Yes it's a cross and angry email, but hopefully constructive!
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Dear Eric Pickles
I will try to keep this email as concise as I can. However as we are rapidly gaining support for this petition I will have to limit the outpouring of anger and confusion the public of Manchester feel about the 26 years of inaction, neglect and abuse of London Road Fire Station by the Britannia Hotel Group.
I know other members of the public have written to you about the overturned CPO and this iconic At Risk (1998) Listed II* (1974) building at the entrance to Manchester Piccadilly. Your offices reply “Eric Pickles made his decision” and that Manchester City Council can decide to undertake a second CPO if it wants to certainly does not suffice as a respectful answer and issuing it again could only be considered the upmost insult to Manchester and its citizens.
I kindly ask your considered and detailed response to our concerns. Please be aware this is an open letter shared on Google and any reply I receive will also be shared.
Most importantly after what many people consider to be your shocking and unfathomable decision to overturn the CPO in November 2011, the inaction, cynicism and deceit of Britannia Hotel Group are inevitably continuing into what will soon be a 27th year.
Sources who were at the CPO hearing have told me that both English Heritage and the Planning Officer said to you to consider any offer Britannia Hotels promised with extreme caution after at that point 25 years of this legacy. I am also aware that English Heritage has to support plans that would allow an At Risk building to be ‘rescued’ as it is in its instructional agenda. This is despite possible its deeply held personal disdain and dislike for an organization. I’m certain there was no heroic ‘Britannia’ fanfare that some have argued led to your decision in rejecting the CPO! It is clear there were many doubts about their intention to undertake a redevelopment after a rejected CPO and that these sentiments were expressed to you is undeniable.
Yet after all these impassioned pleas at the CPO inquiry and appeal, despite promises from the CEO Alex Langsam to fund out of his very considerable business fortune (I read he personally promised he had £30 million to invest in this redevelopment project), we are now in December 2012 and no action that was promised has been undertaken.
Just months after this decisive pledge of immediate activity, as I’m sure you know, in February 2012 Britannia Hotels said to English Heritage “Developing the scheme as it stands would not be sustainable either in the current climate or the foreseeable future". I now hope that you too consider this to be an abuse and an affront to your decision to overturn a CPO for this central At Risk Icon.
Simon Thurley, Head of English Heritage, has responded to me personally and I quote “We were particularly dismayed when, despite the clear commitment of Britannia Hotels at the CPO inquiry that, if the order was not confirmed, they would implement the hotel scheme for which they had planning and listed building consent, we were subsequently informed that they would not do this. Your petition is clearly harnessing the entirely understandable anger that one of Manchester's finest historic buildings, located at a prime city centre site, still stands vacant and at risk”.
Now we are all very aware that Britannia are very cynically putting the absolute minimum work into LRFS to avoid an Urgent Works Notice or to go below the knife edge threshold of being completely legally unacceptable and that they are strategically doing so as to avoid the enforced takeover of this building. How are such games acceptable after 26 years of these delaying tactics? Sorry to be blunt, but this postulating to avoid having the building removed are shameful, disgusting and by no means on any ethical point justifiable.
However, now, Manchester finds itself in the very fearful position of considering whether it can dare to challenge common sense justice of this case, as under your Government it might not be forthcoming. In this economic climate that is causing so much adversity and difficulty, we come to the position where politically I imagine the council and many contributors are very scared to risk the financial costs of a new CPO. This is despite the overwhelming evidence that this company has been explicitly deceitful and inept. Some are browbeaten by the apathy and despair of this case, but many refuse to allow this to continue.
Many express the doubt and suspicion that as Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, if a second CPO ever goes forward again you will be chairing it and therefore provide the same biases you did in the previous case. Indeed as you can imagine and hopefully do not celebrate, all sorts of professional people have suggested that yours was a gleeful decision that you made against a predominantly Labour and partly Liberal City Council.
I would like with absolute certainty for you to assure me that this was not the case and political bias and allegiance did not impact your decision and that any future decisions made in considering a new CPO will rightfully express and consider the rightful anger of the Manchester public; the costs incurred by the local government and the blasé mind games played by Britannia Hotels for over a quarter of a century.
Even if your allegiance holds private investment as being necessary over local government, then please allow the many interested parties that would rescue this building and consider its acquisition for a sympathetic and dynamic redevelopment as a privilege. I hope you can express explicitly your disappointment with Britannia and the absolute certainty that this dynasty of destruction needs to come to an end when you reply to me.
What is certain if the government wanted to take a building off even a thriving corporation, I am quite sure they could and they would find means to do so. Similarly, I hope that you can understand the anger of many people, after all in your introduction of the Localism Act 2010 you said you wanted to “give local communities real control over housing and planning decisions”.
Is this just rhetoric and blustering or do we as Manchester people have a real chance to come together to change this situation? Thus instead of vilifying you as a figurehead, Manchester might remember you as the person who at last could change this situation for the best once and for all?
So as to keep the structure and clarity in this letter to you I would like responses to the following bullet points that have come from people concerned about this case and also are my personal questions.
* Since owning the building in 1986 (now heading into the 27th year of this negligent ownership), there have been three major boom periods within the economy. How if in one of the most difficult economic situations is a country can find itself in can a company that despite having enough capital, having promised the investment of this capital, can Britannia continue to be allowed to abuse this At Risk Listed building that very soon is risks ruination? When will this legacy be over?
* What is very clear is that a different Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government even within your cabinet may have confirmed the CPO. I have even spoken to other conservative voters within Manchester (yes they are a rare breed), who are also shocked at your decision. Therefore if the second CPO goes ahead please outline explicitly what will affect your decision to support the removal of ownership from Britannia Hotels (at last)?
* When “Britannia's witnesses made it very plain that the scheme is ready to proceed as soon as the threat of the CPO is removed" which happened in November 2011 and until this very date in December 2012 nothing has happened: Do such broken promises warrant the extensive legal costs being Manchester City Council's burden? Quite simply if the promise of the 30 million, the sincere commitment to redevelopment to start that work as soon as the CPO was removed, not being so, doesn't this make it Britannia’s responsibility for all the legal costs? Would a citizen who made promises in court be allowed to escape their commitments in this way?
* I have also been asked if it is necessary that you are the only Government representative who is able to undertake this case? Others have suggested because you have previously been involved in this case that Nick Bowles, Planning Minister (who I will also send an open letter to), would be a more appropriate choice under these unique circumstances of this extremely incomparable history of ownership. Is this the case?
* There is a widespread view within the petition that within these 26 years that the neglect of the At Risk Grade II* Listed building has become an act of wilful vandalism. There are also fears that this vandalism is indeed Britannia’s ever creeping desire, so that the building will be demolished at some point. Though bordering on paranoid, others feel it wouldn't be beyond Britannia to take sabotage into their hands and risk a fire. In terms of this being a city central building in the gateway to Manchester is such a test case now appropriate after all these years of neglect, abuse, damage and decay? Having missed so many years and opportunities for redevelopment, isn’t it appropriate to consider their neglect as an act of criminality in regards to damage caused during their inactive ownership of English Heritage as significant and important as this?
* I have been asked what relationship does the Conservative Party have with Britannia Hotels and its Board of Executives from a financial, donor and affiliation perspective (if any)?
* Briefly in regard to the news item Alex Langsam unsuccessfully sued his solicitors for not telling him about a tax loophole (the judge saying such a Non-Dom case was unprecedented). Where Starbucks, Google, Amazon & celebrities are being lambasted, doesn’t he deserve similar widespread condemnation, which further indicates the level of his immoral character
* The final point I would like you to address so as not to become tedious and weighed down by detail, is the sentiment that this would never have happened in London that this is indicative of the North South divide and the disdain with which Manchester as the second city is viewed by the current Government. Clearly on this particular case there have been countless mistakes over many years that are not your Government's responsibility. However after all these years, reaching the zenith of this CPO was so necessary. Its rejection encourages the widespread notion that your current Government is not respectful of the North of England and denies giving it opportunities and resources that would instantaneously be given to the Capital. Maybe you can defend the notion “this would not have been possible and would never have happened (by a comparatively significant piece of central Heritage) in London”?
I hope that you have considered this a serious letter and can understand the anger felt in Manchester about this particular situation. I also hope by giving us reassurance, sincere and frank answers you can aid the public understanding of your position and the moral compass that drives it. I hope you take the opportunity to decry the destructive and despicable inaction of the Britannia Hotel Group.
As the petition signatories increase (while persistently I hope to gain more media exposure and attention for this petition), if a new CPO is ever issued I hope you will take into consideration the cynical tactics and mind-games that had been used by Britannia in terms of minimal reparation etc. The legacy of this case has gone on far too long and something needs to be done about it at last. Perhaps you could be the heroic figure of change rather than the obstacle which suppresses the city of Manchester, its future, its dynamism and its capacity for an international reputation.
The tagline of our campaign has become ‘Manchester deserves better’ and I hope that you genuinely feel that it does. With power comes responsibility and with ownership of History, respect above destruction must be forthright regardless of agenda in the genuine consideration of its justice.
I await your considered and respectful response to the public's concern over this issue.
Yours sincerely
Adam Prince
Petition Founder
http://ipt.io/fcyj