How far are the
tax paying public being ripped off by the privatisation of the Royal mail?
When the sale of
the publicly owned royal Mail was being discussed and debated most of the
debate centred on the delivery service and it being kept as a unified service
and one price structure for the whole country.
Of course this
suited the Tories whilst all the discussion and media reporting focused on this
no-one was questioning what is going to happen to all of the buildings and land
included in the sell(rip)off. These publicly owned assets were ignored in
the debate and not one member of the Government was ever questioned on this. By
sleight of hand this privatisation bill was rushed through parliament with very
little debating time in parliament. Of course the Liberal democrats are not an
innocent party in this “Crime of the Century”.
The venture
capitalists must be laughing all the way as they count their shares and bank
their millions of pound bonuses at the tax payer’s expense.
The Mount
Pleasant Post Office, one of the largest in Europe, is being redeveloped for a
new £100 million housing development. The original plans under the public
ownership of the Royal Mail the aim was to have 50% social housing and the
planning and development was being overseen by the London Borough of Islington
and Camden. Now it has been privatised the developers want to cut the social
housing to 12%.
The
Guardian
Normally
planning permission is overseen and granted by the local authority, in this
case due to the overlapping of the boundaries at Mount Pleasant it would have
been the London Boroughs of Islington and Camden. The private developers did
not like this or the amount of social housing they would have to build thus
cutting their profit margin. So they decided to refer it to our very own Mayor
of London, Boris Johnson to call it in and for our democratically elected Mayor
to decide on what proportion of social housing there will be.
Camden
New Journal
In an
unprecedented move Mayor Johnson decided to call it in and he will now
personally decide on the future of the development although it will be under
the disguise of the Greater London Authority which dear Boris controls.
A mayoral decision is will be announced this
summer.
Summer
Light
The winner is Boris
the Great Dictator
and of course
his cronies in the City,
The Loser is Local
Democracy
and the people
of London who cannot afford high rents.
“Calling It In”
means that the Boris Johnson himself will act as the Planning Authority and not
the local councils of Islington and Camden. Our esteemed leader alone will now
make the decision as to the future of the Royal Mail Group, (RGM), development and
how much social housing there will be.
Is this not
undermining the local authority(ies) and local democracy? This precedent will
allow any developer who does not agree with a local council decision to apply
to the Mayor to bypass the will of the local people and a democratically
elected council.
Mount Pleasant Forum
When it comes to
money and profit the big City Slickers and developers do not care about the
needs of the local people but only the profit margin. What chance does
democracy and the common person have when big business and the Dark Forces of
the City of London have a very good friend in the Mayor of London, your friend
and mine “Boris the Great Oaf”?
Knowing Boris
our leader of a democratic Greater London Authority he will come up with some
random number of social housing and claim he has achieved a great victory for
the people of Islington and Camden who need social housing. Never to mention
the fact that it is far lower than what was originally planned.
McTaggart
