Taxpayers counting the cost of Parkway dispute

The council is not only locked in a bitter legal dispute with developer Standard Life Investments (SLI) over its failure over two years to appoint a provider to manage the 37 empty affordable homes – it is now embroiled in a war of words over ‘lost’ car parking revenue worth hundreds of thousands of pounds.
Before construction began on the site, the council sold public land to SLI for £1 to build the retail and housing centre and car park on the basis that a fee, understood to be between £250,000 and £300,000, was received in parking revenue each year.
However, the NWN can exclusively reveal that the council has not yet received a penny from either of the first two full years of operation.
This week, SLI confirmed it had not paid any money to the council as it was still waiting for the land transfer to take place as stated in an agreement between the two parties. However, the council says the blame lies with SLI as it is still waiting for agreed plans.
The dispute means that the local authority is losing out on vital revenue at a time when it has to cut services to save £5.9m.
Leader of the opposition, Jeff Brooks, intends to ask the council at a meeting next week whether it has received any money. He also claims that the council – which had to pay £900,000 towards the affordable housing – has delayed the transfer of the land so it can continue to block SLI from selling any more private homes at the Parkway Living Complex.
He said: “We have given them £900,000 and we have absolutely nothing to show for it. No homes, no car parking money, nothing.”
A spokesman for SLI said: “Under the terms of the contract we have with the council in respect of the car park, payments are only due once the deed (agreement) has been completed. The deed is contingent on a land transfer which the council has not yet facilitated.”
Council spokeswoman, Peta Stoddart-Crompton, said: “Our solicitors are waiting for agreed plans from SLI which they (SLI) didn’t send last year. Therefore, it would appear that this delay lies with SLI and not with the council.”