Decision:
DECISION:
1) That the word “first” be added as the last word to the last sentence of the last paragraph in item 7 – ‘Burton Road, Loughton – Fire Update’ in order to clarify the sense of that sentence; and
2) That under item 8 – ‘Bids to MHCLG for additional HRA Borrowing’ the following be agreed:
(a) That, subject to any minor amendments agreed with the Housing Portfolio Holder (including bid amounts and borrowing profiles), the Director of Communities be authorised to submit twenty five separate bids to Homes England for additional Housing Revenue Account (HRA) borrowing approvals, for twenty five separate “schemes” totalling £8.052million in year 2021/22, with the borrowing profiles as set out in the report;
(b) That the Council’s Chief Financial Officer reports to a future meeting of the Finance and Performance Cabinet Committee on the most appropriate way to arrange the additional HRA borrowing when required.
Minutes:
The Cabinet received minutes of the recent meeting of the Council Housebuilding Cabinet Committee that met on the previous Thursday. 30th August 2018.
The Portfolio Holder for Housing introduced the minutes and took the Cabinet through the contents. She noted that they had an update on the recent Burton Road Fire from the Assistant Director (Housing Property & Development). Councillor Mohindra thanked the Assistant Director for coming in and helping with the aftermath. Councillor Philip asked that under this minute item (7) the word “first” be added as the last word in the last sentence of that item as it made more sense. This was agreed.
Councillor C Whitbread added his thanks to the Assistant Director who had attended the fire immediately (on his day off) as by chance he was nearby. He also thanked Loughton College for making available a rest area for their use if required. Fortunately, no one was injured. It gave him great confidence in the Council’s officers who swung into action immediately and also to the PR team who made sure the correct messages went out.
Councillor S Kane also thanked the officers concerned and pointed out that it was the Council’s own funded Police officers who were first on the scene, made the site safe and controlled all the traffic.
The Portfolio Holder went on to bring their attention minute item 8 on bids to MHCLG for additional HRA borrowing. The minutes explained how the bids were to be submitted, but since then this has now changed. We cannot now group the sites together and would have to break them down into individual sites, which means that now they will have to work up 25 bids. If all bids were successful, this would increase our borrowing headroom by £8.052million. Fortunately the deadline has now been extended to 30 September 2018 and we would not now have to waive the call-in period as indicated in the minutes. The Cabinet Committee had agreed the recommendations for submission to this Cabinet meeting, although the wording would have to be changed as there were now to be 25 bids and no waiver of the call-in period would be required.
Councillor Mohindra asked if the Portfolio Holder was confident that the work required for 25 separate bids was justified. It may be that a lot of work has already gone into this, but he would like the reassurance that this was so. The Portfolio Holder said that although she was doubtful at first she had spoken to the Director of Communities who had reassured her that it was worth while. The Acting Chief Executive added that the view had been taken that it did justify the extra work needed. Officers had already worked up the separate bids into 4 bids, they will now have to disaggregate them into 25 separate bids, but it would go out as one document.
DECISION:
1) That the word “first” be added as the last word to the last sentence of the last paragraph in item 7 – ‘Burton Road, Loughton – Fire Update’ in order to clarify the sense of that sentence; and
2) That under item 8 – ‘Bids to MHCLG for additional HRA Borrowing’ the following be agreed:
(a) That, subject to any minor amendments agreed with the Housing Portfolio Holder (including bid amounts and borrowing profiles), the Director of Communities be authorised to submit twenty five separate bids to Homes England for additional Housing Revenue Account (HRA) borrowing approvals, for twenty five separate “schemes” totalling £8.052million in year 2021/22, with the borrowing profiles as set out in the report;
(b) That the Council’s Chief Financial Officer reports to a future meeting of the Finance and Performance Cabinet Committee on the most appropriate way to arrange the additional HRA borrowing when required.
Reasons for Decision:
The Council would benefit from additional HRA borrowing approvals to cover additional borrowing in the future if the Council needed, which could be used to either fund an extension to its current Housebuilding Programme or to fund expenditure on other HRA purposes.
Other Options Considered and Rejected:
The main alternative options were:
(1) Not to bid – but this would mean that the current opportunity to obtain additional HRA borrowing approvals to cover any additional borrowing required in the future, to fund either an extension of the current Housebuilding Programme or expenditure on other HRA purposes, would be lost – and there were no indications of any further opportunities arising in the foreseeable future.
(2) To submit a different number of bids, and/or for different amount(s) of additional HRA borrowing approvals – although the Director of Communities was of the view that the officers’ recommended bid proposal was appropriate under all the circumstances.