The Same Old Tory: A Safe Pair Of Hands For Copeland? Not Likely.....
Far from being a safe pair of hands for the constituency, it seems that Tory Copeland candidate Trudy Harrison is not even capable of running herself adequately.
The much-vaunted accomplishments of Ms Harrison in the region include the ''successful' Wellbank Project, a housing/commercial development in part of the Lake District National Park - on the doorstep, in fact of Ms H's Bootle home..
'Successful' however. would appear to be slightly overstated.
The project, launched in 2013, was lauded as great news for the region, winning praise in a number of online pieces including 'Why Bootle's building on this national park' by Inside Housing in June last year.
"Two investors were interested - David Nuttall and Mark Frost, directors of Barden Energy, among other things - and as FNS have so far invested £700,000 in the Wellbank project. Ms Harrison now dedicates her time to project-managing Bootle 2020 through her own company, Trudy Harrison Limited."
Just a few months later, however, said company was struck off - not would up by the board, not liquidated, but struck off by Companies House.
A company of which she was the sole owner, sole director, and only noticeable physical asset. Granted, there were creditors, amongst them one D Nuttall owing £890.00 (see below)
The Wellbank Project appears now to have been left in the doubtless able hands of serial entrepreneurs David Nuttall and Mark Frost.
Messrs Nuttall (no relation, one would hope) and Frost between them control an incestuous nest of companies involved in the development - 4 of which have a combined net worth of £4,00 Sterling. Big business.
The main player, FN Solutions, is a tad healthier financially with assets of £2.9 million - and liabilities of £2.3 million, including a £600k mortgage on the Wellbank land (payable to, amongst others, D Nuttall and M Frost)
Ms Harrison is currently plying new business including The Pub@Millstones Ltd, the business centre which houses the HQ of the Wellbank Project. Well I guess drowning her sorrows won't be a problem....
And the project itself? Formed a full social media presence on both Facebook and Twitter - back in the day. 2014 saw a joyful posting about the completion of demolition on the site - and since then, nary a tweet has there been. It's all gone quiet over there, to coin a phrase.....
The entire web presence of the Wellbank project seems to consist of artist's impressions and, in the case of Ms Harrison's Pinterest page, delightful stock images of which plants might be fortunate enough to grace the development. Noticeably, no ongoing images of actual progress in building.
A source local to the area has told Prole Star 'I'm not sure anything has been built yet'
This could possibly be the result of the named building contractors, Bay Construct, having gone into liquidation last year, just a few months after the Inside Housing - or maybe not....
Prole Star has contacted the Wellbank Project to enquire as to the availability of properties to either buy of reserve, but at time of writing, two days later, had only received an automated email response from Trudy - obviously she's busy at the moment..
It would of course be uncharitable to suggest that Ms Harrison's involvement in the project is/was motivated by personal gain, but overall it does not paint an encouraging picture of her as a safe pair of hands to run the Copeland constituency.
All the information not containing specific links to online material in this piece is available via Companies House.
http://www.insidehousing.co.uk//why-bootles-building-on-this-national-park/7015227.article#