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Decision on Leisure Centre Probably to be Made in Private

We have recently put in a Freedom of Information request regarding the financial viability of the proposed leisure centre. This was refused for a number of reasons (which you can read in full on the link below) but we are very concerned by the council’s admission that the decision on the leisure centre will probably be made in private. And what do they mean by “thinking the unthinkable” ?

“The decision on the leisure centre will probably be made in a
meeting where the public are excluded. The decision makers need a “safe space” to consider the issues and release of the information would be detrimental to the decision making process. Secondly, the costs are only estimates at this stage and whilst the public will be informed of the likely costs of the entire project, release of detailed estimates of building the leisure centre would not advance the public understanding of
the implications and would be detrimental to the public interest as set out above.”

“Refusal under Regulation 12(5)(d). The Council refuses your request because to disclose the information would adversely affect the confidentiality of proceedings. The information will be presented to decision makers (the Cabinet of the Council) in a report at a meeting where it is expected that the public will be excluded by virtue of paragraph 3 of schedule 12A Local Government Act 1972 (as amended) as the report will contain information relating to the financial or business affairs of any particular person. Release of the information now would
adversely affect the confidentiality of those proceedings.”
“… the information needs to be considered confidentially as it contains commercial information, which if revealed would be detrimental to the Council’s interests. In addition the decision makers will need to discuss the development, exploring options and perhaps “thinking the unthinkable”. The proposals are opposed by some and the decision makers need the “safe space” of confidentiality to discuss the issues. In all the circumstances it is considered that the public interest in
maintaining the exception outweighs the public interest in disclosure.”

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/…/financial_viability_data_f…

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Rory Love

This article was originally published 21 April 2017. Rory Love is standing as Conservative candidate for  election again in 2021.

Below is a video of the cabinet meeting on 13 April 2016 referred to.

 

Rory Love is the Conservative candidate for the Hythe East, Sandgate and Cheriton division for the Kent County Council elections on May 4th. He is also a cabinet member on Shepway District Council. This is from the leaflet he has been distributing in the area. He claims that he refused to support the Princes Parade proposals at a Shepway Cabinet meeting. He is referring to the meeting on 7 February this year where he didn’t vote against the proposals – he just abstained. (Though to be fair he did speak against the diversion of the road). At all other cabinet meetings he has voted FOR the proposals to develop Princes Parade including at the meeting on 13 April 2016 when the number of new homes jumped from 36 to 150 with no real explanation. So why is he now saying that he opposes the plans unless the number of houses is cut? This just isn’t supported by his voting record. If you want proof of this you can view videos of the cabinet meetings and find links to the minutes of the meetings here:

https://saveprincesparade.co.uk/council-meetings-2/

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Sports Hall No Longer in Leisure Centre Plans

On the front page of today’s  Express is a story about the sports hall having been deleted from the proposed new leisure centre. Something we were aware of of course but good that it is being discussed more publicly. Shepway are quoted as saying that that the design of the leisure centre has tried to balance a number of issues including ensuring long term financial sustainability. But the papers for the cabinet meeting on 7th Feb 2017 were clear that a viability assessment had not yet been done. In any case, the argument for a leisure centre rather than just a swimming pool has always been that a swimming pool on its own wouldn’t make money. But Shepway have not yet proved that the leisure centre will make money with or without the sports hall – especially given that being on the coast it will have a restricted catchment area compared to an equivalent inland facility. At the exhibition in November we were told that the sports hall was taken out of the plans because there are already sufficient sports halls in Folkestone. That’s true but is it not also true that there are already lots of affordable gym stations in Shepway? So is there really a need for a fitness centre in the proposed new leisure centre?

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Latest on Lack of Transparency at Shepway DC

Following an EIR request (similar to a Freedom of Information request) Shepway released some of the papers relating to the private meetings of the Princes Parade Working Group. However it was clear that not all the papers had been released so an internal review was requested resulting in the release of more papers (why weren’t they released in the first place?). Shepway are refusing to releases the papers for the Mar 2017 meeting of the working group on the grounds of commercial confidentiality. However the papers that have been released show that discussions at these meetings included a discussion of the risk of delays due to a possible call in. This is the sort of thing that we believe should have been discussed in detail at the formal cabinet meeting in on 7th Feb.We note also that there was an intention to produce a feasibility report and a financial plan but neither of these were presented to cabinet in February seemingly because they haven’t been prepared. We have been trying to get the chief executive and/or monitoring officer to justify the meetings of the working group and the informal cabinet meetings that we know have taken place in terms of the council’s constitution and/or the law but we have not received a satisfactory response. We tried making a complaint but were informed that we can only complain about the services the council provides. Surely a council should be more transparent and more accountable to local people than this?https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/princes_parade_working_group#incoming-936319

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Appointment of Tibbalds

One of the many things that is puzzling us about the Princes Parade Project is how Tibbalds were first appointed as Shepway’s latest set of consultants.
There are two main contacts – one for £91k and one for £98k. For some reason the normal procurement procedure was not used for the first contract – that for £91k. Instead a waiver was requested on 20 March 2016 and approved on 11 April 2016. The reason given was “The application is complex in nature and,in order to meet the proposed timescale and aspirations of cabinet, The Head of Strategic Development Projects considers it expedient to the efficient management of the project to waive contract standing orders in relation to the appointment of a planning consultant.”
But why the hurry? As the waiver says the decision to prepare a planning application was made by cabinet on 4th November 2015. At that stage there were 2 unknowns – whether KCC were able to co operate about the new primary school and whether the leisure centre could be built on The Green in Hythe.
Nevertheless, it would surely have been possible to start the procurement process for a planning consultant without knowing these details.
On 24th February 2016 Cabinet met to discuss the restrictive covenant on the Green. The public were excluded from this discussion but the upshot was that the leisure centre would be on Princes Parade after all. The agenda for that cabinet meeting makes no reference to Princes Parade nor the school but the waiver claims that at that meeting it was also revealed that the school would not be included in the scheme.
On 13th April 2016 cabinet met again – this time to discuss Land Use Options for Princes Parade dated 17.3.16 as prepared by Tibbalds we believe under a third much smaller contract issued before either of the two main contracts. However prior to this 13th April meeting , one of Shepway’s officers was proposing an inception meeting to Tibbalds to take place on 18th April which rather suggests that Tibbalds had been appointed , at least unofficially, well before the waiver was granted. Not to mention that the decision to proceed as agreed at that 13th April meeting was a foregone conclusion.Waiver for Princes Parade Planning Application (Tibbalds) (1)
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Informal Cabinet Meetings

From some recently released Freedom of Information material

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/princes_parade_briefinstructions#incoming-936568

we now have evidence that Shepway’s cabinet hold informal meetings which the public can’t attend. Such a meeting took place on 8th November 2016 and that at this meeting cabinet members considered the masterplan and ARC proposals for the Princes Parade development and were very supportive. We have challenged the chief executive on this as it can’t be right that the cabinet members can meet and discuss such a controversial issue out of the public eye and with no notes having been taken or published.

He said “You are correct, Cabinet does meet occasionally on an informal basis and it is legitimate and reasonable to do so. These meetings are informal meetings and do not constitute formal meetings of the Council, so no records are kept of the meeting. It is important to appreciate that during these informal meetings Councillors are not meeting as a decision making body. During these informal meetings Councillors are not exercising their statutory executive responsibilities. The purpose of these meetings is to discuss informally the development of policy or to be briefed by an officer on a particular matter.”

But surely cabinet members will have been influenced by whatever was said or shown to them during these meetings and yet we,as members of the public, have no way of knowing what that might have been. Having had such a briefing is it not more likely that members attending the formal decision making meeting will already have made up their minds?

We have asked the chief executive to justify these informal meetings in terms of the law and/or the councils constitution.

The same FoI material also reveals that a Princes Parade working group met on several occasions. We were aware that this group existed although the meetings were neither publicised nor open to the public. Some of the minutes have been released following another FoI request.

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/princes_parade_working_group#incoming-936319

It appears that there has also been meetings of a Princes Parade Advisory Panel but we have no idea what this is nor who sits on it. We have asked the chief executive to explain how both the working group and the advisory panel fit with the council’s constitution.

 

 

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Dover Leisure Centre

At the cabinet meeting on Tuesday the chief executive said that there had been lots of talk about the new Dover leisure centre. Which prompted us to have a look at Dover District Council’s website. And what did we find? Lots and lots of information including a very detailed feasibility study (albeit with some of the figures redacted.)

http://moderngov.dover.gov.uk/…/…/Annex%201%20Aa%20-%20T.pdf

And they have actually consulted the public about the type of facilities they wanted in the new leisure centre!

As Shepway’s chief executive pointed out, Dover are going to have spend some big money on this but they have clearly given some thought as to how this will be funded including a grant from Sport England.

Shepway DC are very proud of the fact that, to use their own horrible expression, their new leisure centre will “wash its face” ie cover it’s own costs but we haven’t seen the detail proof of that and as it comes at the very heavy price of the loss of the open space at Princes Parade shouldn’t the other options have been at least debated in public before the council went for this option?

Congratulations to Dover District council for being so open and transparent.

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How much have Shepway already spent on the planning application?

We’ve been looking out how much Shepway have already spent preparing the planning application for Princes Parade. You can find the details on Shepway’s website under the heading Strategic Development Projects http://www.shepway.gov.uk/…/council-…/payments-to-suppliers… Not all the payments under this heading will be to do with Princes Parade but we believe most of them are and that the council have already made a big dent in the £500k budget they have given themselves. They have paid over £20,000 to Edwards Harvey Ltd a firm of Public Relations consultants. Is that a good use of council tax payers’ money?