星空传媒

Phillips, who represented one of our leaseholders in the case, suggests that Charlton Triangle was driven by a desire to recover money.

There was much more to it than that. The board has a rigorous risk-management procedure and had to consider the certain delay to multimillion-pound contracts, the financial benefits of partnering under Egan principles, and how to deliver best value for all tenants and leaseholders.

As Dr Norman Perry put it, the Charlton case demonstrates "the pitfalls that confront stock transfer landlords by virtue of the clear conflicts that exist between the statutory requirements of existing landlord and tenant law, and wider public policy considerations".

In retrospect, I believe Charlton and other organisations have learned lessons from this episode. I am sure that even Phillips would accept that at all times we acted in the belief that we were following stated government policy. Our aim was always to provide all the residents of Charlton with quality homes using partnering to achieve those goals.