[ELECTRON] OPPOSE TUITION FEES Thursday 3.00PM at the Royal Concert Hall steps on Buchanan Street.

Tue Nov 23 14:07:09 UTC 2010

Pieced together, I afraid:

http://roominthecityconference.ning.com/profiles/blogs/george-square-mortgaged-to

George Square 'mortgaged' to Barclays Bank

"Room in the City... Glasgow’s principal civic space, George Square, running through the conference as a leitmotiv..."

Glasgow has a new, timely, ALEO (arms length external organisation), City Property (Glasgow) LLP, to which Glasgow City Council will be transferring the rights to the income from hundreds of income-generating properties in exchange for £120m. The titles to the properties will still legally remain the council's in most cases, although a small number have been already marked for sale.

"City Property (Glasgow) LLP was established on 1st October 2009, evolving from the property services previously provided by Glasgow City Council, Development & Regeneration Services. Operating as an autonomous company with its own Board and Managing Director will enable the organisation to efficiently and effectively deliver to the market a wide range of exciting property opportunities. City Property (Glasgow) LLP covers four main areas of activity: Disposal, Development, Regeneration, Investment Opportunities." http://www.citypropertyglasgow.co.uk

Green Councillor, Nina Baker, has uncovered City Property (Glasgow) LLP's business case was based on all the council’s properties, not just the 'surplus' or income-generating ones. The list provided to the consultants who did the business plan included the parks, George Square, etc, etc.

Bizarrely, Baker found, the £120m loan from Barclays required no due diligence, so none of the property titles have been checked; contamination hasn’t been checked. The LLP reckons it can easily pay off the loan from the rental incomes and will get £2m from GCC to manage other properties. However, one of its roles is to prepare surplus properties for sale, e.g. by decontamination and getting planning permissions, etc. But those may be more difficult than they think if any are Common Good Fund (CGF) or have other restrictions on the titles. To give an example, Overnewton community centre (in Overnewton Square) is one of the dozen closed by Labour’s budget cuts and was to be handed over to the LLP for demolition. However if they had done that, they couldn’t sell the land or rebuild on it because of the existing restrictions in disposition documents in the title. They have no way to know if any are CGF.

So the LLP is at significant risk of not realising the income it needs to pay off the £120m loan. All of the loan is already promised a few times over by the Council for paying redundancies, as well as building primary schools* and care homes, etc, etc...

* This is not the first time [Glasgow] politicians have recently 'wrongly accounted'. The principal reason put forward for the closure of 20 schools in the city last year could not be supported by official statistics. In April 2009 leading Labour politicians within the country’s largest local authority revealed that they intended to close a significant number of city schools because of “falling school rolls”, after which it transpired the principal reason put forward for the closures could not be supported by official statistics, but still intimated an extra £2million in cuts to the city’s education budget to accommodate for increased number of pupils in remaining city classrooms as the decision on closures would not be reversed.
http://sosglasgow.wordpress.com/2009/09/29/glasgow-schools-closure-gaffe-politicians-admit-to-getting-sums-wrong/

"If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, we have at least to consider the possibility that we have a small aquatic bird of the family anatidae on our hands."

Storm looms as private revolution in Scotland’s councils gathers pace
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/politics/storm-looms-as-private-revolution-in-scotland-s-councils-gathers-pace-1.1013
Staff removed to arm’s-length agencies
CORDIA: 8,792 transferred from direct and care services, March 2009
CULTURE AND SPORT: 2,200 staff transferred to company limited by guarantee with charitable status, April 2007
CITY BUILDING: 2,200 transferred, October 2006
ACCESS: 13 transferred and 257 on secondment, early 2008
CITY MARKETS: 26 staff, June 2008
CITY PARKING: 62 staff transferred, June 2007
CLYDE GATEWAY: partnership with council, South Lanarkshire Council and Scottish Enterprise – a handful of staff on secondment, formed December 2007
GLASGOW COMMUNITY SAFETY SERVICES: jointly owned by GCC and Strathclyde Police, 135 council staff transferred after forming in October 2006
GLASGOW CITY MARKETING BUREAU: a company limited by guarantee, six council staff transferred, April 2005

"Culture and Sport Glasgow is reputedly on the cusp of a major expansion, which could see it run civic cultural and leisure services across Scotland. ... Culture and Sport is also about to see a wave of industrial action in response to a cut in its cash from the council that will see over 500 staff receive less pay and a number of facilities close. Meanwhile, Cordia is looking to shed around 700 posts..."

Lest the electorate forget, the newLabour-controlled Council rushed through a privatisation of control and management of services and assets against a Labour Party manifesto pledge that came out of conference in Scotland and that should have prevented this kind of Trust formation from council services. [am missing a link to confirm this]

So what does a duck look like...

Call for inquiry into company where salaries ballooned and thousands spent on hospitality
http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/news/Call-for-inquiry--into.6150282.jp
"...John Mason, the SNP MP for Glasgow East, said: 'This (the salary rises] was almost inevitable. What we are talking about here is a kind of semi-privatisation when a council department starts to act like a private company. What has also happened is that we have lost democratic control of the business.' The revelations about City Building come after the chief executive, chairman and vice-chairman of another Glasgow-based and Labour-dominated quango, Strathclyde Partnership for Transport, all left office last month after an expenses scandal."

Council to let private body run services
http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/scotland/Council-to-let-private-body.6150243.jp

http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/news/-Inquiry-call-over-39secrets39.6150252.jp
"The focus was returning last night to the [former] council leader's relationship with a complex network of councillors, businessmen and public sector chiefs, most with connections to the Labour party."

Aboard the SPT gravy train
http://times.cluster.newsint.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article7035061.ece

City Property (Glasgow) LLP business case was based on all the council’s properties, not just the 'surplus' or income-generating ones. The list provided to the consultants who did the business plan included all the parks, George Square, etc, etc.

Bizarrely, the £120m loan from Barclays required no due diligence, so none of the property titles have been checked; contamination hasn’t been checked. The LLP reckons it can easily pay off the loan from the rental incomes and will get £2m from GCC to manage other properties. However, one of its roles is to prepare surplus properties for sale, e.g. by decontamination and getting planning permissions, etc. But those may be more difficult than they think if any are Common Good Fund (CGF) or have other restrictions on the titles. To give an example, Overnewton community centre (in Overnewton Square) is one of the dozen closed by Labour’s budget cuts and was to be handed over to the LLP for demolition. However if they had done that, they couldn’t sell the land or rebuild on it because of the existing restrictions in disposition documents in the title. They have no way to know if any are CGF.

So the LLP is in significant risk of not realising the income it needs to pay off the £120m loan. All of the loan is intended for paying redundancies, as well as building primary schools and care homes, etc, etc...

New ALEO (arms length external organisation), City Property (Glasgow) LLP, to which Glasgow City Council will be transferring the rights to the income from hundreds of income-generating properties in exchange for £120m. The titles to the properties will still legally remain the council's in most cases, although a small number have been already marked for sale.

"City Property (Glasgow) LLP was established on 1st October 2009, evolving from the property services previously provided by Glasgow City Council, Development & Regeneration Services.
Operating as an autonomous company with its own Board and Managing Director will enable the organisation to efficiently and effectively deliver to the market a wide range of exciting property opportunities.
City Property (Glasgow) LLP covers four main areas of activity:
- Disposal
- Development
- Regeneration
- Investment Opportunities."
http://www.citypropertyglasgow.co.uk

"COUNCIL chiefs face a bill of £100million after more than 2000 workers applied for redundancy. ... 'The cash will come from the councils new surplus property company, City Property (Glasgow) LLP'."
http://www.theglaswegian.co.uk/glasgow-news/news/2010/02/18/council-payoffs-could-hit-s100m-102692-22051566/

OR

"Glasgow City Council hopes to raise £120m to build primary schools and care homes by restructuring its non-operational property portfolio."
http://www.propertyweek.com/story.asp?storycode=3157543

BUT

http://www.heraldscotland.com/business/corporate-sme/mortgaging-property-will-cost-80m-but-glasgow-insists-it-s-a-good-deal-1.1004279
"Glasgow City Council is certainly facing fierce debate after mortgaging the great majority of its commercial property interests in order to borrow £120 million."

++++++++++++++++++++++
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On 23 Nov 2010, at 13:52, Paola Di Maio wrote:

> Leigh
> the post is unavailable, do you have a copy of this info somewhere other than NING?
> 
> P
> 
> On Tue, Nov 23, 2010 at 1:49 PM, Variant <variantmag at btinternet.com> wrote:
> 
> This would be the same George Square that's been 'mortgaged' to Barclays Bank, please see: 
> 
> http://roominthecityconference.ning.com/profiles/blogs/george-square-mortgaged-to
> 
> The blog posts above stress the extent to which neoliberal restructuring affects all of us, solidarity is needed now as ever. 
> 
> All best,
> Leigh
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On 23 Nov 2010, at 13:25, David Kerr wrote:
> 
>> Hi Clive,
>>  
>> The organisers of these events would be more deserving recipients if you do decide to ram the Christmas tree somewhere.
>>  
>> GLASGOW’S GEORGE SQUARE TO HOST ‘GLAM IN THE CITY’ CONSUMER EVENT...
>> http://www.britevents.com/whats-on/lanarkshire/glasgow/glam-in-the-city/117290/
>>  
>> Cadbury Spots v Stripes George Square 21/22nd August
>> http://www.spotsvstripes.com/events_glasgow_overview.aspx
>>  
>> Kind regards,
>>  
>> David Kerr
>>  
>>  
>> The ice rink and the art show.  I'm trying to think of other events
>> that are held there during the year.  There was talk for a while of
>> moving the central monument to the side to make it a more open space
>> and also moving the cenotaph down to the other end (where it was
>> supposed to be built in the first place) but they all petered out.
>> The cost would have been enormous but just the central monument moving
>> would have made a much larger open space for public activities.
>> The Christmas activities in the square are popular and bring a bit of
>> life to the square.  I'm not sure they're as profitable to the
>> operators as they'd like.
>> Yes, George Square IS classed as a park and maintained by the parks
>> department.  You don't need to claim it back.  It's freely open most
>> of the year for people to sit on and have their lunch as many do.
>> It's planted areas are maintained regularly if anyone even bothers to
>> look.  It makes sense to have at least a few events there during the
>> year though, since it is a nice central location
>> I should mention that it's me who puts up the Christmas lights on
>> George Square (yes the battered old 20-year-old ones) so if you do
>> hold a protest and anyone vandalises the lights at ground level then I
>> will personally ram the entire George Square Christmas tree up their
>> arse.  :)
>> For the geeks amongst you (here's the actual electronic bit), the only
>> Christmas lights on George Square that aren't now LED based are the
>> swinging bells, nativity spots and the angel floodlights.  We've been
>> gradually refitting the old frames with good quality LED tubelight
>> with an immediate power reduction of 75% and a considerable increase
>> in brightness over the old (and troublesome) tungsten tubelight.  The
>> new stuff is so sensitive that the leakage through the dimmer snubber
>> networks was enough to make them light dimly when they're supposed to
>> be off!  We had to add small resistive packer loads to shunt the
>> leakage enough to turn them off completely.  All the lights are
>> controlled via dimmers on a DMX network to make everything operate in
>> sync.
>> Most significant new bit to look for this year is the column which is
>> now lit entirely with warm white LED (top and base) with a few strings
>> of xenon strobe caps to add some sparkle.  The sleigh and reindeer
>> have also been converted to LED with a sudden resultant power drop
>> from almost 40A to just 6A!  (made things a lot easier for me).
>>  
>> On 23 November 2010 02:09, M.Hersh <m.hersh at elec.gla.ac.uk> wrote:
>> > Slightly off-topic for this list, but there are also issues of reclaiming
>> > George Square.  It used to be one of 3 places in Glasgow where there was an
>> > automatic right to stage protests and you did not require police permission.
>> >  It now seems to have been taken over by a range of commercial activities
>> > and we have lost this community ownership of it.  Also tuition fee events
>> > are Wednesday, not Thursday,
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> 
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