Lewisham council is still seeking a compulsory purchase of land leased by Millwall around the Den, according to an email sent by the borough’s deputy mayor.
Plans to seize the club’s leasehold land were abandoned at the start of the year after widespread outcry at a scheme Millwall say threatens the club’s future at their current home. In January this year Lewisham’s mayor, Steve Bullock, gave in to public pressure and announced that the CPO would “not proceed”.
However, an email sent to all Lewisham councillors by the deputy mayor, Alan Smith, two weeks ago, and seen by the Guardian, appears to confirm the CPO is an ongoing project.
Smith’s email refers to various sites around the Den currently occupied by Millwall and its community trust before concluding: “We are seeking to CPO the lease interest in these sites.The stadium is not included in any of the discussions and is excluded from the CPO and from the planning application made by [the developer] Renewal.”
Smith, who was the object of a public petition last year calling for his resignation, is deputy to Bullock, whose predecessor as mayor, Dave Sullivan, co-founded Renewal, Lewisham’s preferred developer in the scheme. Renewal is offshore-registered.
Smith’s email appears to be an admission that for all the talk about partnerships and periods of calm reflection, Lewisham is still seeking a compulsory purchase of the land, while publicly stating the opposite.
Asked by the Guardian if it is still seeking to seize the land, a Lewisham council spokesman denied that this was the case. “No, any regeneration of New Bermondsey, proposed by anyone, would require a completely new and fresh decision by the council. Lord Dyson’s independent report called for a period of a calm reflection and we urge all parties to work together to agree a way forward to bring much-needed new jobs and homes to the area and ensure Millwall FC stays in Lewisham.”
Smith’s email directly contradicts these words. More worryingly, it raises not just the spectre of another CPO battle to keep the club at their home but also a lack of candour in the council’s dealings with the public. Confronted with the disparity between deputy mayor Smith’s private email and Lewisham’s public stance, a spokesman referred to the council’s previous statement.
This latest development comes in the week Surrey Canal Sports Foundation (SCSF), the charity at the heart of the scheme, has published its latest set of accounts.
The original CPO was stalled after controversy over various sources of funding the SCSF claimed to have been “pledged”. In particular the claim to have a £2m from Sport England has been disputed by Sport England itself.
The new accounts contain no mention of any funding arrangement with Sport England, a pledge that had been mentioned prominently in the last two sets of accounts. The accounts for 2016 read: “During the last three years the Foundation has received pledges from Renewal, Lewisham council, Onside and Sport England that total £18.5m”.
The 2015 accounts had set out the charity’s claimed funding even more clearly, listing the £2m “pledge” from Sport England and £4m-5m, from an organisation called Onside Youth Zones. In February this year Onside told the Guardian: “We do not have a formal agreement with Surrey Canal Sports Foundation or Renewal regarding the development”.
None of these funding claims appear in the latest accounts.