Tag Archives: MIPIM

CHOC’S AWAY – FERGO OFFERS SHANKED SHAW REDEMPTION

‘No poor people’ housing development for rich liberals Chocolate Factory back from the dead after secret meetings?

Mayor Fergo: planning to resurrect Greenbank deal previously agreed with BCC's Bishop through Isaacs & Generator Group?

Mayor Fergo: planning to resurrect Greenbank deal previously agreed with BCC’s David Bishop through his pal Paul Isaacs and the Generator Group?

Information about what His Royal Mayorness George was actually doing at the MIPIM conference in Cannes [see ‘JUNKET GEORGE’] has been suitably vague. He’s variously been described as “attracting inward investment”, “banging the drum for Bristol”, and – so says the great man himself – “increasing our international standing”. Conveniently for SUPERFERGO, none of this wishy-washy PR babble is provable one way or the other.

However, The BRISTOLIAN can exclusively reveal that high on George Ferguson’s list of priorities at Cannes was the attempt to restart a controversial high class housing project with which he himself had originally been closely – and financially – associated.

Whilst sunning himself on the Côte d’Azur at our expense, our Glorious Mayor Redpants had at least one private meeting with PAUL ISAACS from property developers GENERATOR GROUP. In its own words, Generator Group “comprises a specialist developer, funding partner and advisor that exercises both its intellectual capital and financial knowledge to deliver effective and innovative solutions to a full range of property related matters.” And it just so happens that Generator Group and Mr Isaacs have produced “a due diligence report and advice on a strategy to take the site forward” for an unnamed “strategic development site in the south west”. The site in question? The so-called CHOCOLATE FACTORY in east Bristol’s Greenbank, on the site of the old Elizabeth Shaw production line.

The Chocolate Factory is a site that the mayor has had both a significant personal and commercial interest in down the years. Those with longer memories may recall Ferguson was at the forefront of a campaign to have planning permission refused for the original site developers, Persimmon – only to pop up as the architect of a new “sustainable” scheme when Persimmon then sold the site on to local developers Squarepeg.

The Squarepeg-Ferguson project – basically a housing scheme for wealthy liberals – quickly unravelled when it turned out to be totally unaffordable. Despite securing planning approval, they then had to go cap-in-hand to council planners and explain that they couldn’t pay for any infrastructure costs (such as roads and education, in an area with an acute school places shortage) due to the huge cost of their upmarket scheme. Squarepeg also refused to include any more than 25 affordable homes in the 252 dwelling development, having grudgingly upped their initial offer of 14 – still short of the council’s call for 10-30% to be suitable for lower income families.

Further controversy came when it emerged that somehow George had managed to “improve” his scheme by purchasing a piece of public land next to the Greenbank section of the Bristol and Bath Railway Path. He managed this coup in a private telephone call with the City Council’s then Head of Planning, DAVID ‘BASHER’ BISHOP – against all stated city council procurement rules and regulations – in a manner never fully explained.

However, even with the granting of massive favours by his little council helpers, in 2009 George’s ridiculous scheme collapsed under the weight of its own stupidity, never to be heard of again. Until now, that is, with the declaration by Mr Isaacs’ company that the Ferguson/Squarepeg scheme “is neither deliverable nor viable” and the news that Generator Group has apparently produced a report on the site “offering various exit strategies based on appetite for risk and preferred timelines.”

At which point George – now Mayor – reappears holding private meetings in Cannes with this major stakeholder in the site. Should our mayor really be holding meetings with developers regarding a site in which he’s had a commercial interest? And what is the mysterious second project that Georgie is cooking up with Generator Group?

It’s looking murky already…

JUNKET GEORGE DOES EUROPE

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Bristol Mayor takes taxpayer-funded jaunts to Dublin and Cannes to help cultivate sense of self-importance

With £35m of unachievable cuts randomly delivered across council budgets, now MAYOR GORGEOUS can get on with the more serious aspects of his role … Like enjoying jolly ‘junket’ outings abroad at our expense.

The year’s first freebie trip overseas for George came in February when he spent a couple of days in Dublin at the ‘World Alliance of Cities Against Poverty’. A stop-off on the INTERNATIONAL POVERTY INDUSTRY grand tour, the event was themed around technology and cities, and attracted mostly faceless EU and UN bureaucrats with fat expense accounts and plenty of time on their hands.

Gushing publicity offered lucky attendees the opportunity “to marry practical experience to blue sky thinking” and hear words of wisdom spouted by self-important bigwigs from the Big Four accountancy firms. They, of course, are famed for their robust approach to preventing poverty by, erm, creating it on a grand scale across the entire western world by signing off dodgy bank balance sheets just prior to their collapse into bankruptcy and creating the need for mass public bailouts.

See the pattern here? Those that have caused mass poverty are now selling solutions to it back to governments. Other speakers included the aptly named Patricia Bastard of Yellow Window Design Consultants and the Queen of the international poverty scene, former Irish premier Mary ‘Antoinette’ Robinson.

But this was a mere warm-up for the main event that Junket George attended a few weeks later: the MIPIM PROPERTY CONFERENCE in Cannes, delightfully situated on the Côte d’Azur. And what was this conference all about? Public relations people will try to tell you “MIPIM provides a unique opportunity for industry decision-makers to meet, develop long-term relationships and showcase their latest development projects.”

However, a more honest appraisal is available from Clare Barrett, managing editor of Property Week magazine, who helpfully explains, “It’s basically a FOUR-DAY PARTY WITH LOADS OF LOBSTER AND CHAMPAGNE ON YACHTS.”

When now-disbanded quango the South West Regional Development Agency attended this piss-up a few years ago, they managed to run up a £61k bill for running a press conference and two cheese and wine parties. But it is suspected that George and the large entourage he assembled for this must-go event managed to smash that pre-austerity record with a WHOPPING £100K+ TAB. George even forked out for his glamorous assistant Zoe to attend and to provide him with her late night ‘list-ticking’ services, as well as dragging along a local artist to flaunt – just to show people how wacky he is.

No doubt Cannes echoed to the question, “Qui le fuck est la poshe idiote Anglais avec les pantalons rouges”?

The BRISTOLIAN

“Smiter of the High and Mighty”

Tag Archives: MIPIM

CHOC’S AWAY – FERGO OFFERS SHANKED SHAW REDEMPTION

‘No poor people’ housing development for rich liberals Chocolate Factory back from the dead after secret meetings?

JUNKET GEORGE DOES EUROPE

Bristol Mayor takes taxpayer-funded jaunts to Dublin and Cannes to help cultivate sense of self-importance

NEW BRISTOLIAN OUT NOW!