Otterpool Park Update

Arcadis Consulting (UK) Ltd , formerly Hyder Consulting (UK) Ltd are the Masterplanning and Project Management Team chosen to bring together the masterplan for Otterpool Park where Shepway District Council will build up to 12,000 along with Cozumel Estates Ltd.

Arcadis Consulting (UK) Ltd  (see page 3) is a subsidiary of Arcadis Consulting Europe Limited, who in turn are owned by Arcadis NV (a Dutch company). Arcadis have many subisidaries around the world.

In this sense Arcadis are no different from any other multinational company. They employee Transfer Pricing Specialists again like many other multinationals. However Professor Prem Sikka has said that “the biggest tax avoidance scheme of all, is known as “transfer pricing”. The name of the game is to shift profits to low tax jurisdictions and avoid taxes in countries where corporations have substantial trading operations.“

Google, Starbucks, Facebook, Apple, Ebay and Amazon have all used “transfer pricing” and other schemes to reduce their tax bill here in the UK. It is clear that Arcadis engage in transfer pricing as well, as the job advertisements they place make clear. And they have enough subsidaries across the world to take advantage of “transfer pricing”. Everything these companies are doing is legal. It’s avoidance and not evasion.

In the tender document it is clear that Arcadis Consulting UK Ltd signed a deal with SDC and Cozumel Estates Ltd. The Arcadis – contract (1) went live on the 4th August 2016 (page 4) and was signed by Jeremy Chambers (see page 10) Corporate Director of Strategic Operations. What these contracts shows (at page 9) was that SDC were already working in partnership with Cozumel Estates Ltd before they signed their collaboration agreement on the 8th Septemeber 2016.

Also what becomes visible for the first time, is the address given by Cozumel Estates Limited at Page 9 of the contract and that address is Patton, Moreno & Asvat (BVI) Ltd, 2nd floor O’Neal Marketing Associates Building, PO Box 3174, Wickham’s Cay II, Road Town, Tortola,  VG1110 British Virgin Islands.

The address where Cozumel is registred shows up in the Panama Papers as does a known director Alexander Bushaev of Cozumel Estates Limited, who appears in the Bahama Leaks three times and signed the Initial collaboration agreemnt – (see page 35) for and on behalf of Cozumel Estates Ltd on the 8th Septemeber 2016.

Anyway moving on swiftly, the housing minister, Gavin “3 kettles” Barwell (pictured far right), has told the world’s housebuilders that if they cannot find enough land on which to build new homes they can “come and see me” and he will try to help. Gavin “3 Kettles” Barwell MP was the minister who gave the green light to Otterpool on Nov 11th. Anyway we are a bit confused by Gavin “3 Kettles” Barwell statement as there already exists 886,000 plots of land to build on in the UK, and that is not including the option agreements the companies below may have signed.

Developer	Land owned (acres)	Current land bank(plots)	Strategic land bank(plots)	Notes on land owned
Persimmon	9,839	93,519	17,500 acres/ ~218,750 plots	Sum of subsidiaries: umbrella org = 8,523 acres, plus Persimmon Midlands, NE, NW, South Coast, SW, Wessex, W Mids, Wales, Yorks
Taylor Wimpey	14,684	77,805	103,806	Sum of Taylor Wimpey UK Ltd (main landholder) & other subsidiaries: Taylor Wimpey Holdings Ltd and Taylor Wimpey Developments Ltd.
Barratt Group	386	71,351	70,000	Sum of Barratt South Wales Ltd, Barratt Manchester Ltd and Barratt East Midlands Ltd
Bellway	4,751	34,979	6,300
Redrow	4,834	26,000	25,635
Bovis	3,766	19,477	24,484
Berkeley Group	1,064	42,125	5,000	Sum of Berkeley Strategic Land Limited, Berkley Seventy-Six Limited, Berkeley Homes (Southern) Limited, Berkeley Homes (Oxford & Chiltern) Limited, Berkeley Homes (Fleet) Limited and Berkeley Homes (Eastern) Limited
Galliford Try	415	14,200	?	Sum of Galliford Homes Limited and Galliford Southern Limited
Crest Nicholson	1,839	15,377	17,820	Sum of Crest Nicholson Operations Ltd and Crest Nicholson (Eastern) Limited
Countryside	No record	9,207	10,115
TOTALS	41,578 acres	404,040 plots	481,910 plots	Grand total: 885,950 plots

So why then do we need to free up more land to build on when the companies above have land banked so much and according to Shelter, who have exposed that the top ten housing developers are sitting on enough plots of land for almost a million homes. Why does anyone need to go and see him when they could talk to anyone one of the ten above and buy some land from them which they have banked?

Surely Gavin “3 Kettles” Barwell MP should instruct the above companies to build on these plots first.

Finally, SDC have released some new information regarding Otterpool Park as a Question & Answers booklets see →  Shepway_Otterpool_QAs or look on the Otterpool Timeline on SDC’s website (March 2017) and has been signed off by Cll David Monk Leader, Shepway District Council (pictured). If you have questions you can always write to:

david.monk@shepway.gov.uk,

jeremy.chambers@shepway.gov.uk

julia.wallace@shepway.gov.uk

as they have stated they are welcoming questions by you the public of Shepway.

There are legitimate uses for offshore companies and trusts. We do not intend to suggest or imply that any persons, companies or other entities included in this blog post have broken the law or otherwise acted improperly unless found so by a court of law.

Shepwayvox Team