Bradford South MP Gerry Sutcliffe has clarified comments he made about the stalled Westfield shopping development after Bradford Council asked him to explain himself.
The Labour MP spoke out about the mothballed £320 million Broadway scheme during the BBC’s Inside Out programme, saying: “It’s my understanding that West-field are prepared to discuss moving out if there’s an appropriate agreement.”
The programme prompted Bradford Council to deny holding talks about buying back the site and to ask Mr Sutcliffe to clarify his remarks.
Today Mr Sutcliffe said: “I am quite happy to give it some context. We have had numerous meetings with Westfield. At one of those meetings, me and Bradford North MP Terry Rooney asked them if they had considered selling it on.
“Then we asked ‘What would it take to sell it back to the Council?’ They said ‘We would have to recover our costs and look at the market forces at the time’.
“As I understand it, that was one of the options. I understand there’s an agreement that exists between the Council and Westfield, so what are the details of that agreement and what are the penalty clauses?”
Mr Sutcliffe’s demand for details of the Development Agreement comes on the back of a similar request from Tony Emmott, a retired Bradford solicitor and former Bradford councillor.
In a letter to Tony Reeves, the Council’s chief executive, Mr Emmott said the Broadway situation was now so serious and of such detriment to Bradford that the public should be fully informed of the terms of the contract and should know the individual councillors or officers who sanctioned it.
In his letter of response, Mr Reeves said: “With regard to the Development Agreement, we are reviewing our position.
“We have previously released sections of the document which are not commercially sensitive.
“We have contractual conditions regarding dates for formal commencement of construction and are in discussions with Westfield regarding these. The Council has made it clear to Westfield it is not prepared to wait indefinitely for the development to be completed but we have to make some allowance for the current economic conditions and their impact on property development and the retail sector in particular.”
* For more on this story see Wednesday's T&A
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