North London Ltd.

Solidarity with the Sandwell Skidder!

December 21, 2020 Cllr. Anna Mbachu, Cllr.Sally Littlejohn, E11 BID Co., Fawaad Sheikh, Fred Wigg and John Walsh Towers, Goddarts House, John Cryer MP, North London Ltd., The BNI, Town Hall asbestos

From today’s Daily Mail: ‘”Labour council with £2.8m hole in its finances ‘found £300,000 to silence blogger” Published: 02:15, 21 December 2020 | A penniless Labour council with a £2.8million hole in its budget set aside £300,000 to silence a blogger who was highly critical of its work. Sandwell council…had admitted to setting taxpayers’ money aside to pursue blogger Julian Saunders, 62. The former solicitor’s blog, Sandwell Skidder, that features claims about the council has been viewed 1.9million times. Mr Saunders, who also ran a coach tour o... »

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LBWF and public-private partnerships: (2) North London Ltd.

February 9, 2018 North London Ltd.

LBWF’s relationship with North London Ltd. (NLL) illuminates a second way of organising public-private partnerships. NLL is a private company, formed in 2005, whose business is ‘Other service activities not elsewhere classified’. LBWF has close links with NLL, not (as with NPS London Ltd.) because of share ownership, but rather because of, first, mutual involvement in a network of allied institutions, and second, the fact that for the bulk of its history NLL has been something of a factotum, the authority’s chosen vehicle for the local implementation of a variety of programmes, some orig... »

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North London Ltd.: further significant revelations UPDATED

March 24, 2016 North London Ltd.

In previous posts, I have discussed North London Ltd. (NLL), and pointed out some of the mysteries that surround it. To recap briefly, NLL was a private company that (a) was handed hundreds of thousand of pounds by public authorities (including LBWF, both directly, and through the Waltham Forest Business Board); (b) according to its accounts, paid generous ‘director’s remuneration and other benefits’ (a whacking £314,897 in the three year period 2004-07 alone); (c) left an unexpectedly faint footprint in terms of recorded outputs and accomplishments; and (d) was put into liquidation in 2013. W... »

Delta Club: a very Waltham Forest story, up like a rocket, down like a stick

February 22, 2016 Cllr. Afzal Akram, North London Ltd.

In the mid- to late 2000s, Delta Club (hereafter DC) was one of the most high profile organisations in Waltham Forest. Incorporated as a private company in 2003, with sometime Labour Cabinet portfolio holder Cllr. Afzal Akram on its board, DC seemed to have established itself as the ‘go to’ authority on, and provider of, training, especially where ethnic minorities were concerned. A self-penned profile of 2009 read as follows: ‘Delta club [sic] Group is a BAME led and Customer First and Matrix accredited organisation that since its inception has either directly delivered or delivered through a... »

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North London Ltd. and a shortfall of £101,822

November 24, 2015 North London Ltd., Waltham Forest Business Board

Some significant new evidence has just emerged about North London Ltd. (NLL). In general terms, NLL continues to intrigue. For here is a private company that was paid hundreds of thousand of pounds by public authorities (including LBWF, some directly, and some routed through the Waltham Forest Business Board’s Waltham Forest Business CIC); handed its directors generous remuneration and other benefits (a whacking £314,897 in the three year period 2004-07 alone); but left an unexpectedly faint footprint in terms of recorded outputs and accomplishments. Indeed, up to now, in truth, it has b... »

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The Waltham Forest Business Board and North London Ltd hit the buffers?

July 23, 2015 Argall Car Parks, E11 BID Co., North London Ltd., Waltham Forest Business Board

In several previous posts, I’ve looked in detail at some of the organisations that purport to represent business in the borough, particularly the Waltham Forest Business Board, and North London Ltd. It is fair to say that few of my observations have been very favourable. For example, I’ve never quite got my head around the fact that in the three years immediately after the directors of North London Ltd. had initially accessed copious sums of public money in 2004, the ‘Directors’ emoluments’ column in their annual accounts reached £161,387, before receding to £66,8... »

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Private Eye reports the E11 BID Co.

June 18, 2015 E11 BID Co., Fawaad Sheikh, North London Ltd., Private Eye, Waltham Forest Business Board

A little bit out of sequence, but for those who didn’t see it, this story (see ‘Lost in the Forest’, centre column, bottom) is interesting on LBWF and the E11 BID Co., the subject of previous posts. Its from Private Eye no.1388, 20 March-2 April 2015. »

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North London Ltd. – an enigma wrapped in a mystery?

March 5, 2015 North London Ltd.

A name that crops up in the context of the E11 BID Co. fiasco is North London Ltd. (NLL), a company that was launched in 2004 and apparently went into compulsory liquidation ten years later, put there by its creditors. According to a press release of 2013, NLL was ‘the sub-regional business support agency for North London’ and worked ‘to accelerate business growth and development and attract inward investment into the area’ – reminiscent of the corporate gobbledygook that made Dave Brent so famous. Scattered information elsewhere suggests it sometimes traded as North London Business (con... »

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LBWF, the Local Authority Business Growth Initiative programmes, and the Waltham Forest Business Board, E11 Bid Co., and North London Ltd.

February 13, 2015 Argall Car Parks, E11 BID Co., North London Ltd., Waltham Forest Business Board

A couple of years ago, I started hearing some very surprising things about Leytonstone’s Business Improvement District (BID) company, the E11 Bid Co.. The allegation, in short, was that the directors of the company had failed to keep proper books and neglected to pay their taxes; run up substantial debts; and as a consequence jeopardised the company’s ‘going concern’ status. I had always been suspicious about the E11 BID Co. because there was a lack of transparency about its operations, and a lot of obvious flannel about its alleged successes. I knew that councillors (i... »

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