Xu Weping’s Advanced Business Parks was the only viable bidder for the 35-acre Royal Albert Dock, E16, a heated London Assembly committee meeting has heard.
Defending a decision to award the £1bn development to the Chinese company amid allegations of that the process had been open to corruption, Greater London Authority executive director for housing and land David Lunts said there was only “one viable contender” for the opportunity after the selection criteria were tweaked to place a greater emphasis on the ability to build out the scheme on a speculative basis.
ABP was selected from a shortlist of three for the opportunity in May 2013. The other bidders were Muse and Wrenbridge.
However, a Channel Four News investigation in November that year claimed the selection had been made after ABP had made donations to the Conservative Party.
It also highlighted the fact that ABP shared office space in Beijing with London and Partners, the GLA-backed investment agency which helped promote the Albert Dock opportunity, questioning whether ABP had gained special access which enabled it to secure the opportunity.
A spokesman for London mayor Boris Johnson refuted the allegations but announced a review of the tendering process in response to the report.
Under questioning from London Assembly members at the GLA Oversight Committee today, deputy mayor Sir Edward Lister said: “This wasn’t a site that everyone was rushing for. There was very little interest – that was part of the problem.”
Lunts said the opportunity had originally attracted eight interested parties, but only three progressed to the shortlist for the site, which has lain derelict for 50 years.
He said the GLA had taken over the procurement process from the London Development Agency, which had initially kicked off the tender in May 2011.
The GLA subsequently tweaked the scoring process for the three shortlisted bidders to ensure that the successful party had a realistic chance of commencing work as soon as possible as well as placing a greater emphasis on its ability to successfully navigate the planning system.
Committee members accused the GLA of tweaking the criteria to favour ABP, which had expressed interest in the scheme several years prior to the tender process, claiming the other shortlisted parties were not genuine contenders.
But Lunts dismissed their claims. He said: “They were all genuine bidders and they all invested risk capital to get through the bidding process.
“In one case they struggled on the basis that they were only going to build anything if they got an agreement to prelet and they couldn’t identify where those pre-lets would come from. In the other case they too struggled to identify who the occupiers would be so at the end of the day we were left with only appointable contender.”
