I’m sitting in an Air BnB bedroom, trying to decide if I should finally start watching Severance, when I hear a key turn in the front door downstairs. I freeze, hunched over my laptop as feet ascend, the unknown visitor getting closer with each step. True, the flat I’m staying in has two bedrooms to rent, but the friendly man who let me in earlier assured me that no one else was booked in tonight. Who could it be? I wonder as my mysterious flatmate, having made it to the first floor, rustles through a shopping bag in the kitchen. And then my mind turns to the former-mayor of Wolverhampton, Milkinderpal Jaspal.
Let me explain. Jaspal is a long-running City of Wolverhampton councillor. First elected in 1991, he served as mayor in 2013-14, alongside his mayoress wife Jasbir. They aren’t the only Jaspal’s sitting on the council. Together with their daughter-in-law Jaspreet, they occupy all three seats of one ward, forming a triumvirate of sorts that rules over the neighbourhood of Heath Town. That’s where I’ve chosen for my brief stopover this evening. The reason I think Milkinderpal could be the Air BnB interloper is because, according to sources who have seen the Wolverhampton Labour Party membership register, this is where Jaspal currently says he lives.
This is curious, because the flat I’m sitting in is — while perfectly pleasant — a small Air BnB above a motor garage, namely the New Cross Motor garage. The garage downstairs is a perfectly fine place to get your MOT done, if 4.6 stars on Google are to be believed, and the upstairs flat might be a sensible place to book out if you had an appointment at the nearby New Cross Hospital and needed a short term stay. Nonetheless, Milkinderpal Jasapal is a millionaire businessman, so you probably wouldn’t expect him to be living above a garage.
Sound familiar? The Dispatch has written about the Jaspal family and their various residences before. Last year we visited the small home which they claimed, for a decade, was their primary address. It was a dinky, three bedroom end-of-terrace on Victoria Road, a 15-minute walk away from the flat I’m currently in. On Labour forms eight members of the family were listed as living here — quite the squeeze. When we visited Victoria Road no one on that street seemed to have any recollection of the Jaspals living there. No, it was at the family’s upmarket Grotto Lane property, in the middle class village of Tettenhall, where their neighbours were confident the family had lived for 20 years. One man even remembered the city limousine coming to collect Milkinderpal every morning at 7.30am when he was mayor.
That the Jaspals lived in Tettenhall and not Heath Town, the leader of the Wolverhampton Green Party, Paul Darke told The Dispatch, was an open secret for many years. However, at an Electoral Registration Hearing at the council in 2023, where testimonies by 10 residents on both Victoria Road and Grotto Lane were presented against him, Jaspal successfully argued that because they hadn’t been inside his property they couldn’t know for sure whether or not he lived there. Case, seemingly, closed. That is, until The Dispatch tracked down a man called Ron Homer who said he had been the sole tenant of the smaller house at exactly the time Jaspal said he was living there. Milkinderpal told the hearing Homer was his lodger but Homer told us “[Jaspal] never stayed there at all.”
Despite our reporting on the matter, nothing happened. The Labour Party chose to ignore us, as did Jaspal himself. Even more concerning were Homer’s claims that he and several members of his family who lived at another property owned by Jaspal (also on Victoria Road) had been signed up to the Labour Party without their knowledge. Jaspal didn’t respond to The Dispatch’s questions about this either, but the complainants at the hearing said they believed he was pretending to live in Heath Town so that he could register lots of his local relations as Labour Party members. That way, they could vote for him, Jasbir and Jaspreet, and the family could easily gain control of the ward.
The property Homer once lived in was sold a year ago. Since then, no one has been certain where exactly Milkinderpal Jaspal’s primary address is. Councillors are required to list their address(es) on the authority’s register of interests but in the case of all three Jaspals, while this information has been supplied to the director of governance, it has been withheld from the public. In Milkinderpal’s case, the addresses of five properties he has an interest in are known to the council but not to residents or journalists like me. This is because under the last Conservative government, a bit of legislation called the Local Government Act was updated to allow councillors to conceal their home addresses if there are “legitimate concerns of violence or intimidation.”
That’s where our handy sources come in. People who have seen the Labour Party membership register for Wolverhampton have told The Dispatch the address Jaspal has declared he lives at. Trouble is, the address is also a two bedroom flat above a motor garage that anyone can stay in courtesy of Air BnB — book it out if you fancy. It’s a pretty popular one too, according to the website the property is “usually booked” and has plenty of five star reviews, owing to its close proximity to New Cross Hospital and the Bentley Bridge retail park (spot of bowling anyone?).
And so, the solution to proving categorically that Jaspal is not in fact living here, as he says he is, seems fairly obvious. For the reasonable enough price of £111.09 I booked a stay in this so-called "luxury double bedroom” on a Tuesday afternoon. I would be spending the night at Casa Del Jaspal.
The man who lets me into the flat is the friendly owner of the car mechanic business below. What strikes me immediately on entering the ground floor is that to get up to the bedrooms and kitchen on the first floor, you have to climb about 15 steps. This isn’t a feat that’s difficult for those of us in full health but for Jaspal, who suffers from long Covid, is surely an inconvenience if he does live here (and especially odd given we know he owns a large house with a downstairs). Indeed, last month he reminded local paper the Express and Star about his ongoing struggles. “It has turned my body upside down and needless to say I am not the person I was before,” he said. “I still get out of breath very quickly and easily, and struggle to get up the stairs or walk any substantial distance.”
The flat itself is perfectly nice. I poke around a bit but it doesn’t take long — I only have access to four small rooms: the utility and my own bathroom on the ground floor and my bedroom and the shared kitchen upstairs. The remaining two doors belong to another bedroom and bathroom. After attempting to make myself a hot chocolate in the Nescafe Dolce Gusto Oblo machine and failing miserably, I retreat to my room. I’m impressed by the property’s general level of cleanliness (I’d suggest that if Jaspal does live here, he’s handy with the Cillit Bang but the man who let me in has already told me they get professional cleaners in before every visitor).
Now, you could be forgiven for thinking that The Dispatch has become slightly obsessed with the Jaspals. You might say, who cares if Milkinderpal lives in Tettenhall and not Heath Town, which he represents on the council? There’s nothing stopping a person from becoming a councillor for a ward they don’t live in. This is true, but it’s worth noting that this particular family’s influence is growing. Milkinderpal, Jasbir and Jaspreet, I am told, all hold positions (chair, secretary and treasurer) within the ward party that they would not be allowed if they lived outside of Heath Town. Milkinderpal is the chair of the West Midlands Pension Fund and his wife sits on the West Midlands Police and Crime Panel. Rumour has it Milkinderpal is even gunning for the coveted position of deputy leader of City of Wolverhampton Council.
For Ranjit Sahota, who issued a formal complaint about the Jaspals and their alleged living arrangements to the council in 2021, the evidence stacked against them “demonstrates a catalogue of deceit” but “no one bats an eyelid. What is so special about these guys?” Neither West Midlands Labour, the City of Wolverhampton Council, nor Jaspal himself have responded to my email but doubtless they would point to the result of the 2023 hearing which ruled in Jaspal’s favour and the fact that West Midlands Police had chosen to take no action on the issue. And yet, here I am, sitting on the bed of what is apparently his primary residence and there’s absolutely no sign of him.
As for my mysterious visitor, when I venture out of my room and into the kitchen to investigate, he turns out to be a member of staff from the car garage who, he tells me, occasionally uses the flat. He has no idea who Milkinderpal Jaspal, the city’s esteemed former mayor, is.
Clarification: An earlier version of this article stated that councillors who own homes are expected to list their address on the register of interest. In fact, all councillors list their addresses which can be withheld from the public in some cases.
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