Agenda item

An expression of interest had been submitted by Beer Parish Council to acquire land ay Jubilee Gardens, Jubilee hardstanding and Beach Court car park.

Consultation was now underway with senior management, the local Ward member, the Asset Management Forum, and others as appropriate.

The Forum was presented with the expression of interest with a request for their comments as part of the consultation which would assist in informing the recommendation to Portfolio Holder.

The Assistant Director for Streetscene provided the Forum with the history of maintenance of the Gardens.  Negotiations had been ongoing for some time over the wider Beer Parish asset transfer pilot.  The maintenance level had been reduced since 2009 due to budget restraints, but had been carried out as scheduled and to the specified requirement.  The proposal by the Parish Council aspired for an enhanced level of maintenance.  Concerns still to resolve included:

·         Plan need to be in place for biodiversity and bat roosts;

·         Health and safety, and risk management, for any works taking place on the bank and cliff edge;

·         Consider the cost of maintaining the retaining wall and cliff slope areas, rather than excluding from the red line transfer.  These have higher maintenance costs;

·         £15,000 annual “saving” for Streetscene maintenance contract was not a tangible saving, in that those staff were still employed and would have to be deployed elsewhere.  Whilst there was demand in other parts of the district, the saving to the District Council was minimal;

·         An SLA would need to be in place between the Events Team of EDDC and Beer Parish Council in order to manage the bookings, administration and the health and safety requirements for events at the Jubilee and associated areas such as Charlie’s Yard.

Councillor John Health gave a provisional view from the Parish Council, with comments on their outcomes as follows:

·         Beach Court car park would transfer to BPC and continue to be managed by EDDC, with BPC paying costs, they would be responsible for boundaries, repairs and white lining – estimated £1200 income to BPC;

·         If gardens transfer, assets must be in serviceable condition, and any H&S issues are dealt with prior to transfer or the clear cost identified to the BPC which has not been quantified yet;

·         Cliff excluded from transfer;

·         Opening up of gardens – renew and maintenance of fence and railings falls to BPC;

·         EDDC owns the beach, being a considerable income generator for the authority from the concessions there;

·         Does not feel that the cliff area would deteriorate further at this stage.

The Assistant Director – Place, Asset and Commercialisation outlined to the Forum:

·         The financial and operational risks for the area in question, because of the coastal location and cliff.  Whilst Jubilee Gardens is owned by EDDC, it was in the gift of EDDC to close sections of the Gardens area off if there was a risk to the public, such as a risk of cliff fall.  If transferred there would need to be agreement around this and the two authorities would need to work together to undertake this;

·         The condition of assets at time of transfer would be based on what was a reasonable to both parties.

Discussion on the expression of interest included:

·         Consider if a lease option would work for both parties to establish a phased transfer and that the right decision had been made before the transfer of land and responsibilities was legally binding into perpetuity; whilst this goes against the asset transfer policy, the Ward Member agreed that the Parish may consider such an option if put forward;

·         Any work on the site in the event of an asset transfer, if by either volunteers or employed staff, would still be subject to both risk assessments and health and safety measures to protect both those undertaking work and the public;

·         Explore other Streetscene demands to redeploy staff if the maintenance of the area does transfer to the Parish Council;

·         Phasing the transfer of the areas allows time to gradually redeploy to other needed areas;

·         Care with any transfer that the District Council are not left with considerable liabilities in future years for cliff area;

The Forum was in agreement that there was sufficient discussion and information available for the process to proceed to next stage, in particular to consider a full business case for the proposal.

RESOLVED:

1.    That AMF notes the report and offers its thoughts on the application at the meeting, as part of the consultation process.

2.    That AMF notes that following completion of this consultation, that in accordance with the Procedure, Officers will make a recommendation to the Portfolio Holder for Economy and Assets on whether the applicant should be invited to submit a business case for one or more sites.

3.    That AMF notes that should the recommendation be that this application does not progress to the Business Case stage, officers will contact the Parish Council to discuss their proposals and identify whether there is scope for a collaborative approach to achieve some of their objectives set out in the EOI.