Urban Splash-The Bubble Bursts So Tom Bloxham Attempts To Blow Up Another "Grant Aided" One.

SIR BOB KERSLAKE PARTIES WITH TOM BLOXHAM IN THE SOUTH OF FRANCE

Star date: 20th September 2010
A Salford Star Exclusive
SIR BOB KERSLAKE, TOM BLOXHAM AND THE BUBBLE HOUSE PARTY IN THE SOUTH OF FRANCE
"There's more scope for the private and public sectors to work together more closely" Tom Bloxham, Urban Splash
Sir Bob Kerslake, Chief Exec of the Homes and Communities Agency, partied at Tom Bloxham's opulent bubble house in the South of France, weeks before he took up his post as head of the public agency that deals with affordable housing.
The Homes and Community Agency has since, we estimate, handed over £60million to schemes associated with Tom Bloxham's Urban Splash…

http://www.salfordstar.com/article.asp?id=686  Full Story Here
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Urban Splash have left the city high and dry, after all the promises to renovate the Littlewoods Building on Edge Lane ....with massive grant aid, then the loyalties switch to public housing
This has been exposed by the Salford Star who keep their fingers on the pulse. They keep an eye on Peel Holdings alright and are what we would say old fashioned go getting style exposing the truth. We have to respect this in the age of advertorial reporting.
Urban Splash have been the darling of the property boom....well in some peoples eyes, usually the people giving out the grants.
But the bubble has burst now the Salford Star shows them up for what they are, Grant Merchants funded by the public purse from the inception. Now
trying to re-inflate themselves, while Littlewoods promises are renaged upon and the place goes downhill.
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2010/07/there-was-scheme-to-relocate-school-in.html

http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/08/urban-splashare-they-drowning-in-debt.html

Look what they and English Heritage did to Parkhill http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/05/dr-simon-thurley-and-restoration-of.html

I was at the Midland Hotel in Morcambe a few weeks ago, which I had a private tour before work started. It could only be described as a average renovation designed to maximise grant aid for Urban Splash and it shows.

Wake up these are not the jolly good fellows they are portrayed as.

Salford Star goes on showing a picture of Sir Bob and Tom Bloxham together........partying, well whats wrong with that, I imply nothing.

Sir Bob Kerslake, salary £223,300 (inc taxable allowances), is currently head of the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) which handles multi billion pound budgets of public money for things like affordable housing, supposedly to help those on low incomes.


Just over two weeks before Sir Bob took up his post as designate head of the HCA in March 2008 he was in the South of France, at the international property bash MIPIM, and attended a no expense spared party at Tom Bloxham's exclusive bubble house high in the hills near Nice.

In the three years since the HCA has been in existence, Tom Bloxham's Urban Splash schemes have, we estimate, received over £60million in grants from the HCA, including money for the Chimney Pot Park upside down houses in Langworthy, Salford, the Lakeshore development in Bristol, Longlands Mill in Stalybridge, New Islington in Manchester and the massive Park Hill flats regeneration in Sheffield, where Sir Bob Kerslake was formerly Chief Executive of Sheffield Council.

The Salford Star wishes to make clear that it is not inferring any link between Sir Bob Kerslake partying at Tom Bloxham's opulent bubble house in the South of France and Bloxham's company Urban Splash receiving, we estimate, over £60million in public subsidies for many of its failing housing schemes.
The Salford Star is just questioning whether it was appropriate for the head of the government's social housing programme to accept hospitality from a potential recipient of HCA funding weeks before he took up his designate post as head of the HCA.

We asked the Homes and Communities Agency to get us a quote from Sir Bob Kerslake on, firstly, whether he thought it was appropriate that he was a guest of Tom Bloxham at the house in the South of France? And, secondly, what he thought the reaction would be from Salford people who live in the regeneration area of Langworthy where Urban Splash has funding from the HCA?

Unfortunately, he didn't get back to us but a spokesman for the HCA said:

"Tom Bloxham hosts an event every year for MIPIM conference delegates, on behalf of Urban Splash. Sir Bob Kerslake attended in March 2008, prior to taking up his role as Chief Executive Designate of the Homes and Communities Agency. The HCA started as an agency on 1 December 2008. Sir Bob has not attended this event during the last two years whilst being Chief Executive of the HCA."

• MIPIM 2008 ran 11-14th March. Sir Bob took up his post with the HCA on 31st March 2008.
• Quote from Nick Johnson, Urban Splash deputy chief executive, on hearing that Sir Bob Kerslake had got the job of Chief Exec of the HCA in 2008 (as told to building.co.uk) "He's fantastic, basically. I simply can't think of anyone better."
• Nick Johnson also sits on the Homes and Communities Agency Design and Sustainability Advisory Group.

• Urban Splash, we understand, made a post tax loss of £39million in 2008/9 and £10million in 2009/10.
• Tom Bloxham told Property Week in May this year: "I believe these to be well designed, award-winning homes. The question is if you don't finish them, what are you left with? Blight. You can't just do nothing. There has to be money spent. It seems an eminently sensible way forward to me...There's more scope for the private and public sectors to work together more closely"

• Sir Bob Kerslake's HCA has a budget of £9billion for affordable homes between 2008-11
• Urban Splash has recently been accredited by the HCA as a landlord of affordable homes.
• Sir Bob Kerslake is about to leave the Homes and Communities Agency to drive through the ConDem Coalition government's agenda at the Department of Communities and Local Government as Permanent Secretary
Also in attendance at Tom Bloxham's party at the bubble house in March 2008 was Richard Simmons (salary £128,175), chief executive of CABE (Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment), another public agency which, amongst other things, helps "public bodies to commission better design".

• Nick Johnson, deputy chief executive of Urban Splash, is a CABE commissioner (salary £6000) and is CABE's "joint housing champion".
• CABE leads an initiative called Building For Life, a national standard for well-designed homes and neighbourhoods which is assessed on criteria such as closeness to transport links, community facilities and how well they fit in with the character of the area. Urban Splash achieved a Gold Standard in 2009 for the Chimney Pot Park development, amongst many other Building For Life awards (the Salford Star wishes to make clear that it is not infering any link between Richard Simmons attending Tom Bloxham's private party at the bubble house and Urban Splash winning any CABE awards)

The Salford Star has an interview with Tom Bloxham, plus a huge exclusive story on Urban Splash which will be published in the next printed issue of the magazine. If you would like to read this story please help us to get a printed issue out.

* Our main photo shows Sir Bob Kerslake chatting with Tom Bloxham at the Bubble House in the South of France. http://www.salfordstar.com/article.asp?id=686 Thanks to Salford Star for helping advise us where your taxes go............right into Tom Bloxhams pocket, we effectivly bought his house in the South of France, I bet you that doesnt need doing up..

Urban Splash....Are They Drowning in Debt?

Our Architectural Saviours Urban Splash are now in talks with their bankers to ensure that it does not breach its banking covenants. They have promoted themselves as the darling boys of trendy heritage.....milking the public grant system.... in my opinion. I personally put a lot of time into saving the Littlewoods Building from demolition when I picked up a planning application to demolish it. They were supposed to have acquired it but it seems they have now abandoned the project. The same seems to be happening at the derelict Cinema in Lime Street used as a hoarding for 2008. What a mess they helped create along with those English Heretics at Park Hill in Sheffield. http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/05/dr-simon-thurley-and-restoration-of.html They also have just recently completed the Midland Hotel in Morecambe. I had a private tour round the building with Bill Maynard and suggested I place an advertisment, in the Antique trade gazzette after the theft of a balustrade section with a seahorse upon it designed by Eric Gill. It was some months later at a live Radio Merseyside debate that Bill told me someone had walked on the site with it..no questions asked and gave it back. I was pleased "Right you can pay me for the advert now" I said, "Oh did we not pay you" he said sheepishly. "we will send you a cheque". There may be a few other schemes of theirs on hold while Tom Bloxham can well ride it out in his mad looking futuristic 1960s pile in the south of France.

Johnathan Falkingham who along with Tom Floxham founded the company. Falkingham is a trustee of National Museums Liverpool. Urban Splash did a competition scheme for the original museum competion for our Pier Head marketed by October Communications. The competition was for a Fourth (sic) Grace that architect madman of "Cloud" Cuckoo-land, Alsop won in a council stitch up, with the glass pie in the sky. They both then went on to do a sheme called "Cheep as Chips" together. Someone from Urban Spash said about Alsop. "He should be in an institution he is as mad as a hatter". http://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/buildings/residential/chips-new-islington-manchester-by-alsop-architects/5202419.article

So Falkingham, eventually as part of NML along with the then Chairman of English Heritage, who turned a blind eye, managed to destroy the World Heritage Site anyhow with the museum that is funded by building those three black granite grotesques next to it, that Doreen Jones cast her vote as chair of planning committee to rubber stamp.

Splosh!!. Big Belly Flop!! Tools are now well and truly downed “The directors believe that based, upon dialogue with these lenders, it is unlikely that the banks would demand facilities to be repaid in the next 12 months and that those due for renewal will be satisfactorily renegotiated" Falkingham said. In the year to 31 March 2008, pre-tax profits ballooned 58% to £4.9 million on turnover up 9% to £62.1 million.

Yes and most of that was because they had learnt how to milk more money from the public purse.

When the going gets tough Urban Splash get going.

Dr Simon Thurley and the Restoration of Faulty Towers

I have just watched last Fridays BBC 2 programme about English Heretics and the god-damn awful block of flats that no-one in Sheffield wanted to keep, there were major campaigns to have it demolished, only the out of touch ministry of funny walks at English Heretics listed it against all the wishes of the people who live there.

It was hilarious, well good entertainment but in the realms of a load of "out of touch twassers" at the ministry of funny walks, wasting millions of pounds of public money. It was like watching a disaster movie. image coutosy of BBC see link below for a gallery of images

http://www.bbc.co.uk/southyorkshire/content/image_galleries/park_hill_gallery.shtml?10

PARK HILL is a Le Corbusier inspired monolithic block of misery that never functioned and never will because people hate it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Park_Hill,_Sheffield

The Heretics said it should be preserved as the largest listed building in Europe ( I think the honour used to lay with the Albert Dock, in England, at least as Grade I). It looks like a huge decaying beached Whale.The nutters from the ministry go Thurdling into one disaster after another.

Now I can see the theories behind the motives but what people doing up Faulty Towers don't seem to understand is that concrete is the biggest disaster to hit England, it just rots and never really looks good and once the structural metal reinforceing bars cast inside the concrete rust, it goes balloon and its bladdered.

In Marsailles they don't have the rain and driving winds like we do so its a mistake to compare.

They knocked Bell Vale flats in Liverpool down and they had a party to celebrate the event.

Tom Floxham from Urban Splash was rolled in, as the darling boy, who lives off the public purse saving buildings for the nation, what a good egg...and making a fortune out of the Heretics grant system.

50,000 signatures against its renovation were collected now there's democracy for you.

Did Basil Thurley listen no he saw a TV camera beckoning and went for it. Only this has backfired big time. My opinion is that he is a posing little twit with no talent. Could he put a shelf up? So why is he in charge of a fortune of our money, with no practical experience.

I would not let this character loose on renovating my shed as it would have an estimate of £120,000 or some telephone number. The builders see him coming and throw a couple of noughts on. You have heard the saying Lions led by Donkeys well this looks like a case of Donkey's led by Donkey's.

The architects go off on a "jollie" to Marseilles and ponce about the bit of hockey stick used for a door handle on one of the rooms that they cant get into because the bloke renovating Park Hill cant work out how the lock works. God help us, its evident that an architect in a tangerine orange shirt matched with red trousers has no design skill. But he had the requisite trendy gigs on so he fitted the bill and got the job.

Why do most architects look like something from the Village of the Damned?

They were bemused how the Corbusier block cost 7 million to renovate when their budget was three.

Well can you guess what happened next the budget goes to 51 million they rip the innards out of it, and the credit crunch hits. Basil sweats a bit and says lots of stuff like "as it were". The builders down tools because they are almost bust and the beached Whale is now open to the elements in places that should not be, and there is now a estimate of £150,000,000 to put it right.

The Councillor who led the campaign to demolish it is now Sheffield City Council leader.

Basil Thurley what a disaster , he should be renovated. A petition to demolish him me thinks would easily get 50,000 signatures. This bungling idiot thinks he is on Grand Designs with my money this nonsense should stop now the DCMS should take action.

Wayne Colquhoun