Tuesday 9 March 2010

Kennet Meadows

Remember how in 2002 Mr Salter and Cllr Ruhemann stood up and said "Homes for people, build on Kennet Meadows"? Then they U-turned and said "Don't". Yes, we do remember. Now an email from the Prudential's property arm has been acquired, presumably by Cllr Ruhemann or Cllr Lovelock, as the email purports to have been sent to the Chief Executive of Reading Borough Council, who is not a corrupt political stooge as his predecessor was, and has been reproduced on the Silly Boys website. In case you haven't seen it it goes like this:

Excerpt from email from David Morris to Michael Coughlin 5.3.2010:


As discussed, I took over the running of the Development Team here at PRUPIM in June last year; since then I have been working closely with Prudential Assurance Company Limited (PAC) to reassess its ongoing strategic land commitments, including Kennet Valley Park (KVP) or Kennet Meadows as you may know it.

As an important and key stakeholder in the Reading Area and (more particularly), someone who has shown great personal interest in the KVP project over the years, I thought it was important that we extended the courtesy of conveying directly to you some important news about the future of the project.

PAC has taken onboard the fact that South West Reading SDA failed to secure an allocation in the newly published South East Plan (SEP), but PAC's main concerns have more recently focused on the long-term commercial viability of the project.

The Fund has now concluded that the project is no longer capable of delivering appropriate levels of return to its investors, bearing in mind the risk involved.

To conclude, therefore, a formal notice has now been served by PAC to terminate the Consortium Landowners Agreement (made between PAC, Tarmac, Hanson, Cemex and Bucknell Brothers), which brings the collaboration between those parties on this project to a close.

PAC now intends to examine ways in which it can dispose of its land holdings within the KVP project area, as they are clearly no longer of any strategic importance. To be clear, activities at Green Park remain unaffected.

I don't know if Mr Morris knew to what use his email would be put, and it doesn't matter. But if you are in the business world or in any other field which might at some time communicate with Reading Borough Council, then be warned - under the current council leadership of Zim One Lovelock and a few desperate men you could find your words prayed in aid for the corrupt little clique that is the leadership of Reading Labour Party.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I don't see the problem. The e-mail was not confidential and the details have appeared in the local press.

janestheone said...

ah yes, the local press, that repository of the unvarnished truth, silly me. My point was that whatever its content the email was sent by a Prudential employee to the Chief Executive of Reading Borough Council. Prudential is no friend to the Labour Party and in their place I would not be happy to see my emails used as part of an election campaign. Let the leadership of Reading Borough Council and Reading Labour Party take "credit" for "saving" Kennet Meadows if they wish, legitimate election tactics, but reproducing an email in this way strikes me as unprofessional and a possible abuse of office. Also I think it is a fair question as to whether Prudential and/or the author of the email knew it was going to be used/had been used in this way, and if so what they think about it. And you tell me the email was not confidential, you clearly have better access to the computers of Reading Borough Council officers than I do.

Anonymous said...

From my experience, regulated financial services companies always put a standard disclaimer at the bottom of their e-mails, explaining that the message is for the use of the recipient only. I will wager that such a notice was at the bottom of this particular e-mail as well.

Anonymous said...

Any company that writes to a council must be aware that its letter or e-mail might be published under Freedom of Information legislation. I am an old hand at demolishing claims of "commercial confidentiality".

janestheone said...

quite so, anonymous 1518, my question is about the motives of the Silly Boys in publishing the email on their website, rather than making their own public statement, and about what the man from the Pru thought about it