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Consultation on Haringey Council's £2bn vehicle to go to High Court
Haringey Council tenants will tell a High Court judge that the council’s £2bn development vehicle (HDV) was not properly consulted on.
In a summary of the skeleton argument to be put forward in next week’s court hearing, Haringey resident Gordon Peters revealed that he will challenge the decision to set up the HDV “as a partnership rather than as a company as it is acting for a commercial purpose”.
Mr Peters will also argue that the HDV was not properly consulted on, that the council did not fulfil its obligations under the Equality Act 2010, and that the full council ought to have had an opportunity to vote on the establishment of the vehicle.
As the council and Lendlease, Haringey’s development partner in the vehicle, await the hearing, preparation to establish the HDV has been put on hold, as revealed at a meeting of the housing and regeneration scrutiny committee on 2 October.
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Lyn Garner, strategic director for regeneration, planning and development at the council, told the scrutiny panel that meetings of the shadow board had been suspended. She added: “The reason they were suspended is that Lendlease and the council separately made decisions that it was inappropriate and actually we weren’t really getting that much business done because we had a legal challenge around the HDV.”
Residents have also raised questions about the council’s new estate renewal, rehousing and payments policy, passed at a cabinet meeting last night. Cabinet papers from 3 July stated that the HDV would be exempt from the obligation to provide residents with a right to return and the obligation to rehouse housing association tenants.
Alan Strickland, cabinet member for housing and regeneration, said last night: “That’s simply because there was a timing issue when those documents were drafted and the latest version of this policy hadn’t been agreed. However, the policy says very clearly, ‘this policy applies to all schemes led by the Haringey Development Vehicle and to housing association schemes where Haringey Council determines it has a strategic interest in the scheme’.”
The council said at the meeting that it was in the process of redrafting the agreement between itself and Lendlease to make clear that these policies do apply to the HDV. Paul Burnham, of Haringey Defend Council Housing, called the promises “worthless”.
