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Council and councillors

Issue - meetings

Housing Infrastructure Fund

Meeting: 23/12/2019 - Cabinet (Item 396)

396 HOUSING INFRASTRUCTURE FUND pdf icon PDF 73 KB

KEY DECISION

 

Report No.185/2019

Decision:

Cabinet supported in principle recommending to Council acceptance of the £29.4m Housing Infrastructure Fund grant.

Minutes:

 

The Chief Executive elaborated on a report which sought Cabinet’s support, in principle to recommend to Council acceptance of the £29.4m Housing Infrastructure Fund grant following the receipt of a letter from MHCLG on the 1st November 2019 that the Council had been successful in being awarded the £29.4 m HIF. Extensive work was being undertaken by officers, working closely with Homes England and the MOD to progress the draft Heads of Terms and other contractual documentation. It was noted that Homes England had completed a site visit but there was recognition that there was still a significant amount of work needed. It was noted that should Cabinet agree to recommending the acceptance of the HIF grant to Council, should Council agree the recommendation Rutland County Council would be the responsible authority although there would need to be continued engagement with te MOD; the majority of the cost-risk and the cost-overrun would however sit with the MOD, mitigating some of the risk to the Council.

 

The Portfolio Holder for Environment, Finance, Planning & Property noted that there were going to be no show stoppers but that the Council would be monitoring as many risks as possible to ensure that St George’s was best for Rutland.

 

The Portfolio Holder for Safeguarding – Adults, Public Health, Health-Commissioning & Community Safety commented that he did not regard any of the proposed terms and conditions for St George’s Garden as particularly onerous and would therefore support the recommendations contained within the report.

 

The Chief Executive noted that every effort was being taken to mitigate risks and that the Council would be ensuring that risk would be shared with partners based on the elements of the project that each had responsibility for.

 

RESOLVED:

 

That Cabinet supported in principle recommending to Council acceptance of the £29.4m Housing Infrastructure Fund grant.

 

REASON FOR DECISION:

 

To update Cabinet on progress in relation to the Housing Infrastructure Funding (HIF) (Forward Funding) for the St George’s project.

Cabinet is asked to support the continuation of ‘due diligence’ work under the guidance of Cllr Brown the Portfolio Holder. Cabinet will be updated weekly and the report for Council will progress when sufficient work has been completed to allow a recommendation to be made to Council.

The report seeks approval in principle for Cabinet support to recommend to Council acceptance of the £29.4m Housing Infrastructure Fund grant subject to satisfactory progress of the on-going work in relation to associated terms and conditions and contract negotiations with Homes England and the Ministry of Defence. Ideally this work will be concluded in time for the Council meeting on 20th January, as per the Forward plan. If not further progress reports will be presented to Cabinet until the time is right to present to Council for a decision to be made.