Public Excluded from Next week’s Cabinet Meeting Too
The public will be excluded from next week’s cabinet meeting too – more info
Public Excluded from Wednesday’s Committee Meeting
The public are now excluded from the Princes Parade item at Wednesday’s Resource Scrutiny Committee, We are trying to find out why but that means there is no point anyone going along. Disgraceful.
Resource Scrutiny Committee Wed & April 7pm
There is an item called Princes Parade update on the agenda for the Resource Scrutiny Committee meeting at Shepway next Wed 6th April at 7pm. It’s not clear whether this is just an update from when we asked the committee to take another look at Nickoll’s Quarry or whether this is the next step in Shepway’s attempt to develop the site but either way please do your best to join us in the public gallery.
Are Shepway Stupid?
On 28 May 2014 David Monk said “that when the indicative costs were £11m I wasn’t pleased and if the costs had stayed at that we wouldn’t be where we are today. We wouldn’t be going forward…….because we aren’t stupid.” (See 1.10.47 on this video).
However, Shepway are once again planning on putting the leisure centre on PP. Their own report C/15/38 (cabinet meeting 4 Nov 2015) states that the cost of the recreation centre will be £8.65m plus £2.15m for remediation of contaminated land plus significant costs to mitigate the harm to the Royal Military Canal. So that’s going to more than £11m not counting other possible costs arising from risks not yet identified.
Cllr Monk claims PP will deliver 3 Years ahead of NQ
The minutes of the Shepway full council meeting on 24th February are finally available.
David Monk said:
“The Cabinet had therefore agreed to revert to using the Princes Parade site as the preferred locations for the complex. This site had the advantage of being able to deliver a new facility at least three years ahead of any development on the alternative location – Nickolls Quarry.”
“The Leader of the Opposition, Councillor Mary Lawes, replied by asking what the difference would be in cost between a leisure centre being built on Princes Parade compared with the Nickolls Quarry site.
The Leader of the Council replied by advising that there was no difference in cost.”
As we’ve already said below the statement about costs can’t be true but David Monk has declined to make any further comment.
The statement about PP being able to deliver the leisure centre at least 3 years ahead of NQ sounds unlikely. We asked Susan Priest to share the timeline for PP with us but she replied “We will be reporting on Princes Parade in due course to Cabinet. In the meantime we are progressing work in line with decisions of Council already made.
David Monk Comment on Costs of building the Leisure Centre
When asked to correct what he said about the costs at last week’s council meeting David Monk replied ” I have nothing further to add regarding costs of building the leisure centre, at this moment in time”
Leisure Centre back on Princes Parade
Councillor Monk has announced that because of difficulties with the Covenant SDC are dropping The Green and going ahead with PP instead for the pool.
In answering a question from the opposition Cllr Monk has said there is no cost difference between any of the sites i.e The Green, NQ and PP! That can’t be true and just shows that they do not understand the risks of developing PP.
Why on earth didn’t they check this first before they wasted all that money on the planning application? And all the stress they have caused to the people of Hythe.
The agenda papers for the 4th Nov 2015 cabinet meeting show clearly that there is a £2.15m cost for dealing with contamination on PP not to mention significant costs to mitigate the impact of the proposal on the Royal Miltary Canal so how can David Monk claim the leisure centre would cost no more there then on The Green or at NQ?
Poster
Please display one of our posters
Leisure Centre to go on The Green
Last night’s Hythe Town Council meeting decided 11- 4 that the leisure centre should go on The Green subject to some conditions proposed by Councillor Dearden including that it should be a 70 year lease for a peppercorn rent and that the rest of the open space on The Green be protected. The discussion about the planning application was deferred. Although we are relieved that the new facility won’t be built on PP, we do not regard this as a victory. It is totally unnecessary for Hythe to lose one of it’s open spaces like this when there is some free land at Nickoll’s Quarry which Shepway could use. And of course Shepway are still determined to submit a planning application to themselves for housing on PP so we must now prepare to fight that.