Cheriton Parc Planning Application by Oliver Davis Company – MTH Cheriton Parc Ltd

On Tuesday evening Planning Application 22/1077/FH – Cheriton Parc House Cheriton High Street Folkestone CT18 8AN – Plan 22/1077/FH – Planning Obligation will go before the Planning Committee.

According to the Land Registry as of Feb 17, 2024, the 4.82 acre site is owned by Acromas Insurance Company Limited registered at 57-63, Line Wall Road, Gibraltar,  Saga Building, Enbrook Park, Folkestone, Kent CT20 3SE

Before moving on to speak about the MTH Cheriton Parc & Oliver Gordon Davis, we need to address an important matter. 

In R (Holborn Studios) v London Borough of Hackney (No 2) [2020] EWHC 1509 (Admin), a judgement handed down on the 11th June, Mr Justice Dove established the public’s right of access to viability assessments.

Justice Dove makes clear the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) sets out that viability assessments should be ‘publicly available’ (para 57). The Planning Practice Guidance (PPG) explained the need to publish the entire appraisals, other than in exceptional circumstances where an executive summary could be published, but still containing the ‘benchmark land value including the landowner premium’ (See Paragraphs 10-010, 10-020, 10-021 of the Planning Practice Guidance).

Cllrs do not currently have sight of the Viability Assessment, so will potentially make a decision without all the facts they are legitimately and legally entitled to. The decision should be deferred and the viability assessment placed in the public domain, as per Justice Dove’s ruling.

Back on track, the Application Form for 22/1077/FH, submitted by MTH Cheriton Parc Ltd – whose ownership structure looks like this.

Their intention is to convert the former Euro Tunnel call centre and Saga building into 31 x one and two bedroom apartments, and the development of 19 purpose built 1 and 2 bed apartments, the redevelopment of land to the rear to create a total of 36 dwellings (comprising 20 x 3 bedroom two storey dwellings and 16 x 4 bedroom 3 storey height townhouses) with associated landscaping and parking. So in total 86 new units.

In Oct 2023, Oliver Gordon Davis (pictured), one of the directors of MTH Cheriton Parc Ltd, was in contact with a company called Stratton Land Ltd  who are property developers. They offered the 4.82 acre site to Stratton for £5m. The Gross Development Value was (@ Oct 2023) £25.4m with a profit of 26.4% before finance costs. And Ollie was looking to be the Principal Contractor for the conversion works, according to these downloadable documents

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Stratton Land is owned by Sebastian Justin Arbis, according to  Companies House. Mr Arbis  turns up in the Pandora Papers, which make clear he owned a company called Wolf Derivatives based in the British Virgin Islands, a well known Tax Haven.

Oliver Gordon Davis is a man who the Shepway Vox Team have written about before – remember Ross House; which has cost our Council a fortune to fix after purchasing it from his company for £1.8m

We can see from further documentary evidence, Ollie has considered throwing his hat into the ring regarding the future development of Enbrook Park. Below is a structure; which uses one of his companies, intermingled with others potentially registered in the well known offshore tax haven of Jersey.

A quick look at the Jersey Companies House Register shows

MARTLEY CAPITAL ENBROOK PARK INVESTORS LIMITED

MARTLEY CAPITAL ENBROOK PARK GP LIMITED

MARTLEY CAPITAL ENBROOK PARK LP

were all registered on the same day – 6/10/2023

We will be writing more about Oliver Gordon Davis in the coming weeks, as we understand he and his companies are having a number of financial difficulties which are affecting a good number of peoples livelihoods.

There are legitimate uses for offshore companies and trusts. The inclusion of a person or entity in this blog post is not intended to suggest or imply that they have engaged in illegal or improper conduct. 

The Shepway Vox Team

Dissent is NOT a Crime