Guney Dogan failed to publicly declare on his register that he held a leasehold contract with the council for a commercial premises in Enfield Town, reports James Cracknell

Enfield Civic Centre and (inset, credit Enfield Council) Guney Dogan

A former Labour cabinet member has failed to publicly declare on his register of interests that he leases a commercial property from Enfield Council, the Dispatch can reveal.

Land Registry documents seen by the Dispatch show that Guney Dogan, the council’s cabinet member for environment from 2018 to 2022, signed a ten-year lease for a shop in Baker Street in June 2021 and that the freeholder is Enfield Council.

However, Cllr Dogan has not declared this under the ‘corporate tenancies’ section of his register of interests, as council members are required to do.

In February 2024, the Labour councillor did declare at a council meeting that he was a “commercial unit tenant” but there is no public record of him making such a declaration before or since, nor on his register.

The February 2024 declaration was made nearly two years after Cllr Dogan stood down as a cabinet member.

The ‘corporate tenancies’ section of a councillor’s register of interests states that members must declare “any tenancy where (a) the landlord is the relevant authority [Enfield Council] and (b) the tenant is a body in which the relevant person has a beneficial interest”.

A leasehold is a type of long-form tenancy.

Elsewhere in his register of interests, Cllr Dogan does declare that he works as an accountant and is a director of DNG Associates Ltd, the company which currently occupies the leased commercial unit in Baker Street.

There is also a redacted part of his interests, under the ‘land’ section. However, under corporate tenancies, the register for Cllr Dogan states simply: “NONE”.

The Dispatch has attempted to contact Cllr Dogan via phone and email to put all of these points to him but has received no response.

Aside from the lack of transparency on his register of interests, there is no suggestion or evidence of any wrongdoing by Cllr Dogan concerning his accountancy practice and the lease with the council.

Conservative group leader Alessandro Georgiou said: “Once again we have another scandal from an Enfield Labour councillor. This is exactly why people have such a poor view of this Labour council.

“A [former] senior member of the administration has a leasehold where the council owns the freehold and doesn’t declare it. The people of Enfield have had enough of nonsense like this.”

Previously, the Dispatch reported in November 2022 on multiple failures by three council committee chairs to properly declare their financial interests in the borough.

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