previously apologised<\/a> for the \u201cunintentional mistake\u201d, revealed in his evidence to the monitoring officer that it had still not been established whether any tax was due and that the site of the boat fell on the border of two local authorities. As part of the inquiry, he told the monitoring officer that he had \u201cpersonal experience of financial hardship and housing insecurity\u201d.<\/p>\nHe previously said he had not been living at the marina full-time but at another address as a lodger, before it emerged that he had occupied the boat for a couple of years before moving to a house.<\/p>\n
In his witness statement, Polanski said he had never had any intention to \u201cevade council tax, avoid legal obligations or obtain any improper financial advantage\u201d and it remained unclear whether he had actually failed to pay the proper tax.<\/p>\n
\u201cAny failure to appreciate the position arose solely from a misunderstanding of what was required in relation to an unusual and unconventional living arrangement,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n
\u201cHaving lived through periods of economic difficulty on a limited income, I understand first-hand the challenges faced by many Londoners,\u201d he wrote in his statement. \u201cMy previous living arrangements reflected those circumstances rather than any attempt to avoid financial obligations.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhilst I accept that greater care could have been taken in understanding the practical implications of my unconventional housing arrangements, I strongly refute suggestions that my honesty or integrity should be called into question.\u201d<\/p>\n
Polanski also revealed that he had lived for five years as a property guardian, occupying an otherwise vacant building under licence in return for modest fees.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was one of the few affordable housing options available to me in London during a period marked by economic uncertainty, austerity measures and significant cost-of-living pressures,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnder those property guardianship arrangements, I paid a licence fee to the relevant provider and, as was my understanding and experience throughout that period, utilities and council tax liabilities were managed and covered through those arrangements. Whilst unconventional, this became my normal experience of housing administration and associated household outgoings.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said that when he moved to the narrowboat in August 2022, he believed that council tax was included in the moorings fees \u201cgiven the nature of the arrangement, my previous experience of property guardian accommodation\u201d.<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cI readily acknowledge that I did not undertake further inquiries at the time regarding the specific council tax implications of living on a narrowboat. This is why I have already unreservedly apologised for that unintentional mistake.\u201d<\/p>\n
Polanski also raised concerns that the complaints were politically motivated and said they had been promoted under the guise of public interest yet appeared to aim to advantage his opponents.<\/p>\n
The Green party said: \u201cThe monitoring officer for the Greater London Authority has conducted an independent inquiry into the complaints made against Mr Polanski and decided to take no further action. We therefore consider this matter closed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Neil Garratt, the Conservative assembly member who originally complained about Polanski, said his actions had shown a \u201ccavalier attitude\u201d to establishing whether tax was due.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Zack Polanski has been cleared by an ethics inquiry looking into complaints that he did not pay council…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":646530,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-646529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=646529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646529\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/646530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=646529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=646529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=646529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}