KwAcKy's Konfessional |
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Nothing of interest; just mindless links to bikes Birmingham City Football Club and useless junk  
  
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06 March 2006
BCFC v BCC Blues take on the Birmingham City Council OPEN LETTER FROM KARREN BRADY TO THE BIRMINGHAM CHAMBER OF COMMERCE 02 March 2006 Dear Mr Blackett, I have recently had sight of your letter to Chamber of Commerce Council Members “A casino for Birmingham. Which bid to support?” and would like to register with you, my absolute indignation and profound disappointment with you personally and the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce for its inability to conduct a fair and representative process on behalf of its member organisations and the city it represents. I cite the following objections: • Your letter clearly attempts to influence the outcome of the vote by expressing a preference in advance. • Your letter states that nil returns on the vote are assumed to be a vote in favour of the NEC as opposed to non-participation. • Your letter is wholly inaccurate and is misrepresentative of our position. The document makes very selective use of the facts from each bid, skewing the overview to make the NEC project seem stronger by comparison. • As an example, when summarising the financial benefits of each proposal, you only mention that the Stadium is expected to pay the Council a dividend of £4-5 million a year. Here’s what you don’t mention: o That Las Vegas Sands have committed to invest £117 million in creating a state-of-the-art Stadium for the city. o That total investment in the Birmingham Sports Village will be more than £340 million. o That the project will save the Council an estimated bill of £55 million, which it currently faces to clean up contaminated land on the site. o That the Birmingham Sports Village is designed to help Birmingham attract major sporting events, such as the Commonwealth Games (which created 20,000 new jobs in Manchester) and teams preparing for the 2012 Olympic Games. • You accept unchallenged, MGM / NEC’s assertion that their proposal will generate profits for the Council, as owners of the NEC, of £35 million a year. Yet, this figure is based on the success of both the Casino and the NEC and is not guaranteed – unlike the money from Las Vegas Sands, which will be paid up front. • When it comes to transport, you express concerns about the Wheels Park location, but make no reference to the fact that we are committed to undertake a full transport impact assessment and work with our partners to make the necessary investment in local transport infrastructure. In contrast, you say you are satisfied with the MGM / NEC plan, even though, at the recent presentation, your own members expressed concerns over the traffic impact the proposal would have and the NEC has made it clear that they will not be making any investment in transport infrastructure. • Birmingham City Football Club / Las Vegas Sands agreed to present to the Chamber of Commerce on the basis that both bids would be treated equally and fairly; a principle quite clearly abandoned in support of the NEC. • You personally assured us that the Chamber would not, under any circumstances, be making any vote or public decision until the KPMG study had been concluded. It is very disappointing that the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce is recommending that its members support a Solihull proposal over a proposal in the heart of Birmingham, which will directly benefit both the Birmingham public and Birmingham business. It is quite clear that the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce’s relationship with the NEC has been exploited to the full and in an underhand manner. It is not acting on behalf of Birmingham’s commercial, social and economic interest by reviewing a proposal built on regeneration that has far greater chance of winning a casino licence for this region but merely acting as a mouthpiece for an NEC bid that fails to meet the Casino Advisory Panel’s criteria. In order to ensure that the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce & Industry conducts its vote in the appropriate way, I demand that your members are re-issued a document that contains the full factual information relevant to the vote and corrects the inaccuracies in the initial letter. Members must be encouraged to vote as individuals, uninfluenced by the Chamber’s impartiality and advised that a failure to reply will count as an abstention and not a vote in favour of the NEC. Karren Brady Managing Director Their reply AN OPEN LETTER Ms Karren Brady Managing Director Birmingham City Football Club Plc St Andrew’s Stadium Birmingham B9 4NH Dear Karren, RE: CASINO BIDS Thank you for your letter 28th February. It is important that I respond to the serious issues you raise. I will do this in the order you detailed them: • Expressing a preference. It is common practice for the Policy function of the Chamber to make recommendations to the Members of the Chamber. There are many and varied topics that we deal with and Members expect to benefit from our assessments of issues. • Nil-Returns. On such a high profile and important issue as the casino opportunity for Birmingham, it is important to encourage a maximum response rate to a vote. The nil return mechanism is designed to ensure any Member with a different view to the recommendation realises the importance of their vote being registered. On this issue, I am confident that we will have a high response rate to the point that “nil returns” will not have any bearing on the outcome. We are working hard to ensure we hear from as many Council Members as we can. • Use of facts. As the note makes clear, the full facts of each Presentation are to be found in the Minutes to the Council meeting of 21st January. You will be aware that we invited both yourselves and the NEC to ensure the Minutes were an accurate record of each Bid, before we distributed them. The note also makes clear that, in the interests of brevity, the analysis would not repeat all the facts in detail. But to reiterate, the complete facts are available to Council Members wishing to remind themselves of everything that was said. • Financial Benefits. Whilst not quantified in value, the note does point out that the football stadium would be owned by the City Council. I note that in the Minutes there is also no reference to the value of the Stadium. The remaining points you list are detailed in the Minutes whilst the note acknowledges the “great buildings and marvellous sports facilities” that your bid would produce. 2/.. • NEC profit contribution to the City Council. The note does say that the City will own the football stadium. The note does not assess the risk of income streams falling short of NEC/MGM Mirage predictions, but then there are a myriad number of other risks to both bids that the note does not seek to address, either. In terms of balance, it should also be noted that the note does not feature the £1.1 Billion figure (described in the Minutes) that the NEC claim their bid will create in total income to the region. • Transport. Again, the Minutes describe your intentions to carry out an impact study. It was a point of differentiation that the NEC has already completed a study (having engaged Ove Arup) and that the NEC believes the results of this study suggest the existing infrastructure could support the development of a casino. • Decision-making process. We were very sad to hear of your sudden illness and consideration was made to cancelling the football club presentation. In recognition that both the Casino Advisory Panel (CAP) selection criteria and the KPMG study would not be available for the Council meeting we were pleased to offer deferring a vote on both bids, which we had been planning to take on the 31st January. At the conclusion of both presentations, I explained to Council that we would be deferring our decision for these reasons. There was a clear message from the floor that the Council was anxious to make rapid progress on choosing between the bids and it was pointed out that time would be tight to do this. It had been our intention to await the findings of the KPMG study, which it was hoped, would make a clear recommendation. Self-evidently, being guided by this would have made much sense. However, following the publication of the CAP selection criteria, it became very obvious that the ambiguities in these guidelines would make any clear cut, full-blooded recommendation highly unlikely. Therefore, in the interests of ensuring the Council arrived at its own conclusions and in recognition that time was running out, it was decided to complete an internal review with a recommendation, which resulted in the note you have seen. What should be stressed is we await the votes from Council. It is completely possible that Council will decide the football club bid rather than the NEC proposal is better for business in Birmingham. In the light of Council Members having had the opportunity to hear both presentations and that the full facts of each presentation have been documented in the Minutes (with the approval of both the football club and the NEC) there is no information of a material nature that Council Members are missing. It is normal practice for the Policy function to make recommendations. We have ensured Members have a free vote and we are encouraging all Members to express a view. 3/.. Birmingham Chamber of Commerce and Industry has a responsibility to ensure our Members have their voice heard on the important issues impacting upon the future of the city. We have a reputation for tackling difficult and challenging issues from which others might shy away. Perhaps the most difficult issues are where the interests of individual Members compete, as in this case. In these circumstances, we work very hard to be even-handed but it is inevitable that one Member will be disappointed with the result. It is premature to know the result of this vote but for the reasons described above, I am confident that our Council Members are informed sufficiently to take a view. Yours sincerely, Jerry Blackett Policy & Communications Director |
