The meeting discussed our ambitious plans to redevelop the Covent Garden car park site and to relocate our HQ to that site, along with a new car park and residential accommodation.

Independently chaired by BBC CWR’s Phil Upton, those attending were given the opportunity to put their questions to the panel of councillors and officers - Cllr Andrew Mobbs, the Leader of the Council, Cllr Peter Whiting, Finance Portfolio Holder, Cllr Moira-Ann Grainger, Neighbourhood Services Portfolio Holder; they were joined by Bill Hunt, Deputy Chief Executive and Rob Hoof, Head of Neighbourhood Services.

Cllr Andrew Mobbs, Leader commented,

“We are getting close to when the Executive will be making the final decision on this project and a public meeting at this stage was a good way of helping to inform that decision, engage with residents of the district and to clarify some of the misinformation being shared.”

The panel heard from the public on a number of different aspects of the project and a sample of questions is grouped together here:

Why do you need to move?

WDC starting reviewing the future financial liabilities for its asset base in 2010 when local government austerity began. In 2012 councillors took the decision to relocate from Riverside House which is , too big for the council’s needs,  costly to run,  very costly maintain, not suited for delivering the services the public wants and relatively inaccessible other than by car.  Over subsequent years the Council did a thorough appraisal of all other potential options, including refurbishment and sub-letting of Riverside House and the use of the  Town Hall, which it concluded is too small, not cost efficient or fit for purpose as a modern office. In 2015 Covent Garden was selected as the preferred relocation site as, in addition to being the most cost-efficient option for new-build offices, it would also allow regeneration of area, bring new housing into the town centre and provide a larger, modern, ‘gateway’ car park to replace the existing multi-storey car park which has irreparable ‘concrete-cancer’, two floors closed as a result and will need replacing in the near future. In 2016 Full Council approved the detailed viability assessments as Stage One of the process of relocation to this site.

The Budget for the project and the relationship with Public Sector Plc (PSP)

WDC has established a jointly owned Limited Liability Partnership with PSP to assist it to deliver complex regeneration schemes and deliver the best possible value from the council’s assets. PSP have funded the LLP to undertake all the Stage One work, which will now come back to the Executive for approval and to full Council to agree the funding to Stage Two. This has cost the Council nothing. The Council has equal representation on the LLP’s Board and in addition has established a ‘double-lock’ mechanism so that key decisions like proceeding with a project or allocating funding are also brought before elected members for a decision. In addition, before a project can be allocated to the LLP it has to be independently verified as being the best possible option for the Council. All the public reports relating to the establishment of the LLP and the relocation project are available on the council’s website. There are also some confidential reports which are commercially sensitive or legally privileged and whilst these are not available to the public, they have all been considered by  councillors.

The role of the WDC members of the LLP Board is to ensure the Council gets the best possible ‘deal’ with its private sector partner to achieve maximum benefits for local taxpayers.  

The impact of the development on the town centre ‘treescape’

The council met with local residents prior to the planning application being submitted for the Riverside House site. It was agreed that the landscaping plan for the future development would be ‘fixed’ as part of the outline application subsequently submitted. Planning Committee agreed a scheme that will see the removal of 42 trees from the site, but replace with 76 new ones. Based on resident concerns at that time, the council agreed a new tree preservation order (TPO) on the all the remaining 63 individual trees plus 3 groups of trees that will be  retained at the Riverside House site, to prevent a developer from removing any further trees.  In addition 3 trees on the public highway would be removed but the developer will make a financial contribution to the County Council to enable replacement street trees to be planted.

Video coverage of the meeting can be found on WDC’s Facebook page.