Agenda and minutes

To receive any disclosure of interests from Members and Officers in matters to be discussed.

Note:  Councillors are reminded of their obligations to declare disclosable pecuniary interests, personal and/or prejudicial interests in accordance with legislation and the Council’s Code of Conduct.      

If you require advice, please contact the appropriate Democratic Services Officer, prior to the meeting.

Councillors Hiscock, Stallard and Tod declared disclosable pecuniary interests as they were County Councillors and the County Council had awarded £1 million to the project.  However they all participated in the meeting and, in the case of Councillor Warwick voted on items as below, under the dispensation granted by the Standards Committee.

To receive and note questions asked and statements made from members of the public on matters which fall within the remit of the Committee

At the invitation of the Chairman, Councillors Gottlieb, Laming and Prince addressed the Committee (and also to speak during the exempt session of the meeting).  Their comments are summarised under the open and exempt minute with regards to the Winchester Sport and Leisure Centre – Full Business Case item (Report CAB3082(LC) refers) below.

Also at the invitation of the Chairman, Sandra Bowhay (on behalf of Winchester Netball Club) and Emma Back addressed the meeting with regard to the same item and their comments are summarised under the open minute below.

The Chairman also read out representations from Mr Geoff Wright, resident of St Giles Hill had been unable to attend this rearranged meeting with regard to the same agenda item.

(Report CAB3082(LC) refers)

The Committee noted that the report was also due to be considered by Cabinet (Leisure Centre) Committee at its meeting on 11 February 2019. 

The Chairman welcomed to the meeting Professor Neil Marriot, Deputy-Vice Chancellor Winchester University.  Also present were Simon Molden from The Sports Consultancy (TSC) and Olivia Burton and Sean Clarke from MACE.

The Strategic Director (Place) and others present gave a detailed presentation to the Committee on the Full Business Case.  This is available to view as part of the agenda for the meeting on the Council’s website.  The presentation set out the development of the Leisure Centre and provided an overview of the findings of the Full Business Case that was before the Committee to consider.

Professor Marriot confirmed that the University of Winchester was to contribute £1.7 million towards the project and that the University were pleased to be part of the success of the new centre.  

Key Deliverables and each of the fives specific areas of the Business Case were then explained.

Sandra Bowhay (on behalf of Winchester Netball Club) addressed the meeting.  In summary, the Club was disappointed that the new centre was now to have a smaller sports hall than had been originally proposed as there was currently a shortage of adequate court space for netball.  Ms Bowhay suggested that the Club had not been previously consulted by the Council with regards to agreeing a facility mix for the new centre and she urged there to be further consideration given to support the future growing needs of all basket sports in general.

Emma Back from Winchester SALT addressed the meeting.  In summary, she referred to the previous proposals for the new leisure centre in 2016.  This had sufficient facilities to meet current and future demand.  In addition to this, it had been indicated that local clubs had made commitments to hire facilities which would have generated revenue to the new centre of significantly more than the £1.7 million over 40 years committed by the University.   She was concerned that the leisure centre as now proposed was expensive in terms of its square footage and did not have sufficient facilities so to meet current and future demand.  Furthermore the operating model appeared to be more suited to the operator preferences as indicated by the high cost of facility hire.

The Chairman advised that Mr Geoff Wright, resident of St Giles Hill had been unable to attend this rearranged meeting and had requested that his Questions be reported to the Committee.  He had expressed that the Full Business Case was difficult to fully scrutinise with out sight of the exempt appendix.  In summary, Mr Wright’s questions included the following points.  The Head of Programme’s responses are also summarised below: 

·         What assumptions has the preferred operator made about numbers using the Bar End centre?

The existing RPLC had user numbers currently of 600,000 per annum.  The outline business case specified this as 900,000 and the new operator was predicting number of  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.

(Report OS220 refers)

The Strategic Director (Resources) highlighted the main comparisons to the previous year’s Strategy, which were increased borrowing and additional capital schemes.  This was with regard to the recent Government announcement of the removal of the HRA debt cap, which would facilitate the Council building additional new homes.  There were also likely to be increased spending in the capital programme and so reducing the Council’s overall investments.   

Councillor Ashton also reiterated to the meeting that the Council’s borrowing strategy was over the longer term, so to invest in longer term assets.  

At the conclusion of questions and debate, the Committee agreed that there were no particular matters that it wished to raise for Cabinet to further consider.

RESOLVED:

That the Treasury Management Strategy 2019/20 report be noted.

(Report OS221 refers)

The Strategic Director (Resources) explained that increasing the Strategic Asset Purchase budget would allow the Council to continue to take opportunities as they arose to make ‘double win’ purchases. 

With regard to reference within the report of potential asset disposals following the asset challenge process; it was expected that any potential asset disposals would be  brought forward together for consideration within the coming months 

At the conclusion of questions and debate, the Committee agreed that there were no particular matters that it wished to raise for Cabinet to further consider.  The Committee welcomed the number of community projects within the capital programme.

RESOLVED:

That the Capital Investment Strategy report be noted. 

i)          To pass a resolution that the public be excluded from the meeting during the consideration of the following items of business because it is likely that, if members of the public were present, there would be disclosure to them of ‘exempt information’ as defined by Section 100 (I) and Schedule 12A to the Local Government Act 1972.

RESOLVED:

1.         That in all the circumstances, the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information.

2.         That the public be excluded from the meeting during the consideration of the following items of business because it is likely that, if members of the public were present, there would be disclosure to them of ‘exempt information’ as defined by Section 100I and Schedule 12A to the Local Government Act 1972.

The Committee considered the contents of the exempt appendix to the report which provided commercially sensitive information regarding the full business case for the Winchester Sport and Leisure Centre (detail in exempt minute).  

Simon Molden (The Sports Consultancy) along with Olivia Burton and Sean Clarke of Mace remained in the room during the exempt discussion to provide response to any questions relating to the exempt appendix.  (detail in exempt minute)

The meeting commenced at 6.30pm and concluded at 10.40pm.