I have been asked many times how I thought ‘the Wimbledon situation’ would work out and personally I always believed that it would be the local residents who would prove the biggest obstacle to plan 14/P4361 to build 600 houses and install Dog & Duck FC on the site.
I got to meet quite a few local residents when setting up WWW more than three years ago. Though small, they were quite a driven and well organised bunch. Diane McLean, who has done an awesome job on behalf of Wimbledon greyhound supporters in the interim, has remained in constant touch, even liaising for amendments to Paschal Taggart’s grand plan to suit the needs of the locals.
But did I think the locals could ever prevail, given the stinking ethics of Merton Council?
Nope – and the odds are still massively against them.
Although Boris Johnson, in one of his last acts as Mayor, has taken the Plough Lane decision out of the hands of the Merton Mafia, there is a long way to go. I witnessed the sickeningly cosy relationship between Merton planners and Galliard Homes at a Government inspectors inquiry. Indeed it is now being alleged that Merton Council have committed rate payers cash to the project! We also watched the Environment Agency crumble like a bridge in a swollen river and completely reverse their view of the flood risk. Do not underestimate the clout of Galliard Homes.
So where does it go from here?
In the first instance, hopefully in front of Tooting MP Sadiq Khan. He wrote to both Merton Council and AFC Wimbledon asking them to review their plans for the site which encroaches on his patch. Both organisations ignored him. Now Sadiq, who gets on very well with our own Ian Lavery MP, is favourite to be the next London Mayor on May 5. Oh wouldn’t that be justice!
Galliard Homes – the shy land owners who hid behind the petticoats of venture capitalist Luke Johnson for nearly a decade – have various options on their hands. Assuming the new Mayor blocks their plan, they could challenge the decision, and probably will, though it could take years.
They could phone Paschal Taggart and ask him to design and run another Shelbourne – a one-sided stadium incorporating a smaller housing scheme. They could build a smaller greyhound stadium themselves and invite Clive Feltham to run it on their behalf.
Or they could land-bank the site. As such, they would shut the gates on schedule in July and play ‘who blinks first’ with the Mayor, hopefully Sadiq Khan.
It is a brave and patient game though. I have heard various estimates as to how much profit Galliards would expect to make on the project and the best guesstimate is around £80m. Even for a corporate monster like Galliards, that is a lot of money tied up for a gamble with a politician starting a new term in office.
In relation to Galliard’s Oxford Stadium project, that hasn’t gone too well either, thanks in no small way to local MP Andrew Smith. As Paschal noted this week ‘If Merton had an Andrew Smith, we wouldn’t be in this shit’.
Smith, an MP who actually answers his own mobile phone, confirmed to me on Thursday that he has written to Irish Government agency NAMA asking them to justify their toxic loan to Galliard Homes. He was referred to Galliard Homes and is now chasing a response. Maybe Messrs Smith, Khan and Lavery would fancy inviting Galliard Homes to the House of Commons to justify their actions with Irish tax payers money?
But I understand that there is a further development. When the late Don Joyce first sold Oxford Stadium to GRA, he insisted on a one metre wide strip of land running the full width of the stadium, to service his other property. The story goes that GRA originally threatened to pull out of the deal, but then relented when Don called their bluff.
As unlikely as it seems, that strip of land is now owned by an Isle Of Man based company who can’t be traced – at least no by Savills, acting on behalf of the land owners. Andrew Smith confirmed the story to me this week.
So Galliards effectively have no garden path to their landbank.
Happy days!
