JohnThis all began with a decision by the London Borough of Hounslow to farm out Isleworth Public Hall on the grounds that it was supposedly running at a loss. It was running at a loss due to the lack of a marketing strategy but no figures have ever been forthcoming in respect of how much money it was actually supposed to have been losing. We do not know therefore whether the amount in question was greater or lesser than the amount invested in officer time which has been needed to process the disposal.Other properties around the borough are in a similar situation but for reasons unspecified there is considered to be less urgency involved in getting shot of them. Isleworth is in the unique position of being lined up for the chop before the next local elections and we can only speculate as to why.At the start of the process interested parties were invited to submit bids and were given a ridiculously short period of time - just a few weeks - in which to do so. Although the official line was that "community" bids were what the local authority had in mind the wording of the procurement document clearly suggested otherwise. For example bidders were required to quote their company registration number!Bids were to include a fully costed plan, however the local authority refused to hand over any of the financial information which would have been needed before such a plan could have been drawn up.Having finally realised that the deadline for submissions was unreasonable LBH extended it. When the revised deadline arrived there were two bids in place - one from the applicant that the local authority was known to have long had in mind for running the building and another from a consortium comprising a number of active groups from the local community.For whatever reason the Council then decided to begin the entire process again and the two standing bids were declared void. When the second deadline arrived it emerged that the preferred bidder had withdrawn and that the only one remaining in the frame was the one from the community.Hounslow now has to decide whether to award the contract effectively to the people who were managing it in the first place - in other words the very same people whose influence the disposal was designed to remove - or to scrap the whole thing, either with a view to rolling out the process for a third time or to abandoning the whole charade for good.If you really cannot see anything wrong in the way this whole business has been managed John then I can only say I wish I had been a burglar on your watch.
Phil Andrews ● 4258d