Lord Stanley Fink’s advice to Camden Council: Don’t demolish the Town Hall – just fix the lifts

Published: 13th January, 2011
by RICHARD OSLEY

ONE of the country’s most successful businessmen has warned the Town Hall it is taking a massive financial gamble with its plans to build new headquarters in King’s Cross.

Lord Stanley Fink said the project to sell the annexe building attached to the main Town Hall and relocate offices to the Railway Lands site could be fraught with financial danger.

In a message that could come back to haunt Labour councillors if they approve the project and it fails to be a success, Lord Fink told the New Journal last night (Wednesday): “A business would never take on this business model. There is too much danger here. There is no buffer in the finances for if things go wrong.”

Cabinet members are expected to agree the sale next Wednesday with council strategists insisting that the annexe’s history of broken lifts and regular need for repairs mean it is no longer affordable. Critics say refurbishment would be cheaper and less riskier than the “vanity project” being embarked on.

Lord Fink, a hedge fund manager known for his annual multi-million-pound charitable donations and position as co-treasurer to the Conservative Party, added: “From the information I have seen they are spending £92million for a £600,000 saving, which is 1 per cent of the whole thing. If things go wrong by 1 per cent then the council will start to be in the red.”

He said the council could not be sure about how interest rates would affect the deal and  warned changing land prices would make it difficult to zero in on bud­get without more wriggle room on the accounts.

“Some businesses would ask for 20/25 in contingency for a project like this,” he said.

Lord Fink is a member of the Friends of Argyle Square and owns one of the apartments in the refurbished St Pancras Station scheme. Last November, he was made a peer. Lord Fink said: “The reports talk about all the carbon that will be saved. When you demolish a building like this, you have to look at its carbon footprint and the energy taken up with knocking it down.”

The King’s Cross Conservative Advisory Area Committee has argued for the past two years that Camden is making a mistake and members from the group joined Lord Fink in a meeting with council officers this week to make clear their worries. 

Labour councillors in the neighbourhood also opposed the idea when they were in opposition but the group has embraced the idea since winning control of the council last May. 

Cabinet level members have agreed to acquire the Railway Lands site in principle but at Wednesday’s meeting they will decide whether the sale of the annexe should be approved.

Lord Fink added: “The annexe building as it is is quirky. It might not be what you would build if you started from scratch there, but it would be financially better for the council, when they are trying to make savings, to just fix the lifts.”