Decision Details

This item has been requested by a number of members, who wish to ask the Scrutiny Panel to consider the Council's approach to marketing and selling its residential developments on Mill Road, Colchester.

'We would like to invite the Panel to call in the decision to restrict the marketing of the two key residential blocks at Mill Road to Registered Social Landlords.  The Conservative leadership believes that such an approach may be i) illegal, ii) give away up to £5-10m in value which the Council can ill afford iii) over-rules planning permission 190665 for mixed private and affordable tenures and iv) will result in an unbalanced new community.

We would like to invite the Panel to consider how the decision has been made, what advice has been received and whether the Administration's approach to getting best value is legal. Also what consideration has been given to finding better ways of providing affordable housing on the site at pace, and the low probability that the 50,000 sq meters of office accommodation will ever be built.

If/when this can be included on the agenda we will present the following publicly available evidence that the under-value is likely to exceed the £2m allowed by the General Consent Order:
* the financial appraisals prepared by multiple professional firms as evidence of the viability of the Garden Communities, most recently Gerald Eve.
* the evidence on residential plot values provided as part of the Local Plan review
* recent market evidence on residential and office land values, in particular from Savills

We accept that some matters relating to the quantum of the undervalue may be commercially sensitive and should be discussed in private session.  But the availability of the land is no secret and matters relating to the sale process can and should be discussed in public session.

This is a matter of urgency as we understand that preparations are being made to launch the formal  marketing of the land in May this year.'

Paul Dundas, Sara Naylor, William Sunnucks, Dennis Willets, Tom Rowe