Central Winchester Regeneration; Development Delivery Plan (exempt appendix)
Minutes:
At the invitation of the Leader, Councillors Bolton and Horrill addressed Cabinet as summarised briefly below.
Councillor Bolton
Councillor Bolton asked whether Cabinet Members were comfortable with the assumptions made in the financial model and whether other realistic scenarios were available to provide a better understanding of the volatility. He emphasised the importance of securing a return on the council’s investment and queried what measures were in place to incentivise Jigsaw to provide this.
Councillor Horrill
Councillor Horrill queried how the council would guarantee that the CIL monies allocated would be used for the purpose specified?
Councillor Tod and the Director of Regeneration responded to the comments made including emphasising that the Joint Project Board received monthly updates on progress and viability. Furthermore a quarterly review mechanism was incorporated into the Development Agreement (DA). The Development Agreement allowed for further profits, beyond that included in the DA for Jigsaw, to be shared equally between Jigsaw and the Council by way of an overage agreement. Councillor Tod offered to meet with Councillor Bolton and any other councillors to provide further reassurance. Jigsaw would be required to follow the usual process in submitting an application for CIL funding and the Monitoring Officer would be involved in ensuring the agreement process was sufficiently robust in relation to the large sums involved. The Director (Finance) also confirmed that the council had employed development finance consultants to assist with the analysis and monitoring of the financial model and this would continue as the scheme progressed through to Full Business Case.
RESOLVED:
That the contents of the exempt appendix be noted.