358
Councillors Bentley and Jowers (in respect of decisions taken by Essex County Council, of which they were members) declared a pecuniary interest in the following item pursuant to the provisions of Meetings General Procedure Rule 7(5) and left the meeting during its consideration and determination.
Julian Bowden addressed Council pursuant to the provisions of Council Procedure Rule 6(5). He had attended North Essex Garden Communities Ltd's (NEGC) public consultation meeting at Marks Tey. The information provided at the event consisted of a number of posters with little detailed information on the proposals or costings. If further funding was provided to NEGC, it would only be used for further promotional work, rather than developing a properly formulated plan.
William Sunnocks addressed Council pursuant to the provisions of Council Procedure Rule 6(5) on behalf of CAUSE to request Council hold back the further funding to NEGC Ltd. NEGC Ltd was a housing delivery company with no plan to deliver and no land to deliver it on. It had already spent £6 million without delivering anything. If the funding was withheld planners would concentrate on smaller sites, leading to more housing development and increased section 106 contributions. If the funding was provided, it would lead to the loss of the Council’s planning powers in the long term, and it would also lead to requests for even more funding. NEGC Ltd was already struggling and a number of criticisms of the Garden Communities proposals were due to be considered by the Planning Inspector. It had also been announced that the section 2 plans would deliver 377 more houses than the objectively assessed housing need figure, so it was no longer the case that Garden Communities were needed to meet legally binding housing targets.
It was RESOLVED that Council Procedure Rule 11(2) be suspended to allow Group Spokespersons to speak untimed on this item.
Councillor King moved that the recommendation contained in minute 377 of the Cabinet meeting of 4 September 2019 be approved and adopted.
On being put to the vote the motion was lost (TWENTY THREE voted FOR and TWENTY SIX voting AGAINST).
A named vote having been requested pursuant to the provisions of Council Procedure Rule 15(2), the voting was as follows:-
FOR: Councillors Barlow, Barton, Bourne, Chuah, Coleman, Cory, Fox, Goss, Harris, Higgins, Hogg, King, Liddy, Lilley, McCarthy, Pearson, Scordis, Scott-Boutell, Warnes, Whitehead, J. Young, T. Young and the Mayor (Cope);
AGAINST: Councillors Arnold, Barber, Buston, Chapman, Chillingworth, Crow, Davidson, Davies, Dundas, Elliott, Ellis, Goacher, Hayter, Hazell, Jarvis, Lissimore, Loveland, Luxford Vaughan, F. Maclean, J. Maclean, Moore, G. Oxford, P. Oxford, Willetts, Wood and the Deputy Mayor (B. Oxford).