Agenda item

A period of up to 15 minutes is available to deal with issues raised by the public;

O&S.40/17     

In accordance with the Public Forum Procedure Rules, the following three questions had been received from Kingsbridge Town Council for consideration at this meeting as follows:

Reference Agenda Item 8(c) (Minute O&S.42/17(c) below refers):

Paragraph 5: ‘Stakeholder and Community Consultation (Stage 4):

5.6 Bullet point 7: “Recognition that development of Kingsbridge Quayside is needed to support costs of improvements to public realm and provision of affordable housing.”

Question 1: Kingsbridge Town Council has concluded that SHDC is holding the Kingsbridge Community to ransom in unnecessarily linking development of the Kingsbridge Quayside to support costs of improvements to public realm and provision of affordable housing.  Adequate funding is available for the latter given SHDC’s recent monies from Central Government.  What percentage and form of consultation responses constitute ‘recognition’ that this ‘is needed’?

Question 2: What is the basis from the consultation that allow SHDC to assert that there is a ‘recognition’ that this project is needed?

Question 3: Has SHDC agreed to our demand that they defer consideration of the Quayside Development to allow public contribution?

The Assets Senior Specialist was invited to respond to the three questions and, in so doing, made the following comments:

Question 1:

‘There are two parts to this question:

1.     I think it is unfortunate that the term ‘ransom’ has continued to appear within ‘formal’ comments submitted by Kingsbridge Town Council and would add that this is not reflective of the face-to-face discussions that we have been having.  Furthermore, the current model is based upon:

-        Compliance / investigation in line with the current site allocation (100 homes);

-        Delivery of a high quality of affordable / community housing (40% target); and

-        Analysis of finance associated with delivering this as a whole and including some public realm.

2.     This question was also raised at the public meeting that officers attended at the request of Kingsbridge Town Council.  With respect to the reference to central government money, officers understanding is that we have £1.8 million for across the South Hams and that this relates to a community housing model only and will be used in a variety of ways including:

-        Supporting the delivery of existing community housing projects;

-        Building a new community housing team; and

-        Buying suitable sites or securing options with landowners to facilitate projects.

Question 2:

‘Again, there are two parts to this question:

‘Firstly, we need to take a step back and recap on the purpose of this Stage 1 which was:

1.      The site is previously allocated;

2.      The Council are a major landowner and so it is sensible to review assets for the long-term;

3.      The outcome is to provide a summary of constraints and opportunities, illustrative concept layouts and associated financial assessments to better inform where we move to the next stage;

4.      It is not about putting a financial solution on to the community.

The term ‘recognition’ appears to relate to bullet point 7 and in particular Question 8:

Question 8: Do you, in principle, support development of the Kingsbridge Quayside recognising the some development would be needed to support the cost of improvements to public realm and affordable housing?

With regard to whether the project is needed to meet the needs of the community, the officer suggested that it was.  To expand on this view, the public realm and affordable housing aspects received very positive responses, highly in favour, and aligning with the aspirations of the town council.

In terms of delivering the site allocation or something similar, the officer advised that the purpose of the Masterplan has been to demonstrate how this could be achieved.

Whilst in isolation, the survey results do not appear positive, the purpose of the consultation was to try and be transparent and to enable key concerns to be raised.

This has clearly sparked a high level of discussion within the community, with the issues of: quayside development; affordable housing model; and loss of parking.

I believe that there is now an opportunity for these concerns to be further explored within Stage 2 and hopefully, we can still work together to develop a scheme that meets the needs of all parties.

Given the potential change that could be implemented (in accordance with allocation), this will be a challenge, however this is to be expected.

Question 3:

‘Yes, we have.  However, officers need to discuss with the town council their expectation in terms of being able to review the final report.

Further to this response, the Leader also advised that:

-        He had agreed that this agenda item would be deferred to the Executive meeting on 19 October 2017;

-        It was the intention to now sign-off this phase before looking at a revised plan;

-        As part of a revised plan, officers would be tasked with mitigating concerns related to loss of car parking and affordable housing;

-        The Council had listened to the consultation feedback and would continue to talk to the town council and local residents.

In welcoming these responses, the Town Council representatives in attendance did not wish to take up the offer of asking a supplementary question, but did state that they were looking forward to making progress in this respect, in line with the wishes of the local community.