Minutes:
Councillor Miscandlon stated that no questions had been submitted under Procedure Rule 8.6. Under Procedure Rule 8.4, Councillor Cornwell also thanked those officers for their service and friendship who are not re standing for election in May and asked the following questions as Leader of the Opposition:
· Councillor Cornwell stated there has been much discussion in March concerning the regeneration of the Town Centre and in particular Broad Street, with the matters particularly centred around the dissatisfaction with the supposed public consultation regarding the proposal and whilst it appears that there was some consultation it has become apparent that it was not always well delivered and was not well received. He stated that he has recently undertaken a review and it has become apparent that the consultations did not always comply with the Council’s Consultation Strategy which has led to a number of residents losing confidence in the Council and some officers, which he finds unacceptable as residents should never lose confidence in their own Local Authority, adding that if the scheme consultation is compared with the consultation which was undertaken under the planning process where there were three elements requiring planning approval and appears to have been a far better consultation system which is more wide ranging, better and a larger number of responses in a well proven adopted consultation system. Councillor Cornwell explained that there did appear to be a small discrepancy where the Council’s IT system did appear to reject a submission from one of the long-standing businesses trading in the Town Centre and he hoped the issue is being investigated. He asked Councillor Boden whether he will issue a public apology to the residents of March for some of the failings that they have experienced in the Council’s processes in relation to the proposals? Councillor Cornwell added whether a system can be adopted so that prior to any public consultation in the future, the relevant Portfolio Holder and member of the Corporate Management Team review the proposed process to ensure that it accords with the Council’s own strategy and the manner in which feedback is received and published. He also expressed the opinion that as one of the Council’s planning applications was incomplete, due to the fact that the replacement of the demolished public toilets in Broad Street was not included, can a guarantee be made for the residents of March that replacement public toilets will be provided and with some urgency following the demolition of the existing ones?
· Councillor Boden responded that he was unaware that there had been any IT failings with regards to the planning permission and he is confident that the relevant Portfolio Holder will investigate the issue to ensure that if there is a problem it will be addressed so that it does not happen again. He added that if there has been a failing, it is the Council’s responsibility to get things right and the Council will apologise. Councillor Boden stated that with regards to the public consultations that took place, he is aware from some of the feedback that he received personally that some people were not content with the information that was provided to them and also the way that the information was provided to them. He added that it is an unfortunate fact that some people will not be happy with the proposals, however, in his opinion there are lessons to be learnt and it is important that in the future there should be more thorough planning so that if there are any concerns raised by residents it will allow the Council to deepen the level of consultation so that the issues raised can be explored further, however, the reality is that there will be occasions where consultations take place and people will not be happy with the outcome of them. Councillor Boden added that consultation does not necessarily mean making a change but means listening and responding to what the Council is told. He explained that with regards to the planning application for the public toilets in Broad Street, he was also somewhat surprised that it only contained the detail of the demolition of them and did not refer to any replacement, however, he confirmed that a separate and new set of public toilets will be made available and as far as he is concerned, they will be sited as close to the existing ones as possible, but the exact location is still being considered. Councillor Boden added that it had been mentioned that there were public toilets located within the Library, however, that suggestion was turned down by the Cabinet because it is clear that something more substantial is necessary and the location of the new toilets needs to be located as visible as they can be in order to make them less susceptible to vandalism. He stated that the supply of public toilets is not an obligation for a local authority to provide and explained that if there continues to be a large amount of vandalism then there is the danger that the facility will be lost totally and, therefore, they need to be designed in such a way that the possibility of vandalism can be minimised.
· Councillor Cornwell stated that the comments made by Councillor Boden with regards to the public consultation are relevant as there were problems with one particular aspect of the process and there was a failure to comply with the Council’s own policy. He added that he has carried out his own investigation and there was a problem which may never happen again as it has caused so many problems in the town of March.
· Councillor Cornwell stated that he has reviewed the figures with regards to Fenland Future Ltd and the figure for set up costs is almost a third of £1,000,000 which appears to be very high. He asked whether it is normal for the costs to be so high as, in his opinion, they are astronomical. Councillor Boden responded that when development companies start the costs are always high as there is no real income available until buildings are actually constructed and sold and, therefore, it is not unusual for costs to be incurred before any income is received. He explained that the current situation accords with what was forecast and emphasised that the overwhelming majority of the costs that Councillor Cornwell referred to were costs that were going to be incurred anyway because they are costs of the Council which are primarily but not exclusively down to salary costs, with the cost recharge from the Council to Fenland Future Ltd. Councillor Cornwell stated that he finds the response provided interesting because the information that he has reviewed relates to consultants’ fees and nothing that relates to charges for officer time. Councillor Boden stated that Councillor Cornwell is completely correct and whenever there is any project like this taking place consultants will be brought in to give assistance. He added that it would appear that the list Councillor Cornwell has received does not contain all the costs for Fenland Future Ltd, whereas the actual list details the majority of the costs are for recharges including staff costs, administrative costs and other associated overhead costs. Councillor Boden stated that the consultant costs would have been incurred had development taken place under the auspices of Fenland District Council rather than Fenland Future Ltd.