Luton Today ran another interesting article online recently, regarding Luton Borough Council: https://www.lutontoday.co.uk/news/politics/council/questions-raised-after-wandon-park-sold-to-luton-council-owned-developer-for-ps2m-5292635
Wandon Park lies on the Eastern border of Luton and is a Community Park owned by Luton Borough Council (LBC). It covers an area of 5 acres and has been a Community Park since the surrounding estates were built. As you have read, the Liberal Democrats in Luton have challenged the price paid by Foxhall Homes to LBC for the land, of £2 million, as opposed to its market value of between £4.4 and £6.0 million.
What has this to do with airport expansion, you ask?
Well, like Luton Rising (LR), LBC’s airport company, Foxhall Homes is wholly owned by LBC. Their Boards are made up of Luton Councillors, and all their funding comes from loans from LBC. Foxhall Homes has paid for Wandon Park, with money it has borrowed from LBC. So, in reality, LBC has purchased public land back from itself, with its own, or more importantly, residents of Luton’s money.
But it is the legal duty of any Local Authority, who disposes of publicly owned land, to get the very best return for that land, for Council coffers, so why LBC did not do that on this occasion. Only they can answer?
LBC, of course, also own Wigmore Valley Park the public park on the edge of Luton airport, which will disappear under Terminal 2 expansion plans. And although it is not housing land like Wandon Park, it will have a significant value, and whilst Wandon covers 5 acres Wigmore Valley covers a massive 85-acre plot.
Currently, Wigmore Valley is owned by LR under licence from LBC, and to allow expansion to happen, they will either have to lease it or purchase it outright from LBC. This decision will be done away from public scrutiny, as all LR/Foxhall Homes dealings always have been, for “commercially sensitive reasons”.
A quick search on the AI facility on Google shows a 3.13 acre site of industrial building land in neighbouring Dunstable, selling at £639,000/acre, with planning permission. Based on this calculation, that would give Wigmore Valley Park a retail value of £54.2 million. The only way LR can afford to pay such a sum, is to continue to withhold the annual Dividend it should pay to LBC each year, for many more years to come. Alternatively, to borrow yet more money from LBC, so yet again LBC will be receiving its own money back for disposing of its own, public property.
Or LBC can try and secretly give the land to LR, like Wandon Park and Foxhall Homes, at a miniscule fraction of the land’s true value?
We will monitor this situation closely and make public any further skulduggery that LBC and LR have planned to enable their Airport Expansion at any cost policy, even if it is at a significant financial loss to the residents of Luton.