This is a summary of where we are with the Mill Lane Project - the 'project' being the Society's attempt to ensure that the eventual development of the Mill Lane site is the most favourable deal we can bring about, within the constraints of the (as yet unapproved) Core Strategy, the effective SBDC design brief for the site implicit in their planning refusal criteria and the general policy of your Society regarding that site. The following material is the outcome of a detailed discussion with Heather Lindsey who, by virtue of the pole position she occupies in that site, is keeping herself fully briefed on the situation. Ed.
As you will know, we had a pretty full campaign on our hands between 2007 and 2009. In May 2007, the site owners, Watchword, tried to sell off the site and the period culminating with the withdrawal at the 11th hour of the planning proposal submitted by Watchword in 2009, following the huge number of objections which were received by SBDC's planners. Not many months later, in June, the company was put into Administration by the Irish Nationwide Building Society (INBS), who had lent them the £30M to purchase the property. The debt against the company will by now have risen by now to something like £50M, in addition to other unpaid debts to contractors, surveyors and planning consultants.
Following the collapse of the Irish banking system, non-performing assets owned by Irish banks have been transferred, at a heavy discount, into NAMA, the Irish government's newly created National Assets Management Agency. NAMA functions as a 'Bad Bank' whose role has been to bale out Irish Banks in financial trouble. In the case of INBS, the bank itself has been restructured and consolidated with the EBS, another Irish building society. Information we've been able to find in newspapers and on the net puts the discount on properties taken out of INBS at 73% as opposed to average discounts of around 30%
The Irish bank then transferred the heavily discounted loan to the Irish National Assets Management Agency (NAMA). NAMA was set up by the Irish government in late 2009 as a direct response to the general financial crisis and the deflation of the Irish property bubble. NAMA functions as a 'bad bank' whose role is to bail out banks in financial trouble, by taking over ‘toxic’ loans that are almost certain to be written off as losses. For taking on this risk NAMA discounted the transfer of the Towntalk money by a socking great 73% (whereas the average discount is 30%).
Had Watchword gone into liquidation the implication for us would have been that the site would have been sold off to any interested party, almost certainly as small lots. This would not have been good news for us since we would then have been dealing with multiple planning applications where each developer might have been competing for the best possible return, regardless of the overall amenity value of the whole site.
As things stand, it appears that these assets will be converted to government bonds, which effectively means that not only did the HMRC lose the tax (like you and me) but the Irish taxpayers now own the Mill site!
The administration of the site has been put into the hands of a London based accountancy company called BDO. This is the London office of the world’s fifth largest accountancy body so are we in good hands? - or are we just small beer? There may be truth in the latter view since the original mandate given to BDO was to complete the process of administration within 12 months. That time expired and they applied for and were granted a 6-month extension, which ends on December 23rd this year. We have no information about what is to happen if they fail to finalise the whole thing by that time. It is possible that the Administrative status can roll on for a further 6 months after that. Or will they go to a forced sale to rid themselves of the embarrassment of this site?
Since BDO is an accountancy company, they will have realised that the value of the site (and their fees) is worth much more with, rather than without, planning permission. So it would appear to be in their interest as well as that of the Irish taxpayer to get a plan accepted by SBDC before trying to sell it. At the time of writing they have just about two months to put something together and currently there is no evidence of developers or planning people roaming round the site, nor of any consultation with the locals. It is understood that there are at least two large developers circling the campfire. I wonder if the SBDC Core strategy is being monitored by BDO? The Core Strategy as presently drafted serves us well since it incorporates the basics of the design brief that came out of the refusal to approve the Towntalk plan. The Watchword owners (and, it rumoured, the Gas Board) have tried hard to get the Core Strategy altered in their favour and until the Strategy Document is finally approved there is still room for this pressure to continue, this time from London.
There are interesting possibilities too in the Gas Board site. About 10 years ago there was an attempt to develop the Mill Lane site as a whole and the Gas Board signified their interest in making their land available for the proposed major office block. This option is again open and indications are that the Gas Board would dearly love to remove their gas holder and release the land for development, probably for housing rather than offices. The northernmost part of the site is not suitable for housing because of flood risk (in spite of the Jubilee River) so this raises the interesting possibility of setting aside that area for a wildlife reserve and maybe producing a more suitable footpath strategy from the proposed Boulters Lock footbridge.
It is noticeable that the Paper Mill site is still in some form of use, probably illegally, since there are large boats now moored on the riverside, which are accessed directly from Mill Lane, and highly visible from the Maidenhead bank. These are residential boats and could give a long-term tenancy right to the squatters unless South Bucks wakes up and does something about it.
In retrospect it would appear that we (your Society) did pretty much the right thing in the way we campaigned for a better deal than Towntalk were prepared to offer, and we did make a difference. The question now on the table is this: Will we be as ready for the inevitable next round? The situation has changed dramatically since we now have not only the nascent Core Strategy as a framwork but also a pretty comprehensive design brief which more or less spells out the conditions a new developer would have to satisfy in order for the planning proposal to be treated seriously. This actually benefits any new developer, since all they have to do is to stay within that brief. However, it is possible that the brief actually makes the site a more uneconomic proposition to develop and so it is uncertain whether this is a good thing or not from our standpoint.
Your society is developing a number of ideas for a more Taplow-friendly use of the site which may or may not be the kind a thing a developer and SBDC want to see happen. We therefore need to develop these various ideas in more detail before the day arrives when the next development proposal drops into the SBDC letterbox.
Fred Russell
