Agenda and minutes

Venue: Bromley Civic Centre

Contact: Keith Pringle  020 8313 4508

Items
No. Item

209.

APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE

Minutes:

There were no apologies for absence.

210.

DECLARATIONS OF INTEREST

Minutes:

Councillor Nicholas Bennett declared in relation to minute 216, Bromley Museum and The Priory, Orpington, that he was a member of the following - the Imperial War Museum, the London Transport Museum, the National Archives and the Bromley Local History Society.

 

Councillor William Huntington-Thresher declared in relation to minute 216, Bromley Museum and The Priory, Orpington, that he was an adviser to the Orpington Business Improvement District (BID) and in relation to minute 220 Local Intermediate Housing Income Threshold Review that he was a member of the Affinity Sutton Regional Scrutiny Board.

 

Councillor Peter Morgan declared in relation to minute 213, Provisional Final Accounts 2014/15, that his daughter was a director of Kier.

211.

TO CONFIRM THE MINUTES OF THE MEETING HELD ON 20TH MAY 2015 pdf icon PDF 240 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

Report CSD15073

 

The Executive received a summary of matters arising from previous meetings.

 

A sheet setting out some additional working group memberships (minute 197) and some minor changes to Appendix A was tabled.

 

RESOLVED that the minutes of the meeting held on 20th May 2015 be confirmed.

 

212.

QUESTIONS FROM MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC ATTENDING THE MEETING

In accordance with the Council’s Constitution, questions must be received in writing four working days before the date of the meeting. Therefore please ensure that questions are received by the Democratic Services Team by 5pm on Thursday 4th June 2015.

Minutes:

A number of questions had been received from members of the public for oral and written reply – these are set out in appendix 1 to these minutes.  

 

213.

PROVISIONAL FINAL ACCOUNTS 2014/15 pdf icon PDF 185 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

Report FSD15034

 

The Committee considered the provisional outturn for 2014/15 at portfolio level and Council-wide, as well as the implications for the Council’s financial position in 2015/16. There was an overall net nil movement in balances consisting of net variations on Cr£2.4m on services, Dr£4.9m on central items and carry forwards, prior year adjustments of Cr3.8m, carry forwards from 2013/14 of Dr£1.6m and general grants of Cr£0.3m. The Director of Finance emphasised that the Council had to consider both stewardship and sustainability, with a longer term financial planning approach as austerity continued, and not deferring savings and investing to achieve returns that would provide ongoing support for key services was a more sustainable approach.

 

Councillor Angela Wilkins expressed surprise at the proposals to transfer over £10m into the Investment Fund, suggesting that the much larger than expected underspend should be allocated to building homes and protecting services. The Leader responded that much of the underspend was from un-needed contingency and the Council had to deal with future budget projections and the year on year reductions in grant. The Council had to generate additional income, take savings early and invest in the fabric of the borough to reduce costs. The Leader stated that it was important that tight gatekeeping and effective management of budgets should continue.

 

RESOLVED that

 

(1) The provisional revenue and capital outturns for the 2014/15 financial year and the earmarked balances on the General Fund as at 31st March 2015 be noted.

 

(2) It is noted that a more detailed analysis of the 2014/15 final outturn will be reported for each portfolio to the relevant PDS Committees.

 

(3) The variations in 2014/15 impacting on the Council’s 2015/16 financial position be noted.

 

(4) The comments from the Education, Care and Health Services Department, the Director of Regeneration and Transformation and the Director of Environment and Community Services as detailed in appendix 1B to the report be noted.

 

(5) The carry forwards of £484k relating to repairs and maintenance, approved under delegated powers as detailed in Appendix 5 to the report be noted.

 

(6) The requests for carry forwards totalling £1,186 (net), as detailed in Appendix 5 to the report, be approved subject to the funding being allocated to the Central Contingency, to be drawn down on the approval of the relevant Portfolio Holder.

 

(7) A total of £2,248k funding be released from Central Contingency as detailed in paragraph 3.2.1 to the report.

 

(8) The return to Central Contingency of a total of £578k as set out in paragraph 3.2.2 be noted.

 

(9) The Prior Year Adjustments totalling £3,754k as detailed in section 3.4 of the report be noted.

 

(10) Council be recommended to transfer £10,165k to the Investment Fund as detailed in section 4.1 of the report.

 

(11) Council be recommended to create a Business Rates Risk Reserve of £1,200k as detailed in section 4.2 of the report.

 

(12) Council be recommended to transfer £1,250k to the Healthy Bromley Fund as detailed in section 4.3 of the report.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 213.

214.

CAPITAL PROGRAMME OUT-TURN 2014/15 pdf icon PDF 107 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

Report FSD15032

 

The Executive received a report setting out the final outturn on capital expenditure and receipts for 2014/15. Capital expenditure for the year was £50.5m, compared to the final approved budget of £52.5m agreed in February 2015. At that time, further slippage of £2m was assumed for capital financing purposes, so there was no overall variation in the use of capital receipts, external contributions and revenue contributions.

 

RESOLVED that the report be noted and the carry forward of the unspent capital budget (£18k) on the block provision for emergency works to surplus sites be approved.

215.

INVESTMENT PROPERTY REVIEW pdf icon PDF 379 KB

Minutes:

Report DRR15/056

 

The report provided an overview of the Council’s investment portfolio and proposed a process for reviewing this portfolio. The following categories of property would be reviewed in priority order over the coming year – estate shops (freehold and leasehold), shopping centres, green belt, miscellaneous commercial properties, residential properties and sports and community uses. The first report, on estate shops, was scheduled to be presented to Members in September. All properties would be challenged rigorously. 

 

The Executive was also asked to reaffirm a set of management policies set out in the report as (a) to (k). The Executive and Resources PDS Committee had scrutinised the report on 3rd June 2015 and proposed that policy (k), which was not to dispose of small areas of land for garden extensions unless it was in the Council’s interest, should be deleted. Members agreed that this should be deleted and considered that unused land should be disposed of wherever possible. The PDS Committee had also suggested that policy (g) should be reviewed to ensure compliance with competition legislation. 

 

RESOLVED that

 

(1) The proposed programme for the review of the Investment Property Portfolio be approved as set out in section 4 of the report.

 

(2)  The management policies outlined in section 5 of the report be endorsed, with the exception that policy (k) be deleted and policy (g) be reviewed. 

216.

BROMLEY MUSEUM AND THE PRIORY ORPINGTON pdf icon PDF 285 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

Report DRR15/046

 

In February 2015 officers had recommended, in the context of the need to make budget savings, that the Bromley Museum be relocated to the Central Library and the Priory building be disposed of on the open market. Since then, at the request of the Portfolio Holder for Renewal and Recreation, officers had investigated the future of the Museum and the Priory and held discussions with residents and interested parties. Although heritage and arts were highly valued by residents, it was accepted that the current museum standard was weak, and a new approach to provision of a local museum was needed with significantly reduced revenue costs.

 

Relocating the Museum to the Central Library still offered the best solution for an improved and sustainable Museum that would be in a position to attract more visitors, and officers were exploring different options for a pool of trained staff to be available to assist with particular school visits, or for trained volunteers to assist in running the exhibits. 

 

The future of the Priory was a separate issue which was still being considered. The building had been declared an asset of community value and various Council and community group based options were being investigated. 

 

The report had been scrutinised by the Executive and Resources PDS Committee on 3rd June. The Committee had supported the recommendations with some small changes to include reference to disposal of a leasehold interest, to delete reference to the cost of the proposed relocation being funded from capital receipts to avoid any impression that the move depended on sale of the Priory and to make the capital and revenue funding decisions up to £395k and up to £15k.

 

In addition, PDS Members had supported a resolution calling for the Executive to decide to offer the Lubbock Collection back to the family. Councillor Nicholas Bennett, the Council’s Heritage and Design Champion, argued that the artefacts in the Lubbock Collection had no link to the borough other than that Sir John Lubbock had lived in the borough. He felt that as display space at the Central Library would be limited it should be focussed instead on exhibits more directly related to the history of Bromley. The Leader stated that he would be happy to consider the future of the Lubbock collection further once the new exhibitions were in place and their success had been measured. The Executive members felt that there was scope for the new Museum to include both the Lubbock Collection and space for local history. 

 

RESOLVED that

 

(1) The cessation of the museum service at the Priory, Orpington, and the provision of new museum exhibitions at the Central Library, Bromley, managed by Local Studies and Archives, be agreed.

 

(2) The Priory be declared surplus to operational requirements with effect from 1st October 2015 and, subject to further work by Strategic Property Services on other Council uses for the building, authority is given to offer the property for sale or disposal of a leasehold interest on the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 216.

217.

BROMLEY TOWN HALL AND SOUTH STREET CAR PARK pdf icon PDF 81 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

Report CSD15075

 

The proposed developer of the Bromley Town Hall and South Street Car Park site had asked the Council to (i) add a small area of additional land fronting Widmore Road to the area which the Council had agreed to lease (subject to planning), and (ii) appropriate the site of the South Street Car Park for planning purposes. The Executive was reassured that these were minor technical issues and there was no reason for the Council to object.

 

RESOLVED that

 

(1) The addition to the area already included within the Town Hall site in the agreement for lease of the area shown hatched on plan 1 attached to the report be approved.

 

(2)  The South Street Car Park site shown hatched on plan 2 attached to the report be appropriated under section 122 of the Local Government Act 1972 to planning purposes in order to enable the powers in section 237 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 to be used to facilitate the redevelopment of the site.

 

218.

BECKENHAM TOWN CENTRE CONSERVATION AREA pdf icon PDF 508 KB

Minutes:

Report DRR15/052

 

At its meeting on 24th March 2015 the Development Control Committee approved a proposal for a new Beckenham Town Centre Conservation Area. Extensive consultation had been carried out and the report set out officer responses to various suggested additions and removals.

 

The proposals had also been supported by the Beckenham Town Centre Working Group.

 

Officers were requested to check whether the conservation area boundary extended into Kelsey and Eden Park ward.

 

RESOLVED that a new conservation area named “Beckenham Town Centre Conservation Area” with boundaries as set out in the map in section 3 of the report be adopted.  

219.

SUPPLEMENTARY PLANNING DOCUMENT (SPD) ON PLANNING OBLIGATIONS ADDENDUM ON CHANGES TO POOLING S106 CONTRIBUTIONS AND S106 THRESHOLD CHANGES pdf icon PDF 153 KB

Minutes:

Report DRR15/009

 

The report proposed an addendum to the Council’s existing Supplementary Planning Document Planning Obligations (2010) to reflect changes introduced by the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) Regulations 2010 (as amended), which came into effect from 6th April 2015. As an interim measure, until a local CIL was in place, the Council would need to seek financial contributions from developers only for specific purposes and ensure that only a maximum of five contributions were spent for specific items of infrastructure. 

 

It was noted in particular that the threshold at which the Council would require affordable housing contributions had been changed in a ministerial statement  issued on 28th November 2014 from ten units to eleven.  

 

The proposed changes had been endorsed by Development Control Committee on 24th March 2015.

 

RESOLVED that the addendum at Appendix 1 to the report updating references to pooling and threshold changes be agreed.   

220.

LB BROMLEY LOCAL INTERMEDIATE HOUSING INCOME THRESHOLD REVIEW pdf icon PDF 116 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

Report DRR15/047

 

The Councils Supplementary Planning Documents on Affordable Housing and Planning Obligations specified that local intermediate housing income threshold figures should be reviewed regularly. The current figure of £35,000, set in 2008, did not reflect local house prices and incomes. At its meeting on 24th March 2015 the Development Control Committee had agreed reviewed local upper limit intermediate housing income thresholds for one, two and three bedroom units.  

 

RESOLVED that reviewed local upper limit intermediate housing income thresholds be agreed as follows –

 

1 bedroom units £38,800

2 bedroom units £50,500

3 bedroom units £62,500

 

GLA upper limit applies to 4 bedroom + units.

221.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT ACT 1972 AS AMENDED BY THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT (ACCESS TO INFORMATION) (VARIATION) ORDER 2006 AND THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 2000

The Chairman to move that the Press and public be excluded during consideration of the items of business listed below as it is likely in view of the nature of the business to be transacted or the nature of the proceedings that if members of the Press and public were present there would be disclosure to them of exempt information.

Minutes:

RESOLVED that the Press and public be excluded during consideration of the items of business referred to below as it is likely in view of the nature of the business to be transacted or the nature of the proceedings that if members of the Press and public were present there would be disclosure to them of exempt information.

 

The following summaries

refer to matters

involving exempt information

 

 

222.

EXEMPT MINUTES OF THE MEETING HELD ON 20TH MAY 2015

Minutes:

The exempt minutes of the meeting held on 20th May 2015 were confirmed.

223.

RESIDENTIAL PROPERTY ACQUISITIONS

Minutes:

The Executive approved a proposal to enter into a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) to purchase properties to assist the Council in addressing homelessness pressures.

Appendix 1 - Questions and Replies pdf icon PDF 236 KB