Council Leader - elected Leader after no confidence vote against Peter Charon. Return
Head of Resources - changed Council Constitution to enable him to become Head of Resources as well as Council Leader. Now all powerful and assisted by CEO and Legal Department. Return
IMAX - purchased IMAX and bought out leases for ‘only’ £8.5 million. A more realistic estimate is £12.5 million. Return
Interserve - were ‘appointed’ by Technical Services to oversee the £2m demolition of the waterfront building, though the TS director, R. Ball, insisted that he was overseeing them.. Only one local demolition company from seven were asked to quote. The job went to Surrey based ‘777’. Return
S & D Leisure - ‘appointed’ to erect acoustic shell, replacing the waterfront building. How much did they receive for loss of business etc. for the concert rights at the end of June? Return
Food Bunker Contracts - the new food bunkers built in the clandestine way now common at the Council have been given to S & D Leisure on a 14 year lease. The Tender process was overlooked. S & D also run the fairground at the Pier front, the Balloon in Bournemouth Gardens, the ‘Christmas’ market and much more. These contracts should be offered, according to the Council’s own recommendations, to local companies. S & D Leisure is Manchester based. How do they get away with it? Return
D. Ramsden - father of Tony Ramsden. Return
Dorset Local Enterprise - this is a government sponsored business investment quango set up to encourage development of Dorset based business. Return
Gordon Page CBE - Chairman of PH Warr as well as his own HR company in Southampton and also chairs the DLEP. Return
Philip Warr - CEO of PH Warr plc, whose Chairman is Gordon Page. PH Warr were surveyors to the failed Winter Gardens development plans, agent A. Ramsden (son of David) and Planning Solutions. Return
Planning Solutions - has traded under 8-10 different companies over the last few years, mostly under the control of Tony Ramsden. Return
Winter Gardens - failed planning application by ABP Park Ltd., Eventually thrown out by the Planning Board after repeated misrepresentation by Planning Solutions and Council Officers. Return
Bankruptcy - is the Ramsden ‘Family Business’: Tony three times, wife Harriet twice and father David once. Return
David Ramsden - continued as a Director of six companies whilst bankrupt and amazingly was elected to the DLEP where he has responsibility, with others, for dispersing millions of pounds of Government funds. Return
Tony Ramsden - Planning Solutions and his long and continued friendship with John Beesley is at the least of all that is wrong with this administration. Tony Ramsden has already been convicted of planning regulation offences and is due in court on September 4th to face other charges. Return
ABP Park - the company used by Bond & Levy Ltd. To host the application to develop the Winter Gardens site. It was fleetingly known as APB Bond Children’s Pension Fund. The name APB was selected to confuse with the Dutch based multi-million pound pension company - the third largest of its kind in the world. This ABP Park has no assets and CCJ’s amounting to to £25k. Return
Hospitality Solutions - is the company used by J. Beesley to sell his services and knowledge of planning procedures……information he has gleaned during his time spent on our Town Planning Board. He does not consider advising clients on how to avoid planning regulations as a conflict of interest. Return
Studland Dene - in November 2007 a meeting of the Planning Board granted permission for the redevelopment of the Studland Dene Hotel. The applicant had difficulty in incorporating the required Affordable Housing element and so two days before the meeting sacked his agents, Sibbett, Gregory & Coles, and in their place appointed Planning Solutions. A cheque for £130k is believed to have accompanied this appointment. At the meeting on 19th November, chaired by J. Beesley, the Affordable Housing element was removed in favour of a £50k consideration for road maintenance. Changing planning details during a meeting without due notice is a contravention of planning regulations, but one that J. Beesley was content to allow. Return
Tony Williams - Head of Paid Services at the Town Hall, or, as he prefers to be known, the Chief Executive…..so much more punchy eh?? He came to Bournemouth on holiday and liked it so much he decided to move here and change it. He has a strong working relationship with John Beesley. His participation in the Mouchel/Parker affair, the Surf Reef and sudden departure of Pamela Donellan require further scrutiny. Return
Harrassment & Bullying - Last year 12 employees left Bournemouth Borough Council and received £227k in confidentiality payments, (bungs to keep quiet!). Stephen Parker was bullied out of his job. There has been a concentrated effort by Council Officers and Councillors to remove Cllr. Roger West from his rightful democratic position. His crime is to ask questions they prefer not to answer. Return
Leaseholders - are people who took advantage of the ‘Right to Buy’ their Council flats. Services and repairs to their apartment blocks are carried out by the Council but in a very obtuse way. Instances of overcharging, misinformation and deception are the normal state of affairs. Leseholders have a ‘representative’ panel controlled by the Council, preventing any balanced debate and evidence has emerged that statements made at meetings which are detrimental to the Council are not being recorded in the Minutes. Return
Tanya Coulter - is Head of Legal Services and the Council’s Monitoring Officer. Her boss is Tony Williams and it shows. She is also in charge of reasons not to provide the public with information to which they are entitled. She has a strong working relationship with John Beesley. Return
Tribunal - Much mystery surrounds John Beesley’s appearance at a Tribunal to establish the extent of his relationship with Tony Ramsden. John Beesley was the only witness called to the Tribunal and was exonerated by a less than properly informed Judge. Tanya Coulter (see previous header) was complicit in the strange arrangments prompting Joy Postings to write a statement to the effect that if she had known what was going on she would have intervened. What else? Return
Joy Postings - left her job with indecent haste and probably a confidentiality restraint. Admitted she was misled by the defense in the Beesley Tribunal. (See previous Header). Return
S.O.L.A.C.E. - Society of Local Authority Chief Executives, supposedly an exclusive membership club for Local Authority top wallahs, but in fact will take anyone of they pay the membership. Graduates pay £75 p.a. With CEO’s (Heads of Paid Services) paying up to £497 p.a. It is in fact a profit making limited liability company with nine directors specialising in Local Authority appointments. Bournemouth Council paid them £35,250 to appoint M.J. Forrester (see next Header) for a one year contract. (He got £150k) Return
M.J. Forrester - appointment made by Pamela Donellan. He was himself a beneficiary of ‘outsourcing’ from Leicester County Council, and his company does their ‘housing’ repairs. He was employed to push through the Mouchel contracts. Mysteriously he deemed to write himself a contract as an employee as well as a sub-contractor, enabling him to take up the position of Section 151 Officer, where he disgracefully suspended his Deputy 151 and Chief Financial Officer for pointing out, correctly, the financial vulnerability of Mouchel. Return
Stephen Parker / Suspension Confidentiality Agreement - had served the Bournemouth Council for 20 years but was suspended on full pay for circulating a factual email highlighting the financial shortcomings of the proposed outsourcing service company, Mouchel. He was permitted to return to work when no case could be found against him, only to find that his bosses were Mouchel. His position was untenable. Return
Mouchel - a Services company ‘specialising’ in local government management. Quite how an outside company with no local knowledge can be more efficient than the Council itself without making major cuts and price increases is a mystery. Mouchel is currently owned by two High Street banks , having been struck off the AIM Stock Exchange Listings when their shares dropped to 1p. At the time of signing their contract with Bournemouth Council the shares were at15p, down from £1.50 and sinking fast! Who, apart from Mouchel, gained from these contracts being signed? Return
Mark Cribb / Free Land / BCIC - owner of Urban Reef and good friend of Councillor Jane Kelly, busy antagonist of the Friends of BCCA. He somewhat strangely finds himself the recipient of a rent free patch of land, owned by the Council, next door to his existing premises. He has also somehow inveigled himself on to a private limited liability company BCIC which has taken over the function (and the assets) of the Boscombe Area Regeneration Group, an organisation previously open to all residents. Evidence that the £75,000 Art Council funds granted for restoration of Mr. Cribb’s ‘Urban Renaissance’ cafe at the Russell Cotes Museum has been spent wisely is not immediately apparent. Previously cash-strapped Mr. Cribb has a newly refurbished bar restaurant at Penn Hill, Parkstone, that is mysteriously not part of the ‘Urban’ brand and known as ‘Jenkins & Son’. He is a shareholder and MD of a company (BCIC Ltd.) Whose assets, according to Cllr. Jane Kelly, are not his. Trebles all round!! Return
B.C.C.A. - Boscombe Community Centre of Arts - a building donated to the residents of Bournemouth by Sir Percy Sheeley in 1879 and more recently misappropriated by John Beesley and the Council for the ‘development’ of eleven houses. The Planning Board was misinformed by its own officers to push this through. It is an illogical development in an already overpopulated and underserved area, so who gains Mr. Beesley? Too many lies and too much spin to report here, but safe to say that if it is demolished it will be the end of Conservative Representation in Boscombe. Return
B.A.R.G. - Boscombe Area Regeneration Group. Replaced by BCIC. Assets were moved to a private limited liability company, surreptitiously and without due procedure. Never officially closed down. Very strange. Return
Surf Reef - How anyone in their right mind would pay £3.5 million for bags of sand when they are sitting on seven miles of the ‘golden’ stuff is quite bewildering. That the Councillors and Council Officers were subject to a major con is beyond doubt. But, why did they allow it to happen and who gained? See notes on A. Williams/Benny Grower etc. Return
Benny Grower - Long serving ‘Labour’ councillor, former associate of Michael Filer (Con) in Filer Knapper Accountancy Practice. He now lives two doors away from the Filers and a long way away from Kinson. Showed his class with his champagne toast to the death of Margaret Thatcher. Conservative acolyte when it suits him (see also previous header). Self praising expert!! Return
Blue Square & Forgery - At the December meeting of the Planning Board, contrary to planning regulations, Tony Ramsden presented a document purporting to be a letter to the Board from a Birmingham based company, Blue Square (Commercial) Ltd. It was a booster letter, supposedly pointing out the interest of major commercial investors in the Winter Gardens development and threatening that the failure to grant planning permission would result in these funds being directed elsewhere to the detriment of Bournemouth etc. etc. It was not signed but only initialed ‘JH’ for the Managing (and only) Director, Jason Humpherston. However, whoever had typed this strange letter had spelt Mr. Humpherston’s name incorrectly as a Company House search confirmed, by virtue of leaving out the second ‘h’. Attempts to contact Mr. Humpherston in order to confirm his interest failed on several occasions. This document was presented to Council Officers and has now disappeared with no action taken. Similarly a document showing the forged signature of Roger Ball, Head of Technical Services, has mysteriously disappeared as well. This was an attempt by Planning Services to show that planning had already been granted for the Winter Gardens site, in an attempt, we believe, to attract potential investors. This document was given to R. Ball and has produced no reaction. We have copies of both documents. What is going on? Return
