Meeting documents

To approve as a correct record the Minutes of the meeting of the Council held on 13 September, 2017, copy attached as an appendix.

RESOLVED –

That the Minutes of the meeting of Council held on 13 September, 2017, be approved as a correct record.

By the Chairman of the Council.

By the Leader/Cabinet Members.

There were none.

There were none.

One written question was submitted by Members during September 2017.

Previous Members’ Written Questions and Answers can be accessed at http://democracy.aylesburyvaledc.gov.uk/ieListMeetings.aspx?CommitteeId=441

Written questions submitted by Members and the answers provided  could be accessed at http://democracy.aylesburyvaledc.gov.uk/ieListMeetings.aspx?Committeeld=441

Councillor Mrs Paternoster

Cabinet Member for Growth Strategy

To consider the attached report.

All local planning authorities were under a statutory obligation to prepare a Local Plan.  The last adopted Local Plan for Aylesbury Vale dated from 2004 and therefore did not take account of recent changes in Government planning policy.  The Council had tried to prepare a replacement Plan on a number of occasions and the most recent attempt had been withdrawn following an examination in public in 2014.  Since then, the Council had been committed to delivering a new Local Plan and to ensuring that this met the Government’s expectation that local plans were produced as soon as practicable.

Council received a report, submitted also to the VALP Scrutiny Committee on 26 September, 2017 and to Cabinet on 10 October, 2017, setting out the background to the production of the Plan, as well as providing a summary of the contents and the next stages in the process.  All Members of the Council had received a copy of the submission draft document.  The Cabinet report had included a list of minor post-publication changes.  Paragraph 3.7 of the Scrutiny Committee report referred to evidence that supported VALP being attached as an Appendix.  However, in view of the significant number of documents that evidence had not been attached to the report.  Instead, a complete list of the supporting evidence, which included links to the documents on the Council’s website, was included at Appendix 1 (pages 19-21) of the Council agenda.

The VALP Scrutiny Committee had made a number of comments and suggestions and these had been considered by Cabinet on 10 October.  Cabinet had heard from the Chairman of the VALP Scrutiny Committee, who had elaborated upon scrutiny’s deliberations.  Cabinet had also heard representations from three other local Members and three members of the public, the context of which had been dealt with during the Cabinet debate.

Cabinet had considered all of the issues raised by the speakers, as well as a schedule of proposed changes (identified up to that point in time) on an item by item basis, seeking clarification from officers that these would not alter significantly or change the sense of the supporting text.  Of all the changes suggested by the VALP Scrutiny Committee, Cabinet felt unable to agree two of them, specifically the rewording of Policy H1 relating to the number of affordable homes to be provided on sites allocated within a Neighbourhood Plan, and Policy NE7 relating to the use of local green space, which if approved would be contrary to the guidance contained within the NPPF. Otherwise, all of the other changes suggested by the Scrutiny Committee were approved for onward transmission to Council.

Following the Cabinet meeting, a final schedule of changes to the VALP (agreed by Cabinet on 10 October 2017) had been put together and circulated to all Members in advance of the Council meeting.  A hard copy of this document was also provided to all Councillors at the Council meeting.

The Leader of the Council gave a brief introduction and explained the context behind  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

Councillor Bowles

Cabinet Member for Economic Development and Regeneration

To consider the attached report

In May, 2016, approval had been given to the creation of three Enterprise Zones (EZs) within the Vale as part of a group comprising Bucks County Council, Bucks LEP and the landowners.  Collectively, these sites were referred to as the Aylesbury Vale Enterprise Zone (AVEZ).  As part of this arrangement, and because the Council was the collection authority for business rates, it had been agreed that AVDC would be the accountable body for the AVEZ.

A founding principle of EZs was that the Government allowed business rates retention from new development so that the income generated was invested in infrastructure to facilitate future EZ development in accordance with agreed investment strategies.  Each of the AVEZ sites had a Memorandum of Undertaking (MoU) agreed with the landowners that set out each site’s investment strategy, including priorities for investment of retained business rates.  As the accountable body, any borrowing requirement necessary to future fund infrastructure needs fell to this Council.

At Silverstone Park, the MoU with MEPC (the land owner) specified that infrastructure funds of £10M would be applied (funded jointly by MEPC and business rates retention) to support infrastructure provision in advance, such as power supply, utilities, ground works, site roads and broadband.

A copy of the report submitted to Cabinet on 10 October 2017 was appended to the Council report.  This explained that, to date, MEPC had delivered the first phase of speculative development (12,164 m²) in the EZ and tier 1 infrastructure works, including a 21 MVA upgrade to the high voltage electricity distribution network and gas and drainage infrastructure.

MEPC’s infrastructure investment priority was to deliver tier 2 infrastructure works as set out in a schedule forming part of the Cabinet report.  Tier 2 infrastructure would accelerate the future provision of site specific services on future development phases.  This would enable MEPC to respond rapidly to future occupier requirements for premises across the whole of the remaining EZ site.  The Cabinet report had included information:-

·                    on how it was anticipated that the funding of £4,993,269 (including professional fees and a contingency) would be required and drawn down.

·                    that the interest and loan repayments would be funded from the existing business rates and the additional business rates to be generated by Silverstone Park Enterprise Zone as a result of the infrastructure development works.

The loan was not secured on the investment, so the Council would need to accept the risk of non repayment.  However, as also explained in the Cabinet report, it was considered that the financial risk associated with the proposal was very low.

Council was invited to approve grant funding support for the utilities infrastructure works, on the terms as set out in the Cabinet report.  The project had been appraised by independently appointed consultants, Hewson Consulting, and their report with its conclusions had been appended to the confidential part of the Council agenda due to their commercially sensitive nature. 

The appraisal had reached the following conclusions:-

·                    The strategic intent and the proposed financing mechanism  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.