Cabinet - Wednesday 13 November 2024, 5:00pm - Folkestone & Hythe webcasting

Cabinet
Wednesday, 13th November 2024 at 5:00pm 

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Good evening and welcome to the meeting of the Cabinet.
Unfortunately, due to technical issues with our webcasting system,
we are not able to live stream tonight's meeting.
However, the meeting will be recorded and uploaded to the website within 24 hours of the meeting.
For those who do not wish to be recorded or filmed, you will need to leave the Chamber.
For members, officers and others speaking at the meeting, it is important that the microphones
are used so viewers on the webcast and others in the room may hear you.
Would anyone with a mobile phone please switch it to silent mode as they can be distracting.
I would like to remind members that although we all have strong opinions on matters under
consideration it is important to treat members officers and public speakers with respect.
So good evening everyone we're not broadcasting live we're recording because BT's line is
broken but it's being repaired tomorrow so the recording will be uploaded then.
Councillor Pro Tem.
I've just been told that the back door is locked as well, which seems like a little
bit overkill in terms of keeping secure.
I didn't think the agenda was that contentious this evening, but…
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Well, thanks very much, everyone.
So first of all is apologies for absence.
I've just received apologies from Rich Holgate,
Councillor Holgate, whose son has developed,
has got ill, so he won't be able to join us.
Do we have any other apologies for absence, Gemma?
Thank you very much.
Okay, moving on to the minutes to consider and approve
as a correct record of the meeting held on the 16th of October.
Do we have any issues or concerns, amendments to those minutes?
Happy to propose their acceptance.
I'm very happy to second.
All those in favour, please indicate.
Thank you very much.
I'll sign those minutes.
So the first substantive item is item 4,
Bathing Water Beach Signage, pages 15 to 24 in your pack.
And are you going to introduce Councillor Scotland?
I'll just say a few words if I may.
Thank you very much.
Well this report considers the motion which was agreed
by full council in September last year.
And it looked at how the public were informed
of the latest bathing water classification
and storm flow releases.
The motion also asks that the practicalities
of installing digital signage were reviewed
alongside the possibility or the availability
of external funding.
So bathing water is something that is a huge,
ongoing issue for us and we've been heavily involved in that
and the council does have a duty to inform the public
about bathing water as the quality of the report makes clear.
But the other side of the coin is that we have
no enforcement ability to enforce
any particular regulations or to impose fines and so on about
water releases.
So we have a duty to inform, basically.
That's not the first thing.
The other one to note, I think, is
that the signage, the classification of beaches
is a four -year rolling average, which
means that over a period of time,
there's a lot of stability.
The latest figures will be released at the end of the month for this current season,
but the four -year average means it has to take into account
all the previous three years as well.
That means that it's not instant information.
It really isn't instant at all.
And the negative side of that is that the beach can have a very good year this year,
and if it's got three bad years behind it,
their classification may not change that quickly.
That is the problem with the signage.
If you look at the report, it takes us through it,
but one of the other things that we didn't want to,
or which is ours to consider, is availability of funding.
The answer is it's costly
and not judged to be good value for money
and not terribly informative when it comes down to it.
So, going digital would not be helpful in these circumstances.
But I think you'll also note that we're asked to consider,
or the report flags up future communications
and the way in which we can continue to improve
the way that we do relate to the public,
using social media and other forms of communication in the coming year.
So, that's just the general context for the report.
Thank you very much, Councillor Speakman.
Andrew, are you going to give us some background to this?
Thank you, Chair.
I think Councilor Scotham has covered most of the key points
that come out in the report,
and they're covered in the recommendations,
the sort of final conclusions that are reached.
I'm happy to talk to any questions that members have.
Thank you very much.
Councillor Prater.
I'm very happy to second Councillor Scotham,
and his report, because I agree that digital signage I don't think is a useful thing.
However, I have a practical example from Sandgate, where we have just put up signage along Sandgate
Gramble Parade beach, which is Sandgate beach sea bathing signage, which makes clear that the quality of water at the beach is normally excellent or good.
Sandgate is excellent on almost every testing occasion during the summer at the moment.
But what it does say is, however, please be aware that after heavy rainfall or stormy
conditions the quality of water may be adversely affected for up to 48 hours.
Because that is when you get your emergency outfalls, is that when it's been very wet
and very rainy and the storm tanks fill up and it immediately evolves into the sea.
That's almost always the case in Folkestone and Hyde and Sandgate.
It is related to rain incidents.
So if it's been raining really heavily, you've got a much heavier chance, a bigger chance
that there has been a release.
What the signs do include is QR codes which people can then scan with their phones which
takes them to the Surfers Against Sewage, Sewage Pollution Alerts website, which is
much more real time, because you can actually check whether there's an alert in progress
then.
It's not absolutely real time, even then, there's a small delay in terms of when it
goes off and also the environment, the environment agencies own website where it gives the beach
profile and the beach monitoring during the course of the last four years.
You know, the reports that they do weekly across the summer months.
So that's an example of what's been put up in Sandgate recently and allows people themselves
to go to, just use their phone to use QR codes to go to much better data than we'd have access
on digital signs and have, I think we've spent the princely total of about 60 quid on Gorex
signs for Ilegva Zangay. I would commend to the approach to other town and parish councils
up and down the coast. I can even give you the master of the poster for other councils
up and down the coast in order to go and create QR codes for your own areas at that stage.
I think it's probably best that it is done by those town and parish councils. It is a
low cost exercise at that stage.
But it is important that people take it seriously.
There are some jackfalls there.
There are days whereby the water quality is not something that you should be swimming
in and it is something that you should check, I'd suggest, particularly after heavy swim
sessions.
So, yes, Sandgate model available by request if you want to catch it at the Scoffin, but
happy, as I said, to second the report and the conclusions of the report, which is in
front of you.
I think that electronic signage would not be appropriate or be the right way forward
at this time.
Thank you very much.
Anyone else care to comment on this?
I noticed today that Southern Water have launched another app to replace Beach Boy, which is
called the Rivers and Sea app.
So hopefully we'll get even more information.
And on the separate issue of what Sandgate is doing, we all know what Sandgate does today,
the world follows tomorrow.
But perhaps I can ask officers to investigate that
and come back to us with a recommendation.
Yes, I'll certainly be interested in seeing Sandgate's signage.
I would point out that our current signs already have QR codes on them already
and which link to Beach Boy
and probably need to be considered to link to Rivers and Seas Watch,
which is the new expanded app that they just released.
But yes, we do have QR codes.
I would be interested to see the material from Sannehay. Thank you.
OK. Councillor Scoughlin.
I'd just like to commend Councillor Prater for bringing in Visual Aid.
I think over a year, I think it's the first time
I've seen a Visual Aid of this kind in the council chambers.
So, very nice to see a sample board.
This speaks to recommendation four to review in advance of the future of the bathing season,
how communications to the public about bathing water classification
could be enhanced using social media, the website and the early installation of signage.
We talked about the signage and the difficulties of digital signage on the beach,
but what you're suggesting is an interesting opportunity.
So it feeds straight into the recommendations.
Yes.
Thank you very much.
Okay, if everyone has contributed,
we have a proposer, Councillor Scoffron.
We have a seconder, Councillor Prater.
All those in favour, please indicate.
Thank you very much.
Moving on to our next item of business,
guest rooms in housing independent living schemes,
pages 25 to 56.
And Councillor Shrew is gonna lead us through this.
Thank you. Thank you.
So back in 2022 there was a review
commissioned by from external consultants
to look at our independent living
schemes and as part of that review,
the use of the guest rooms was
identified as something that
should be looked at further.
So we've got eight schemes currently
that have a guest room that's
available for residents to book
for visiting friends and family.
You'll see in the report that over the two years to March 2024, the eight rooms were
used for a total of 126 nights and that led to a subsidy from the HRA of over £4 ,500.
So those costs to be covered include council tax, electricity, cleaning, maintenance, administration,
etc.
So officers then drew up proposals
for each of the eight guest rooms.
And you'll see again in the report
that the preferred option for many
of the rooms was to convert them
either to a letterable flat or
where the rooms just too small to
use them for temporary accommodation.
So the individual proposals then went
out to each of the affected schemes.
Each resident was written to and the matter was discussed at the schemes quarterly meeting.
So there's a full breakdown of the feedback for each individual scheme and as a result of that
feedback the initial proposals have now been revised to take it into account and the
recommendations are now as follows.
That three of the guest rooms be converted to letable flats,
which would bring in over £19 ,000 a year to the HRA,
as well as obviously providing three additional homes.
That one be used for temporary accommodation,
which would reduce costs on the general fund.
And that four remain as guest accommodation,
but with a revised, lightly charge.
Aimed at recovering as much as possible
of the actual costs incurred.
So that proposal is for that charge
to increase from £23 .70 to £37 .32.
And if if cabinet agrees to this,
this would then need to go to
full Council for approval.
So importantly, the uses would be kept under review and the final recommendation of the
report is to delegate authority to the Director of Housing and Operations to change the use
of any rooms in future should the proposed new use be unsuccessful.
So I'm very happy to move the report.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Councillor Shrew.
The facilities that I've visited over the last year, generally the guest rooms are not
fully utilised and particularly those that could be converted into an additional flat,
it seems to me to be a very, very sensible way forward.
So happy to open it for comments or...
In that case, I'm very happy to second
Councillor Shroob's recommendation.
And all those in favour, please indicate.
OK, thank you very much. Super.
Moving on to Item 6, Opportunitasts.
23 to 24, full statement of accounts and quarter to progress report.
And I'm assuming that Andy, you're going to lead us through this?
Or...
Yeah, Councillor Butcher is going to...
Right, okay, totally good.
Thank you very much.
Well, I'll at least set the scene and I'm sure the detailed questions will be better
answered by Andy and colleagues when we come to those.
So, as I just said, we've got two reports,
one statement of accounts for last financial year
and then an update on progress and performance
this financial year.
Thinking back to October's cabinet,
I think I might have slightly misrepresented
the figures as final out term
when they were really final projections
because you'll see that the figures we've got
that have now been audited and confirmed
are rather different.
So rather than an operating profit at year's end,
the final figure is for an operating loss of about 4K.
That said, if we look at the Arwing Close review
of the company which we reported to Cabinet back in July,
that was predicting a 12K loss.
So I think that 4K loss is kind of there and thereabouts
in terms of what we might have expected.
I think it's worth saying that last year and this year
that we could think of as transitional years.
So we've had the completion of RVH2
with rental income building from that across the year.
And we've had the restructuring of the loan
and the increase in interest rate.
So I think that has made projecting figures
even more difficult than it might normally be.
Looking ahead to this year and what we're expecting by way of out turns,
so the projection is for an operating profit of 43k
and that's broadly in line with the Arling Close forecast of 13k,
but of course the caveat of these projections.
And I think, as I said last time, it does raise the question
what is the most useful data for the board and then for cabinet
to be looking at to get a clear picture
of how the company's doing
and whether there are things we should be concerned about or delighted about.
And the dashboard that we've had is really helpful in that,
but I think could probably do with some refining.
And I was struck when we did the scrutiny training the other day,
the trainer was using the phrase the one page story and whether we can get an overview in
just one page, I think the principle of that to get a kind of simpler overview of how the
company is doing will be really helpful and I'll continue to have conversations with officers
about that.
So I guess over to cabinet for questions and observations.
Thank you very much Councillor Butcher.
Any questions or queries?
Councillor Blyton.
Thank you.
Just one query around figures and I probably just need not reading the figures correctly
but just for a bit of clarification.
In paragraph 3 .3 where you show the main variances between the final statement and the previous
projected downturn that we saw in October, one figure that I can't quite trace back to
the main table is the increase in operating expenses of 26 ,670.
All the other figures seem, it's obvious where they come from, but I just can't see where
that comes from.
Thank you.
Yeah, I was asking that question this morning on the front to respond.
Thank you.
So, Councillor Beggemore, that is a combination of two items.
So if you look at the table on page 60 of the pack,
you'll see two figures.
One is the grounds maintenance figure of the 14092,
and then the overheads total as well of 12578.
Adding those two together is 26 ,000.
It was just a summarized version of those two items.
Councillor Scuffin.
I'd just like to pick up on the points
that Councillor Bookture was making at the beginning
about the value of an overview, if that's possible to do.
I appreciate that there's lots of intricacies,
but it is difficult to make sense
of so much information quite often.
And so if there is the opportunity to flag up key points
or key issues, key figures in a simple format,
I think that could be very useful indeed,
and it would certainly help me on future reports
if that was there.
I'm not putting it forward as a recommendation
to be obliged to be done,
but as a thought, and I think the idea of the one -page summary
which Councillor Brichard was mentioning
has considerable value.
I completely agree.
I wonder if, when you're answering this,
Councillor Brichard,
if you could just give us a feel for
if you did have such a dashboard,
What's your feeling at the moment?
Obviously, you've been through every single one of these numbers.
You've lived it, ate it, breathed it.
What's your sense? I've got a view.
I'm sure everyone else has got a view,
but I would appreciate your expert view, as it were.
Certainly wouldn't call it an expert.
I mean, it feels to me like the fundamentals of the business are sound and they are in
close review and the restructuring of the loan and the change in straights I think gets
us on a much better footing from the council's point of view.
I think from the company's point of view, RVH2 coming on stream, I think somewhere in
there, you know, the kind of full rental we're expecting, I think it's 750K per year.
So it's a really healthy income to have on a building like that with low repairs and
renewals costs.
So I think the fundamentals of the business are sound.
And then there are things, so Jonathan's been alerting me to the importance of really focusing
in on cost of repairs for one building over another.
Some buildings are costing us a lot given the rental.
And therefore we might want to make some decisions about are those buildings worth hanging on
And I think that the kind of overview that Stephen's talking about, if we're just picking
out those key figures about kind of rental versus repair costs, net yield is often a
figure I think it's used for property court, if we had maybe half a dozen of those metrics
it would enable us to be really clear.
But my sense, and a lot of colleagues respond, my sense would be that the business is sound
and on a good footing.
And when we look at the Arling Close review, what we're seeing is a steady improvement
in the profitability.
One of the questions we might want to come to is, is there a point at which the Council
might expect the company to pay a dividend on top of its interest payments?
But I think you'll also see in the report that although the company's been at a cost
to the Council in recent years, if you look at the cumulative picture, that's still very
and I guess that's the longer term perspective that we need to take.
Thank you very much. That tends to be the way that I look at it.
If the chips were really, really down and we had to sell the whole thing,
we would come out very much the right side of the ledger.
So it seems to me that you must see it in those day -to -day profit and loss, etc.
but that balance sheet view in terms of its accumulated value and the situation that you
might use that value in is an important point for consideration.
Just a chat, that's all that is.
Sorry, Councillor Brater.
Thank you.
I think we're all clear that this is a, as Councillor Butcher said, it's very much a
in terms of these accounts, the numbers at the bottom don't mean what the numbers at
the bottom suggest that they mean. It looks like you've made an enormous profit and we
know that that's the refinancing at that stage and that has impacted that and therefore the
accounts to now and the accounts for years from now will make more sense and then this
discontinuity figure in the middle and as we understand that and the world understands
that's fine. I think that your point is well made. Obviously, exactly that, the
Council is broadly has been putting in a small subsidy each year over the last
few years to support the company. The refinancing was explicitly in order to
mix over a period of the next couple of years to reduce that subsidy broadly to
zero, and for it to then start returning value to the council above the accumulated value
of the asset, which is the business itself, because you can't eat that.
Whereas you can, you know, the cash that we're putting in we could be spending on other things,
but it is a smaller amount of cash than was projected because of the refinancing we've
done.
It will decline to zero over the course of next three years.
Can't remember.
Three or four.
So, that will mean that we're actually not on a year -to -year basis adding to the capital
value of that by funding it from our revenue.
So I think that's all in a good place and all in the right place.
And yes, I'd very much hope to see dividends appearing after the stage that we're actually
turning that profit.
I'd very much like to see dividends coming, but I'll leave that to accountants and advisors,
auditors etc. on how that magic happens.
I was going to ask a question of detail on those accounts just to shake someone up a
bit or to allow Jonathan the opportunity to say for the second time today, that's bloody
obvious, which he didn't actually say to me in terms of my question which I asked earlier,
but he should have done.
On the grounds maintenance, which he has explained where the variances come from in terms of
The previous projected out -of -turn was that we were going to have zero expenses
on grounds maintenance and the final out -of -turn we spent £13 ,500 on grounds
maintenance.
How do we project that we were going to make some money but not spend any
money on grounds maintenance to begin with?
So thanks for that question Councillor Fraser.
I believe this is to do with the fact that I think some grounds maintenance,
basically the company does some cutting for some,
there's a local cutting and gets some income from that.
Basically it was the council invoicing opportunities for that, for the service,
also grounds maintenance provision hadn't been done or hadn't been
protected or included, that was then also added in.
That sort of 13 ,500 is the council invoicing the company for grounds
maintenance services.
And that appeared between the last meeting and this meeting
as the invoice was suddenly found and therefore added to the books.
An accrued expense was included and that's being invoiced.
Okay. I look forward to that not happening again.
Okay, thanks very much.
Any other comments?
Councillor Butcher.
Yeah, I just wanted to say a thank you to Jonathan and Danny
for all the work in pulling this together in very difficult circumstances
and for their patience in helping me understand things
which is much appreciated.
Yes, thank you very much.
So, if there are no other comments,
I'm very happy to propose acceptance of this,
if I could have a seconder somewhere.
Councillor Blakemore, thank you very much.
All those in favour, please indicate.
Thank you.
Moving on to Item 7, Housing Revenue Account, the HRA, the five -year strategic approach
to acquisitions and new build pipeline, pages 97 to 108.
And Councillor Shrew, again, is going to lead us through this.
Thank you.
So as you know, we have a 30 year business plan for the housing revenue account that
was agreed by cabinet back in December 2023.
And a major part of that plan is a commitment to increase the supply of council owned and
managed affordable housing across the district by at least 20 homes a year for the life of
plan with a capital budget of 5 million a year.
As we're all only too well aware, there is a real urgency for more council homes across
the district and all credit to officers for the acquisition of the 44 new affordable homes
at Risborough Barracks which we agreed at our last meeting and which will go towards
providing good homes for residents currently on the housing rating list.
So the report before us today sets out the strategy and framework that the housing team
would like to have in place so that we can continue to deliver even more homes at a good
pace.
So the nature of the pipeline is dynamic, to say the least, with opportunities sometimes
coming up at short notice and it's almost like a sort of complex 3D, if not 4D, jigsaw
to get the right balance that responds to our current and future local housing need.
So we're looking at the types, general needs, independent living, disabled, adapted homes,
appropriate number of bedrooms and the right geographic spread across the district.
So we need a framework in place that allows the team to respond quickly to any opportunities
that arise, be that negotiations with developers around Section 106 acquisitions or any other
ad hoc opportunities, accepting appropriate government grants to supplement the HRA.
Clearly that all needs to be within a rigorous framework as we're allowing due diligence
and oversight throughout the process.
So I want to assure members that the proposed strategy
maintains the rigorous assessment and evaluation
that underpins all current acquisitions and new builds.
And it would, of course, all have to be in accordance
with the agreed HRA business plan and the approved budgets.
As detailed in the paper, some opportunities,
Although individually they may not hit the financial metrics, in fact they could end
up being subsidized by other deals that come in, like under budget.
So to sum up, the approach set out in the paper reflects the aspirations for the new
affordable home delivery as set out in the HRA business plan which we've approved.
That plan is reviewed annually along with the HRA Capital Programme and we reviewed looking
at the following financial year and for the five -year medium -term financial plan.
The strategy gives the Housing and Development team the opportunity to pursue all opportunities
on behalf of the Council that fall within the budget allocation and obviously with schemes
taken to members for decisions where necessary should they fall outside the budget allocation
and obviously there will be regular updates on progress on the pipeline.
So I'd very much like to move the recommendations.
Thank you.
Thank you very much Councillor Shrew.
very, very much and delighted to second the report and open for any comments, discussions,
questions.
Councillor Speightman.
Yes, it's kind of echoing the points made in the last item.
First of all, I want to say it's a very clear report.
I'm absolutely, you know, it's very clear about what the aim and objective.
I get a bit lost when we start talking about golden bricks and turn keys and that sort
of thing.
I appreciate there are footnotes there.
Maybe it's unavoidable, but when we get into the more technical aspects,
and I don't have that background, even though I do have some knowledge
from my own portfolio, I have to say I do struggle.
I'm not sure necessarily by the sound of it alone on that.
I'm not quite sure what we can do about it, but I just wanted to flag it up.
Having said that, that doesn't detract from the overall clarity of the report
and what it's aiming to achieve, and that's absolutely perfectly clear.
I know. Speak of that point.
Those phrases are adopted by lawyers,
so they creep in.
Golden Brick is a stage in the construction
where it is irrevocably going to be residential,
so that it can't be anything else.
And it becomes the stage that you would, in this context,
we would pay for the land and that part of the construction
when that brick is laid.
There isn't actually a physical golden brick.
I didn't think... I did rather gather that.
I thought it was rather more metaphorical than literal.
Having said that, I guess it also behoves me
that if I really do want to know, I could spend some time on Google.
You'll probably get three or four definitions for golden brick.
Turnkey's a bit more... It's a package deal.
So effectively, you don't do anything until you turn the key.
But these are phrases that have been adopted by lawyers over the years,
so they've crept into everybody's vocabulary.
The lawyers know what they're talking about, so the rest of us have to learn.
But I heartily agree with your comments about the clarity of the report.
I enjoyed reading it very much.
Councillor Prater.
Please could we not start Jim off on the specialist subject
of surveying and property purchase.
I very much support what's written in this report.
I very much want to flag that there are a couple of words in here which are the reason
why I support it.
And a couple of words were used by Rebecca Caswell -Shoob earlier, which were at least.
This document sets our aspiration for the Council on the current business plan which
is set to match the current rules of the game as they stand.
And at least is what we can afford under the current rules as they stand.
If somebody changed that environment on those rules, if they said you could borrow at 0 %
interest for HRA stock, that would change the rules of the game.
That would change what you could do.
If you said you could borrow as much as you wanted to in order to build as long as it
was for HRA stock, that would change the rules of the game.
that would change the amount of money we could spend,
not just the number of houses you can buy for that amount of money.
And I think we are committed, but if the rules of the game change,
we will come back and look at this strategy at that stage
and see what impact it has on what we can then do for that.
But under the rules that we currently have,
£5 million a year is what we feel we can afford
alongside the other commitments and alongside the environment
and the interest that we have to pay and the MRP payments etc that you have to make in
order to make these things add up and therefore that's the right hand proven thing to do in
terms of this report and to put those things in place.
But this delivers what we can do now in the world.
It doesn't limit our aspiration for doing better than that and obviously if we can buy
many more than 20 houses a year for £5 million, and of course we won't, but that's kind of
outside our control. It depends what happens in terms of the market, it depends how it
happens in terms of availability, and at people making those units available. But the capital
budget itself of £5 million is limited by what we can currently do. I really hope that
the government, I really hope that are going to be looking at that because it is their
stated aspiration that we should have many, many more council houses and the only way
we can unlock many, many more council houses is for them to change some of those rules.
And if they do that, I'd like to think that we'd be really early in the queue of going
right, we can do better than that and we'll do bigger than that. And I know that Andy
Andy would be one of the first to want to do more than that, if he could.
So that's our challenge back to government is you want this stuff to happen.
With two or three relatively simple rule changes, we could do a much bigger number than that
and we'd love to.
And under those circumstances we will do so.
I don't think there's any point in adding that as a notable recommendation, but that
is where we're to and that's where we've come to.
So, the right report under these rules, I'm very happy to accept it
under the rules of the game that we're playing at the moment.
It absolutely clarifies and codifies how you're going to deliver to that.
I really hope we get to deliver to a bigger capital programme
by somebody changing those rules in the future.
Councillor Troxell.
I couldn't agree more that the rules definitely need changing.
But I think we're ahead even with the current rules.
We've got the 44 at Risborough Barracks.
There's more in the pipeline.
I won't push you too far.
We've already spoken this afternoon about three more.
We've got three more flats coming through the change of the guest room.
So there's plenty of stuff happening already.
So, yeah, the team is pushing ahead.
And if the rules were changed, I think we'd be unstoppable.
Thank you.
Not for this report,
but I think it might be timely
in using what's in this report
and using other experiences
that we're having Councillor Shrewd for me to write to the Secretary of State, just outlining
how much we could do with just some rule changes.
Not necessarily increasing, you know, we're not asking for buckets of money, but just
allow us a bit more scope and we could do quite a bit more.
That might, we might, I'll talk it over with our Chief Executive and see if we can conjure
up a letter because I think a lot of councils feeling a little bit more could have a big
impact for them on their huge target.
So back to the business in hand, sorry.
We've had a proposal.
I've seconded.
If there are no other comments, we'll move to the vote.
So all those in favor, please indicate.
Thank you very much.
That's really good.
And moving on to our last item for this evening, item 8, Romley Marsh Coastal Destination
Centre including Beach Chariot Project update pages 109 to 124 and Councillor Speakeman
is going to lead us through it.
Thank you.
Yes my pleasure.
Right so this report provides background to recommendations to cabinet to approve additional
funding for the Coast Drive project
to meet an unforeseen budget shortfall
and enable, obviously, full completion of this project.
So a bit more detail.
Members will obviously recall giving approval
to the revised plans for the Coast Drive Beach Chalet
project in December 2023, which is providing
93 beach huts on council -owned land in Great Stone, New
Romney.
And I mean, this project has been very, very popular,
John widespread local support and providing great benefits for the area particularly because
it also provides an additional provision of a visitor centre.
The approved budget was 1 ,593 ,000 which included 300 ,000 from a NDA Magnalls grant.
SIL and UK shared prosperity funding came to a further 400 ,000
with the remaining balance of 893 ,000, 893 ,000 of capital
being provided by the council which was approved by cabinet in June 2021.
There have been a few challenges which have been surmounted,
mainly around to accommodate measures to mitigate ecological impact considerations.
And then, confirmation was received from UKPN
that there was insufficient grid capacity
and the project would require a nice new shiny substation.
Their initial quote was robustly challenged by the team
and the team duly obtained third party quotes for a much reduced price.
However, this still leaves a shortfall in the budget of £102 ,000
and this can be met from identified sources
within the current approved capital program
as outlined in the body of the report.
So, according to the recommendations to Cabinet R
is to receive a net report
to approve the environment of 140 ,000
from the identified sources within the approved capital program
to the Coast Drive project as laid out in the report.
And also to note the urgency of the decision
as the works contract to safeguard the Magnance grant
of 300 ,000, as I mentioned earlier,
needs to be awarded before the end of 2024.
And finally to provide delegated authority
to the Director for Housing and Operations
to deliver the scheme within the amended budget.
So I would like to move the report on that basis.
Thank you very much, Councillor Speakeman.
I'm very happy to second the report
and open it up for comments, questions, etc.
Councillor Prozzio.
Sorry.
Obviously I'm going to support the report and the recommendations on it.
This is a really important project now and it is a demonstration of our commitment to
Romy Marsh and the economy of Romy Marsh of getting this project in place now.
The additional, so the additional expenditure at that stage, previously last December we
we're looking at over 20 years, this project having a surplus of £2 .3 million over the
20 -year lifespan of it. This reduces that by about £200 ,000 in total, so it's still
an over £2 million surplus in terms of rent. That's a good rate of return on our investment
stage and therefore it makes sense.
It is of course hugely frustrating when UK power networks give you the, give you a quotation
for anything ever.
It's even more frustrating as, you know, although I accept that the complex of 94 beach huts
and a visitor's centre etc is extensive, I don't think any of those 94 beach huts have
power.
Therefore, effectively we're paying for a substation for just the visitor centre itself
to have some plugs to turn on lights and power and, you know, kitchens and stuff like that.
And yet we need hundreds of thousands of pounds worth from UK Power Network to support, broadly,
one small visitor centre.
It's nuts, but you've got to work with the nuts that you've got, and UK Power Network
are those nuts.
So congratulations for working your way round it.
I imagine you have beaten your head in frustration on the desk a number of times when things
like that happen.
We have to get on with it in order to make it happen and get the funding from other sources
as well, and therefore we should.
I'm just also venting my frustration about the fact that 94b charts, none of which have
a plug -in, mean that UK power networks get to bleed us for hundreds of thousands of pounds.
However, as I said, coming back to the main point,
is that in terms of the fundamental financial viability of this as a project,
it's still one which returns over £2 million to the Council
over the course of 20 years,
and therefore it financially still stacks up.
So I'm very happy to support.
And if it hasn't been seconded, I can't remember, I'm very happy to do so.
The Council would like more.
I just saw in finance officer's comment that the need for the substation was actually largely
due to the electric vehicle charge point installation.
So just just interested in confirmation for that is really the case and in which case
it does seem appropriate that the reallocation from the climate change reserve of that 40k
which is now no longer needed for the on -street project but I was just wondering where we
stood on that.
It's a mix, so it's the business centre itself, so the cafe, kiosk bit and the classroom that
we're going to have there is the water sports businesses that are out there already which
need a permanent power supply and it's the EV charging points and site lighting and things
like that so we probably need about the total as well.
I think it's about 200 kVA altogether but it's suggesting that we need a 320 kVA substation
which is considerably more expensive than it needs to be.
So everyone's right, really.
But it's frustrating.
Because when we started the project, it wasn't required.
A cynical person might say that
they were simply chanting us to renew their own infrastructure.
But I'm not a cynical person, so...
I'm happy to second.
So we have a proposer, we have a seconder, in fact we've got two seconders.
If there are no further comments, all those in favour, please indicate.
Thank you very much everyone and that concludes our business.
So good evening.
Thank you.