The papers for next week’s council and cabinet meetings have now been published.
The papers state that “The Otterpool Park project has reached the stage where the Council must commit to additional funding in order that it can proceed.”
The recommendations are as follows:
1. To receive and note report C/19/23;
2. To recommend to Council that it makes available an additional £100 million to be drawn down over a period of up to five years to enable the Otterpool Park project to proceed;
3. That decisions on spending the monies (if approved by council) are made by the decision maker, after having consulted the Otterpool Park Working Group, with decisions on expenditure in excess of £100,000 being subject to the approval of the majority of the Working Group members; and
4. To approve the submission of the Garden Communities capacity fund bid to government for 2019/20.
Clearly £100m is a huge sum of money and our councillors have been giving and will continue to give a lot of thought as to whether to support this or not.
This is not a straightforward decision. As the officer’s report makes clear, government methodology requires the provision in the district of 738 new homes a year on average over the period 2018/19 to 2036/37 or 13,285 additional homes in total.
There are good arguments why the council (as opposed to private developers) should deliver these homes. The council would have more control over the development which could include getting the infrastructure in place when it is needed and better environmental sustainability. The officer’s report states that there will be 50% green space and 22% affordable housing. We would assume that even if the council is the developer the S-106 agreement would be negotiated at arms length as it would be with any other developer. The development would have to be financially viable whoever the developer is so that might limit what the council could deliver. The other main advantage if the council was the developer would be that any profit from the development would be for the benefit of the district as a whole. The downside of that would be that any financial risk would be borne by the council.
There are also good arguments why the development should be at Otterpool rather than elsewhere in the district. We would urge you all to take the time to read the officers’ report here – https://www.folkestone-hythe.gov.uk/moderngov/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=122&MId=4584 – which sets out some of these points.
On the other hand our councillors are very aware of the impact a development of this size will have on the local community and environment and will need to weigh up the harm done and the financial risk to the council against the expected benefits of the project. They will also need to consider whether they have been given sufficient financial information on which to base such a major decision.
We would welcome your thoughts on this – either as a comment below or an email to our councillors on their official council email addresses or to hello@shepwaygreenparty.com
