of the language is the sort of hysterical rantings of the conspiracy theorist who refuses to look at the facts. The first fact they ignore is that the resolution was not "narrowly" defeated.

It was demolished.

It needed a 75 per cent vote to pass and got nowhere near that figure. And now we have a CPO statement, issued just as we write this, that confirms a further fact; Frankham had 103 discretionary votes and all were used to support the resolution.

The absolute murder being committed on the truth by some has taken this whole issue to a previously unknown nadir. Tantrums, disgraceful accusations, quite ludicrous assumptions and childish, foot-stamping frustration deserve absolutely no credibility whatsoever. The article on TheChels.net was quite the most demoralising demonstration of one-eyed, unfounded slander yet seen. And it simply has to stop since it contributes nothing - absolutely nothing - to the debate. We would expect these articles to be withdrawn and apologies issued. Those responsible are shareholders and have a right to comment and they claim to represent groups who they expect and hope will be taken seriously. Right now, the prospect of that is as remote as it is possible to be.

The behaviour of an ever decreasing number of aggressive and insulting individuals is corrupting shareholder desire to engage with the process at a time when we need more people involved. It diminishes the purpose of meetings, it diverts, in the most grotesque ways, the truth of the issues. It has become an insidious, relentless and increasingly unfounded smear campaign using the web and twitter. It is the cyberspace paroxysms of those who cannot accept their role as a minority, playground bullies and bar room lawyers biliously lashing out having parted completely from reality. Their comments become ever more extreme, untruthful, libellous even. It is shameful and will lead nowhere except, perhaps, to the demise of the CPO itself. All shareholders need to stand against this sort of thing without compromise. It embarrasses us all when, without even knowing the facts or seemingly understanding them, a shareholder screams "liar" at the board chairman and it is then reported approvingly in the above mentioned article.


It would be funny if it were not so tragic.

Grow up.