Smears designed to hide council mistakes, says Danczuk

Rochdale’s Labour Parliamentary Candidate Simon Danczuk, commenting on the links between Sultan Properties and his company, has explained that Vision 21 has been operating since 1999 and works for a large number of clients in both the public and private sectors across the country.

“We are a professional company and operate within a clear framework of client confidentiality,” he said. “Every client has a director allocated to them and they are responsible for that relationship. The day-to-day running of the business is handled by our Managing Director. I was obviously aware we were employed by Sultan but have had no involvement with the account.

“I would like to make it clear that Vision 21 were not engaged by Sultan Properties at the time of the decision making process. It has, however, since come to our attention that the council de-briefing revealed the public consultation had not formed part of the criteria or scoring mechanism for the chosen developer. Furthermore, the fact that Allen Brett and Vision 21’s clients have differing views on the process demonstrates my lack of involvement.”

Mr Danczuk believes there is a campaign to try and shift attention away from what he says are “monumental failings” on the town centre development project. He alleges that the Council’s Executive Director, Andy Zuntz has yet to respond to questions about whether the consultation formed part of the criteria on which the proposals were judged, Mr Danczuk said he was adamant that the council and Rochdale Development Agency (RDA) had a case to answer for and that efforts were being made to silence any public criticism.

“Rochdale people’s views and opinions on the three possible developers never formed part of the criteria on which the developer was chosen,” he said.

“I am sure that Rochdale people will be upset that their views and opinions did not directly decide which developer should rebuild our town. I am sure that they will also be angry that public money has been spent on a so-called public consultation that did not directly influence the choice of developer. And I doubt they will be too pleased to hear that rate payers’ money has been used to fly in lawyers from Brussels to try and defend this decision.”

The council's executive director, Andy Zuntz, has previously responded: "It was a unanimous all-party decision to select Wilson Bowden as the nominated development partner and the views of local people were taken into account as part of the selection process."

"Whilst Sultan did try and make a late submission and variation to their proposal, EU procurement law meant we could not accept this as the selection process had to be completely fair and balanced."

Date article online: 05/05/2008