Jenrick set to release documents on £1bn Westferry property deal
Housing secretary Robert Jenrick has bowed to political pressure and confirmed he will release “all relevant information” relating to his controversial Westferry Printworks planning decision later today.
Jenrick’s decision to give the green light to the East London site 12 days before its developer, former Daily Express owner Richard Desmond, donated £12,000 to the Conservative Party sparked accusations that the housing secretary was involved in “cash for favours”.
Jenrick said most of the papers relating to the decision will be published later on today, after Labour called a debate urging all correspondence of the £1bn Westferry Printworks Development in Tower Hamlets be put into the public domain.
The housing secretary told MPs: “I will write to the chair of the select committee outlining the timeline of events and the rationale for my decision-making pertaining to the Westferry Printworks planning decision.”
Labour said Jenrick’s approval of the building site, which was granted just a day before a new community infrastructure charge came into force, would have saved Desmond up to £50m.
Jenrick’s decision overruled those of Tower Hamlets Council and a planning inspector, who deemed the 1,500 home development at the former Westferry printing works on the Isle of Dogs unsuitable.
Jenrick maintained that he had acted lawfully and “in good faith”, but it later emerged that he sat next Desmond at a Conservative fundraising dinner at the Savoy Hotel one month before the decision was granted.
Desmond said he showed Jenrick a promotional video for the scheme on his mobile phone during the dinner, the Sunday Times reported.
But the housing secretary today maintained there was “nothing rotten” about the deal, and that he would release “most” of the documents to the public domain.
He said he was the subject of “a series of totally inaccurate statements and comments”, and added that the decision to approve planning permission was taken “with an open mind”.
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