Peter Bill: Squaring up over Finsbury Square

Will Bailey of Planit Events is determined to build a new venue

24 April 2014

Will Bailey of Planit Events is fed up with Islington Council for blocking his plans to build an underground hospitality centre beneath Finsbury Square to rival the Great Room at Grosvenor House.

Islington council is fed up with Bailey for pestering it for years, when it’s surely perfectly clear it does not want a party venue for 2500 folk under its freehold turf.

Bailey last month received a pained letter from the council, telling him never to darken the town hall doorstep again. The missive began: “The council officers who are engaged in dealing with your [Freedom of Information] requests are in an incredibly distressed state.” It ended 500 words later with a refusal for further FOI data, under the “vexatious request” clause.

Bailey will keep vexing the council, as he made clear over a cup of coffee last week. Don’t take this to mean the 57-year-old Radley-educated owner of Planit is a member of the Green Ink brigade. He is a bit obsessed, yes, but affable, articulate and utterly convinced of a case that a degree in estate management from the Royal Agricultural College helps him prosecute.

“I would rather be spending my time trying to achieve the objective in regenerating Finsbury Square. Until then, I am having to weigh up my options as I ask the council more and more questions about what really did happen,” he says.

What really did happen would require a carefully legalled book to describe. The crux of the issue is a dispute over how much Islington’s freehold in the square would be worth if Planit and the current leaseholders, including Blackstone and the Church Commissioners, were allowed by the planners (also Islington) to build a 6.5-metre high box to seat 2500 diners.

Permission was granted in 2006. The 2008 crash delayed the start of the £30 million project. Then, in late 2009, Islington — wearing its freeholder hat — said a valuation by agents Cushman & Wakefield showed the transaction did not represent “best consideration” for the council. By then, Planit had spent more than £1 million working up the plans.

A war of words began that continues to this day. A council spokesman said this week: “Islington Council has an obligation to seek best consideration for land it holds. In this case we took independent valuation advice.”

Bailey has taken valuation advice of his own, from Knight Frank to start with and last month from an independent valuer. Both support Planit’s case. Bailey says the council has refused to show him an actual original of C&W valuation.

The council says enough is enough. “You seem rarely satisfied with the responses you receive, with a sense that the council is deliberately withholding information and that there is high-level subterfuge going on,” last month’s letter said.

That pretty much sums up Bailey’s view. He is now considering suing the council for the £1.5 million of costs and countless man hours racked up to date. But, before that, there was one more letter to vex the council. On April 7, he complained to the Information Commissioner over Islington’s handling of his complaints.

Fiat dynasty's Elkann in the driving seat at Cushman

John Elkann, 38, was last week appointed chairman of Cushman & Wakefield, the 16,000-strong property agent controlled by the Italian Agnelli dynasty.

Elkann is the curly-haired grandson of the late Gianni Agnelli. That’s why he got the job. But the lanky engineer, whose marriage to Princess Lavinia Borromeo in 2004 was billed the “wedding of the decade”, has plenty of other jobs. For Elkann is the Agnelli capo di famiglia.

He is boss of Exor, a $10 billion (£5.9 billion) holding company with stakes in Fiat, Chrysler and football club Juventus. Why Cushman & Wakefield needs a chairman as well as a president and chief executive in the shape of newly appointed Edward Forst, 53, is not known.

But Elkann’s closer involvement will revive rumours of M&A activity. These regularly surround Cushman — more so now the firm 30% owned by its partners is in good shape. Revenues rose 22% to $2.5 billion in 2013, lifting profits by 10.5% to $145 million.

Buyers canvassed for Canaletto

A gold star for marketing to Aref Lahham of Orion Capital Managers. The fund manager is behind the 31-storey Canaletto residential tower, rising on City Road.

Former architectural critic Dan Cruickshank, him off the telly, is to give a talk on “responsibility in architecture and building high in London” at the launch of the Beaumont Collection of flats on the top floors on May 15.

As the world of architecture knows, residential towers are now Bad Things — especially those designed by bad, but unfingered, architects. Perhaps by judgment rather than luck, Orion chose celebrated Dutch architect Ben van Berkel for its tower. JLL and Knight Frank have sold 140 lower-floor flats for £1100-£1500 a square foot — sky-high for the area. Cruickshank’s presence will help assure future buyers this Canaletto is no cheap fake.

Way to go on rail land purchases?

London’s outer boroughs need to wake up to the impact Crossrail will have on local economies, says a report published yesterday by Future of London.

It contains a 20-point checklist assembled by property agent GVA and engineer Arup. An interesting recommendation is that a practice first used in Victorian times should be adopted — one that will help pay for a north-south Crossrail 2 from Epsom to Cheshunt, plus HS2 to all points north.

Put crudely, it’s this: compulsorily purchase land around the proposed stations at existing value — say £5000 an acre for a hayfield on HS2 or £250,000 an acre for industrial land in north London for Crossrail 2. Then sell the land for homes and shops for millions per acre. Bingo. What can go wrong? Imagine how fed up landowners along HS2 are already feeling...

Peter Bill: Squaring up over Finsbury Square

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Fiat dynasty's Elkann in the driving seat at Cushman

Buyers canvassed for Canaletto

Way to go on rail land purchases?