TRICKERY! DECEIT! MANIPULATION!

Looks like Dispatches and The Evening Standard have a stunning expose on the people St George pay to make sure they get planning permission....

TRICKERY, DECEIT, MANIPULATION
From The Evening Standard  -   30/07/2007 (2358 words)
Features

Revealed: the story behind one of London's Revealed: the story behind one of London's most controversial new developments

BY ANDREW GILLIGAN

The Company That Lobbies Planners For Leading Housebuilders And Big Retailers Such As Sainsbury's Stands Accused Of These Underhand Tactics Over The Gigantic Imperial Wharf Scheme: EVEN before our disclosures today about the extraordinary allegations of forgery, impersonation and even bugging that surround it, Imperial Wharf, by the Thames in Fulham, was probably the capital's most controversial housing project.

The developers, St George, describe this 1,600-apartment mega-complex, still under construction, as 'a vivid and eagerly awaited addition to the London skyline'. They say nearly half consists of affordable homes and it is bringing the area a new railway station, restaurants and park. The Mayor, Ken Livingstone, calls Imperial Wharf 'a template of what I want to see across London'.

To its neighbours, Imperial Wharf has been rather less eagerly awaited. 'If this is a template for the rest of London, God help us,' says Brendan Bird, the area's former Labour councillor. Greg Hands, the local Tory MP and also a former Fulham councillor, calls it an 'unpopular' and 'soulless' failure.

Local residents point out that the park is fenced off from the public and there is still no sign of the station, two years after it was meant to open. The supposedly 'affordable' housing, tucked away at the back by the railway, costs as much as £425,000 for a two-bedroom flat, making it easily the most expensive in Britain. Even on the cheapest possible shared-ownership basis, such a flat would cost £400 a week.

On the 'market housing' side of the scheme, the cheapest flat currently available - a two-bedder on the ground floor - costs £600,000. The majority sell for around the £1 million mark.

But it is the revelations we make today that may really come to haunt Imperial Wharf. Our joint investigation with Channel 4's Dispatches programme has uncovered allegations that the development - and other controversial schemes - came about as they did only thanks to manipulation, trickery and deceit.

The story starts in 1998, when St George first sought planning permission. To win its case, St George hired a lobbying company called PPS, which describes its remit as 'securing demonstrable support for planning applications from those that might not normally bother to express their views'.

Imperial Wharf was a tough proposition. The local residents' association, ARISE, had called the scheme a 'social disaster'. Councillors of both main parties, including Brendan Bird and Greg Hands, were against. Hundreds of letters of objection had been written to the council. 'There was very widespread opposition and I have never met anyone who is enthusiastic about Imperial Wharf, to be honest,' says Mr Hands now.

Suddenly, the atmosphere changed. Councillors on the planning committee, including Mr Hands, started to get dozens of letters, apparently from local residents, praising Imperial Wharf in extravagant terms and asking for it to be approved at once.

Mr Hands said: 'Normally on a planning committee you get a lot of letters but pretty much always they are from people opposed to developments. In all my five years on the planning committee, I think these were probably the only letters I ever received in favour of a development.'

The letters were one of several factors that helped swing the council in favour of the development. But we have learned that many of them were forgeries.

One letter to Mr Hands, purportedly from local resident Linford White, said: 'It seems an eternity since the St George scheme in Sands End [Imperial Wharf] was first suggested. Why on earth is everything taking so long? It is just what we need in this area... Please stop talking about it and get on with it. We want to see the benefits in our lifetime.'

We tracked down Mr White, who told us: 'I have never seen this letter before in my life. I was away in the Caribbean when this scheme was being discussed. It is not my signature and these are not my views. I was against Imperial Wharf and I had no idea that my name had been used in this way.'

Another letter, apparently from Adam Stylianides, a near-neighbour of Mr White, said: 'As a local resident who will be materially affected by this scheme, I give it my backing for a number of reasons. It does not perpetuate industry on the site... and the arrival of thousands of extra residents could herald a new station.'

Mr Stylianides, a roofer, said: 'It looks like somebody has forged this letter in my name. The first time I saw it was when you showed it to me. I'm absolutely sure I never sent it. Nothing on there is what I would have written, apart from the bit about the station. I wouldn't even think of using words like 'perpetuate'.'

Mr Stylianides said he had been called on at home by a representative who claimed he was from St George asking for his views on Imperial Wharf. 'I signed a letter saying I was against the scheme,' he said. 'My signature has been taken and my words have been totally twisted to the exact opposite. I am angry, and I am wondering how many other people have been hoodwinked like this.'

Most of the other writers of 'positive letters' sent to the council cannot be traced and do not seem to exist, appearing neither on the current Fulham electoral roll nor on the electoral register in place at the time.

Somebody faked these letters. Was it PPS? Internal company documents leaked to us by concerned PPS employees make interesting reading.

Among the documents we have seen is a letter written by the then PPS director in charge of the Imperial Wharf account, Nick Keable, describing the company's methods. The letter, a pitch to another developer, says: 'We have created a large number of letters for projects as diverse as power stations, quarries and supermarkets. A campaign of this kind is labour intensive, but does yield very helpful results.

'PPS has conducted a campaign of this kind for St George as part of their programme to secure planning permission for Imperial Wharf. A steady stream of positive letters, garnered by PPS, has helped to right the balance in St George's favour, and helped shape the perceptions of public opinion that are held by councillors, [council] officers and the media.'

Mr Keable refused to discuss this letter yesterday and put the phone down when asked about it by the Standard. However, he described the allegations of forgery as 'entirely false'.

Among the other allegations of sharp practice used in support of Imperial Wharf is impersonation. Brendan Bird told us how he was visited at home by two people claiming to be PhD students.

'They said they were doing a research project about planning, and had taken Imperial Wharf as a case study,' said Mr Bird. 'I didn't suspect them. You take people at face value. But I was surprised how old they were for students.'

The Standard has been leaked a script from PPS to use when talking to councillors during its fight to win planning permission for a new Sainsbury's Homebase store in Market Harborough.

In it, PPS advises its employee to say: 'My name is Andrew Macdonald. I am a student of politics writing a thesis on planning in local government. My particular area of interest is Market Harborough.' A series of detailed questions about the councillors' views on the superstore development follows. Mr Bird said: 'This is exactly it. It's the same model that was used with me.'

He also told how mysterious new members joined the meetings of ARISE, the local residents' association. 'A few people turned up who frankly we'd never seen before, and in particular there was one gentleman. He was very hard-working, and - you know how it is in community associations - he rose to become chair very quickly.'

Mr Bird said the new chair, who called himself Iain Millar, steered ARISE towards a 'more ambivalent' position over Imperial Wharf and reduced its campaigning against the development. 'The day after the planning permission for Imperial Wharf was granted,' said Mr Bird. 'Iain disappeared and no one has ever seen him since. We thought about trying to find him, but we didn't know where to look.'

But perhaps the most controversial tactic from which PPS benefited was clandestine recording. The Standard has been leaked - from within PPS - a 20-page verbatim transcript of a private meeting of councillors at which tactics over the Imperial Wharf site were discussed.

Mr Bird said: 'I am gobsmacked. This was our private meeting. How did they get that? It is word for word. This would have been incredibly valuable information. They would have known our concerns, our areas of satisfaction, everything. That is a bugging. I think we were being bugged.'

PPS's information-gathering operation fed into a series of dossiers which it compiled about councillors with power over planning. One, leaked to the Standard, entitled Politics and Planning in the London Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, includes detailed, often unflattering commentary on the borough councillors' private views and personalities.

One Kensington councillor is described as a 'flamboyant bachelor' with a 'theatrical manner... arrogant and petulant, he is by no means liked'. Another is described as being on an 'ego trip' and a third is said to exhibit 'bluster.'

The council as a whole is described as 'one of the wealthiest in the country... The Borough is therefore extremely difficult to bully by threatening to go to a lengthy and expensive planning enquiry, or to bribe through a generous planning obligation package'.

The Kensington dossier was compiled as part of PPS's campaign to win planning permission for Wycombe Square, a new scheme of £2 million luxury homes on the site of a former covered reservoir and tennis club off Campden Hill Road, Kensington.

The application was enormously controversial, attracting national media coverage and opposition from, among others, Sir Evelyn de Rothschild, Sir Harold Pinter and Lady Antonia Fraser, who live nearby. However, following PPS's intervention, the developer, St James, won permission for the development and it has now been built.

In another campaign, for the Meat and Livestock Commission (MLC), leaked PPS documents describe how the organisation worked to 'generate' letters to local newspapers, apparently from members of the public, to support the reinstatement of beef on school menus.

'The majority of letters are ghost-written by PPS, although a few are written independently,' the leaked document says. The document says the 'writers' of the letters were found by 'cold-calling' and stopping people on the street.

Three former PPS employees, tracked down by the Standard, confirmed the information we have received and told us that they left the company because they had 'serious concerns' about its working methods. Another said that the documents we had been leaked represented the 'tip of the iceberg'.

In a statement, PPS told the Standard that it could not provide definitive answers to our questions about Imperial Wharf. It said its involvement in the project had begun almost 10 years ago and in accordance with normal company practice it had destroyed its files. It said it had 'no knowledge' of any impersonation or bugging having taken place, adding: 'PPS has never forged letters or misused the signatures on letters.

'However, we can confirm that we do encourage letter-writing by supporters of schemes we are working on. This means that the silent majority - who are often supporters of a development or neutral about it - are encouraged to make their views heard.

'Nimbyism is a very real problem for housebuilders trying to secure planning permission and it is important that supporters of schemes, as well as opponents, speak out.'

The Standard has not obtained evidence that St George, Sainsbury's, the MLC or any of PPS's other clients knew of the activity undertaken on their behalf. Tony Carey, managing director of St George, said: 'We would not condone forging letters or misusing signatures. It would be both unethical and unnecessary since there was a groundswell of support at the time.'

However, even after planning permission was finally granted, the Imperial Wharf development continued to be surrounded by sharp practice. Earlier this year, it emerged that St George has already built 57 more flats at the development than it had planning permission for. Hammersmith & Fulham Council is taking enforcement action against the developer.

Mr Hands called for an investigation into the allegations against PPS. He said: 'Planning is called a quasi-judicial function of a council and it's taken very seriously. There are large amounts of money involved, and if this did have an influence on the decision, I would be appalled.'

l Dispatches: Britain's Bad Housing is on Channel 4 at 8pm tonight.

KEY PLAYER IN THE LOBBYING INDUSTRY

FROM its headquarters in Mayfair, PPS has become the key player in a little-known corner of the PR industry - the branch that specialises in winning developers planning permission for unpopular schemes.

Local protesters, residents' groups and even council planners may never have heard of PPS but PPS knows all about them. Its 60 staff act as the public face of controversial developments, and run a sophisticated war machine to get those developments past the objectors.

The company was founded 17 years ago by Stephen Byfield, a former staffer for a Labour MP, and Charles St George, an ex-Tory councillor. Its client list reads like a roll-call of the development industry: volume housebuilders, such as Barratt, Wimpey, and Taylor Woodrow; big retailers; quarry owners; and power stations.

Mr St George, now the company's director of special projects, lives on a country estate in Somerset and is described by PPS as having 'expertise in just about everything'.

Mr Byfield remains the managing director of PPS and is heavily involved in BAA's hugely controversial project to expand Stansted Airport.

Comments

[estate agents]

Nice story......

[Danny Flats]

One would expect this kind of scenario wherever politicians are involved. PPS seems to be one of those organisation who will stop at nothing to get there way.

[Rosemary P]

PPS is now fronting the proposed development of the NCP carpark facing Lyric Square in Hammersmith. The plans are currently with the Council.

[Chris C]

Great story - I like this quote:

Mr St George, now the company's director of special projects, lives on a country estate in Somerset and is described by PPS as having 'expertise in just about everything'.