Step by tiny step, the winding up of failed developer Brick by Brick is coming to an end, reports BARRATT HOLMES, housing correspondent
The deckchairs are being re-arranged on the deck of Brick by Brick, seemingly for one final time. The difference between the SS Titanic and Brick by Brick, though, is that this re-organisation of the furniture is happening after the vessel is already slipping down below the waves…
Shut up shop: Brick by Brick’s flashy ‘marketing suite’ and offices – which cost £1m to refurbish – are now long closed
Brick by Brick is the house-building company which borrowed £200million from Croydon Council and managed to build just three council flats in five years, while bankrupting the borough.
With all but one (albeit very significant) part of Brick by Brick’s developments now completed and disposed of, and with the flashy £1million “marketing suite” on George Street long closed, the board of directors who were appointed in 2021 and 2022 to navigate the wreck of the failed company through the choppy seas of the council’s financial crisis have now been given a firm handshake, a pat on the back and allowed to get on with the rest of their careers.
The trouble-shooters brought in in the aftermath of the council’s collapse – Griffith McCallum Marshalsay (Griff to his mates), exec chair Andrew Percival , Ian O’Donnell, and Duncan Whitfield – all resigned as directors of Brick by Brick in the final few days of last month.
Over three years, they had helped to wind up BxB’s remaining assets in what the council has described as a “solvent liquidation”, one which will leave an estimated £68million of the company’s debts unpaid – dire enough, but a good deal better than what was feared might be the case in 2021.
Out on his own: Colm Lacey’s mismanagement of BxB helped bankrupt the council
Back then, Colm Lacey, the ex-council staffer and thoroughbred chancer who had been in charge of the company for most of its existence, was trying to salvage his own job by getting the council to hand Brick by Brick over to one of his trendy developer mates… effectively for nothing.
Fortunately, for the people of Croydon, the new directors saw through that little scheme, and Lacey left with a flea in his ear (and a bank balance swollen by four years of being paid a salary that many might suggest was never deserved).
The news of the resignations of Marshalsay, O’Donnell, Percival and Whitfield was slipped out over the weekend in a series of discreet, routine announcements from Companies House. Croydon Council, and its Mayor, Jason Perry, have been silent on the matter. Not even a perfunctory word of thanks… Ah, well, that’s Croydon for you.
Tour of duty: Ian O’Donnell has been working to fix Croydon’s problems since May 2020
O’Donnell’s tour of duty in the civic war zone of Croydon Council’s accounts department was longer than most: it was finance consultant O’Donnell who was parachuted into Fisher’s Folly in May 2020 and came up with a list of 75 recommendations for improved governance and financial management. Jo Negrini, the council CEO, and council leader Tony Newman and his cabinet member for finance, Simon Hall, were all gone soon after.
To date, no recovery action or disciplinary action has been taken against the council’s former chief executive or the ex-councillors, nor against Lacey.
February’s council cabinet meeting rubber-stamped proposals to wind up Brick by Brick now that all its incomplete schemes have almost all been completed. “It’s time to bring the sorry saga of Brick By Brick to an end,” said Mayor Jason Perry at the Town Hall meeting.
The future of one set of flats – those built on the Lion Green Road car park, called Red Clover Gardens, which were finished around 18 months ago – has still to be finalised.
So it is that Brick by Brick as a registered company has to soldier on, for a while yet.
Quick promotion: David Courcoux
Brought in as (presumably) short-term directors are two relatively junior council officials.
One is David Corcoux, who just two years ago was council leader Hamida Ali’s office manager before being put in charge of Mayor Perry’s paper clips. Before that, he’d been working as a Labour Party press officer at City Hall. At Croydon, Courcoux has since been promoted all the way to “director of policy, programmes and performance”, a six-figure salaried post.
The other is Stephen Hopkins, who works in the council’s adults, social care and health directorate on “adult placement and brokerage and market management” (so perhaps not the kind of direct experience in negotiating a multi-million-pound property disposal you might hope for, but hey ho…).
Thing is, having council staff on the board of Brick by Brick was one of the red flags waved by external auditors Grant Thornton when Croydon was firing off one of its first distress flares towards the end of 2020. It was not only that the council officials were inexperienced in running a medium-sized property development company, but there were also significant issues around conflicts of interest.
Croydon Council couldn’t possibly risk repeating some of the same mistakes that caused its spectacular downfall, though, could it?
Read more: Brick by Brick posts £7.6m loss in latest annual trading report
Read more: Brick by Brick’s losses pile up even after selling £89m of homes
Read more: Council risks being in the red over BxB’s Red Clover Gardens
Read more:£495,000 for a flat – this is Brick by Brick’s ‘affordable’ housing
Read more: ‘An accountant could have foreseen this more than a year ago’
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