Property developer Gerry Knight & Lexadon fined £175k under Proceeds of Crime Act
- Thread starter DaveCinzano
- Start date
SarfLondoner
KenDoddsDadsDogsDead.
There is land been undersold to developers left right and centre (see the Heygate estate) and it's put down to incompetence on the councils behalf. I find it strange that these incompetent people then end up working for the company they signed off the land to.
CH1
"Red Guard"(NLYL)
You are making my point.
There is a moral inconsistency in profiting from wage oppression and then giving to charity.
CH1
"Red Guard"(NLYL)
At the end of the Lambeth Press release you are quoting is this:
" Lambeth has recently secured its first prosecution for subletting of a council property. Ahmad Nejad, 57, of Greig Terrace, Kennington was convicted of three charges under the Fraud Act 2006 after subletting a property in Paulet Road, Loughborough Junction. He was fined £1,500 and instructed to pay costs to Lambeth of £1,999."
I find this as worrying. Can it be true that this is the first prosecution for subletting council property?
Subletting is scarcely new - was rife in Lambeth since the 1980s and still continues. Can somebody please clarify?
I need hardly add that subletting - apart from being fraud - subverts the established process of housing allocation based on need and qualification.
leanderman
Street Party: July 2
Are you allowed to sublet rooms?
editor
hiraethified
Gramsci
Well-Known Member
This is the important point. Lambeth owned a lot of proprty in central Brixton which its sold off over the years. Its short sighted of Lambeth to sell property off. This ownership gave control over what could happen to Brixton.
leanderman
Street Party: July 2
They have sold off the silver. Cheap.
BTW: Did you catch the rather moving episode of BBC R4's Great Lives featuring your Italian namesake? Available as a podcast.
Gramsci
Well-Known Member
warning thread derail
Yes I did. With Tom Shakespeare? Could not believe Matthew Parris had never heard of him. Wish they had gone into his ideas more. His theoretical work is of lasting importance.
leanderman
Street Party: July 2
Yes. Parris's claim was implausible!
Rushy
basically a scrotum
As you say - it was council policy to allow subdivision of houses over 120sqm, and this was maintained because it helped deliver against national new-housing guidelines (converting one house into three flats delivers two new units). This size limit pretty well only excluded two storey houses with no more than two stories at the back so only streets with the smallest houses, e.g. Horsford Road and Trinity Gardens, still have high proportions of unconverted properties. Lambeth and HAs carried out a hefty proportion of conversions (quite possibly most) over the years - rarely with planning permission and often to a dreadful standard.
As you often point out, there are more and more people, in smaller and smaller household numbers (lots more singles), they have to go somewhere and smaller homes is the way things have been moving in cities. I don't have a problem with the principle of converting houses into multiple units as part of a plan to provide an increased number and mix of unit sizes on every street - but full size houses should also form a significant proportion of that mix. The streets under conversion stress policy has been effective at halting conversions but I think anyone would agree that it was at least 4/5 years too late. Better probably would have been a policy from the outset which required a proportion of properties in any street to remain unconverted - similar policies existed in relation to shop fronts, for instance. Whatever the plan, it can only realistically be developed and controlled by the planning department.
I'd certainly rather see Victorian streets largely converted rather than flattened and replaced with tower blocks, as was happening in the years before the subdividing began in earnest. Sadly, so many were done to a dreadful standard and no thought for the streetscape. With terraces now starting to change hands for 1.4million it might not be long until buildings start being unconverted.
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Rushy
basically a scrotum
It certainly would not surprise me if things were corrupt at that level. The intertwined economics and politics of such projects are way beyond my comprehension.
boohoo
No.
Bits of Streatham are rather lovely.
Rushy
basically a scrotum
Yes - it's an old not very serious prejudice of mine.*
Actually, I broke down on Mitcham Road on Sunday and after waiting 4hrs to have car towed I walked home and was pleasantly surprised. Had a couple in The Manor Arms on the way.
* a bit like... you know.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
Not all of it, yet.
We can be certain that part of the gleefulness of Pickles and Co in central government is that local authority "austerity" measures imposed by central grant budget cuts will hasten not only the selling off of the rest of the silver, but will have town halls up and down the land checking their metaphorical attics, too.
editor
hiraethified
Lexadon have now got their paws over the Clapham Police Station. That'll turn a nice fat profit.
http://www.lexadon.co.uk/projects/clapham-police-station
editor
hiraethified
Seeing as Lexadon continue to eat up more and more of Brixton (in Coldharbour Lane alone, Knight's company owns Walton Lodge at 374, the former Angel pub at 354 (now Mamma Dough), the Viaduct block at 360-366, Clifton Mansions, and the new builds at 435-437 and 419-423) it would be nice to find out that he was giving something back to the community he's made such big fat profits from. I did ask him directly but he declined to answer.
DaveCinzano
WATCH OUT, GEORGE, HE'S GOT A SCREWDRIVER!
sparkybird
ask the bird...
I'd imagine that most developers would consider the section 106 agreement and/or the community infrastructure levy and whatever conditions those entail as 'giving back to the community'
I don't know how, but it must be possible to find out what these were??
editor
hiraethified
This lot have something of a reputation of not exactly being overly enthusiastic about fulfilling Section 106 commitments: Property developer Lexadon plans 27 new builds along Acre Lane with uncertainty over level of ‘affordable’ units
But he's a local bloke who has made many many millions out of the area (he's appeared in the Sunday Times rich list) so it does seem reasonable to wonder if he's given any thing back personally.
snowy_again
Slush
But that article isn't relevant to s106 agreements. And we had the same discussion in October on this thread. Did a google alert bring up the rich list press - don't really see you as a Sunday Times reader.
CH1
"Red Guard"(NLYL)
He was in the rich list in 2009 at ranking 1077= £50 million https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/jerry-and-janet-knight-gs6wjr68wcx (the text is flashed up for a millisecond beofre the Pay Wall cuts in).
Not listed in this week's printed version - but despite all this austerity the mega rich have got a lot richer and you have to be worth £120 million to get in the current printed version.
editor
hiraethified
Of course I don't read the Sunday Times. Why even make such a cheap shot? I use Google like everyone else.
And I don't go along with the notion that a developer being forced to reluctantly fulfil the minimum s106 commitments they can get away is "giving back to the community" in any shape of form. That's just business and many will do everything they can to circumnavigate such commitments.
Revealed: how developers exploit flawed planning system to minimise affordable housing
editor
hiraethified
Here's some rare Twitter action from Brixton's rent-squeezing landlord and multi millionaire Jerry Knight:
And here's a not-exactly palatial bedroom flat of Jerry's going for a mere £1,560 per month - or he's a got a 3 bedroom one for £2,320/month.
And this quote retweeted by Jerry takes the fucking biscuit for irony and sheer chutzpah
Five years before:
www.brixtonbuzz.com
And here's a not-exactly palatial bedroom flat of Jerry's going for a mere £1,560 per month - or he's a got a 3 bedroom one for £2,320/month.
And this quote retweeted by Jerry takes the fucking biscuit for irony and sheer chutzpah
Five years before:
Video captures builders forcing their way into squatted Walton Lodge building on Coldharbour Lane, Brixton
Video footage forwarded to Brixton Buzz shows builders and/or representatives of property developers Lexadon using violence to enter the squatted Walton Lodge building on Coldharbour Lane, Brixton.…
www.brixtonbuzz.com
editor
hiraethified
£330 a week for a one bedroom flat on Coldharbour Lane.
www.rightmove.co.uk
#landlordscum
Check out this 1 bedroom flat for rent on Rightmove
1 bedroom flat for rent in 435 Coldharbour Lane, Sw9, SW9 for £1,430 pcm. Marketed by Lexadon Property Group, London
#landlordscum
bellaozzydog
rolling turds in glitter
Business and charity isn’t charity it’s a tax dodge, at best guilt alms and performative image management
anyone demanding charity from business are selling themselves and their communities short
anyone demanding charity from business are selling themselves and their communities short
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