At last night’s Haringey Council meeting, the opposition Lib Dems announced they were appointing two councillors to the Alexandra Palace Board.

Until now, the Lib Dems have not taken up their positions on the Board due to concerns about its constitutional position, powers, and structure. Despite promising to address these, Labour have never done so.

Lib Dems say that while all councillors should be entitled to information on what is happening at the Palace, this has been consistently refused. Over the last four years, the Lib Dems have made numerous requests for information on the accounts, and most recently on the nature of the unsuccessful bids. The Labour Council have consistently blocked or delayed answering.

Incredibly, in 2004, Councillor Bob Hare was refused access to the accounts which he had asked to see within the statutory open period (see note 3).

Recently, the Lib Dems have become more and more concerned at the process the Labour-run Board has set for the sale of Ally Pally. In particular, it has become increasingly clear that the timetable and approach were not set to ensure the best result for the charity but rather to fit with the Haringey Council elections in May.

It is as a result of these concerns that the Lib Dems have made two appointments to the Board, Councillor Bob Hare and Councillor Wayne Hoban (note 4).

Councillor Bob Hare comments:

“Lib Dems have always argued that there is an inherent conflict of interest for members of the Council sitting on the Alexandra Park and Palace Board which the Labour Council have never satisfactorily resolved. The resulting arrangements have not served either the Council or the Alexandra Palace and Park charity well in recent years.”

Councillor Wayne Hoban adds:

“There are major decisions to be taken in relation to the Palace, and Lib Dem members must be in full and immediate possession of the facts. We have faced consistent obstacles in recent years to requests for information about affairs at the Palace. Labour have run the Palace at a very low ebb, and repeatedly mismanaged and missed vital opportunities to get the building working properly. With that track record, the decision on the sale of the lease is too important to leave to them.”

Councillor Neil Williams, Leader of the Lib Dems, also says:

“The challenge to Labour is that they will now have to provide information that has been unacceptably withheld. All councillors should have been entitled to information on what is going on. Having to drag this out of the Council using Freedom of Information requests, or by referring matters to the Charity Commission, is a slow process. That is why we are joining the Board at this time.”

Notes1) Haringey Council is the corporate trustee of the Alexandra Park and Palace Trust, which is a charity. The Board is a sub-committee of the Council, to which the Council have devolved all of the Council’s powers in relation to APP. While in complete agreement with the transfer of powers to a sub-committee for day to day decision-making, the complete transfer of powers brings with it fundamental questions including:

Who are the trustees?

Who takes the major decisions?

What involvement and responsibilities do the nearly 50 members of the Council who are not members of the sub-committee have?

2) The Council previously agreed it would seek the directions of the courts on these questions of trusteeship, but has failed to do so, instead preferring to obtain repetitive advice from the same legal chambers.

3) In 2004, the annual statutory period during which the accounts of the Council and the APP Trust were open to examination fell in the period immediately leading up to the November fireworks display. Councillor Hare was asked if he would change the date of his requested visit to the week following the fireworks, and was given an undertaking by the General Manager that he would be able to see the accounts then. When he arrived, he was refused access on the grounds that the he was outside the statutory period.

4) Councillor Wayne Hoban is Deputy Leader of the Lib Dems, and has been on the APP Statutory Advisory Committee since being elected to the Council in 2002 , he was also Deputy Chair of the Committee last year.

Councillor Bob Hare has been Lib Dem spokesperson on Alexandra Palace since 2002, attending nearly all meetings of the Board, also of the Statutory Advisory and Consultative Committees.