Liberal Democrat councillors have expressed alarm at the escalating financial disaster engulfing Haringey Council and its hard pressed taxpayers as a result of the Alexandra Palace lease fiasco. This comes as a new report to Haringey Council’s Cabinet admits that the cost to Haringey Council resulting from the mess could top £1 million in this financial year.

Documents to be tabled at the Council’s Cabinet meeting for 20th November show that following the recent High Court decision to quash the Charity Commission’s granting of a lease, costs are estimated at £1 million in 2007/08 above the planned budget.

Cllr Neil Williams warns that ultimately the Labour Council may need to set aside a far bigger sum for the fiasco. And he has questioned claims by the Leader of the Council, at the last Full Council meeting that the situation regarding the lease could be resolved by January.

Cllr Neil Williams, Leader of the Opposition, comments:

“These shocking numbers show that Haringey Council is finally starting to admit the awful scale of the bill that the Haringey taxpayer will now have to face for the catastrophic incompetence and arrogance of Ally Pally bosses.

“The Palace must now start to answer some questions about how this financial disaster is arising and how it is being allowed to continue. Where exactly is all the money going? And how have we reached a situation where an operator in the building can trade, pocketing a good deal of the incoming revenue without a lease having been granted. It is a dreadful situation. How has this been allowed to happen?”

Liberal Democrat Shadow International Development Secretary, Lynne Featherstone MP has uncovered figures showing the millions of pounds English courts have ordered poor countries to pay out to so-called ‘Vulture Funds’.

English courts have awarded £236.7 million to the funds, which buy up poor countries’ debt and then sue for full value plus interest in court.

The statistics, which were released by the World Bank following a request from Lynne Featherstone, reveal the true extent of Britain’s involvement in Vulture Funds.

Lynne Featherstone said:

“Hundreds of millions of pounds are being taken from the poorest people on this planet – money that is desperately needed for basic services like schools, hospitals and sanitation.

“It is like sending the bailiffs round to a homeless person and then roughing them up for their spare change. It brings shame on the British legal system and the foundation of fairness that it was built on.

“Gordon Brown talks at length about justice for Africa. His Government should explore ways of creating an internationally binding system to ensure companies can’t prey on heavily indebted developing countries.

“Failing that, in the interim, the Government should start looking at how our national laws can be changed to bar Vulture Funds from using Britain as a tool to milk heavily indebted poor countries. One solution could be to hold the debts in non-tradable securities – known as VISTA trusts.”

Information uncovered by the Liberal Democrats has exposed a shocking threat made to disabled car users in Haringey. In a letter seen by Lib Dem councillors from the traffic and road safety team to residents, Haringey Council states, “Haringey Council is in the process of removing all of their disabled bays”.

Lib Dems are outraged that residents will have to reapply for their disabled parking space and are dismayed, yet again, at the Council’s blundering approach to consultation and dealing sensitively with the needs of disabled car users.

Cllr Martin Newton, Lib Dem spokesperson for Transport and Highways comments:

“It beggars belief that this Council is incapable of dealing with the public sensitively. If Haringey Council wishes to carry out a “Review” of disabled bays it shouldn’t be hard to send a polite letter. However, to start by threatening to remove all disabled bays and only later to go on to explain how blue badge holders can retain their bay shows the contempt with which this bully-boy Council treats their residents.”

Cllr Winskill (Lib Dem, Crouch End) who was contacted about the letter by a disabled person living in Crouch End comments:

“I was astonished not just at the appalling rudeness of the letter, but at the dreadful spelling and grammar. What made it worse was that the letter carries a logo bragging that Haringey is a Beacon Council for consultation.”

Statement from Haringey Liberal Democrats Council leader, Cllr Neil Williams, following the resignation of Cllr Catherine Harris from Lib Dem group:

“I’m naturally disappointed, as I enjoyed working with Catherine, and indeed, she has until very recently been a strong and vocal critic of Haringey Labour’s handling of housing issues.

“It is most disappointing for the people of Noel Park, who elected a Liberal Democrat councillor after years of Labour neglect of the area. I am sure we will win the seat back, as we have enormous strength and depth in our team.”

Commenting on today’s 71st birthday of the global launch of television, Lib Dem Leader Neil Williams comments:

“Happy birthday television, and what an extraordinary reminder of the priceless global heritage we have at Alexandra Palace here in Haringey.

“How Haringey Labour can even consider allowing anyone to demolish the precious heritage of the TV studios is beyond belief. Let’s hope we are here to celebrate the 72 nd birthday of the TV studios next year.”

The Lib Dems have welcomed the resignation of Labour’s Finance boss, Cllr Charles Adje, from the Chairmanship of the Ally Pally Trading Company following weeks of pressure from the opposition party – but have condemned attempts by the Labour trustees to pack the body (which has a total of four councillors) with a third Labour councillor, a move that was successfully resisted by the Lib Dems at this week’s board meeting.

Charles Adje had attempted to carry on as Chair despite also being the Haringey Council’s Finance boss – exactly the sort of conflict of interest over Alexandra Palace for which Haringey Council had been condemned previously by the government’s Treasury Solicitor, say Lib Dems.

Following the meeting, Labour has now also agreed to take legal advice over Liberal Democrat demands that an additional Lib Dem trustee is appointed to the Trading Company board. The matter is vitally important because Pally bosses, in a brazen attempt to keep the affairs of the Palace a secret, have failed to tell the Trustees on what terms the developers, Firoka, are currently occupying the building, given the failure to complete on the lease that has resulted from the recent High court decision and the earlier expiry of Firoka’s temporary licence to operate.

While they have failed to provide this information despite months of asking, Lib Dems say this would have to be provided to the Trading Company Board. However, the now-removed Chair of the Trading Company Board has refused recent requests to hold a meeting and, the body is now without a chair or a fourth board member.

Lib Dems are suspicious that Labour is trying to stop the appointment of a second Lib Dem board member, as this would effectively prevent Labour from blocking a meeting of the body.

Lib Dem Ally Pally spokesperson, Cllr Bob Hare comments:

“It is an absurd situation that according to Labour, the Trustees are apparently not entitled to know on what terms Firoka are occupying the building. Given our duties as Trustees, this just cannot go on. Any attempts to fix the membership of the Palace Trading Company will be resisted, as we must have fairness and proportionality. I suspect it is yet another utterly cynical attempt to keep embarrassing information from getting to Trustees and to prevent them from doing their job, and it must not be allowed to continue.”

Disturbing figures, unearthed today by Liberal Democrat MP Lynne Featherstone, show that there are now over 2.1 million uninsured vehicles on our roads; this is a rise of 100,000 in just one year and now amounts to 6.5% of the total UK vehicle fleet These figures show that the Department of Transport has grossly underestimated the scale and severity of the problem and their attempts to tackle it have failed miserably.

Ms Featherstone, MP for Hornsey and Wood Green, is calling for a crackdown on this crime as figures from the Association of British Insurers show that uninsured drivers are six times more likely to be driving a non road-worthy vehicle, and ten times more likely to have been convicted of drink driving. As with most crime it is inevitably the law-abiding public that end up footing the bill with uninsured drivers costing us on average £30 more in premiums.

Ms Featherstone said:

“The Government has obviously fallen asleep at the wheel on this one.

“Action must be taken to put a stop to this dangerous and illegal practice. These criminals are costing the taxpayer and endangering lives; they must be taken off the roads immediately.

“The fact that there are 100,000 more uninsured drivers on our roads than last year is completely unacceptable. It’s government without due care and attention; their policies for pursuing uninsured drivers have been a total failure and it’s about time they accepted the facts and took action”

Commenting on the Written Ministerial Statement on IRAQ: ASSISTANCE TO LOCALLY EMPLOYED STAFF, Liberal Democrat Shadow International Development Secretary, Lynne Featherstone MP said:

“British forces lives have dependant on the intelligence and work of these Iraqis- the least we can do is repay the favour.

“The Government is treating these people like they are applying for means tested benefit- not like people who are fleeing for their lives.

“The 12 months service eligibility criteria is ridiculous. Assessed risk, rather than length of service, should be the main criterion for granting asylum or resettlement packages. The death squads in Iraq don’t stop to ask how long interpreters served for us, so why are we?

“To exclude those who worked for British authorities before 2005 and for less than 12 months is unforgivable. This is simply not good enough.

Lib Dems have urged local health officials to come clean over new plans to review health care in Haringey and have called for a major rethink over the location of proposed super health centres. In their formal response to Haringey Primary Care Trust’s (PCT) health care strategy, Liberal Democrats have expressed concern at many weaknesses that, without action, may result in residents suffering from lack of local health services.

In their letter to the PCT, Lib Dems urged the trust to effectively manage the process of GP relocation to ensure that no one area is entirely deprived of local GP surgeries, for the trust to rethink the location of the super health centres and address the situation that two super health centres are located outside of the borough. In this respect they asked that a transport plan be run in conjunction with consultation on centre location.

Lib Dems have also called for the minimum number of GPs that would be needed to move to super health centres to make them financially viable to be made public and for the trust to be clear on what services would be co-located in super health centres and how these would join up with other local services.

Finally, they urged the trust to look first at NHS providers for services in the new health centres to ensure that the services are those that the public can trust and does not add to the fragmentation of the NHS.

Lib Dems launched their 5 point prescription for Hornsey Central Hospital in January this year aiming to ensure the opportunity to improve Haringey health care is not lost by setting out 5 key areas for stakeholders to consider.

Cllr Carolyn Baker, Lib Dem Health Spokesperson, comments:

“The health strategy, although linked with health inequalities particularly in the East of the borough, is not clear on how these inequalities will be addressed. Parity needs to be sought by increasing budgets in areas of health inequality not by reducing budgets in other areas. There is no benefit of robbing Peter to pay Paul.

“I am concerned that moving GPs further away from residents is only likely to put them off from attending for the routine checks that will catch health problems early on. As the services that will be provided at health centres have not yet been detailed we of course hope that a combination of social and health drop in services will be available that will address these concerns.”

Lynne Featherstone MP adds:

“The local residents are very concerned at these proposals as they do not seem to provide a complete picture of what the trust actually intends to do. Of course, we would like to see a more joined up, responsive and local health service, butpeople need reassurance that this is what we are going to get. The Liberal Democrats would like to see a model that retains good local GPs within a couple of streets of residents operating in conjunction with super health centres.”