Construction firm Kensington Developments has donated £10,000 to Blackpool South Conservative Association after applying to build 570 properties in the area.
Blackpool Council Leader Peter Callow (Conservative) has launched an investigation, saying he is “disgusted.”
From the BBC:
An entry on the Electoral Commission’s register of donations confirms the association received a donation of £5,000 from Kensington on 3 July 2008.
A company spokesman confirmed a second donation was made in May 2009.
Kensington unveiled controversial proposals to build properties around Moss House Road in March 2008, prompting a local campaign to prevent the development.
Mr Callow, who is not a member of the Blackpool South association, has proposed an independent panel now decides the planning application.
But the Blackpool South MP told the BBC it should now be thrown out altogether.
Mr Marsden said: “The perception of people out there is that there is going to be a question mark over the impartiality of the council approving any application.
“So it is a really serious, and I think really damaging, situation.
“The Conservative-controlled cabinet should say very clearly they are going to not approve the application from Kensington.”
An investigation is under way by the party’s regional chairman following a request from the council leader.”
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3 Comments
Perhaps we can have some
fake indignation and insincerity to look good to the publicaction from Dave on this.Meanwhile Paul Rowen MP (LD, Rochdale) is a remunerated Director of Corinya (Uganda) Limited, a property developer in Uganda with a few dozen properties on the go. His main co-Directors and shareholders being from the UK end of Corinya Holdings and/or Corinya Limited, based in Rochdale, who own lots and lots and lots of residential and commercial property in Rochdale and Lancashire. Including the offices the Council rented when PR Paul was Leader, needing the extra space at least in part because the elected members voted themselves more space to be grandly refurbished. All the better for troughing in.
Another local property developer, who appears to have done quite well in the planning consents stakes, provided a chara for a run down to London. That was in the paper. Don’t know how it was treated in terms of donations. And eyebrows are regularly raised in Private Eye and throughout the borough on cosy relations with MMC who own an old Asbestos dump which they’d like to turn into family housing, cf Corby. Wasn’t it Saint Vincent Cable himself who reportedly took advice from Rowen and his henchman Hennigan on the worthiness of MMC?
Unlike in Blackpool (where at least there is some clarity one might argue) there have been no donations recorded from property companies into Lib Dem funds, apart that is from the Rochdale Reform Buildings Limited which was identified in the Annual Accounts of the local Lib Dems as an ultimate landlord for MP and party, and latterly it seems it has emerged that they are owned by Lib Dems too.
Strangely enough a “tithe” at 10% for back benchers and basic, plus 20% on special responsibility payments, does not seem to have bothered the scorers at the Electoral Commission since 2005 or so. In fact there have been no accounts. And almost no recorded donations or dividends at all. Which is grand. Rowen’s people are clearly “beyond help”. Underlined by his absurd legal overtures over being called “bananas” which that action surely provides proof of.
At least we can say with planning decisions and with declared donations that there is a level of transparency and also a judicial backdrop, independent appeals and so on and so forth.
Of course, Chris, the simple explanation for donations not being declared and accounts not being published would be that they’ve all been below the limit at which they need to be declared or published. Not as fun as a conspiracy theory I’ll grant you.