Question
Bracknell has opened its superb
new shopping area at a cost of £240 million which the Leader
of Bracknell Forest Council stated not one penny of council tax
money has been spent on the project.
Can you give me a rough idea on how much the total spend will be on
the town centre regeneration and can you assure me that like
Bracknell none of the funding to deliver the project will come from
the Council tax payer?
Minutes:
Question
Bracknell has opened its superb
new shopping area at a cost of £240 million which the Leader
of Bracknell Forest Council stated “not one penny of council
tax money has been spent on the project”.
Can you give me a rough idea on how much the total spend will be on
the town centre regeneration and can you assure me that like
Bracknell none of the funding to deliver the project will come from
the Council tax payer?
Answer
When we embarked on the regeneration project, you may recall Gary, that there were some corner stones that we set out and just to remind you what they are.
To ‘Deliver the Local Plan Infrastructure’ required for over 4,000 new homes delivered in and around Wokingham town centre, and to help ‘Create an Aspirational town centre’ that would deliver the quality of offer that residents desire and that will help us differentiate ourselves from our larger neighbours. A third objective was also agreed that the Regeneration must ‘Support the wider Borough and all residents’.
So the objective was broken down into several key requirements:
Obviously we could extend all of these things forever but I can assure you that all of this is without any cost to the local tax payer.
We will refer to the Regeneration as ‘investment in the community, for the community’ as it sums up what we have been able to achieve with the regeneration, and hope, it is a model we could apply elsewhere in the future.
But what does this mean?
It means that the value assessment that makes the project financially viable is what we are using to ensure that the project can be delivered without, and I repeat again without, cost to the local tax payer. Remember, this isn’t money being thrown into a black hole, but the money is being invested in physical assets, in bricks and mortar that have a financial value either by selling them to generate capital or retaining them to raise an annual rental income.
There are lots of numbers banding around about this project but I would just like to summarise that the total cost of delivering the regeneration proposals for Wokingham Borough Council sits at £115m. That includes the cost of delivering everything from the new shops, the cinema, to the play area, park improvements, roads and a brand new leisure centre. But this total cost also includes the ‘cost’ of borrowing the money to fund the development as this money comes from commercial borrowing rather than tax payer reserves.
As this programme is being run as a commercial development the residential elements are then sold with the income being used to offset the costs of delivering. This leaves the Council with a completed scheme debt of £47m.
That’s a debt of £47m for physical assets retained which are actually worth £88m. Not a bad investment, especially when you are considering the community benefits the scheme has delivered.
The Council could also retain the commercial assets and continue to benefit from the rental income generated each year. After using some of the rental income to service the debt the Council would receive a further annual income of just under £3m annually, rising over the years.
That’s millions of pounds a year coming into the Council coffers, totally non-dependent on local tax payers’ money and central government grants, that can be used to fund services and projects across Wokingham Borough.
A great investment for all and in my opinion better than the Bracknell deal.
Supplementary Question
What I think the concern at the moment is, and thank you for your answer it is very, very helpful, is that some of those questions from members of the public and I think from another Member later and it all goes back to how the trade is functioning during the present situation with the building going on. Last month it seemed to be ‘over my dead body’ reduction in car parking charges and the only thing I would suggest is that the Lib Dems proposed a 2 hour during the day scheme as against a restriction with nothing happening until 3 o’clock.
What I would ask is would you look at this as the months go on towards Christmas because Christmas is the period when the traders it is make or break for them and I would hate to see the 3 o’clock start cause problems for them and I would ask you to make sure that you look at that in advance?
Supplementary Answer
It is yes and I think we mentioned it earlier that we are looking at all the ideas that came from last night’s meeting and that is one of them.