Agenda item - Accommodation Strategy

To consider the attached report (C-024-2018/19).

(1) That the Cabinet approved the accommodation option to maximise the Civic building use in Epping High Street by:

(a) retaining Civic, Democratic and Customer Service functions on the Epping site;

(b) delivering a combination of partner, community and business services from the Civic building;

(c) refurbishing the areas of the Civic building to the standards appropriate for the use (subject to b) above);

(d) the disposal of land to the rear of the Civic site in line with the Local Plan allocation;

(e) building office accommodation on Council owned land in North Weald for occupation by the Council and potentially partner organisations;

(2) That consequent to the approval of recommendation (1) above the following actions be taken:

(a) That the Council proceed to full design and build specification of a new build reporting back to the Cabinet before the end of the financial year 2018/2019 seeking agreement to proceed to the procurement of the new build process and its Capital requirement;

(b) Cabinet agreed £425,000 capital expenditure for professional services and programme resource to deliver year 1 of the programme met from the existing planned maintenance budget phased as follows: virements of £25,000 in 2018/19 and £400,000 in 2019/20;

(c) That land allocated within the local plan to the rear of the civic site be marketed for sale, with the sale to be progressed before end of the financial year 2019/20;

(d) That authority be given to the Chief Executive to ‘soft’ market test the letting of areas of the Civic building spaces as marked on appendix A of the report;

(3) That a further report be made to Cabinet on:

(a) the feasibility of the marketing of the part site before the end of the financial year 2018/2019;

(b) the revisions required to the accommodation programme to align it with these recommendations;

(c) the formation of a governance structure to support effective and efficient delivery across the programme; and

(4) That the Cabinet receive regular updates on the programme to future meetings.

The Strategic Director, G Blakemore gave a short presentation to the meeting out lining the proposed future accommodation plans for the Council.

Since the listing of the Civic Offices building by Historic England in late 2017 there had been a number of events and changes that had led to a revisit of the accommodation project. On review there was a new recommendation for Cabinet consideration that acknowledges developments in St. Johns Road, Epping and addresses the continued use of the Civic Offices building for purposes that it was designed for as well as opening up wider services for the community and customers. In addition, research had shown potential for new and established businesses to rent office space supporting economic development and protecting the high street footfall.

The strategic objectives set in 2016 are met by the mixed-use proposition for the Civic Offices building together with the sale of the land to the rear of the site and a new build office in North Weald.

Partners and business have been engaged in informal meetings, land, property values and build costs had been established and a break even financial case was viable on the information to date.

Cabinet were asked to approve the recommendation and the subsequent decisions to enable the next steps to progress with the updated report back by the end of the financial year 2018/19.

Councillor Mohindra asked about the proposed time scale for this project. The Strategic Director said that they were looking, optimistically, at less than three years.

Councillor Lion supported the report saying it was a useful proposal. One question was about travel between the buildings and how this would be managed. The Strategic Director referenced the Travel Plan that had already started before this had come forward. The plan was a living document and would take this new development into consideration. It was still in an information gathering position. It was due to report back on its next phase in March/April 2019.

Councillor Philip asked about the second floor of plans of this building showing the upper part of this chamber as part of the offices; as its listed he assumed that was not so. And he noticed that Homefield House had not been mentioned. The Strategic Director confirmed that the Council Chamber was not part of the plan. As for Homefield House this had not been included as it was seen as a temporary accommodation used to move people into while other work was going on. Also, there were no definite plans for this as yet.

Councillor S Kane said that he liked the plan a lot as it had a lot going for it as it was cost neutral and would open up a revenue stream for the Council. His only concern was the parking provision for the proposed new tenants. We will have our travel in place and we need to give due consideration to the new tenants. He was told that there would be a travel plan for the building and not just the EFDC occupants for the building.

Councillor Grigg was keen to retain staff on this site and also have partnership working for the High Street. What more could we do to tell people that we were not demolishing this building. Councillor Whitbread noted that there had been some bad information going around about this building. It still had a future with this council and with our partners. The proposed new build at North Weald would be a more functional building and a good thing for the district.

Councillor Avey noted that Epping High Street already had enough cafés but one more had been identified for this building. Councillor Whitbread noted that this building already had a café where staff got their lunches etc. so, it just would be more open and usable for residents as well.

Councillor Bedford, looking at the plans that were put up suggested that the space provided on the ground floor would not be enough for the amount of people to be put in there. Also could you consider putting in car parking under the residential buildings to be put up? The Strategic Director said that they were looking at 7-10 working ratio for officers to be working here. Councillor Whitbread remarked that the redevelopment of the Condor building was covered in the local plan. Councillor Philip added that they would be assessing what the best design and use of land would be for the area.

Councillor Janet Whitehouse raised concerns that it would be very difficult for members of the public to get to North Weald just to speak to a planning officer. She was told that there would be no public access at North Weald and that meetings would be held by appointment here in the Civic Offices.

Councillor Jon Whitehouse said that it was clear from the paperwork that this was the more costlier and riskier option but outweighed by the strategic advantages of the proposal. Options were not clearly set out in the discussions and paperwork and should be set out in detail so we could tell if this was the more efficient way forward or not. Also he would like some assurance that the Travel Plan had taken into account all the various stakeholders in this project. As for the timing of the sale of the land, the recommendations says by the end of March is this the intention? By putting in an absolute deadline it puts the buyer in a stronger position. And parking issues come up often because it was an important issue; could we put in conditions in the sale of the land that meet the aspirations of the planning committees rather than the minimum you can get away with in the Local Plan. Councillor Philip replied that the Local Plan stressed that we needed to start moving towards a more sustainable environment but also in the Local Plan we have retained the ability to set different parking standards to the Essex Plan if needed. The Strategic Director said that they were looking to March 2020 as an aspiration to sell the site, regardless of a new build or not. As for the strategic objectives, the previous option of moving into this building was financially more viable but less successful in meeting the strategic objectives.

Councillor Chris Pond said that he was not opposed to relocating the backroom staff but it has inbuilt inefficiencies. He was worried about the unsustainable North Weald location. Its bus service ran about every 20 minutes at best, which may increase car use by staff to the new site. Also, it seems very crowded for the staff left in this building, but he was looking forward to seeing more details in due course. Councillor Whitbread said that a number of issues were still to be resolved and a lot of this comes down to the new partners we will be working with. Councillor Philip noted that the Local plan has new residential and employments assigned in North Weald and part of the work around that was to improve sustainability and connectivity.

Councillor Murray sought assurance that any officer access that the public had at present they would still have after the move. Councillor Whitbread gave this assurance. Councillor Murray continued that public transport to North Weald was very poor and had to be improved. Some of the ideas were very exciting such as the use of the space and was something we should be doing. Finally it was said that the Condor site was for saving green spaces elsewhere, but this was not the case in Debden.

Councillor Brookes asked what percentage of staff was travelling to work by car. She was told that it was 81%. Councillor Brooks continued that she liked the idea of sharing the building with other stakeholder and had a ratio of 6-10 been considered as they had at Enfield. Councillor Whitbread said that PWC had done a lot of work on this already and that this ratio was the most sensible for this authority, especially with the listing of the building.

Councillor Philip suggested that recommendation 2(c) be changed to read “…with the sale to be progressed before the end of the financial year 2019/20”. This was agreed.

Decision: