Edinburgh Sucks! | Bunty’s crowning glory

City Council

Bunty’s crowning glory - a fcuk-up

By The Basa ⋅ October 2, 2007 ⋅

Elizabeth “Bunty Backhander” Maginnis’ crowning glory, the National Galleries site, which she leaked to the Evening News last week against all ethical practices for board members turns out to have been a complete fcuk-up.

Edinburgh Sucks now knows why both Waterfront Edinburgh Limited (WEL) and the Scottish Executive never came out shouting and cheering for the new facility on the Waterfront. Bunty Backhander (the Chair) and Stephen Izatt were actually trying to sell to the Scottish Government the ₤ 1.1m piece of land for the building when in fact Waterfront Edinburgh DID NOT EVEN OWN THE LAND.

The story goes….. When the new Acting Chief Executive was appointed in March he was contacted by the Scottish Executive’s agent conclude the sale of the site to the Scottish Executive so that it could be complete by the end of the financial year which was the end of March. Terms had already been agreed between WEL and the Scottish Executive for a sale price of the aforementioned one point one million pounds.

The Chief Executive (CE) then contacted JLL and their Solicitors, Burness to ascertain how the sale was going, only to find out that neither were aware of the project - an extremely strange situation because it had been under discussion for quite a number of months and one would have expected the lawyers to have been involved in agreeing the terms, price etc. The CE immediately instructed them to start work on the sale.

When the work started, the fcuk-up immediately became apparent. There were EIGHT other legal interests in the land. Some were short term leases but four were in other owners and nobody had ever contact them about being bought out. It then became apparent that it would be impossible to conclude the deal with the Scottish Government.

Then ensued a series of difficult meetings between a whole load of pissed off professionals and an agreement was made for the sale of three of their sites opposite Caroline Park. These are the very same sites which had been retained for the second primary school which means that negotiations with the Council had to take place to find an alternative site for the school as a matter of priority.

Finally in September, as has been reported in the Evening News the Scottish Government SEVEN MONTHS LATE.

So that’s it. Bunty Backhander and Stephen “runner” Izatt were selling land on the Waterfront when their company did not own it. Councillor Ian Perry was also on the Board and he has said nothing.

So the credit taken by Bunty Backhander in the Evening News last week was not hers to take. It was actually the new Acting Chief Executive’s. No wonder everyone stayed silent when she was rabbiting on to the press and the credit she put on the previous Labour administration for bringing in this nice new ‘treasure-trove’ should in fact be down to the current administration who sorted out her fcuk-up.

Well done Bunty. Now will you resign?