In yet another twist to the goings on over the tendering process for the land at the former Pemberton Colliery Site at Goose Green, Wigan. The Mayor of Wigan has admitted passing on e-mails to his son over the issue. But escaped with no penalties at all by the Labour dominated standards sub committee.
Last year a recent Local Government Ombudsman report criticised the way Wigan council (aka Lord Smith) had dealt with the tendering process for the Land, ordering it to pay compensation to one of the bidders Mike Cotta who runs Winstanley sports club.
The land and building off Anthorn road was originally earmarked for sale in 2009 but the council reconsidered its sale after bids were made for it by sports clubs led by two local councillors, the late Rona Winkworth and the current Mayor of Wigan William Rotherham.
A complaint to the Ombudsman about their bids resulted in an investigation finding that the process had not been made public, resulting in those two Councillors bids having an unfair advantage over other sports clubs.
www.lgo.org.uk/news/2013/nov/wigan-metropolitan-borough-council-denies-community-sports-club-chance-run-disused-facilities/
After the initial investigation by the Ombudsman the council opened the tendering process up. Council officials found that a new bid by rivals Winstanley sports club, had the strongest bid and best business case. However in a u turn the Labour run cabinet decided not to grant that club use of the land, except on the condition it worked with one of the unsuccessful bidders, Winstanley Warriors football club, whose President Shaun Rotherham is the son of current Mayor William Rotherham.
When this partnership didn’t materialise, the council decided in 2012 to look at selling the land for property development. This generated another investigation into the tendering process by the Ombudsman, who found no evidence or reasoning behind the Councils latest decision to refuse to work with the best bidder and found there were flaws in the Council’s decision not to award the land and community centre to the rival bid. (paragraph 44 to 46 of the Ombudsman’s report)
Wigan council has now agreed with the Ombudsman to pay compensation to the rival sports club bidder and revisit the original decision. (page 5 of the Ombudsman’s report)
A local spokesperson for UKIP said ‘once you start looking into the actions of the Labour run council in the tendering process the worse it sounds.’ ‘Councillors in the know only being allowed to tender, public and press excluded from meetings, redacted minutes, Councillors with personal and family interests involved in the tendering process, e-mails being sent to rival bidders by Councillors’ ‘These are the actions of a third world country not a democratically elected council.’
‘Lord Smith and the Mayor need to explain their decisions to the people of Wigan because it’s taxpayers who are paying for this’ ‘It is clear from the investigation that someone else won the bid to use the land fair and square. Lord Smith needs to explain why he moved the goal posts and offered joint use of the land to a losing tender’ ‘This closed door policy and the lack of transparency except to a select few in the local Labour party, raises into doubt how above board the whole process is’
‘If this has happened in one tendering process, has it happened in others?’
‘The people of Wigan are starting to tire of the shenanigans that go on in Wigan town hall and they need to be held accountable. They should be given a full and frank explanation by Lord Smith of Leigh and Mayor Rotherham’
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