The PWC report details a wide range of governance failures by this Labour Council, in its relationship with BBB in particular but also in respect of Croydon Affordable Housing .
The Council has been told that the absence of adequate financial systems and processes means that the accuracy or veracity of any of BxB’s financial information cannot be trusted. The Council’s oversight of BBB has been lax with loans expiring and there now seems to be a strong possibility that the £30 m currently owed to the Council will not be paid.
The Labour Council is now proposing that the new BxB Directors have a strong background in finance. Why has it taken so long, cost us of over £200m and an external report to get to this point? Surely, when you are looking at lending a quarter of billion pounds of public money = someone would have thought a bit sooner that having a person with skills in mathematics would have been a good idea.
We’ve been raising serious concerns about this Company for years, we’ve been ignored and its only in the past few weeks that the nodding heads on the Labour side have at last woken up to the fact that they have been misled by their Labour colleagues. They have some serious catching up to do and they cannot say that they weren’t warned.
With much loved open green spaces sold to BxB for as little as £1, every BxB planning application being whizzed through the planning process, and concerns raised by residents about the brutal concreting over their green open spaces routinely dismissed, residents started asking questions about some sort of cosy relationship between BxB and the planning department, a long time ago..
The fact that the Cabinet Member for delivering homes was married to the Chair of the Planning Committee added fuel to the fire and the anger of local residents. Assurances of no conflict of interest were given – but I’m not sure anyone believed them.
And sitting there still is the huge question mark around the £60m loaned to BxB for the refurbishment of Fairfield when the budget was £30m.
This Labour Council and BxB simply cannot be trusted and no new development on any BxB sites should start and absolutely no further planning applications should be progressed.
The silence of those responsible, Cllrs Newman, Hall and Butler is deafening. They have so much to answer for. There’s been no public apology, no remorse and no explanation. They have let everyone down – loyal and hard-working Council staff who are desperately worried about losing their jobs and thousands of residents right across Croydon – who will be paying the bill for this monumental financial failure for years and years to come..
On 24th February this year at Cabinet I asked Cllr Tony Newman if BxB was a real risk to the Council Budget. He accused me of drinking from a half full cup and laughingly flung the question to Colm Lacey, the BxB CEO who refused to answer.
Well, my glass is now so empty there’s barely a dribble left – I’ve completely lost any trust in this Labour administration to deliver anything. So I cannot support this recommendation.
