To respond to questions from members of the public, received in accordance with Procedure Rule 10.
The deadline for receipt of questions is 5pm on Tuesday 11 October 2022.
Minutes:
39.1 The following questions were received from members of the public in accordance with Procedure Rule 10:
Question from Mr Daniel Husseini:
To: Leader of the Council
“Thousands of residents are concerned at the level of expenditure thus far and the future funding being committed to the Central Godalming Regeneration Project. They are concerned that serious amounts of expenditure are being committed to a scheme which is deeply unpopular and is detrimental to residents of Godalming and the surrounding villages and to the business community in Godalming.
Would the Leader please:
· Provide the Expenditure amount to date on the Central Godalming Regeneration project broken down into:
o External costs with consultants and the like
o Internal costs of officer time and the like
· Advise how much of the £164,000 approved by Full Council on 18th July 2022 has been spent together with an analysis of that expenditure.
· Advise whether the Administration still expects to seek further funding from Full Council in December as proposed in the Project timeline given to Full Council on 18th July 2022.”
39.2 At the request of the Leader, the Portfolio Holder for Finance, Commercial and Assets responded as follows:
1. “By way of background - and especially for our non-Godalming members and observers - we’re currently engaging with residents on “in-principle” concepts and options for a project that, if it progresses, would see a one-off capital investment by us in our existing offices and some new housing, that would generate significant recurring annual benefits, both financial and otherwise, for us and our residents. This is a project that’s come to us several times as this preparatory work’s progressed, and members will have seen just one element of the current engagement in the public exhibition in the lobby: I also gave a fuller update on that in my response to another public question to the Executive on 4 October which is reproduced on pages 36-38 of this evening’s agenda pack, which I encourage you to study.
2. In the introduction to his question Mr Husseini does make some contextual claims that do invite scrutiny: that the project is “deeply unpopular” with “thousands” of “residents”, who consider it to be detrimental to every resident of Godalming and the surrounding villages and to the town’s entire business community too. I don’t know what evidence Mr Husseini has to support those claims and in the interests of transparency I very much hope he’ll be able to share whatever that evidence is with us so that we can reflect it in the feedback that we’ll be sharing with residents.
3. Some may be surprised that we actually share many of the concerns being expressed, and especially regarding the Crown Court car park, which is precisely why we’ve taken a cautious step-by-step approach and included such unprecedented engagement. But those concerns that we are seeing are neither binary nor consistent either for its individual elements or across the project as a whole, although residents do seem to recognise that the status quo is not a sustainable option and it would be irresponsible of us to do just nothing.
4. The drop-in sessions have been especially valuable as we’ve been able to interact with residents to clarify more exactly what their perceptions of the project are and what - if anything, given the actual facts of the matter – still could be done to address them. At the same time we’ve also been contacted by residents concerned about some of the “unofficial” canvasing and the like regarding the project – and especially residents who believe they’ve been confused and even misled by disinformation that’s been promoted, for example, to manipulate them into signing unofficial petitions. To quote just one example: “I was encouraged to sign a petition against the proposed development, by misleading information. In hindsight I would not have signed.”
5. The Godalming project is self-evidently a significant, sensitive and complex one and so it’s only appropriate that the identification and evaluation of the concepts and options be objective and thorough, even if that takes time. To their credit, it was our Conservative colleagues that started the work on it. But because they were exploring options that could have seen the Council sell these sites – including the Crown Court car park – to private developers with absolutely no regard to car parking whatsoever, we acted straight away to rule that out.
6. Also to their credit, our Conservative colleagues recognised the importance of the kind of preparatory homework that we’re doing now, and they established a Property Investment Reserve - which earmarked approximately £2 million - precisely for such one-off costs. Although their plan was to borrow upwards of £100m to fund commercial property investments, our approach is to find better and more sustainable projects that do more than just generate the independent recurring income which we all agree we need to deal with the unavoidable external pressures we face.
7. And so it is from that reserve that this Council approved and spent on this project a total of £65,525 prior to the current phase, and it’s also from this reserve that this Council approved the £164,000 for the current phase 3 work, of which only £7,525 has been spent so far in the design and printing of the engagement exhibition boards. In line with the Council’s approval, the remainder of that funding is intended for further potential engagement and ultimately the development of the in-principle concepts and options into formal proposals that not only reflect the results of the engagement but also will still be subject to further public consultation, scrutiny and approval.
8. For completeness, the figures I’ve just quoted are external costs for consultants and the like. Internally, we do not have officers dedicated full time to this project, rather the project team is drawn from officers from across the Council as appropriate with a diverse range of responsibilities that are incompatible with task specific timekeeping.
9. Since phase 3 was only approved in July and the engagement remains open, it would be premature to update further now on our expectations on seeking further funding for post phase 3 work other than to remark on timing. The current engagement has been extended not only because of the mourning for her late Majesty but also to give all those who want to engage that opportunity. But we’re also acutely aware that since July this Country’s economy has been damaged farther and faster than anyone apparently imagined possible and we cannot rule out that the relevant economic fundamentals may impact this project too.”