Chapter VII The Site Visit

    The site visit was arranged for 2 weeks later. Councillors and planning officers gathered together at the Civic Centre and a Council bus collected them and drove them to the site. Jim was driving. There was no sign anywhere of Melanie Sheldrake. The site was just a derelict plot of land of the type that planners called “a brownfield site”. There were some dilapidated industrial buildings and portacabins still left on the site, surrounded by barbed wire fencing. At the entrance to the gate, which was padlocked, stood a group of about twenty people, including a journalist and photographer from the Framden Journal. Two of the protesters bore placards, saying “SAVE DAFFODIL HILL” and “NO RUSSIAN BLOOD MONEY HERE”.

    “Well, I’m glad that the planning issues are so clear cut,” joked Emil as our bus pulled up at the gate just opposite the protesters. Two representatives from the site developers met us here, one with a key to open the gate. Just as the gate swung open, a blue Alfa-Romeo pulled up next to the entrance. It was Melanie Sheldrake. She made towards the protesters who greeted her with clapping and cheers. We could see her glad-handing the small crowd.

   Jim hesitated and turned to Chris Finneston. “Do we wait for Councillor Miss Sheldrake?”

   Chris looked at Emil and me, then at the 3 opposition Councillors. One of them, Philip Egerton, got out of the bus and walked up to the crowd as well. Immediately the Ann Robinson look-alike drew him in and introduced him to some of the protesters. After a short conversation Egerton came back to the bus.

 “She will follow us in her car”, he explained.

 “We cannot let her in unless she comes now,” said the development agent. “We have to lock the gate behind us.”

  A frustrated Egerton walked back to the group. A discussion followed. We could see Egerton gesticulating, pointing first to our bus and then to the gate and the site beyond.

  “Fucking Queen Bee!” muttered Emil as we watched this charade.

   “Councillor Kapacek, please! Language!” exclaimed Patricia Wallace, another female opposition councillor on the bus.

   “My apologies. I didn’t really say that, did I? It’s the bloody kids. I pick it up from them”.

 Meanwhile, Egerton came back again to the bus.

“Please just give her a minute and she will follow us in her car”.

After another five minutes, we could see her walking to the car sill in animated conversation with one of the protesters. Eventually she got into the car and then sounded her horn and flashed her headlights at us.

 Jim started his motor. We drove in convoy. Leading us was a security van driven by one of the developer’s agents, next came our bus, then the blue Alfa-Romeo, and at the rear another car with the remaining representative who had stopped to lock the gate to the jeers of the protesters. “She said to them to wait as she will speak to them later,” explained Egerton pointing to the Alfa and then to the protesters.

 “Fucking Queen Bee,” I could hear Emil repeating himself, but a little more quietly this time.

The convoy continued for nearly 3 minutes down a concrete drive passing some empty industrial buildings on the way and crossed a bailey bridge over the canal. We turned a corner between the buildings and arrived in a courtyard in the middle of which stood a gaunt metal structure bearing 3 large portacabins connected by a metal staircase. A mixed delegation of Oriental and European gentlemen was waiting for us as we clambered out of the Council bus. They were flanked by 2 young ladies dressed as waitresses carrying a tray of drinks. As we grabbed the drinks from the bobbing young waitresses, I sensed one of them giving me a knowing look and then grinning towards her companion. While I pondered this in my sub-conscious, I could see the head of the delegation gesture us with a wave of his hand into the portacabin on the ground floor.

We all stepped singly through the portacabin door. There were about twenty chairs around the walls of the main room and two large tables. One of them was covered with a white tablecloth but was otherwise empty, except for a jug of water, some glasses and several bottles of wine at one end.

However, our eyes were drawn automatically to the other table. It was covered by a vast maquette – a plastic model of a large multiplex housing estate, including 2 towers over 12 storeys high. They seemed to me even higher than the tower of our civic centre. One distinctive feature was the canal passing through the middle of the estate but that was the only common feature between what we could see on the model and the reality of the derelict brownfield site around us. The buildings formed up mainly on one side of the canal with 2 distinct towers and a lower level of 5 storey buildings in a semi-circular structure. One wing of these 5 storey buildings actually crossed the canal to join a further 7 storey building on the other side. One of the towers and some of the more low-lying buildings were adorned with large balconies, which on closer inspection looked like large conservatories. Inside the semi-circular structure on the southern bank of the canal was a square, or, as they now prefer to all it, plaza, with a dipped area forming the seeming replica of an amphitheatre punctuated by two water features, namely a waterfall and a fountain. There was also a raised platform on the plaza, with what appeared to be a glass pavilion and which corresponded to a wider gap between the buildings, probably with the intention of forming a long distance view over London’s landmark high towers and church steeples towards the royal parks. The rest of the plaza was surrounded by shops and restaurants and at one end included access to motor vehicles. The canal was also criss-crossed by 3 pedestrian bridges consisting of imaginative curves that would have done justice to the old Penguin Enclosure at London Zoo. Beyond the built up section of the canal was an extended terraced garden. A service road dipped low into the site underneath the buildings and led presumably to some underground parking, while a raised section of the service road branched off and up into the plaza. I was curious about this service road as I could see it being abused by an excessive amount of motorists. Planning drawings and artistic impressions of the canal side and the plaza were pinned up around the walls.

We stood looking silently at this maquette in sheer awe, our drinks still in our hand. A panelled wall was closed up behind us as we gathered round the model. A general murmur of admiration arose at the boldness of the design.  I looked approvingly at Emil and at Chris Finneston and nodded enthusiastically. Chris beamed back at me with what I thought was excessive enthusiasm for a Borough Chief Planning Officer.

  “Welcome to Pinkerton Plaza,” a heavily accented voice spoke behind us. We spun round. A gentleman we had not seen before stood there, surrounded by a reverential semi-circle of the host team. He was a short stocky man with a sallow hard face. His shoulders were broad and his neck was short so that his head appeared to emerge straight from his body. “Please make yourselves comfortable.” It sounded like an order. Yet his hard face was creased by a smile in an obvious attempt to sound friendly and welcoming.

 “I am delighted to meet you here. My name is Yakov Sheremovsky. I am the Managing Director of Nafta Ural and, apart from that, I am the newly appointed Chairman of this development consortium. I deeply regret that I cannot spend any time with you just at the moment, as I have other pressing business following my recent appointment. No, do not worry. I am not buying a football club.” We all laughed, almost hysterically, at this joke.

 “I know that this ambitious project may seem controversial to some of you and I understand that due to lack of information about the details and of our intentions, some people choose to criticize our development. That is only fair. However, some of the criticism seems more personal. And that is not fair. I must say that I feel personally insulted by local newspaper headlines from last week. This is not good for my investors. Also,” he added menacingly, “it is not good for Framden.” Here he held up a copy of the Framden Journal bearing the headline “Councillor Slams Russian Project” with a picture of Melanie Sheldrake underneath the headline. We all glanced at her as she glared back.

 Sheremovsky did not even give her a glance. His face turned again into that menacing smile. “I am sure however that today we will have an opportunity to clarify any matters of concern. This project is too important for us, and for you, to be thrown away with the garbage. Here is my good friend, Lord Smallbridge, who is the Vice-Chairman of the enterprise and he will be your host this morning. Next to him is the distinguished architect Sir William Tallis who, we are proud to say, is our main consultant for this project. For the moment therefore I must leave you, but in good hands. Please accept my sincerest apologies.”

 With that he turned around and was gone, followed by a big brute of a guy, who had been standing quietly by the entrance. I glanced through the window outside and saw a long black limousine waiting for Sheremovsky as he and his gorilla emerged from the portacabin. It had not been there before, when we arrived. I was particularly struck by the appearance of the bodyguard. I was sure I had seen him somewhere before.

 “Ladies and gentlemen,” the plummy voice of Lord Smallbridge could be heard. “Let me introduce my two fellow directors (he hastily introduced the two oriental businessmen by name), and the architects and engineers engaged in this grand project, which we are certain will be of great benefit to the residents of the London Borough of Framden.”

 The two waitresses brought round more drinks. A camera man came forward out of nowhere and started taking pictures of us as we stood around the model. Eventually we were invited to sit on chairs around the maquette.

  First, Lord Smallbridge spoke about what he saw as the economic and social impact of the development. Then Sir William Tallis and his assistant, a Mr Lamsden, were introduced by Smallbridge and began a detailed 30 minute presentation of the role of each building and how the plaza would be utilized, including a short film with virtual reality models of the plaza complex day and night. Two of the high rise buildings (those without the balconies) were due to be offices for companies which, we were told, had already proved their commitment to the site by investing money into the speculative land purchase. The plaza, the canal side walk and the shops were for the use of the general public, not just for the residents and employees on the development. The large glass frontage opposite the amphitheatre was supposed to be a gymnasium and swimming bath to be opened as a private club, but it could be open at certain times for the use of schools and youth groups. The pavilion on the terrace above the plaza was supposed to be the entrance to a restaurant which would serve people in the area below the terrace during the colder months but would have open air al fresco dining in the summer on the terrace itself. The branch of the service road which stretched up to the plaza was only, we were assured, for removal vans, taxis and emergency vehicles and would be divided from the main part of the plaza. All other cars as well as office deliveries would be through the underground car park. It looked too good to be true.

  As Council spokesman I threw in the usual questions. Access by foot to buses and the nearest underground station? Pedestrian access to the nearest school – Swinton Middle (the one that Meena had been so concerned about)? Wheelchair access? Reassurances about public access to the canal walk and provisions for bicycles? Was there a tree planting programme? Would the shops include a supermarket? (Yes). What size would it be and how would it affect the nearby local shopping centre? What other entertainments had been envisaged for the site? Cinema? Community centre? Bowling alley? Electronic games room? Pub? The answers came in pat as if there was nothing that concerned them more than to comply with our own Borough Plan.

 Melanie Sheldrake bided her time. Suddenly she seized the initiative during a pause in my questioning. She asked Sir William searching questions about the view from Daffodil Hill nearly a mile away, blighted, in her eyes, by these high rise buildings. She said she was concerned about women being raped in the underground car park and groups of youths skateboarding on the amphitheatre steps while gangs would terrorize the plaza area. Here Lord Smallbridge intervened to point out that there would be a management contract ensuring proper 24 hour uniformed security on the site. She threw in questions about rubbish being thrown in the canal (by who, exactly?) and her concern over the erection of this “high rise concrete jungle”. Would the room sizes be adequate, she suddenly asked, and would residents have the right to regulate their own heating?

These were scatter gun type questions, where each answer she was given was ignored as she pounced on to the next subject.  Consequently, even when she raised some valid concerns there was no opportunity for anyone else to follow it up properly. Her questioning and her body language revealed her hostility to the whole project and also betrayed an ignorance of planning procedure that might have given any coherent substance to the wide range of her objections. It also revealed the sheer force of her personality as she appeared to have shuffled her colleagues from her own party in to a sceptical approach to the project.

  I watched her angry face with some alarm and disgust. Her antics were infuriating and undermining the potential harmony between developers and the council as to how this useful and practical proposal could proceed. Yet, as she continued, I began watching her with a sort of fascination. As she leaned across the model pointing to the pedestrian bridges over the canal the contours of her body and her curvaceous rear became more and more explicit.

  As she leaned over further, I was concerned that her left gesticulating arm would crash into one of the towers, while her breast seemed to skirt over the top of the 7-storey building. As I was nearest I leaned forward and placed my right hand outstretched in the air as a symbolic barrier between her body and the tower. She stopped short suddenly, looked at me with obvious disgust, straightened up and continued her diatribe.  

   The architects were polite in their response but were in no position to show offence at her remarks. So I felt that it was my job to bring her into line.

   “Councillor Miss Sheldrake should be aware that for the time being we are only considering outline planning permission, so many of the details she raises are not relevant at this stage.”

   Sir William concurred politely with my comment though he did seek to answer some of her broader concerns. He sounded gracious but also a little patronizing in his replies. Chris Finneston chimed in at this moment to say that outline planning was on the agenda for the July meeting of the Planning Committee and the details of the full application would be brought to a special meeting of the Committee in October. “Well, Daffodil Hill is an issue for outline planning and so is public access,” she answered. “If Councillor Axtell wants to skirt over these crucial issues and ignore his constituents there is no reason for the rest of us to do the same.”

  Before I could reply, Lord Smallbridge announced that some refreshment had been prepared for us. He drew back the panelled wall behind us and revealed the second table covered now with a very rich buffet.

  “Well I’m not wasting my time at this pig trough,” Sheldrake snapped rudely as she gathered up her papers. “I need to speak to the real people of the Borough. Barbed wires are preventing them from seeing this hideous plan.” She stalked off to her Alfa-Romeo parked outside the portacabin and drove off.

“Well good riddance to her,” a giggly female voice whispered in my ear. I turned round in surprise. It was the saucy waitress. “Another drink, Petya?”

 Good god! It can’t be! But it is. I recognized my old acquaintance from “Pinks”. It was Valentina. Valentina from Vitebsk. Why did I not spot her immediately? Of course, the pigtails were gone and her blonde hair had been lifted up over her head. Also, I had simply not expected to see her in this new context.

The other waitress, I then realised, was her friend Ludmila, the one who had performed a lap dance over Emil. How odd! What a coincidence! Was it a coincidence?