Thursday, November 29, 2007

Some more Friends in the North (East)

Property developers seem to be cropping up every where at the moment don't they? Take Sterling Capitol Group PLC who have many different limited company subsidiaries across Yorkshire, and up into the North East doing regeneration work in partnership with Government agencies.

For example, Sterling Capitol Group PLC are currently redeveloping Capitol Park Goole in partnership with Yorkshire Forward, who are the regional development quango that reports directly into the Government. Just for reference it should be noted that Sterling Capitol have given donations to the Labour Party of £170,000 in the past three years.

Electoral Commission screenshot. Click for large version

One other thing, the company Chairman is Bob Murray CBE, former chairman of Sunderland Football Club, and also a personal Labour donor. He's made two donations, the first of £25,000 in November 2002, and the second of £100,000 in February 2003. He received his CBE in the New Years Honours list announced in December 2002. Former Chief Whip Hilary Armstrong was a regular guest of Murray's at Sunderland matches.


Electoral Commission screenshot. Click for large version

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Goole is only the latest of 5 Capitol Park developments (Leeds, Thorne(Doncaster), Normanton (Wakefield), Dodsworth (Barnsley) being the others. In total some £440 m of retail, office and industrial space in a area about 30 miles of M1 / M18 / M62.

The Sterling Capitol web site for the Barnsely project reveals that £2.65 m of the projected £60m investment is being met by Objective One public grants, and the Barnsley Development Agency has both capital and revenue money to give away to potential tenants.

I expect if anyone has time to follow up on the other developments they will find similar public subsidy for otherwise non-economic projects.

Not bad for a few hundred thou in "donations".

Anonymous said...

little wonder then, that Brown wants to build 3 million new homes.

kinglear said...

What do you expect? There is a northern tradition of lining your own pocket, preferrably looking wonderfully respectable whilst doing it ( Sir this Lord that and OBE the other).
Interestingly, it appears to stop round about Birmingham - but then the area has many more Tories to keep an eye on things.
And Scop
tland now has it's own scandal. Wendy( Douglas's sister)Alexander took at least £25,000 from an assumed name as the donor was overseas and NOT registered to vote.According to the story, she "checked" with London (presumably Medelson or Watt) that it was OK.Or it could have been the office cleaner. Yeah right

Anonymous said...

A few more snippets on Sterling Capitol

Land for Goole site was purchased from Yorkshire Forward (can't yet track down the price). £56m funding for development from Bank Of Scotland / HBOS (wot not NR!!). Core tenant is a Tesco distribution centre with 25 years lease at about £3.4m p.a. BoS loans and Tesco also central to Barnsley development.

Praguetory said...

It'd have to be worth your while to have to put up with Armstrong's company.

Verbatim quote - "We never boast enough about Labour's achievements" Hillary Armstrong August 2006

Nicodemus said...

If this was a private company - it would be money laundering, ure and simple.
Corrupt graft. We need an ICAC like they had in Hong Kong tosolve this level of corruption.

Anonymous said...

It's a dumbed up version of the old boys network.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous 12.50, this is probably what Ray Ruddick meant when he told the BBC that the money for Abrahams' donations 'came from Labour and goes back to Labour'.(2 1/2 minutes onwards.)

Anonymous said...

Blimey! Have any of you actually been to Goole? Well I live here & I can tell you it's currently a s**t hole - any development of any kind ceased in about 1972 - so most of us don't give a damn who's putting money into the town because if it helps drag some of the people round here out of grinding, old-fashioned, 1970s-style poverty then who cares!

Anonymous said...

Sterling Capitol PLC

Intersted in Sterling Capitol PLC and all the financial mysteries?

Then hurry up because Renaissance South Yorkshire Limited who doles out the European Regional Development Funding - without too many questions asked - is going into liqidation early 2009.

Renaissance archives hold a lot of good info which just might be put to the torch - hurry - ask for copies of Sterling Capitol PLC and subsidiaries (there are many of them)Claims Invoices under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Makes Superb reading for my friends in North east and of course Anonymous struggling with the Goole job