Tales from the River Bank.

Part 1 The contract that wasn’t

This is a story which our local paper should have dug deep to find. Instead, the investigating has been left to outraged local residents – outraged because they have watched the council declare the need for cuts, while allowing shameful procedures to go ahead, with money thrown away on what dubious contracts. Since it is a very long story, and I have other projects I should be working on, i will put it up in instalments.  Here’s the first.

In March last year, David Lawrence, the then divisional director, tourism, leisure and culture, announced that he had made a contract with a company which was stated to be Bath Boating Limited, to run the moorings.  No such company existed then or has ever existed. The first essential of a contract is that the names and addresses of all the contracting parties should be clearly stated. Therefore, the contract is invalid.  It’s basic O-level law.  The council’s legal department seems to be having trouble with this simple concept.

The reason for the contract was also very dubious. Allegedly, the system under which Aquaterra was collecting the moorings wasn’t working. Both Mr Lawrence and his boss Glen Chipp stated this on a number of occasions.  As someone who knows quite a number of the boating community, I can state that this was not, according to those I speak to, true.  Everyone says how well the system with Aquaterra worked. Not only that, but boaters were allowed to use the showers, and other sports centre facilities.  It was perfect.  The councillor who now oversees all this, David Dixon, has admitted this to me in a tweet. His words are: ‘Previous operation did work quite well.’  So why, you may ask, change it?

What’s more, why choose Messrs Hemmings and Hayter? The former, in particular has a sorry tale of dissolved companies. Mr Lawrence says that he checked them out and ‘found no reason not to deal with the individuals.’ Now, the resume on DirectorCheck says this: ‘Andrew Hemmings holds 0 current appointment, has resigned from 2 companies and held appointments at 11 dissolved companies. Andrew began his first appointment at the age of 32 and the longest current appointment spans 3 years and 5 months at 4 WORD LIMITED.

The combined cash at bank value for all of Andrew's current businesses is £0, with a combined assets value of £0 and liabilities of £0. Roles associated with Andrew Hemmings within the recorded businesses include: Company Director , Director , No Function , Accountant’.

I think that would make me have considerable concerns.  If I then found out that he was being investigated by Wiltshire Police over his role at Cromwell Press, I think I would have second thoughts about him.  Mr Lawrence, however, granted him a contract which gave him power to collect moorings, hire out bicycles supplied at the council’s expense and run water taxis and hire boats.

Why didn’t it go out to tender?  Good question. Because, said Mr L and his boss, the now departed Glen Chipp, it wasn’t worth over £5000 annually.  Well, that’s very surprising, because it doesn’t take a brilliant mathematician long to work out that the mooring fees alone would soon run over that.

And, as Mr Hemmings bragged to a number of people along the river bank, he got the whole shebang for £1. Yes, folks, that what he paid for all these rights.  Even so, he’s managed to go bankrupt.  Again.

Mr Hayter, meanwhile, is now trading under an unregistered company name, AH Corporate, which belongs to a perfectly reputable finance company, and neither Hayter nor Hemmings put down their middle names when setting up Riverside Leisure Management – as far as I can tell, that’s illegal, but it certainly gave them two new and blemish free personae.

So who is this David Lawrence who granted this amazing contract to this shady pair? Find out in the next exciting episode of Tales from the River Bank.

Commenting should now be easier

Apologies to anyone who tried to comment and found it didn’t appear because it went off to be moderated – that happened because when I first set up the blog, I set that up also.  As the nature of the blog has changed, I’ve now made it easier to post, and comments should go up straightaway. 

Should I call this site the Bath Figaro?

When I set this up, I thought I would take an occasional look at what was happening in Bath, and give my views. If people wanted to shoot me down – well, I can take it. But the latest corporate website inflicted on its local papers by the giant company Northcliffe Papers, leaves one wondering if they simply want to kill off local journalism – it’s so appalling! So should I try to challenge it? Should I set up a web-based journal for Bath? I did ponder calling it the Bath Figaro, a scurrilous newspaper of the 19^th century which got round libel laws by saying that various people had NOT done things, when it was fairly clear that the paper knew they had, but couldn’t prove it. So imagine, if you will, that the editor thought a council official had taken bribes, he would say that Mr XYZ was NOT seen sliding a large brown envelope into his pocket, after a meeting with Mr ABC. (This is a purely hypothetical example, you understand.)

However, the answer is that it would be quite impractical. I’m far too busy doing other things, and, however much we may deplore Northcliffe Papers, our local journalists on the Chron are doing their very best to run a decent paper. So keep buying the paper, folks, but if you want to comment on anything that takes your fancy – especially if I have raised the issue here – then feel free to put up your views. Unlike Northcliffe Papers, I won’t ban anyone for going off subject. But I will remove any abuse – especially if I think it breaches the law. I hope anil takes note.

Hen and Stag Parties

One upon a time, we used to run a jolly little tour (as we thought) called the Great Bath Pub Crawl. It had a bit of everything – comedy, history, ghosts and of course, about three or even four pubs with real ale. Then the stage and hen party market found out about it. After I had taken round several hen parties, including one in which half the participants were dressed as leprechauns, complete with ginger beards, and the other half as Vikings, and Andrew had taken round a few stag parties, during which one groom had run round the garden of a pub dressed in a mankini (Sacha Cohen has a lot to answer for) we decided to jack the whole venture in, before we got banned from the pubs we went in. And these parties were quite well-behaved compared with some we have seen around Bath. Yet here is Robin Bischert, Head of Bath Tourism Plus, informing us that they” tended to be a good thing for the city” adding “groups that come to Bath are here to enjoy the facilities the city has to offer and clearly add a valuable contribution to the visitor economy by spending in Bath's spas, restaurants, shops, accommodation and other attractions.” Of course – silly me - that’s why Dublin clamped down on them – they were bringing too much trade. Actually – no – they were a pain in the .. er .. elbow, the same as they are becoming here. But hey (says Henry Brown, so it must be true) all that we need to do is to persuade the restaurants to give them a good meal. Words fail me. Are these two men for real – or do they live on some alternative planet? What do you think?

Don’t blame me – I didn’t vote for them.

During the election, the Lib Dems were all set to reverse all sorts of unpopular plans put in place by the Tories. Now they’re in, however, we’re already seeing a certain amount of back-tracking. The Wellsway Bus Lane is going to stay and – all you people at Newbridge, who thought you were going to retain your open spaces – the fight for them is going to have to go on. It’s not the LIb Dems fault, of course – it’s the wicked Tories who have spent so much money on them already they will just have to go ahead. Besides, the LIb Dems want to put something else on those village greens – bikes not buses. So that’s all right then. If I were a parent at Culverhay, I don’t think I’d start counting my chickens yet. Will the LDs will decide that too much money has been spent on that to make changes? The good news about this is that, if this volte-face continues, come the next council elections, maybe we will see even more independents getting elected. And that can only be good for democracy. Mr Crossley, you have been warned – and every time you look across the council chamber at June Player, I hope you remember my warning.

And Finally …

One of my criticisms of the new Chron website is the plethora of fonts. However, you’ll see that I’ve used a number of differing font from post to post. That’s because what goes up on the blog preview doesn’t always turn out quite how I had expected. Readability is important, so please let me know which font you find easiest to read. Just give the date of the blog.

I'm Back

If any of you have followed this blog, then you'll know that I haven't posted anything for weeks. There were two reasons for this - firstly I was working hard on a book and secondly, I felt that I had done as much as I could on the ramp and it was up to others to go with it. This they have done, but I still think that the tripartite agreement (as the ORR calls it) between Network Rail, FGW and Multi not to take down the ramp before they have proved that their lovely new scheme works will be ignored. However, before that, I will be pressing the ORR to threaten to close the station if that happens - and warning the new administration in B&NES what's happening. I expect you think they ought to know - it was clear, however, that facts were being withheld from Terry Gazzard, the Tory councillor who was supposed to be in charge of Major Developments.

However, this blog is called Kirsten Elliott looks at Bath - and I don't intend it to be a one subject blog, namely the idiocy that is being perpetrated at the station. I have decided (looking at the comments on the Chron website) that contributing to them is fairly depressing, so vituperative have the comments become. So, I'll be making my views clear on here. it would be a very strange world if people all agreed with me - my aim is just to provoke people into thinking.

We live in such interesting times at the moment, council-wise, that I think there will be plenty to talk about. But here's one of the subjects I'll be looking at during the coming days - just why this council and the last thinks they should be consulting F0BRA, a group which represents at most 4,000 residents, not all of whom agree with Henry Brown, the chairman, and referring to them as key players, when this is a city of over 85,000 residents.

Anyway, before I sign off, here's an amusing story. I was at a concert during last year's Sweetland festival, as was our esteemed former leader, Francine Haeberling. For reasons known only to himself, Thomas Trotter decided to end his concert with "Land of Hope and Glory." After a few seconds, die Fuhrerin started fidgeting in her seat and looking round. After a while she started gesticulating that we should all stand, and most did (though my husband and I didn't, just grinned wolfishly every time she glared at us.) Now, I know there's a poem about the man who couldn't tell God save the weasel from Pop goes the Queen, but how humiliating to have a leader who couldn't tell Pomp and Circumstance March No 1 from the Allelluia Chorus. Let's hope Paul Crossley is a bit more musical than that.

The expanding lift - the mystery deepens.

The mystery of the lift size remains. I am still waiting for a response from FGW after an amicable meeting with the MD, Mark Hopwood, and a colleague of his, but they did say it might take up to three weeks, which runs out next Thursday(29th July). In fairness, therefore, I will not make comments until they have had time to respond. But some fascinating points emerged. Firstly, they seemed unaware that, right at the start, a CPO (Compulsory Purchase Order) had been placed on the section of the station which actually has the ramp on it. Who, I asked them, owns that bit? They thought they did. They lease the station from Network Rail, and they thought they had what they described as the whole of the historic station area. I think, however, that chunk belongs to the developer. Although I had made scribbled notes on the plan of the CPO area, which I had taken along with me, they asked if they could take it with them. It was clearly a shock to them. Secondly, they had been told that no changes could be made to the overall plan, because of the Bath Masterplan. This was of great interest to me, because I happen to know that there is no masterplan. Fortunately, I extracted confirmation of this out of Councillor Malcolm Hanney, when he was defending the indefensible pay rise of John Betty, self-employed head of Major Developments. I did warn him that he should check with Major Developments first, but that seems to have been sufficient to needle him into failing to do so. His reply was clear:

The Vision [for Bath] work sets out what the Council thinks we should be emphasising in terms of the future. I think it is a really good document. [He would say that, wouldn’t he?]

The Council, in its property ownership role (and for which I have lead responsibility) has a clear view as to how the long term value of the estate can be maximised for the benefit of residents as well as being a source of capital receipts to improve public realm and infrastructure.

The Vision is probably the closest to being the supposed Masterplan and it was underpinned by business planning and analysis. However, it was always recognised that any implementation would have to reflect changing circumstances. [My italics.]

As for the Council's property assets including the Council's ownership interest of key development sites, they will exert an influence on the nature of development in Bath over next twenty years.

What was more interesting is that the MD of FGW thought that this masterplan affected great swathes of Bath, including - and he said it, not me - Bath South Quays. No wonder B&NES has made no effort to do anything with it, if they have another developer under wraps. Or is it still Dyson? I am not alone in thinking that he has not gone away, even though the Learning and Skills Council finally woke up to the fact that his so-called school had no workable syllabus.

But back to the lift. Just to make sure that they could be under no illusion as to what had been granted planning permission, I took along an extract from the plans. I have uploaded a picture of these, so you can all see that the size is quite clearly 1100 x 1500 mm. Yet the company looking at safety issues at Bath Spa has been assured it will be 1100 x 1800. Meanwhile I had contacted English Heritage, and the planning department to make sure there was no mistake. Isla MacNeal at EH thought that someone had just mistyped 1800 when they meant 1500. Yeah, right. Eventually, I sent out an e-mail, with all the facts, including the relevant comments to all parties I thought were concerned. These are the conclusions I drew at the end of the e-mail.

1. There has, as Isla MacNeal says, been an error, in which 1500 has been wrongly typed as 1800. If that is the case, then this error needs to be rectified a soon as possible, and the new figures given back to the ICP.

2. Someone has mistakenly thought that the size could be changed without a further planning application or reference to the LPA. Again, if that is so, the error needs to be rectified and the situation clarified without delay.

3. There has been a deliberate attempt to mislead the ORR, LPA and EH as to the size of the lift, either to insert a larger lift without the need for a further application, which might, this time, bring objections from EH and the Listed Building Officer, or by inserting the smaller lift and hoping that the political decision to withdraw the safety certificate at Bath Spa Station would be too great for the ORR to make.

If this is the case, then an investigation needs to made as to whom it was who said that the lift size could be changed without further reference to EH or the LPA.

I would be grateful if Varian Tye and Isla MacNeal could reiterate the comments they have made to me to the other parties in this e-mail.

So far, only Simon Smith of the ORR - who deserves a medal for patience and diplomacy, has responded. He tells me that he had been told the size could be changed. Oh yes, and Tony Ambrose, who is leading the charge for the cyclists, has sent me congratulations.

So what is going on? I believe that Major Developments is telling FGW not to worry about little things like planning. They can swing it. The project manager of the scheme, Simon Martin works for Major Developments. My carefully considered opinion is that this department is out of control and should be closed down forthwith. Meanwhile, I will continue to dig away at this mystery of the expanding lift and will not rest till I get to the bottom of it.

But please, please PLEASE - if you feel that what is proposed for the station is a bad thing, start letter-writing and e-mailing now - I really can't go on with this much more.