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Next Haringey Council can scrap development vehicle, says departing leader
Haringey Council will leave the decision on its controversial development vehicle to the next council, its leader Claire Kober has announced as she reveals plans to step down.
Ms Kober, leader of the council, today revealed in a letter that she will step down following the council elections in May.
Writing to Andrew Gwynne, shadow secretary of state for communities and local government, Ms Kober said she would allow her successor to decide whether to continue with the £4bn Haringey Development Vehicle (HDV).
After 21 pro-HDV councillors were deselected by local members, the next council leader is expected to be against the HDV.
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It was already expected that after the May elections, Ms Kober would lose a vote to remain leader, but there were some suggestions that she would sign the HDV contract before that happened.
Deselected councillors voted recently to continue with the plans in spite of deselections.
This led anti-HDV councillors to write to Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC), which intervened against the proposals last week.
Ms Kober was responding to Mr Gwynne’s invitation to mediation following this vote.
Refusing the offer, Ms Kober wrote: “I am deeply disappointed that no attempt was made by the NEC members who wanted to raise the issue of Haringey’s housing policies to contact me before, during or immediately after last week’s meeting.”
She added: “Given the proximity that there now is to the council’s purdah period – and the current context of febrile politics in which the reality and facts about the housing crisis and possible solutions such as the HDV are able to command less attention than the misinformation put about – I do not intend to take a final decision on the set-up of the HDV in the last weeks of the current council administration.”
Ms Kober’s announcement of her future resignation comes a day before a scheduled vote on the HDV by full council on Wednesday, brought by the Liberal Democrats.
Ms Kober was elected as chair of the umbrella group London Councils in July 2016, a period in which it has campaigned prominently on housing issues and policies affecting London.
