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Post by staffordshrew on May 14, 2020 10:54:11 GMT 1
As an outside observer, Shropshire Council's ill advised foray into shopping centre ownership doesn't look too clever now. Suppose Riverside will get sold for residential flat development sometime. |
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Post by northwestman on May 27, 2020 8:55:15 GMT 1
The housing secretary unlawfully approved a property development of a billionaire tycoon who once donated to the Conservative Party.
Robert Jenrick has accepted that he showed “apparent bias” when he gave the green light for Richard Desmond to build 1,500 homes in the Isle of Dogs, east London. The timing of the decision meant that the mogul avoided a £40 million bill over the scheme.
Mr Jenrick agreed that planning approval should be quashed after the council initiated legal action against him alleging that the timing showed bias. Mr Jenrick rubber-stamped the scheme against the advice of the government’s planning inspector.
The leader of the local Conservative group resigned over the decision and has called for an investigation.
The Times.
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Post by camdenshrew on May 27, 2020 9:21:21 GMT 1
Satire is truly dead. Jenrick is doing the morning media rounds defending Cummings fleeing to a second home.
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Post by northwestman on May 27, 2020 9:22:05 GMT 1
'Meanwhile, the housing, communities and local government secretary, Robert Jenrick, has said it is time to “move on” from the Cummings scandal.
Asked if he believes Boris Johnson’s chief adviser should resign, Jenrick told the BBC’s Breakfast programme:
No, he shouldn’t. He has given his explanation to the prime minister, who listened and concluded that he’d acted reasonably and legally.
The prime minister then asked him to give that statement on Monday to the public and to answer questions from journalists.He answered them for over an hour and now, I think, is the time for us all to move on.
That’s not to say this isn’t an important issue or that people don’t care about it, but I think there’s a lot more that we need to focus on now.
Jenrick said the explanation given by Mr Cummings over his reasons for travelling to Durham was “reasonable”. Asked if he could understand the anger of the public over the issue, Jenrick said:
I can and many people would disagree with the decisions that Dominic Cummings made, both members of the public and members of Parliament.
But he set out why he made those decisions and his motivations, which were to protect his unwell wife and his young child, and to self-isolate at a household somewhere where he believed he could get the childcare and support that they needed.
I think that that’s a reasonable explanation and it’s a legal one, it doesn’t look as if any of the guidelines or the rules have been broken.
My view is that now we accept that and we move on because there are many, many more important issues that we need to be talking about'.
The Guardian.
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Post by northwestman on May 27, 2020 9:33:13 GMT 1
Same old stuff being parroted by Jenrick.
Methinks 'we need to move on to more important issues' is fast becoming Cummings' new slogan.
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Post by ssshrew on May 27, 2020 9:58:12 GMT 1
It’s quite worrying really. Just when you think this bunch can’t get any more patronising and stupid they do just that and wheel out one of the first offenders.
They really are the pits. And do they seriously think that when it comes to future negotiations any one abroad is going to have the slightest respect for them
Honestly I could laugh if I wasn’t crying.
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Post by northwestman on May 27, 2020 10:02:34 GMT 1
The housing secretary unlawfully approved a property development of a billionaire tycoon who once donated to the Conservative Party. Robert Jenrick has accepted that he showed “apparent bias” when he gave the green light for Richard Desmond to build 1,500 homes in the Isle of Dogs, east London. The timing of the decision meant that the mogul avoided a £40 million bill over the scheme. Mr Jenrick agreed that planning approval should be quashed after the council initiated legal action against him alleging that the timing showed bias. Mr Jenrick rubber-stamped the scheme against the advice of the government’s planning inspector. The leader of the local Conservative group resigned over the decision and has called for an investigation. The Times. Jenrick being ripped to shreds on this by Sky News as we speak. Refuses to answer straight questions. |
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Post by Deleted on May 27, 2020 10:10:34 GMT 1
Unfortunately it’s not really news anymore - ‘politician behaves immorally’. These people are meant to be upstanding members of the community. Rotten to the core.
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Post by northwestman on May 27, 2020 10:36:13 GMT 1
www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/news/planning-permission-for-1500-home-development-quashed-after-jenrick-accused-of-biased-approval-66558Planning permission for 1,500-home development quashed after Jenrick accused of ‘biased’ approval. Plans for the £1bn scheme on the former site of Westferry Printworks on the Isle of Dogs was given the green light by Mr Jenrick in January 2020, despite the planning inspector recommending permission be refused because of conflicts with local planning policies and a lack of affordable housing. Mr Jenrick’s intervention came one day before Tower Hamlets Council was due to announce its local plan and approve a new Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) charging schedule, meaning the developer avoided having to pay between £30m and £50m more to the council via new CIL charges. Tower Hamlets subsequently launched legal action in March 2020, arguing that the timing of the decision reflected a bias towards the developer. Asked to explain the timing of the decision, the secretary of state has now accepted that a “fair-minded and informed observer” may conclude that there was a “real possibility” that he was biased in favour of the developer in granting the permission. A consent order approved by the planning court said: “The first defendant [secretary of state] accepts that the decision letter was unlawful by reason of apparent bias and should be quashed.” As a result, the Planning Court has now quashed the decision to grant planning permission for the 1,524-home project, 21% of which was for affordable housing. Mr Jenrick’s acceptance of the decision to quash the planning permission comes after Tower Hamlets asked the court to order the housing secretary to disclose documents that it argued would show how he was influenced by a desire to help the developer avoid the new CIL charges. John Biggs, mayor of Tower Hamlets, said: “We may never know what emails and memos the secretary of state received before making his decision and what influence they had, but his reluctance to disclose them speaks volumes. “We will continue to press for a scheme that meets the needs of the community on the Isle of Dogs in terms of height and density, the provision of adequate affordable housing and infrastructure delivery.”
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Post by Deleted on May 27, 2020 12:47:14 GMT 1
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again,
“Once a Tory always a Tory “
They just can’t help themselves can they , looking after number 1 and their usually minted mates is all they care about .
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Post by Deleted on May 27, 2020 12:50:51 GMT 1
How’s about we let the government get us through the worst of this mess, and ask the difficult questions and start the lynching afterwards which is the appropriate time for reflection. Not sure what good hounding out key ministers will do at this stage. To think I was defending Jenrick and this government only 6 weeks ago. A lots gone wrong since then! |
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Post by staffordshrew on May 27, 2020 14:37:35 GMT 1
Thread title seems a bit misleading, I expect he is a concerned son, but he's also a hypocrite.
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Post by edgmond on May 27, 2020 15:31:29 GMT 1
Unfortunately it’s not really news anymore - ‘politician behaves immorally’. These people are meant to be upstanding members of the community. Rotten to the core. There's a notable irony here. It was Cummings's promotion of a populist mantra that Westminster politicians were out of touch and/or self-serving which did much to sway people in choosing 'Leave' rather than 'Remain' and led ultimately to the big Tory victory in December. The whole business of Westminster not understanding what people really wanted. Many decent and honourable people of all parties have left politics, fed up with the relentless undermining of their credibility by Cummings-inspired briefings and Daily Mail-type headlines in the press. In the four years since the Referendum a lot of very average politicians have risen to the top on the coat tails of Johnson and Cummings and are now the mumbling, bumbling, quite possibly immoral crowd of yes men we are subjected to as the country struggles to cope with a crisis unprecedented in modern times. I have never backed the Tories but have respected a number of Tory politicians over the years. I cannot think of one person in the present cabinet who appears competent and trustworthy, with the possible exception of Rishi Sunak. As for Jenrick, he seems to epitomise everything that Cummings wanted us to think about Westminster politicians. As I say, how ironic that he is now up there defending the indefensible Dominic. |
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Post by northwestman on May 27, 2020 15:44:19 GMT 1
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Post by northwestman on May 28, 2020 8:42:30 GMT 1
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Post by northwestman on May 29, 2020 9:20:09 GMT 1
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Post by northwestman on May 30, 2020 15:41:16 GMT 1
Why hasn't 'apparent bias' Robert Jenrick resigned yet? He broke lockdown rules and is now involved in a Tory donor/court/planning scandal that in a decent government would be a sacking matter. This is what happens when the country elects as PM someone with no personal or political moral compass. www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/robert-jenrick-resign-isle-of-dogs-development_uk_5ed005dac5b687804c80727f'Housing secretary Robert Jenrick is facing calls to resign after he admitted “unlawfully” signing off a 1,500-home development that saved a Tory Party donor millions of pounds'. |
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Post by northwestman on Jun 3, 2020 12:58:53 GMT 1
Question was asked at PMQs today by Judith Cummins MP about Jenrick's involvement in unlawfully signing off the Isle of Dogs development.
I hadn't realised Johnson had tried to push through that scheme when Mayor of London, nor that Jenrick and Desmond had sat next to one another at a fundraising event a few weeks earlier.
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Post by northwestman on Jun 3, 2020 15:19:07 GMT 1
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Post by zenfootball2 on Jun 3, 2020 16:22:53 GMT 1
i agree you only have to look at durhams into cummings just another whitewash . |
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Post by northwestman on Jun 3, 2020 16:33:55 GMT 1
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Post by northwestman on Jun 5, 2020 10:06:08 GMT 1
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Post by northwestman on Jun 7, 2020 13:45:59 GMT 1
In May 2020, Jenrick accepted that his approval of a £1 billion luxury housing development on Westferry Road, Isle of Dogs had been unlawful. The 1,500-home development was proposed by Richard Desmond, a Conservative Party donor and owner of Northern & Shell. The government's planning inspector had previously advised against the scheme, as it delivered an inadequate amount of affordable housing and as the height of the tower would be detrimental to the character of the area. However, Jenrick approved the scheme on 14 January, knowing that an approval by that date would enable Richard Desmond to avoid having to pay a council-imposed infrastructure levy of £40 million, which could have been used for funding schools and health clinics.
Tower Hamlets council have pursued legal action against Jenrick, arguing that his decision showed bias towards Desmond. Jenrick has maintained that although the decision was unlawful, there was no "actual bias". The planning decision will now be re-determined by a different government minister. In conceding the move did show "apparent bias", Jenrick effectively blocked the judicial review, which has prevented documents between his department and the developer from being made public. Mayor of Tower Hamlets John Biggs said: "We may never know what emails and memos the secretary of state received before making his decision and what influence they had, but his reluctance to disclose them speaks volumes".
It was reported that the Metropolitan Police are "assessing" "an allegation" about the housing secretary, which could be linked to a complaint made by former Labour minister Andrew Adonis.
Wikipedia.
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Post by northwestman on Jun 10, 2020 18:06:22 GMT 1
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8404287/Billionaire-property-developer-gave-Tories-12k-two-weeks-Robert-Jenrick-gave-plans-ahead.html'A billionaire property developer gave a five-figure sum to the Conservative Party a fortnight after the Housing Secretary unlawfully approved one of his schemes, it has been revealed. Figures from the Electoral Commission show that Richard Desmond donated £12,000 to the party in January after Robert Jenrick gave the green light to his plan to build 1,500 homes in east London. Mr Jenrick gave the last-minute go-ahead to the £1billion project after both the local council and the independent Planning Inspectorate had decided it should be refused. His decision on January 14 came one day before Tower Hamlets Council approved a ‘community levy’ on developments that would have cost Mr Desmond’s company Northern and Shell between £30million and £50million'. This is going under the radar. Jenrick needs to be made accountable.
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Post by northwestman on Jun 10, 2020 18:20:01 GMT 1
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Post by northwestman on Jun 11, 2020 11:08:59 GMT 1
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Post by northwestman on Jun 13, 2020 10:48:58 GMT 1
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-53020534Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick is under fire from the opposition parties over his decision to grant planning permission for a £1bn property scheme two weeks before the developer donated £12,000 to the Conservative Party. He denies any link between the events, but his critics say he still has questions to answer - he will face MPs on Monday at his regular departmental question time.
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Post by northwestman on Jun 13, 2020 17:05:33 GMT 1
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Post by northwestman on Jun 14, 2020 13:30:50 GMT 1
www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jun/14/riddle-of-tory-minister-jenrick-the-media-mogul-and-a-1bn-housing-developmentHousing secretary Robert Jenrick gave a “behind closed doors” briefing on government plans to reform the property sector at an event hosted by the public affairs firm which acted for Richard Desmond on his controversial £1bn east London housing development. The revelation piles further pressure on the Conservative party over its links to the former media tycoon whose application to build more than 1,500 homes at the site of the former Westferry print works on the Isle of Dogs was approved by Jenrick. He later withdrew approval after Tower Hamlets council launched legal action against the decision.
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Post by northwestman on Jun 14, 2020 14:07:31 GMT 1
Jenrick, with multi million pound homes, still claiming £100,000 on expenses for a second home in Newark which is listed on his web page as being one of his two homes, the other being in London. His house in Herefordshire isn't either his 1st or 2nd home according to his own literature and the register of Members' Interests. Therefore he clearly broke the lockdown rules.
Transparently lying about the reasons for travelling to see his parents was also breaking lockdown. An arrogant, greedy individual. With these characteristics Johnson maybe thinks he fits in nicely with the rest of the current government.
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