Millwall stadium controversy intensifies as false funding claims revealed
The sports foundation at the heart of the
Millwall FC compulsory purchase battle has been making false claims of having a £2m funding agreement from Sport England during the ongoing CPO process, the Guardian can reveal. The claims have been made by the Surrey Canal Sports Foundation, a charitable company set up and backed by loans from Renewal, an offshore-registered developer with historical connections to senior Lewisham council officers that stands to benefit from the seizure of Millwall’s land.
The revelations will be seized on by opponents of the scheme and could throw into doubt the future of the entire £1bn project. The compulsory purchase is the subject of local protest and wider public concern, with suggestions from Millwall’s chief executive that the fallout from the seizure of land around the Den could even
threaten the club’s future existence in London.
Sport England is the UK’s most prestigious grassroots sport funding vehicle. The £2m Sport England “pledge” has been mentioned repeatedly as a material factor by Lewisham council and the Renewal‑backed foundation, whose functions are key to the viability of the scheme. Such a grant would in practice act as a major rubber-stamp of viability and authenticity, a threshold that once passed “unlocks” access to other potential sources of charitable and public money.
The £2m claim was present on 25 June 2014 in a report to Lewisham’s mayor and cabinet recommending the grant of half a million pounds of public money to the foundation. It was repeated as “a pledge in principle” in CPO documents produced by the council last year. The claim of £2m Sport England funding has been splashed across the Surrey Canal Sports Foundation website, which was taken down within the past 24 hours.
In fact no such funding agreement exists. No application for a funding agreement is in process. Sport England has confirmed that it has had no official correspondence with the foundation since September 2014.
Sport England told the Guardian: “In 2010 we received a funding application from the Surrey Canal Sports Foundation, but this was subsequently withdrawn in 2013. We therefore have no funding agreement, of any kind, in place with them.”
In spite of this the £2m claim was listed in a table of “capital pledges” in the written section of the foundation’s 2014-15 accounts, documents that are subject to strict duties of accuracy and accountability. These accounts, which are an important source of information for potential donors and partners, were signed off by the former Tory minster Steven Norris.
Norris told the Guardian that Surrey Canal Sports Foundation originally approached Sport England in 2011 but that no application had been live since October 2013.
The Surrey Canal Sport Foundation was created to raise £40m in order to create a “sports village” as part of the development around the Den. It remains key to the argument in favour of public interest for the CPO-based scheme. The foundation’s directors include Sir Steve Bullock, the mayor of Lewisham; Norris; and Jordana Malik, a director of Renewal. Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson was a trustee but is understood to have recently resigned from her position at the charity.
It is this foundation, whose accounts are issued jointly by all directors, that has claimed to have the £2m of Sport England funding. In January 2014, five months before half a million pounds of Lewisham council public money was granted to the foundation, Norris wrote in a Surrey Canal Sport Foundation “pitch” brochure called New Energy: “The Foundation already has £12m in commitments from Sport England and the Developer Renewal … I would ask the London Borough of Lewisham to publicly and financially support this project.”
More:
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2017/jan/19/millwall-stadium-false-funding-claims-the-den
