European Commission seek explanation on Celtic land deals

[NixonRFC 1,334]

Has he deleted his twitter or changed names

[soulboy 2,518]

Has he deleted his twitter or changed names

Looks like someone has complained again and got his account suspended, it was working earlier today

[Faircity 186]

..PZJ was telling a few home truths about that fat fcuker from scotzine....looks like a few of the nappy rippers got upset and reported him...I wish he would just block these scumbags then his life would be so much easier....mon te pzj.

[NixonRFC 1,334]

Just read of him pretending to be his wife arguing with that Scotzine guy, what the fuck is that all about? He's hardly doing his credibility any kind good partaking in that kinda shite!

[soulboy 2,518]

Interesting tweet from pzj saying the EU did not use any of his evidence as they said he had "no interest" but pzj says everyone who complained was a rangers shareholder and thus have an interest.

Will be interesting to see what develops from this

[Faircity 186]

..If pzj not having an "interest" is all they can come up with for not opening a full investigation then they are clutching at straws....tick tock...

[Spectre 1,663]

..If pzj not having an "interest" is all they can come up with for not opening a full investigation then they are clutching at straws....tick tock...

In fairness this was raised very early on, that said if they were at a preliminary stage they should consider any evidence available, it was for them to investigate and yet PZJ did all the work. What was he saying to the fatman?

[sprotson11 147]

So if they did not consider his evidence, then what evidence did they consider.

And why did it take so long, we always thought it was because pzj was providing more evidence all the time.

[fuckthespl 2,473]

So if they did not consider his evidence, then what evidence did they consider.

And why did it take so long, we always thought it was because pzj was providing more evidence all the time.

This. I don't think they will release any further information other than saying they aren't going to formal investigation. I saw that the decision will get appealled and think there are FOI requests to find why they came to that decision.

[soulboy 2,518]

Gcc and the scum were asked to provide documents but in the case off westhorn when a FOI was put in requesting the geo technical report gcc said they had one but couldn't release it due to the investigation . According to the state aid commissioner for Scotland no geotechnical report was received from gcc only one from the scum

so it seems to me gcc only released documents to the eu which didn't incriminate them

[kelvd1873 7,159]

Gcc and the scum were asked to provide documents but in the case off westhorn when a FOI was put in requesting the geo technical report gcc said they had one but couldn't release it due to the investigation . According to the state aid commissioner for Scotland no geotechnical report was received from gcc only one from the scum

so it seems to me gcc only released documents to the eu which didn't incriminate them

So how do we send documents to the eu which do incriminate them soulboy?

[sprotson11 147]

Gcc and the scum were asked to provide documents but in the case off westhorn when a FOI was put in requesting the geo technical report gcc said they had one but couldn't release it due to the investigation . According to the state aid commissioner for Scotland no geotechnical report was received from gcc only one from the scum

so it seems to me gcc only released documents to the eu which didn't incriminate them

The information commissioner stated that the geotechnical report could not be released whilst there was an ongoing investigation.I guess they can release it now

[sprotson11 147]

So how do we send documents to the eu which do incriminate them soulboy?

If they only considered the westhorn deal, I guess that pzj is preparing another submission on the other land deals

[soulboy 2,518]

The information commissioner stated that the geotechnical report could not be released whilst there was an ongoing investigation.I guess they can release it now

Yeah said this last week after the decision and would I get it before I made an appeal or they would just use the same excuse again not to give it.

[soulboy 2,518]

So how do we send documents to the eu which do incriminate them soulboy?

There would be no point in anyone sending documents who do not have an interest in the case so would suggest anyone who found something to post it in the footballtaxhavens website in any of the comments boxes.

PZJ has sent them all his FOI requests already but they dismissed them saying PZJ had "no interest" in the case so wouldn't accept his evidence but PZJ is a rangers shareholder meaning he has an interest and this is what they will base the appeal on meaning all evidence submitted by him will have to be looked at not just what GCC and the scum submitted.

Only 2 FOI are missing the westhorn geotechnical report and the SLA from EDC before I made an appeal I would get these first

[soulboy 2,518]

So if they did not consider his evidence, then what evidence did they consider.

And why did it take so long, we always thought it was because pzj was providing more evidence all the time.

PZJ said in a tweet the 1st and 2nd investigating officers were removed from the case why was this ?

This is why it took so long it was the 3rd person to take over the case that made the decision

[Wullies_bowly_legs 3,805]

PZJ said in a tweet the 1st and 2nd investigating officers were removed from the case why was this ?

Maybe they went to the wrong school.

[The Educator 1,572]

Soulboy - "PZJ has sent them all his FOI requests already but they dismissed them saying PZJ had "no interest" in the case so wouldn't accept his evidence but PZJ is a rangers shareholder meaning he has an interest and this is what they will base the appeal on meaning all evidence submitted by him will have to be looked at not just what GCC and the scum submitted."

I think what they are getting here is that PJZ does no reside in the areas where the illegal state aid would have originated from, these being East Dunbartonshire & Glasgow.

The obvious way round this is for PJZ to enlist residents of these areas to launch their own complaint under his guidance and using a pack of material sourced through similar FOI's. I agree that if their only legal reason for not releasing the geotechnical report as the ongoing investigation then it should now be available via a fresh set of FOI's.

[soulboy 2,518]

Found this post by PZJ on another site, he doesn't say who he sent it to

Dear Sirs,

I and several colleagues have, over several months, been supplying evidence in an attempt to prove that Celtic Football Club (CFC) have, on several occasions, been recipients of State Aid, from Glasgow City Council (GCC).

Herein, I set about to prove conclusively, that that has been the case.

Land purchased at Westhorn in Glasgow was valued at £4,190,000.00 by the GCC Senior Surveyor, as if 160No. units could be built on the land; each unit being valued at £26,187.50. Not all of the land was valued, however, as GCC have stated that a ‘blast zone’ exists, effectively sterilising 6.5 acres out of the 13.5 acres in total ‘transferred’ to CFC. The remainder of the land, some 7 acres was deemed fit for development. A large deduction in value was then applied, amounting to £3,515,000.00 for ‘abnormals’, thereby valuing the land at a mere £675,000.00. This ‘blast zone’ or ‘exclusion zone’ referred to by Peter Marsh was imposed by the Health and Safety Executive, around Dewars Whisky Bond. Please refer to correspondence between Peter Marsh of GCC and Jim Fraser – email of 27/01/2014. [ Appendix 1].

Please also refer to a letter from GCC to John Stevens dated 11th September, 2013 Ref. © Westhorn Recreational Park, confirming the method of evaluation of the purchase price of the land. [Appendix 2].

Several individuals have queried this with GCC, who also have stated on many occasions that a geotechnical report was carried out, which indicates abnormal ground conditions exist at Westhorn. I, personally, have requested sight of this geotechnical report, on eight occasions, to be informed at the eighth attempt, that my requests were unreasonable. Please refer to letter to John Stevens of 23/01/2014 from GCC . [Appendix 3].

GCC have also stated that CFC have undertaken an independent geotechnical survey. Again, evidence of such survey has not been produced.

Evidence collected over a period by myself and several colleagues strongly suggests that neither report exists, and that there are no valid reasons for GCC to have reduced the purchase price of the land at Westhorn. Please refer to a letter received by me from Richard Brown, Executive Director of GCC on 14th October, 2013 in response to my email dated 18th September, 2013 [Appendix 4].

Section 3© of the reply refers at line 12. ‘’Should Celtic Football Club ever wish to develop the land for residential use they would be responsible for all remediation costs, which, according to the geotechnical analysis, would be a minimum of £3,515,000.’’

I put it to you that, given the reluctance of GCC to produce a geotechnical analysis, that no such analysis exists. There is no evidence of any sort from any quarter, that remediation of the land is required at all. You will also have noted that there seems to be some uncertainty within GCC as to the apparent reasoning for required remediation. Is it due to land use sterilised by a blast zone or exclusion zone, or is it due to some other abnormality below ground level which has come to light via a geotechnical survey and report?

I shall further demonstrate, with sound evidence, that no such chemical contamination, no such geotechnical problems exist, nor do any problems associated with earlier mining, exist.

Evidence suggests that GCC may have ‘gifted’ CFC some 6.5 acres of land they deemed unfit for building upon as part of the land purchase deal. It is also important to note at this stage, that the land at Westhorn was not advertised, with a view to attracting a higher bidder, thereby raising more income to the benefit of the citizens of Glasgow.

Investigation of Contamination of the Land at Westhorn

The Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) responded to a query from a colleague, Joe Canoe by way of a rely to his letter dated 10th February, 2014 [Appendix 5]. This letter clearly states that GCC have not provided notice to SEPA of any contaminated land at this site, and that SEPA are not aware of any contamination land with 250m of this site.

The evidence is further corroborated by a map produced by Clyde Gateway [Appendix 6], which indicates ‘occasional inorganic & organic contaminants’ exist. The description implies ‘low level’ contamination. The Westhorn site is indicated by the ‘L – Shaped’ area to the RHS below the key shaded yellow.

The letter referred to in Appendix 4 alludes to there being contaminated land at Westhorn. Refer to Section 3(a), lines 10-27.

Investigation of Geotechnical ‘Abnormals’

Despite several attempts by myself and others to obtain a geotechnical report said to exist, by GCC, with a further, independent report carried out by CFC, neither have been made available.

I again put it to you, that no such report(s) exist. Surely production of the report(s) would have resulted in no further correspondence, and would have avoided eight attempts at having them put into the public domain.

The letter referred to in [Appendix 2] dated 11/09/2013 states under Section © Westhorn Recreational Park, bullet point 3, that ‘The Council’s Geotechnical Team investigated the site to determine the extent of the abnormal ground conditions.’

Please find attached a series of logs from boreholes carried out between 1965 and 1987 within the confines of the Westhorn area of land sold by GCC to CFC [Appendix 7]. These have been sourced from the British Geological Society (BGS). A plan of the area is included which indicates the loci and density of the boreholes, some 39No. in total.

These boreholes are fairly dense in their coverage of the area. Careful inspection of the logs indicate fairly consistent strata, comprising layers of mudstones, gravels, sandstone, with occasional coal.

There is no evidence of any faulting or intrusions. Although not guaranteed, it could be fairly safely assumed the geotechnical problems do not exist below ground level at Westhorn. As can be seen most of the bores were taken to depths of 30+metres (many of them to 40m).

Please also refer to a ‘geological fault map’ and two borehole logs bored within the Westhorn area in 1965 and 1986 as further evidence [Appendix 8]

Investigation of Problems due to Mining

GCC also allude to there being restrictions to land development due to previous mining activities. Ref. letter in Appendix 4, Section 3(a) line 13. Please find attached in [Appendix 9], 2No. reports obtained from the Coal Authority. Both reports indicate quite clearly that the authority would not anticipate previous mining activity to be detrimental to construction on the land at Westhorn. They indicate that mining took place in the area at depths between 40m and 140m below ground level. The bore logs do indicate some potentially workable coal seams around 1.0m thick and slightly greater. The bores were mostly driven to around 40m. There is no evidence that these seams have been worked, or the bore logs would surely have produced indicators.

There is a further, more in depth report available, which is designed around providing information to potential buyers of land. However, it is fairly expensive to obtain. I felt that there was sufficient evidence to prove inconsistency, and State Aid was surely the case.

Investigation of the existence of a blast zone or exclusion zone around Dewars

GCC included some 6.5 acres of land (out of a total of 13.5 acres) within the sale of Westhorn, which was stated by Peter Marsh in his letter to Jim Fraser as being within an exclusion zone, also referred to as a blast zone imposed around Dewars Whisky Bond by the HSE. It was stated that only 7 acres of the 13.5 acres transferred to CFC could be developed. [Refer to Appendix 1]. This blast zone is referred to in the letter contained in Appendix 4 in Section 3(b) lines 4-7. It is also mentioned in the letter referred to in [Appendix 3] under Section © Westhorn Recreational Park, bullet point 5 ‘The original area for the site was 13.5 acres. After a previously unknown blast zone was identified, this was subsequently reduced to 7 acres.’

It appears to be very strange that such information would certainly be held within the Council’s own Planning Department.

My investigation commenced with reference to the ‘Control of Major Accident Hazards Regulations 1999 (COMAH) which explains that Dewars would have produced a Risk Assessment and a major accident prevention policy (MAPP) under the Regulations which would have been forwarded to the HSE.

PADHI (the HSE’s Land Use Planning Methodology) was then consulted for advice. A Consultation Zone (CD) can not be found anywhere on the HSE/PADHI Websites, nor on the GCC Planning Website.

As time is now of the essence, I feel it necessary to forward this evidence to you immediately, to try to ensure that a full and comprehensive investigation is carried out involving, in this case, GCC, CFC and Harper Macleod their solicitors.

I currently await a response from the HSE in the next few days, which I shall forward to you under separate cover.

I am of the considered opinion, that no such exclusion zone exists around John Dewar’s Whisky Bond, for two reasons; the first being via a document obtained from GCCs Planning website giving details of the property at 1700, London Road in Glasgow which indicates the Development Policy as being ‘Industry and Business’ (or DEV 3) [Appendix 10] and the second being the Minutes of Agreement for 1530, London Road (Page 10 of the GCC Executive Committee, City Plan 2) indicating a change to DEV 2 was granted for ‘Residential and Supporting Uses’ [Appendix 11]. No. 1530 London Road is a neighbouring property to Dewars, as is Westhorn. No. 1530 was granted a change of use from DEV 3 to DEV 2, with no mention of there being any sort of exclusion zone in place.

Summary

The evidence produced as above indicates clearly that there is no evidence that the land at Westhorn is or was contaminated.

Neither is there any evidence that the land is or was unsuitable for building over almost one moiety of its area due to geological conditions that exist below ground level, nor is there any evidence that there are or were any problems with building associated with previous mining activities within the area.

As far as my investigations to this date are concerned, there exists no restrictions to building on Westhorn land due to there being any Blast Zone or Exclusion Zone set up around the Dewar boundary. The development classification and reclassification referred to in Appendices 10 and 11 confirms that.

All supporting documents were submitted to the European Commission.

It is my understanding that from now, we take this fight right back into the European Commission, due to the fact they claim ‘we’ were not ‘accepted complainants’ which was patently untrue. We had asked the commission if they wanted to establish our ‘interest’ and they failed to reply, and ignored.

[Spectre 1,663]

Soulboy - "PZJ has sent them all his FOI requests already but they dismissed them saying PZJ had "no interest" in the case so wouldn't accept his evidence but PZJ is a rangers shareholder meaning he has an interest and this is what they will base the appeal on meaning all evidence submitted by him will have to be looked at not just what GCC and the scum submitted."

I think what they are getting here is that PJZ does no reside in the areas where the illegal state aid would have originated from, these being East Dunbartonshire & Glasgow.

The obvious way round this is for PJZ to enlist residents of these areas to launch their own complaint under his guidance and using a pack of material sourced through similar FOI's. I agree that if their only legal reason for not releasing the geotechnical report as the ongoing investigation then it should now be available via a fresh set of FOI's.

The thing is though that the prohibition on state aid isn't there to protect companies in the same country, it's to protect competition from outwith that country so that a member state isn't favouring companies or producers from their own state over those from elsewhere. Those with the most legitimate claim must surely be teams from around Europe that have faced Celtic in competition, albeit it's not the type of "competition" the EC are particularly interested in. The rules weren't really made for football teams, nor do they fit particularly well as other teams aren't necessarily trying to sell a product here that Celtic are being granted an advantage over. The rules were really made for examples like Fiat trying to sell cars here and the UK government giving grants to a British car company allowing them to sell their product cheaper and make it more appealing that the French company.

[soulboy 2,518]

The thing is though that the prohibition on state aid isn't there to protect companies in the same country, it's to protect competition from outwith that country so that a member state isn't favouring companies or producers from their own state over those from elsewhere. Those with the most legitimate claim must surely be teams from around Europe that have faced Celtic in competition, albeit it's not the type of "competition" the EC are particularly interested in. The rules weren't really made for football teams, nor do they fit particularly well as other teams aren't necessarily trying to sell a product here that Celtic are being granted an advantage over. The rules were really made for examples like Fiat trying to sell cars here and the UK government giving grants to a British car company allowing them to sell their product cheaper and make it more appealing that the French company.

Maybe in the beginning this is what it was intended for but there is now a state aid department for sport. So they were obviously worried about it enough to set up a separate division.

[Spectre 1,663]

Maybe in the beginning this is what it was intended for but there is now a state aid department for sport. So they were obviously worried about it enough to set up a separate division.

I still think it's the issue that stops PZJ being an interested party, he's not a competitor from another member state. He's (as far as I know) a shareholder in Rangers, a team obviously from the same member state.

[soulboy 2,518]

I still think it's the issue that stops PZJ being an interested party, he's not a competitor from another member state. He's (as far as I know) a shareholder in Rangers, a team obviously from the same member state.

When I read the rules on state aid it never said anything about having to be from another country in the EU. You may well be right but I never saw anything.

[Spectre 1,663]

When I read the rules on state aid it never said anything about having to be from another country in the EU. You may well be right but I never saw anything.

Not sure to be honest on the point of who is an "interested party" but obviously in terms of whether it's state aid or not the first thing the rules acknowledge is that it needs to affect trade between member states. I'll need to look into that. Thought maybe Legia Warsaw would have got involved a while back.

"1. Save as otherwise provided in the Treaties, any aid granted by a Member State or through State resources in any form whatsoever which distorts or threatens to distort competition by favouring certain undertakings or the production of certain goods shall, in so far as it affects trade between Member States, be incompatible with the internal market."

[heathen fish boy 8,580]

a job for our brothers in Hamburg?