EXCLUSIVE: Local government legal expert called in by Calderdale Council.
Following a series of alleged missteps an external legal expert has been appointed to investigate the council’s legal procedures, sources have confirmed to Calderdale Inside Out.
Spare a thought for Calderdale Council’s Legal Department. It’s been a torrid few years. From judicial reviews to ombudsman complaints, humiliation over the Shay Stadium disposal, standards committees that hardly ever sit, record amounts on external legal counsel, they even got burned (geddit?) on the Sowerby Bridge incinerator (before it was even alight – which it never will be because it had its permit revoked… twice). Just when you thought his year couldn’t get much worse, last week Calderdale Inside out learned from multiple internal sources, that a highly experienced local government lawyer has been called in to perform a health check on the council’s legal processes and procedures.
We’ve been told there has been a specific complaint made surrounding procedural issues which, let’s face it, is unsurprising given the legal rapsheet over the past few years. As they say in TV, let’s run the VT…..
THE SHAY STADIUM DEBACLE
Let’s go back to 1889. Because, in a report made to Calderdale Council’s Cabinet in March last year the Shay disposal was discussed – and informing that discussion was a piece of work called “Legal Implications”. This document does pretty much what it says on the tin: gives councillors making the decisions information about what may happen when they make decisions. Sorry, back to the nineteenth century. The ‘Legal Implications’ report traced the council’s title back to an 1889 conveyance between Sir Henry Abbetson and Halifax Corporation (ah – the halcyon days). It then skips to 1930s working through the acquisition power under a 1933 Act, the holding power under the 1972 Local Government Act, section 19 of the 1976 Act, the best consideration duty under section 123, the government consent that allows a sale upto £2m below market value, the Subsidy Control Act 2022, the Asset of Community Value moratorium (and the land registry restriction that goes with it), and a full comparison of selling the freehold against granting a 999 year lease with overage and clawback.
Why do you care? I know, that was a long list – but stay with me. Because while “Legal Implications” had an impressive array of legislation there were some glaring omissions.
No mention of: a) the Gunning Principles or b) section 149 of the Equality Act 2010
Why does this matter?
