Representation by Vitesse Investments Ltd Buckland Dartford Ltd & PMG (Vitesse Investments Ltd Buckland Dartford Ltd & PMG)
- Date submitted
- 24 March 2021
- Submitted by
- Members of the public/businesses
My Name is Douglas Hilton. I represent Vitesse Investments Ltd, Buckland Dartford Ltd and am a director of the peninsular management company (PMG) I am the principle director of the above two companies that own land on what I will refer to as ‘The Northfleet Estates’. These include the Kent Kraft Estate, Manor Way Business Park, the Northfleet Industrial Estate and the Rod End Estate. My commercial involvement with these estates extends back more than thirty years. I have previously been a principle director of two other companies that owned other land on the estates and the private roadways. As previous owner of the roadways, I had to levy the estate service charges and therefore have intimate knowledge of these estates, the businesses on them and the damage that is already and will be done to them if these proposals are ever granted compulsory purchase powers. I played a significant role in the final negotiations with Union Railways when they cut the estates in half for the HS1 railway line and then in helping to rebuild the estates afterwards. I have been involved with these theme park proposals and LRCH since the inception and know most of their development team. I was a founder member of business group PMG (Peninsular Management Group), remain a director and have been the only one to discuss the so called ‘offer of enhanced compensation’ with LRCH and to pass comments thereon (which they have ignored). I will explain the entirely inappropriate nature of this ‘theoretical’ offer and their complete lack of appropriate consultation with the businesses on these estates. As this is supposed to be a summary of objections that will be amplified at a later stage in the process, I will keep my areas of objection narrow and expand later. • General ‘hub’ nature and importance of these estates to the surrounding area: These estates contain 140 plus businesses and operate across a wide range of business types. Many are family businesses. LRCH have never liaised with businesses in any meaningful way as they are required to do in order to obtain the grant of compulsory purchase powers over them. They know it is not the case despite their DCO application claims to have done so. This is the result of an absolutely shambolic lack of direction of any kind of from the top, no money to do anything or tie up any deals and no intention of ever doing anything other than trying to get a blanket compulsory purchase order to save effort and kick out these businesses at rock bottom prices. They have absolutely no intention of offering rehoming elsewhere and in the DCO application confirm that is their position. Based on what happened when the railway came through these estates in 2000, it will mean that at least 75 % or more of these businesses will not survive. A loss of over 100 companies and 2,000 plus jobs. We estimate that there are currently around 8-900 full time people actually working on the estates every day. This does not include staff that are employed by management companies based on the estate but get sent work in other places such as builders and electricians etc. It does not include the substantial numbers of part time staff, businesses that rely on supplying the estates with products, or those that rely on the products of the estates for a living. It does not include businesses that work elsewhere and use the estate as an essential goods storage depot or rely on the essential waste tipping facilities that are part of Kent’s strategic waste hub. These estates are in effect the service, storage and maintenance hub for many other businesses and wider society and not just simple industrial units. Rip these estates out and you tear out the service centre and essential heart of the community and the city we are building between Dartford and Gravesend. Due to this ‘hub’ type effect, we estimate the job multiplier at approximately 3.25 to those actually working every day at the estates: approximately 3,000 jobs that rely on the estates. Loss of these businesses would also result in the loss of vital and varied skill sets. Skills that post BREXIT, this country needs to create new manufacturing and businesses development. A snapshot of businesses on the estate today would include: car repairers, MOT bays, specialist paint suppliers, highly specialist engineering companies, steel fabricators, dairy suppliers, coach hire, car sales, plant hire, building material suppliers, marble craftsmen, demolition contractors, office and general cleaners, several types of vital waste industries, car breakers, printers, couriers, car sales, steelworkers, charity HQ’s, joiners, electrical engineers, ready mixed concrete firms, plumbers, cleaning firms, food storage, bottle blow molders, bridal fabric suppliers, scaffolders, entertainment companies, joinery companies, chocolatiers, take away food suppliers and a vast array of other large and small niche businesses including storage and distribution companies that are a vital central resource for many other businesses and cheap serviced office accommodation. The cheap office accommodation combined with either container storage or the storage and distribution companies are the breeding ground for growing future captains of industry. Some say this is a very unusual mix and that the estates are not of the new and shiny kind. Well, it is a very rare and unusual mix. Sorry to the new and shiny brigade but these estates are entirely suitable for the vital purposes they serve and it is the very blight caused by these theme park proposals that has been stopping more new employment units being built and suppressing the estates. My own companies have new units on the drawing board that are being held up, there are eight on the Rod End Estate and a further four acres just waiting for this blight to go away. Only if these estates get wiped out will local areas realise just how much of a loss to the cohesion of the area and the number jobs and wide range of services they have lost. There isn’t anywhere else for these businesses to go locally as will be proved to the inspectorate. Even LRCH recognise this. The other point is that many of these businesses, especially motor trade and waste are never accepted on modern estates. Where will the waste hubs go let alone the rest? It is nothing short of economic and social vandalism for LRCH to propose a non-essential theme park for which there is no demonstrated demand and in the process propose to gut the essential services out of an area and throw them away with no offer of relocation. • This NSIP application should never have been granted due to manifest misdeclaration. They never stated that any businesses were in the way or that there would be thousands of job losses on the Northfleet Estates. The applicant should be made to reapply for an NSIP under the prevailing conditions. • There has been no established ‘need’ for a theme park as part of the DCO acceptance, only attempts to justify a job creation scheme based on highly doubtful business projections. • We were informed by the Planning Inspectorate that a DCO application would not be accepted unless there were suitable guarantees that the project could be financed. I significantly challenge that they were able to do this and therefore the application should not have been accepted. • Contrary to the statements made in the DCO application, the applicant has never meaningfully engaged with any of the businesses on the estates in the manner required under the DCO rules and still is not doing so. • The applicant has grossly misrepresented their contacts with PMG in the DCO application. To represent that contact with anyone from PMG means that they thought were effectively contacting all businesses on the estates is a lie. They have at all time been aware that PMG simply represents any company on the estate interested in attending a meeting with them. By 2018, only four persons from the estate including myself had any passing interest in continuing to listen to their failed promises and hollow words. The last physical meeting was only attended by myself and likewise a zoom meeting. During both of these meetings it was made clear that they were not meetings with PMG. No one on behalf of PMG has ever represented that it is, was or ever has been a conduit to every business on the estates and at all times they have been made aware of their responsibility to contact every business on the estates themselves. They even asked if PMG held lists of companies and were told that PMG do not and never had. They have never meaningfully consulted with businesses here and there should be no question of granting them compulsory purchase powers. • The applicant manifestly misrepresents a claim to have made offers of enhanced compensation to businesses on the Northfleet Estates. To my knowledge, there is not a single offer that has been made to any business and despite requesting to see a draft legal agreement they have failed to show me one. I doubt if they have any. There should be no question of granting them compulsory purchase powers. • The enhanced compensation proposal that only I discussed with them is totally inappropriate and although I wrote explaining the problems with their proposals in detail, they have ignored my comments. At the moment it hasn’t mattered because they never intended dealing with any companies anyway and only sent letters around to some just before Christmas asking them to contact them about their wonderful offer. At least one company I know is still trying to get a reaction of any kind from them. • Their proposal of enhanced compensation is for a five year agreement. How does this square with their statements to have the finance they need, that they intend to get on with the project the moment they are given permission and need these estates before they can get on site. Why do they need five years if any credibility can be placed on a single word they say? • Their proposal of enhanced compensation would allow them to purchase with or without a CPO in place. To sell without a CPO in place could spell economic ruin to any company as there would be no CPO tax relief and this was pointed out to them. • Their proposal of enhanced is to add a 30% uplift on a starting valuation and then indexation tied to the retail price index. Firstly the index relates to domestic rents and the price of milk and bread etc and is completely inapplicable to property. With land here having price increases of 20% plus per year over the last ten years. Their proposed offer is not an offer that could be accepted by any company and is therefore not an offer at all. There has been no attempt to negotiate with companies on these estates and their application for a DCO and compulsory purchase powers should be refused • This applicant has never had any money. Despite the fact that it would have significantly helped their case for a CPO if they had been seen to be purchasing property on these estates as it has become available over the last eight years, they have never invested in a single property on these estates at any time, despite having had the opportunity to do so and at attractive rates of financial return. • Nothing this applicant says or promises can be trusted. There have been four previously publicly announced DCO application dates, they have never purchased any property here, they made a manifest omission to notify the SOS and planning inspectorate at NSIP stage that the scheme involved any job losses or about 40 acres of industrial estates were in the way. They have had three CEO’s continually making and breaking promises, continual announcements of having reached agreements with construction companies, ITV and financiers that never materialised and grossly misrepresented meetings with PMG and their significance. They should under no circumstances be permitted CPO powers. • Their final online consultation is highly suspect. Several businesses including my own had trouble with making online consultation submissions, so much so that there has to be a suspicion that algorithms were being used to detect negative feedback once the first pages were completed and thereafter to make it difficult to complete or submit the form. I can and will expand on this later. Ends