Decision details

(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.