Poppycock

Published: 3 June, 2010

• DESPITE all the protests and substantial arguments including the detail given in a House of Commons debate, on March 4 2010, the Crown Estate Commissioners remain unmoved. 

Perhaps encouraged by the tepid response given in that debate and earlier to a Treasury select committee, by the then Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, Sarah McCarthy-Fry. 

The response given to-date by the chairman, Sir Stuart Hampson and chief executive, Roger Bright, can best be described as “poppycock”.

It has been stated that the Crown Estate needs funds for other investments. 

But why now, after some 80 years of ownership and acknowledged good management of these estates should the four estates, Cumberland Market, Millbank, Victoria Park and Lee Green (1,500 homes) be sold to raise finance for other investments?

Why the abandonment now of the hitherto declared beliefs in contributing to the fabric of Britain, with affordable homes in the East End, preserving the heritage and protecting vulnerable environments, and their stated core values of integrity and stewardship?

The earlier successful sale of London estates by the Church Commissioners to the Grainger plc and Genesis Housing Group partnership, that then began letting and selling vacant flats at market prices, set a guiding precedent. 

Parliamentary supremacy should now be upheld by the intervention of the new government in support of the “will of the people”.

BRYAN LATTER
Burrard Road, NW6