Broadwater Park: Councillors stick by decision to allocate cash for feasibility study

A decision by Waverley Borough Council's executive committee to spend £50,000 on a study of options for the Broadwater Park Golf Club site, plus an extra £20,000 on legal fees, came under the scrutiny of councillors tonight (Wednesday).

The meeting was held to examine the July 8th decision of the council's executive to approve the expenditure.

However, after three hours of deliberation, two of them in exempt session, the Overview and Scrutiny Committee decided not to refer the matter back to the executive, or on to full council, for further consideration.

The original decision, made by the executive in July, was to approve the allocation of £50,000 to pay the council's external property advisors, Montagu Evans, to undertake a detailed options appraisal on the site.

The £20,000 for legal fees was intended to be put aside to fund legal fees for the council's ongoing dispute with the owners of the former Broadwater Golf Club.

After the authority terminated the golf club lease the club shut in December 2018.

'Failure of process'

However, the decision to put aside the cash for an options study and legal fees was queried by councillors on Waverley's Value for Money & Customer Services Overview and Scrutiny Committee. Cllrs Julia Potts, Stephen Mulliner, John Gray and Simon Dear said the decision had not been adequately explained, and claimed that the decision to overturn a December 2018 agreement by the executive to grant a new lease to the golf club represented 'an apparent failure of process'. And they claimed the failure to disclose publicly the intention to overturn the executive's decision conflicted with Waverley's constitution, which demands a presumption in favour of openness. It also requires "that decisions are recorded by officers and published together with the reasons and relevant background papers". The councillors added: "There has been a lack of consultation and engagement with the local ward members, local residents and the parties that currently occupy Broadwater Park. This displays a lack of transparency and openness and conflicts with the Waverley Corporate Plan." And they argued that the Value for Money Overview and Scrutiny Committee "needs to understand why it is believed by the Executive that there are other uses of the site that will offer better value for money than the fully developed scheme proposed by Broadwater Golf Club and supported for over four years and until very recently by WBC." They had asked for the decision to be called in for further scrutiny. 'Unsound business decision'

Julia Potts told fellow councillors: "The reason for the call-in is our concern that Waverley may have made an unsound business decision in relation to the Broadwater Park Golf Club site by deciding to stop discussions with the existing tenant, Broadwater Park Golf Club, end their tenancy and look for an alternative use for the site."

"As a consequence of this decision Waverley are proposing to spend £50,000 on a range of feasibility studies and £20,000 on potential legal fees. All this at a time when we all know how challenged Waverley's finances are."

She added that Waverley could face further legal costs as a result of further litigation, or compensation for the former tenants.

An additional cost would arise from fencing the site which currently, she said, "is a completely open site and is of significant size, to mitigate the various health and safety risks".

She explained: "This is a covered landfill site dating back to the early 1980s. Problems started to become obvious over six years ago... as parts of the site deteriorated and landfill came through.

'Educational and community use'

Turning to Waverley's plans for the site, she said: "The relevance of planning constraints affecting the site in the Green Belt doesn't appear to have featured in any of the internal discussions that led up to the decision to serve the Section 25 notice." She said Waverley's instructions to Montagu Evans had limited any development there to educational and community use. "The landlord's assertion is that it intends to redevelop the site or occupy it for its own business. What could be redeveloped or built is really, really significant. Instructions to Counsel on July 27 indicated that Waverley had reduced its ambitions for redevelopment of the site to educational and community uses, presumably because of the lesser impact of the development on the Green Belt," she said. "However this only affects a small part of the site, and if the matter comes to court the case could be rejected if only a small part of the site is to be used by Waverley. "We believe that the adjudicator could refuse non-renewal of the lease if only a small part of the premises are affected by the proposed redevelopment or own business use." Decision 'based on professional advice'

Mark Merryweather, chairman of the executive, which backed the plan to put aside the cash for the feasibility study and legal fees, said: "We are concerned that the requesters may have formed the opinion that the site's alternative value for money potential is so low the cost of a professional options appraisal is disproportionate, and also that no evidence has been presented to support that.

"The simple issue is that the view expressed by the requesters differs with the recommendation of our officers, which was itself based on Montagu Evans' initial preliminary independent professional analysis, which clearly indicates otherwise."

He added: "Back in July I also clarified that the legal costs represent a contingent but necessary provision that may not need to be spent. The exec had no reason to differ with the recommendations, which are also based on independent professional advice."

The agenda for the July 8th meeting of the executive states: "The Council's Property Investment Strategy documents the Council's proposals in relation to Value for Money, the need for the Council to maximise the financial benefit from its assets, and to consider the development opportunities for those assets where appropriate."

And later, it states: "In order to demonstrate the Council is actively pursuing the development opportunity of the site, work needs to continue to the next phase of the options appraisal."

Exempt session

Details of what, if any, development is planned for the site, have not been made public. Much of the discussion was also held in private, with the meeting going into exempt session less than an hour after it began. That exempt session lasted just under two hours, with committee chairman Peter Martin then announcing, once the meeting came back online, that a decision had been reached. By a majority of five to three the committee voted not to refer the decision back to the executive for further consideration. Cllr Jerry Hyman abstained, on the grounds that there was insufficient evidence to make a decision.