Agenda and draft minutes

Venue: Rennes Room, Civic Centre, Paris Street, Exeter

Contact: Sharon Sissons, Democratic Services Officer  Tel: 01392 265115 or email  sharon.sissons@exeter.gov.uk

Items
No. Item

22.

Appointment of Chair for the Meeting

Minutes:

RESOLVED that Councillor Vizard be appointed Chair of the meeting.

 

23.

Minutes pdf icon PDF 511 KB

To approve and sign the minutes of the meeting held on 6 June 2022.

Minutes:

The minutes of the meeting of the Combined Strategic Scrutiny and Customer Focus Scrutiny Committees held on 6 June 2022 were taken as read, approved and signed by the Chair as correct.

 

24.

Declarations of Interest

Councillors are reminded of the need to declare any disclosable pecuniary interests that relate to business on the agenda and which have not already been included in the register of interests, before any discussion takes place on the item. Unless the interest is sensitive, you must also disclose the nature of the interest. In accordance with the Council's Code of Conduct, you must then leave the room and must not participate in any further discussion of the item.  Councillors requiring clarification should seek the advice of the Monitoring Officer prior to the day of the meeting.

 

Minutes:


No declarations of discloseable pecuniary interest by Members were made.

 

25.

Exeter Development Fund Overview

Scrutiny is being asked to perform a critical friend role for the Council’s Executive in examining and highlighting the merits and risk associated with the City Development Fund ahead of the full Business Case being presented to the Executive for consideration later this year.

 

To Note the sessions are as detailed below -

 

Session 1            Introduction – 30 March

Session 2:           What is the economic case for pursuing a City Development Fund to support delivery - 27 April

Session 3:           Governance/Fund Management/Governance and Risk - 6 June

Session 4:          The Business Case - 28 July 

Session 5            Summary and Way Forward - 8 September

 

 

 

Minutes:

Members noted that Scrutiny was being asked to perform a critical friend role for the Council’s Executive in examining and highlighting the merits and risks associated with the City Development Fund ahead of the full Business Case being presented to the Executive for consideration later this year.

 

Members noted the sessions held as detailed below:-

 

Session 1        Introduction - 30 March 2022

Session 2:       What is the economic case for pursuing a City Development Fund to support delivery - 27 April 2022

Session 3:       Governance/Fund Management/Governance and Risk - 6 June 2022

Session 4:       The Business Case - 28 July 2022

Session 5        Summary and Way Forward 8 September 2022

 

The Chair referred to the opportunity to review the information provided and he invited Members to begin to review the information and formulate any further lines of enquiry when the next meeting of this Combined Scrutiny is held on 8 September.

 

26.

Exeter Development Fund pdf icon PDF 4 MB

Session Four: The Business Case

 

Introduction and summary

 

Karime Hassan, Chief Executive & Growth Director and

Roli Martin, Head of Finance and Strategic Project Manager, and Elaine Anning, Operations Director, Exeter City Futures Team

 

A presentation will be made (attached to the agenda) and will cover an analysis of the business case and the way the Exeter Development Fund is intended to work.

 

Members are particularly invited to review the Strategic (page 30) and Economic (page 70) cases of the outline Business Case of the Exeter Development Fund for further discussion at the meeting. Please see a link to now available on the Exeter City Futures web site - https://www.exetercityfutures.com/the-city-owned-development-fund-for-exeter-takes-a-step-forward/

 

 

Minutes:

The Chief Executive & Growth Director by way of background to the recent discussion on the Exeter Development Fund proposition, advised that Exeter was expected to meet a 12,000 home target to meet the five year housing requirement.  A proactive regeneration function was not always available to District Councils and the Exeter Development Fund was suggested as an innovative way forward to provide the necessary infrastructure and ensure the quality of place making. This would counter the reactive approach by developers and help achieve quality of provision. 

 

The City Council’s strategy for development had changed from an urban extension approach to identifying brownfield sites, with associated infrastructure provision and quality of development. Members of the Exeter City Futures team had put together a Business Case using the premise of the Exeter Development Fund to offer a vision of delivering homes in the city with a locally controlled finance model, as opposed to the current model of funding through national funders, with any profits returned to the developer. The Fund would create a more resilient, self-reliant model controlling the funding as well as an effective regeneration model.

 

Roli Martin, Head of Finance and Strategic Project Manager and Elaine Anning, Operations Director from the Exeter City Futures team were in attendance.  The latter commended the presentation in support of the Business Case which had explored a different mechanism to bring forward sites for housing. She invited Members to consider the following questions:-

 

·   what do developers currently build;

·   who determines what is built and when; 

·   what was required in terms of infrastructure, and

·   do the plans that are brought forward initially match up to the realisation of what is delivered on the site. 

 

The Chief Executive & Growth Director referred to the local example of Cranbrook, as where initially, Government funding using a Regional Infrastructure Fund enabled early infrastructure such as a multi-use community centre, primary school and railway station to be built. A developer would not have brought those forward. Subsequent phases have been largely confined to residential development and there has been a failure to deliver a town centre. 

 

The Operations Director continued with her presentation and referred to the inclusion of community infrastructure, which it was assumed would be discharged through either a Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) or Section 106 payment, but these did not always deliver the community aspirations. The support of local public sector partners was required and nine sites in Exeter, under various public sector ownerships, could be developed with the support of the Fund. Each site had a specific issue associated with it, such as the need for decontamination, demolition or clearance, the possibility of compulsory purchase and vacant possession, all of which had been factored into the model. The Fund was designed as a vehicle to attract the funding required to deliver the housing at scale and quality with Government support and ensuring the necessary community infrastructure was provided.

 

The following responses were given to Members’ enquiries:-

 

·      whilst the Local Plan identifies mixed use provision, the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 26.