Maisie: Page 94, the Private Eye Podcast
Andy: Hello, and welcome to another episode of Page 94.
My name is Andrew Hunter Murray, and I'm here in the private eye offices with Adam
MacQueen, Jane McKenzie and Sarah Shannon.
We're here to talk about all sorts of things.
We're gonna be talking about Wimbledon later on.
We're gonna be talking about delays in the court system.
I should have made the Wimbledon Court connection before starting that sentence.
And we're also gonna be talking, right now about something that's happening
on the day we record this podcast.
So exciting.
The Government Investment Summit, the International Investment Summit
at Guild Hall, which is basically, the British government saying, please
can we have some investment in all our marvelous, stable government
for the next four and a half years.
and it's been derailed by a massive row about
Adam: ferries.
It's not just a conference.
Literally as we speak, they've just unveiled the after party as well, which
is being held not at Guild Hall, but St.
Paul's Cathedral.
What?
With Elton John doing the music.
And the King turning up as well.
Yeah.
Not messing about with this one.
Wow.
Yeah.
No, is, this is Keir Starmer Starmer's big flagship.
let's get lots and lots of money into the country and, and be positive
about things after, a few months of being negative about everything.
And it was, as you say, derailed very slightly last week by, Louise Hay, the,
transport secretary going on ITV news and calling P&O Ferries 'a cowboy operator'
and saying that she was cracking down on the way they treated employees.
Now, this, readers might remember, refers back to, the incident in March, 2022 when,
P&O ferries as opposed to P&O cruises, which is an entirely separate company.
I had to take adverts out at the time saying, it's not us.
Honestly.
It's not us.
'cause everyone was so cross about this.
Rightly P&O Ferries laid off, no fewer than 786 crew, with no kind
of statutory, consultation period over redundancies or anything.
It was just you are outta the door or out of the porthole, , and they were replaced
by agency staff, who recently the P&O, boss Peter Hathway admitted, are only
being paid about four pound 87 an hour.
The national wage, at this point being 1146 an hour, , and Hebblethwaite
thought was quite open about this.
He admitted to a Commons committee at the time that, they'd broken
the law over this because you do have to have a consultation period.
and you also have to notify the government, if you are gonna
make more than a hundred people redundant at the same time,
didn't do either of those things.
Andy: And Labour were very critical of that at the time.
And then the problem is now that with the big International Investment
Summit, the owners of P&O, DP World, huge great shipping company, yeah.
They were poised supposedly to announce a billion pounds of
investment in various ports.
There's a London gateway port that were gonna invest lots of money in.
And then they heard these comments by Louise Hay saying this is that we don't
really like working with rogue operators.
And we're very.
Keen to come down on sharp practice like this.
And they said, maybe we won't invest a billion pounds after all.
And that's the situation we'd got to over the
Adam: weekend.
Jane: I remember this being quite a big story at the time.
What, were people saying about it then?
Adam: As ever you read it here.
First in private art, 'cause I've just looked back.
March, 2022.
here's a piece saying, "Calls for P&O.
Ferry's owner DP Worlds to be stripped of its involvement in two new free ports,
one on the Thames and in Southampton as punishment for its summary.
Dismissal of 800 seafarers misses a critical point.
The group's deliberately illegal conduct surely disqualifies it from a role
that involves enforcing border laws.
none of that sort of an answers now.
We just want their cash.
We want them in and we want that port.
And that was very much the reaction of Keir Starmer Starmer, who, slapped
down Louise Hay, publicly and said that is not the government's position.
And, I did some sweet talking over the weekend to essentially ensure that DP
World did go ahead with this 1 billion pound investment, straight away.
But that is a very different tune from Keir Starmer at the time.
Who, here's, the quote from Keir Starmer.
when, when the redundancies were made, "it's just disgusting.
It makes my blood boil.
It's, a complete betrayal of the workforce, was what he said.
It's not a very good, but, but he wasn't the only one.
This is the most extraordinary thing, right?
This was an enormous scandal at the time.
The government at the time who were headed by a chap you might remember, called
Boris Johnson, were quite happy to be very, critical of P&O and of DP World.
, their parent company.
Boris Johnson himself said that it was a callous decision.
Grant Shapps, who was Louise Hayes, predecessor as Transport Secretary,
said, we will take 'em to court.
We will defend the rights of British workers.
Another quote from Grant shas here, P&O has ripped up workers'
rights and hung them out to dry.
Which are the sort of things that you might think.
Labour governments might, come up with, especially in the week, the
very week last Friday, that they, they introduced their, their new,
employment rights bill into the commons.
which is, aimed cracking down on exactly this sort of thing.
But instead we just got pierce Dermot rolling over and saying, no,
Let's not make a fuss about this.
Sarah: And on, on a side note, is it really all right to have a party in St.
Paul's Cathedral?
I'm not seeing that as okay.
But also remembering back to that time when the seafarers
all got, all, got the sack, it, happened by zoom or text message.
I mean it was particularly callous.
And then they sent security guards on board the ships with handcuffs.
Just in case anyone put up a struggle and needed to be dragged away, and then they
wouldn't even let the poor seafarers back on to collect their belongings afterwards.
it really was.
The shoddiest kind of employer behavior.
Adam: It absolutely was.
And it was universally condemned.
I'm not, I'm, this is the extraordinary thing about it this week as it's been
presented as is everything at the moment as yet another disaster for Keir Starmer
and this very sort of Westminster centric story of kind of fallouts between the
cabinet and how things are happening.
But it was absolutely universal condemnation at the time.
I'd had a look back at some, some newspaper editorials.
The Telegraph was saying at the time, "DP World should be penalized.
Government can take away lucrative contracts to operate two of the
UK's planned free port schemes.
" Sarah: It's amazing when 1 billion pounds is, looming on the horizon.
Everyone sticks their fingers in their ears and goes, la.
And suddenly, I remember that.
It's a
Adam: Labour government's responsibility as well.
And of course, the telegraph like always another disaster for scam.
here's the Daily Mail editorial at the time.
This makes it really, clear.
The, the government must "urgently review all lucrative contact it has with the firm
owned by sheikhs in Dubai, a passenger boycott a P&O would also send a message
about treating employees so shoddedly" you might remember, that was something
else, Louis, he said last week that she'd personally been boycotting P&O ferries.
and they said ministers should now think twice about letting
so many of our key companies be snaffled up by foreign predators.
Louis Hayes, God is suggesting maybe they should, but No, not anymore.
Not anymore.
Andy: Sarai, you've written a,
fair bit about the.
Kind of treatment that's dished out to sailors sailors, seafarers,
they have such a rough time.
they're in international waters all the time.
Shipping companies treat them really badly.
Sarah: Yes.
it was particularly apparent during Covid when lots of them got
stuck on board ferries and cruise ships for months, if not years.
And they were Hanging out, please give us some food notices on the
side of the ships because nobody really remembered them, but they were
necessary to keep the ships going.
but, more recently, in December, I wrote about, P&O Ferries.
and, what they'd been up to because we'd been contacted by the two trade
unions that look after the seafarers, and they were telling us that, P&O
was using this, recruitment agency called Fill Crew that is based in
Singapore and use itself recognizes this
trade union that's based in Slovenia, which, the International Transport
Workers Federation doesn't recognize, and funnily enough is completely okay
with seafarers being put on contracts where they have to stay for 10 months at
sea and are paid under the minimum wage.
And these were the people that P&O was using to recruit their workers.
So that was the, the view back in December.
And I'm sad to say I don't think much has changed.
Andy: 'cause when the story happened it was 2022 and there were big announcements
made about, what might happen next.
Grant Shapps actually came up with some reasonable proposals
as Transport Secretary.
One of them was you come up with roots between countries, which are kind of
minimum wage corridors, basically.
'cause Britain's rights only extend 12 miles offshore.
So you can only ensure that people are given the minimum wage.
At that distance.
But if they're sailing to and from, look Dover to Cali.
and France passes a similar law.
You can, have a corridor if you like, of decent workers' rights along that
route, which is fair enough 'cause quite a lot of ferries, particularly
go from Dover to Calais and so on.
Adam: Thank you Dominic Raab, for that particular insight.
Andy: And, there were reasonable proposals about this, but the fact is
that DP World kept being given huge Government contracts for free ports,
all of which came with tens of billions of pounds of Government support and
tax breaks and all this kind of thing.
So the changes weren't really being enforced at the time, and this is just one
of those awkward situations where you've got legislation to protect seafarers,
which was introduced to the Commons a week ago, which is why Louise Hay was
talking about this in the first place.
She wasn't trying to scpa the, the investment barney,
that wasn't really the plan.
But it's just one of those things where campaigning
comes into contact with reality
Adam: 'cause not to go completely Dave Spar on this, but it's this sort
of mandalian view that you make it a principle not to have any principles.
You just go, we're not gonna stand up.
'cause there was there.
There is a.
Another Blair, right term.
There was a middle way on this, surely that you say, we are grateful for all.
it's great to have all of these fantastic people who wanna invest in,
in Great Britain and a great future.
But also, we are gonna work with them on, employment laws and make sure that they
stick to our rules and pay their taxes.
there is a sort of, rather than just rolling over and going, no,
we have no criticism whatsoever.
And what it really, reminded me of actually was that point when Tony Blair,
do you remember when he canceled the Serious Fraud o Office investigation into
the Al Yamar, arms deal, which dates all about It was something our predecessor
Paul Foot was writing about right.
Back into the eighties.
Yeah.
And there was all sorts of stories
. it's, a different sort of story to make that clear to, P&O story.
But it was all about.
Slush funds and bribes and dodgy arms deals and things.
and it had been going on for years and years, and Tony Benet just stepped
in 2006 and canceled the entire thing on the grant that it was, could
potentially offend the Saudi Royal family and, risk the arms deals that
they were trying to do at the time.
And it just seemed so blatantly Kissinger-esque realpolitik.
Yeah.
But that was nine years in.
That was the point where Tony BA was a bit kind of demob happy, and about to
hand over to Gordon Brown and wasn't scared of making unpopular de decisions.
Starmer?
We've got there in a couple of months, haven't we?
Andy: maybe, but I think the DP World have had to change the hiring practices as a
response to this, they're no longer hiring international workers, which basically
means non-Europeans at a rate of about four pounds an hour because of these
transport corridors that were announced.
So that, kind of is a difference there.
I would say
Sarah: what I think is so interesting is how...
we're so craven, once somebody's in government about, oh,
you've got money for us.
We're so grateful as if it's some sort of charitable gift they're bestowed.
In fact, they're doing it for, commercial purposes.
They want you to do quite well outta this
Adam: port.
They're going to make
Sarah: a lot of money outta running Britain's largest container port.
so we, don't have to be entirely, schmoozey with them.
We can, have a few reservations.
Andy: That was one of the thing, at the time.
Late prospective Conservative Parliamentary candidate, Iain
Dale, even he was saying maybe we should nationalize P&O.
It was like everyone took a really strong line because it was such
a clear cut story at the time.
That's
Adam: what I find so extraordinary is it's, literally two years ago, and
yet the mood on it has changed around.
Suddenly it's just become this Westminster story about yet
another disaster for Starmer.
His first 100 days.
Andy: this.
Is something else I want to talk about; the first a hundred days because you
see so many reports on it and I assumed it was something that had been imported
from America within the last 10 years as just a kind of, like irritating confected
holiday so that journalists have something to write about, basically like Halloween.
, but actually just a little quiz corner.
Does anyone know when it dates back to the first a hundred days?
Sarah: I
Andy: do actually.
Do you
Sarah: Franklin
Andy: Bingo.
Sarah: Franklin do Roosevelt.
Yeah.
In the thirties, post depression.
This is
Andy: why we don't have you on off more often, so you're too good at this.
Sarah: It's Franklin d Roosevelt.
Yeah.
And he introduced, I don't know.
Andy: If you know the number s of laws, if you know the number of bills he
introduced in the first a hundred days.
I'm gonna be gobsmacked.
No, I 77.
Oh.
And the huge changes, basically, stabilized the
economy, massive public works.
And that was the, that was where the first a hundred days came from.
But he introduced it as a concept rather than everyone else saying, we're gonna
judge you on your first a hundred days.
' Adam: cause
' it's such a random amount of time, isn't it?
It's three months and a little bit more.
Yeah, exactly.
Which, also.
Jane: Lucy long summer holiday for everybody and conference season,
so they have to, you're so rights'.
There's very little actual parliamentary time in that a hundred
Sarah: days.
Yeah.
I always summer holidays when people were rioting.
Andy: I did have a look back at report reports of the previous a hundred
days of the last few Prime ministers, obviously with the exception of Liz Truss.
Normally, either I'm going to do these marvelous things in my first a hundred
days, or my opponent is gonna wreck the country in their first a hundred days, or
the first a hundred days have gone badly.
There has not been a single prime minister who's had a great a hundred day
report from the overwhelming majority of the press Just doesn't happen
Sarah: since Roosevelt.
Since Roosevelt, yeah.
Basically
Andy: Boris Johnson rather typically got two first a hundred days.
One I after he became Prime Minister, and then one more after the election.
Adam: Oh, so reset the clock.
Ah.
Andy: But his first one.
But after, becoming Prime Minister, so that was in about July 2019.
you had, his brother quitting the cabinet.
You had lots of Brexit and the Prorogation of Parliament.
You had revelations about Jennifer r Curie, who was his tech advisor
and kept getting, invitations to trade missions and public money.
They are often actually quite indicative, which I found quite irritating.
But I think they probably do set a tone.
Oh dear.
Oh God, that was depressing for the next three years, isn't it?
Alright, let's talk about something more cheerful in that case.
Let's talk about environmental pollution.
Producer: Oh,
Andy: Jane,
Jane: a hundred days will be extremely quick going for, an
environment agency prosecution.
at the moment they're running more, in the years.
A lot of, cases that have been won recently, and it's, great that they are
finally winning some prosecutions of illegal dumpers and people polluting
and people stacking huge piles of tires up in the countryside and so forth.
but if you look at the details of these cases, they're from.
Years ago.
It's taking so long to bring prosecutions against people who are polluting.
Andy: Now, I would've thought that if it's an environment agency backed prosecution
as it were, that they would be able to.
Do things quite quickly, but is it not really a function of that?
Is it more a case of what days are available in the court
and no one gets priority?
Jane: Yes.
some of these cases, I mean they really do seem to have been pretty slam dunk and
often have guilty pleas and the witnesses, environment agency officers who went on
site and had a good look at the pollution.
So they're not taking years because they're complicated
cases, they're just part of this.
Whole mess that the court services in with, massive delays now, oh, we're
seeing the same issue with other kinds of criminal cases, prosecutions brought
by the police, prosecutions brought by the health and safety executive.
I was writing about, a case, a series of cases, involving construction accidents.
last issue
Andy: was this, the Belfor
Jane: Beatty one.
This is the Belfor Beatty story.
they've recently had to pay a, large fine for a awful accident in which a a
scissor lift was knocked over by a crane.
and one person died and one person was really badly injured, and they've
finally been prosecuted for that.
But again, it's taken.
Years for that case to get to court and in the meantime to have had two
other dreadful construction accidents.
Yeah, it
Andy: was I in your piece, I think you said it was 2020
that this incident occurred.
Yeah.
And this is the fine has just been levied, Now
Adam: Because as well as the sort of.
Retribution kind of element to prosecution.
Presumably there is a preventative one that people are learning from
these mistakes and, Absolutely.
That's not the future one.
Absolutely.
This is what
Jane: the health and safety sort of prosecution process
is supposed to be about.
Both the company involved and the sector should be learning from the cases.
So if they don't make it through the system for four years, then those learning
points are not public for four years.
But you've,
Andy: you gave a rundown of all the.
Various fines levied against Pal Beatty.
And the, learning appears to be slow.
The learning appears in fact, not to be happening.
They could do better.
They could, I think.
Yeah.
Sarah: Do the delays in the system mean that, it's harder to prosecute
because, witnesses memories have faded.
Just like with a criminal case, with historic cases are so much more difficult
because, defenses can always use their well, your memories absolutely.
Recollections seem to vary.
These
Andy: were all years ago, your Honor.
We can't, yeah.
Jane: Yeah, it's a horrible situation.
It's eyewitnesses, recollections, victims' recollections, and indeed the victims
got to wait years and years knowing that it's looming to give evidence.
And does this relate to their
Sarah: compensation as well, that they might be getting
Jane: the civil courts and compensation cases for sort of injuries and things like
that also have years and years of delay?
At the moment, the whole system is.
it's the worst it's ever been.
Is this,
Andy: is it a covid thing?
Jane: So Covid was a big impact.
The barrister strike had a big impact, right?
So that kind of caused a big, backlog.
and then there were some other issues.
There is a shortage of judges.
Because, they have, it hasn't been funding for trading up and providing new judges
and there's a shortage of courtrooms because some of them are falling down.
Andy: Is that the concrete?
Jane: That is partly the concrete.
It's so nice when two things dovetail.
it's not nice, but it's just, all stories are one big story.
Andy: okay.
yeah.
Jane: apparently half of all courtrooms are at risk of sudden closure at any time.
My goodness.
And that's worse in winter because one of the things that can cause closure
is that the heating system conks out.
All the buildings leak.
Yeah, but you don't need special rooms.
Andy: I know you do need special rooms, but surely you could just have a can.
Can't we use the Nightingale hospitals?
I know they've been sold off, but basically can't, we have, large
open air trials happening, so just give over Wembley for a few months.
One
Jane: of the things that's happening to try and tackle this there is there
are a number of Nightingale courts.
Which are running.
Oh, really?
Now they're, they can only handle because they're in hotels.
Get me into the
Andy: policy now.
Sorry.
Sarah: Don't you think they could have come up with a different name for them?
Considering the Nightingale Hospital
Jane: reputation, sorry.
They're in hotels in like conference rooms, in hotels, there's a number
of, they can only hold the kinds of cases that don't need like a custody
sweep beneath or things like that.
But for those kinds of cases, and there are.
Plenty of cases where you just need to all troop in and stand in front of a judge,
Andy: right
Jane: yes, they're using a number of hotels around the country.
'cause there
Adam: is an awful lot of just administrative stuff that has
to take place in a courtroom, but can be done quite quickly.
we've all done court reporting and quite often you'll turn up for the
kind of the day's main event, but before that there are three or four
kind of, processing bits or sentencings or, formalities that have to be done
in front of a judge that they get.
But presumably that takes up an awful lot of time.
As well, doesn't it?
Yes.
absolutely.
Those are the things that ly
Jane: if, your case is canceled that day and there's, no room to hold it
and no judge to host it, then, all those little bits also get pushed
back and cause chaos with scheduling.
Just
Sarah: a join.
All stories together aren't, our old friend Serco are slightly at
fault 'cause they don't manage to bring the prisoners in the vans.
To the courtrooms.
Jane: That is certainly another issue that causes cases to be days, to be wasted.
Andy: Why they're not doing that?
Sarah: they can't find the prisoners sometimes in an overcrowded prison
or they've got underqualified drivers that find it hard to get a sort of
difficult, defendant to get in the van and they dunno how to handle them.
So it has to be, delayed.
Andy: Wow.
There is one proposal that what has been covered in, I think it's in this
month, so this is, by Bar Cart, the Lady Chief Justice, fantastic title.
She has asked, hasn't she, for a, boost in the number of sitting days Yes.
That Crown Courts are able to sit on.
That's right
. But she has asked for a boost of five and a half thousand sitting days per year.
She's been told that the increase in sitting days is actually
gonna be 500, slightly under 10% of what she says is required.
Which
Jane: means they're not gonna be able to clear this backlog.
Andy: Doesn't sound like it anytime
Jane: soon.
Andy: No.
And the backlog, we should say at the moment, just for anyone counting
is, expected to hit 80,000 next year.
Which is a lot.
Gosh.
Yeah.
Just to put it in context,
Sarah: justice delayed is justice denied and pre, presumably
Adam: in the case of criminal trials, this means a lot of people
being held on remand as well in, the massively overpopulated prisons that
we're having to release people from
Jane: also at the highest number ever, there's over 17,000 people currently
un remanded, and there is a deadline when you've got people on remind, you
can't hold them for three years until a courtroom and a judge become available.
It's six
Andy: months, isn't it?
Yeah.
You have to let them go after six months.
Adam: Because they may be innocent.
They haven't actually been convicted of anything.
Yes.
Yeah.
I'm still getting over this idea that all stories are one story.
I, we were living in a private I extended universe.
This is fantastic.
Andy: Yeah, it does.
it does feel if there increasing the number of days by 500, and we
should say in context, the number, the total number of days that Crown
Courts sit each year is 106,000.
So an increase in 500 is.
A small boost, basically, half a percent, which doesn't feel like it's
quite in scale to deal with the problem.
Are the Nightingale Courts potentially going to help matters here,
Jane: but they're really only helping to pick up for the Slack for things
like Harrow Crown Court having a
RAAC concrete problem and things like that.
Andy: So they solve the spacious issue, but not the personnel one.
Not the personnel issue.
They don't
Jane: solve, they're really expensive, aren't they?
I would imagine they're paying for hotel space is not, not the cheapest approach.
Andy: Okay.
Him, me, out crime ferries.
So we take all the ferries that we've seized from P&O to national arts, and
we just make them into roving, courts.
Oh, I think Charles Dickens was quite big on sort of prison
hawks in the marshes, wasn't he?
I'm not
Sarah: sure this is the direction everyone's a Chris wanna go in.
Maybe we could more it in Portland because that went really well.
Andy: okay.
But no, we, do try and look for a sort of, ray of sunlight at
the end of some of these stories.
Jane, I feel like you're gonna resist giving us one here.
Adam: how many have everyone stopped doing crime?
And like causing industrial workplace accidents and that sort of thing.
That would be really, yeah, I idea.
Just to be helpful to the country.
Yes.
And I'm as that patriotic duty, you could
Jane: stop with the waste dumping and we could all just catch up with the ones
that still need to go through the system.
Andy: Okay.
That's probably about as good as we're gonna get, isn't it?
alright.
Now I think we genuinely can turn to something a bit more cheerful.
Tennis Sarai, are you gonna ruin tennis for us now?
Sarah: No.
We all love the tennis, and Wimbledon, obviously beautiful
grounds there in SW 19, , and the All England Lawn Tennis Club.
Look after that., and in their wisdom, they decided that they
needed more land for tennis courts.
And this is because they're worried apparently, that they're
gonna fall behind in the sort of league table of Grand Slams.
which they've obviously got in their head, but everybody else still seems
to think Wimbledon's right up there.
But anyway, the, All England Club are worried.
So they've bought a golf club, which sat a local golf club,
which was directly opposite.
Wimbledon grounds, in Wimbledon Park.
and they bought that back in the nineties from Merton Council, with a covenant
attached saying that there would not be any development on that ground.
Qui forward a few years and they, paid 65 million pounds to buy out the golf
club members who included, Gus O'Donnell, former cabinet secretary, and God
Adam: as he used to,
Sarah: and, TV presenters, Anton Deck, they all got 85,000 pounds each.
out.
Adam: They do need a bit.
Yeah, I know.
It's better, don't they?
Sarah: Exactly.
and anyway.
They sold up.
And that meant that the golf club was in Wimbledon's hands completely
at that point and their plan.
But they weren't, but
Andy: they weren't allowed to build on that
Sarah: n
the development plan, as was unveiled, involves putting 38, grass courts
on that land and building wait for it, an 8,000 seat stadium, which is.
A hundred meters long and also, nine kilometers of paths and driveways to
service and go between all the courts.
So that was quite a lot of development and I know there are patches of green grass
in between those, albeit with very short.
Grass, but the local people did feel that this was a bit of a travesty considering
there wasn't supposed to be development.
It's in a conservation area and it's metropolitan open land, and as, anyone
that lives in a city knows green space is, something that we have to hang onto.
And the idea that a big commercial organization can
trample on that is really unfair.
Andy: I've got a few questions about this.
The F.
First of all, we should say why we talk about this now, which
is that the fantastically named now, is it Jules Pipe or Ju Peep?
Sarah: I presume it's Jules Pipe,
Andy: deputy Mayor of London.
Either way, yes, because s Khans recused himself from this matter.
'cause he said a few years ago, I think it's quite a good idea.
He did.
So he's now removed himself entirely from the decision we reported
Sarah: it.
So Sadik had to withdraw from
Andy: Yeah.
The discussion.
so Juul or.
Les Pipe or Peep has announced that it is going ahead or rather it, it can go ahead.
There might be something like a judicial review to hold it up or that kind of
thing, but basically it has cleared.
Yes.
Jump in that.
So first, yeah, so
Sarah: it has jumped in that.
So first, Merton Council passed it, and then because Wimbledon Park falls between
two boroughs, Wandsworth Council had to have a look at it and they didn't pass it.
With a split decision, it had to go to the umpire to, and that was city hall.
And they've, did they make it sit
Adam: on a really tall chair?
Sarah: I wish they had No, they, said yes, despite the fact that the local
campaigners had got 21,000 people to sign a petition saying Please don't do this.
and they'd drawn up lovely plans how they could re.
Door, the park to its original state.
It used to be a Capability Brown landscape park.
And, and both local Mps, Tory and Labour support supported these
campaigners, and spoke out against.
The development, Flo Anderson has, spoken to Private Eye a bit
about what she thought about it.
And she was, at the hearing at City Hall and she said it was just very unfair
because she felt that the burden of proof that the campaign has had to provide
about damage to environment and loss of open space and so on was much lower
than what the All England Club had to provide about, their claims about boosts
of employment and how they had to keep.
This fabulous right.
Reputation for Wimbledon.
Andy: I've been on the website of the lawn tennis club, and I've been reading
their myth busting page, not all of which is convincing, but one of the things they
point out is it's just a golf course.
Yeah.
As in, at the moment, it's not a public park.
We are not gonna be using a public park.
Yeah.
They say no public park is gonna be lost.
It's gonna be golf turning into tennis.
Why should I, as a non-competent.
Non-competent.
I meant non-competent in either of these ports.
I'm also coincidentally non-competent at them.
Why should anyone mind that care?
Really?
Yeah.
Sarah: I think green space is, green space what?
Whatever it's being used for.
It's a
Andy: golf course.
I'm not allowed into it.
I'm not allowed to go and play.
You're allowed to wander.
Sarah: You're usually allowed to wander on public paths around it.
Oh, are you around the fairways?
If you're careful when they shout for and interesting a dodge.
Jane: Tennis court must be one of the sort of least biodiverse,
forms of green space imaginable.
golf courses aren't terrific for biodiversity, but there's don't exactly
possible for like birds to flap about.
Exactly.
Sarah: And to put it into context, they're having to cut down 800 trees
to do their development and that's got to be a massive biodiversity loss.
And also if there isn't gonna be a golf club there anymore because they bought
'em out, it could have been a public park.
Andy: how do they get around the covenant saying.
You're not allowed to build on this.
Aren't those binding or, covenant sounds binding.
Sarah: It does sound binding, but I think that, Wimbledon was persuasive and has
big funds and excellent marketing and good myth busting pages on its website.
And, and the, campaign is.
They've been, I feel sorry for them.
They've been slightly dismissed as NIMBYs that they only care
'cause of the view or whatever.
But yeah, they are gonna have eight years of development,
Lori's trundling past them.
and they are, but actually they're not all sort of rich
Wimbledon dwellers in big houses.
It's quite intensive housing around there.
There's lots of flats and it is, a, a green open area.
Within the, that where they live, and that's now gonna be, and Wimbledon have
really they've said they're putting some things out there for the community, but
it's Right slightly crumbs from the table.
It's things like, I think it's 20% of the, area is gonna be.
For public access, except during Wimbledon when that becomes a car park.
And also the, public is gonna be allowed to use some of the tennis courts.
that's really nice, isn't it?
But they're gonna be allowed to use seven of the tennis courts for
a few weeks after the tournament, and then they're closed again.
So I don't think that's, because that is
Adam: actually the only time anyone plays tennis is they get inspired by when born.
I'm like, I've got a racket in the attic.
And then they either have heart attacks or get bored.
Sarah: Yeah.
But if we're trying to, fight childhood obesity and, yeah.
And anyway, the whole point is that these courts are here to, become the
new, qualifying tournament for Wimbledon.
And that currently takes place just down the road at Ro Hampton.
there's a sort of case of why do you need to do this?
And the, campaign is.
A suspicious that it means, more corporate expansion of, the, nice Marques where
you have your PIMS and strawberries.
So you can
Adam: this be straight in the hospitality box.
Andy: And I think they've said, haven't they, that they're gonna get people, more
people watching the qualifying stages.
Because at the moment, Roham can accommodate about 2000 people.
Yes.
To watch the qualifying.
Yes.
If, this goes ahead, it'll be more like 10,000 people are able to watch it.
Yes.
So it's basically more tennis all the time for everybody.
Yes.
But,
Sarah: and they also say that, it makes young players feel
a part of the tournament.
but I know the cynic in me things well.
It's the All England, Tennis Club.
They don't have to just be an SW 19.
They could have, done their qualifying tournament in Rochdale or something
and actually taken country, taken tennis to a new area and encourage,
been a bit more inclusive.
Andy: So is it going to go ahead, do you think?
Is it yes.
Going to go to judicial, review?
I as threatened.
Sarah: I don't think it will, but I do think now the campaign and the mps that
were against it will swivel towards making sure that Wimbledon live up to
their promises for community use and perhaps pushing them on those and,
persuading them to do a little bit more, to make their neighbors happy.
Adam: Can I just point out that if it did go to judicial review Yes.
It would clog up a courtroom and thus become part of the
Private Eye extended universe.
Andy: Jane, you write a lot about, about, architecture development.
Dodgy or otherwise,
Jane: I
Andy: do.
What can be done to prevent this going ahead with your extensive Rolodex
of sharp practice by developers?
How would you advise the campaigners to proceed?
Jane: There's nothing
Andy: to go on fire, really, unfortunately.
'cause it's all grass.
Jane: No, I mean that there is that.
It is that planning process.
You can object to all the stages.
And, but ultimately if you don't have the money to take things to judicial review,
then you come unstuck at that stage.
so yes, the next it would be to convince a benefactor.
I.
Or, or many with through crowdfunding to fund your next step.
Adam: It's interesting 'cause it's maybe someone who really
hates tennis, loves golf.
somebody loves really cross for that fortnight when there's
nothing else on telling it's golf.
Andy: That's it.
Both of these sports are very, bad in terms of land use for the number
of people you get playing the sport.
They're both really quite elite, Whereas if you are all playing something,
it, what's a much denser game?
football is a lot more dense.
It's rugby got more people in rugby than you other football rugby, that's
30 people, isn't it, on a pitch?
That's quite, quite a good use of land.
Yeah.
Okay.
How many are in Abadi team?
Or a shin team, or probably the Eaton wall game is actually
incredibly dense in terms of land.
So maybe that's, it's actually a much more egalitarian sport.
Yeah.
Than we, that would be very good for the environment there.
Okay.
So is it Watch this space for the moment?
Yes.
Sarah: For now.
Watch this space.
Andy: Watch this space or if you would like to invest.
Private Eye Magazine for much less than a billion pounds.
You can have access to a prime bit of real estate.
it's delivered to your door.
It's incredibly reasonably priced and it's full of fascinating stories, just like
the ones we've been talking about today.
Go to private hyphen i.co uk and get your subscription now.
For now, that is it for this week's episode of the podcast.
Thank you so much to Adam, Jane, and Sarai to you for listening.
And as always, to Matt Hill of Rethink Audio for producing.
Bye for now.