Ankerside is finally free. We at Debunking have known about what’s going on here for a while, since a former Councillor has been telling everyone who would listen about the state of the town centre shopping centre. It would seem that everything going on over the last couple of years has come to a head.
Naturally the local morons are out in force on the Heralds Facebook post, with this the top comment:
Which unfortunately for Wayne Heyes is utter bullshit, and proves that people with small brains like Wayne should not really comment on things they know nothing about. The exact opposite of this is true as you will learn if you read on. The Council is currently in a fantastic financial position until Labour inevitably screw it over.
We need to clear one thing up to start with, Tamworth Borough Council have always owned the freehold of the shopping centre. It’s management has been in the hands of others for decades from whom the council received just over a million pounds per year in rent. Unfortunately, the most recent owner of the lease, who took it over blindsiding the Council who knew nothing of it, hasn’t been paying their bills. First getting into over a million pounds of debt with the council, finally coughing up some of what was owed after much painful negotiation, only to not pay again and run up another million in debt. Not to mention the near 40k per month the council has been spending in legal and consultants fees the entire time.
So it should be no surprise that the Council has had a management company ready to take over if the inevitable happened, which it now has. REI group have given up the lease to the council simply because its UK subsidiary would likely fold causing every business in the centre to have been locked out of their premises. The council did have the option of taking rents directly from the tenants of the centre, but after long negotiations they have managed to get the best outcome.
Naturally the Labour controlling group would love to take credit for this. Which they simply can’t. This has been in negotiations way before the Tories lost control and the endgame was determined by them. It was much too far down the road for Labour to have any input on the process and let’s be thankful for that. Of course the statements from the REI group and the Council are very fluffy and light, hiding the absolute nightmare this process has apparently been. Little investment has gone into the centre other than new doormats, and the profits from the rents of the remaining tenants have been leached off for years.
Of course, now what to do with this dinosaur of the shopping age. Well #CllrNovaArkney has said that they are committed to “reinvigorating” the centre. Given what their government are doing to businesses at present, you can guess this is of course bollocks. Ankerside shopping centre have no real large anchor tenants to draw people in, with Boots having packed up and left a while ago having been there for as long as the centre. Iceland we believe renewed it’s lease last year, but could likely decide to pack up and let the Ventura store do the job. In short the future of Ankerside is dire, it is also common knowledge that it is riddled with RAAC (especially the car park) amongst many other issues there are with the building. In short, the building needs to be pulled down.
There are at least some people on Facebook who do have brains and remind us that they are out there somewhere. Someone has come to the logical conclusion we hope the Council will come to, but unlikely given Miss Hashtags reinvigoration statement.
Now this is already happening naturally to an extent and fits in with the realistic vision the Tories had for the town, realising that retail shopping as it was will never be the same again. The town centre has been undergoing a forced transformation into a leisure area since the Internet and large destination shopping centres popped up to eat its’ breakfast. Of course people of small brain believe this to be all the councils fault and that they charge too much rent or rates and that it should have got better shops, none of which the Council have any control over. You can tell these people until you’re blue in the face but you won’t get anywhere.
It is going to be very interesting to see just how badly Labour screw Ankerside up, because they inevitably will. They always have and always will be anti business, and their government are not only busy killing off pensioners who vote Tory, they’re getting ready for their big distribution of wealth plans that could in fact suck more money out of Tamworth to those areas that are not run well. Meanwhile they’re busy welcoming 20,000 small boat illegal immigrants and future voters into the country, hoping you’ll soon forget about it, and doing their best to build everywhere by setting ridiculous targets and reopening Marmion House. They are doing this in the full knowledge you simply can’t do anything at all about the pent up mess they’re now making. Great times ahead!
Updated:
Naturally this guy has come out from under his rock to say his piece. Be under no illusion that Councillor Kingstone has known about this for the entire time it has been happening. As a councillor he has access to all information and has, we understand, along with everyone else received the regular briefings given under codenames such as ‘commercial lease’. According to our sources he has had little to no interest as well as little to no input on any of what has been happening.
