Agenda and minutes

The Chairman reminded everyone present that the meeting would be broadcast live to the Internet, and that the Council had adopted a protocol for the webcasting of its meetings.

It was noted that Councillor K Avey was substituting for Councillor K Chana.

(a)          Councillor H Kane declared an interest in items 5 and 7 as she was the assistant to the Portfolio Holder for Asset Management and Economic Development but had not been involved in any of the discussions on this topic. The Councillor had determined that her interests were non-pecuniary and she would remain in the meeting for the consideration of the issue.

(b)          Pursuant to the Council’s Code of Member Conduct, Councillors A Grigg and D Stallan declared a personal interest in agenda items 5 and 7, Review of North Weald Airfield, by virtue of being members of North Weald Bassett Parish Council, having made individual representations during the Issues & Options consultation of the Local Plan process, and having attended a meeting between Deloitte Real Estate and North Weald Bassett Parish Council. The Councillors had determined that their interests were non-pecuniary and would remain in the meeting for the consideration of the issue.

(c)          Councillor Avey declared an interest in items 5 and 7. The Councillor had determined that his interests were non-pecuniary and he would remain in the meeting for the consideration of the issue.

It was noted that Susan Lynch the consultant from Deloitte Real estates was also in attendance to answer any specific questions on their North Weald Airfield Development study.

The Committee considered the call-in of the Cabinet’s decision (report C-018-2013/14) regarding the option to be considered for North Weald Airfield as part of the Local Plan process. The call-in was concerned only with parts 2 and 3 of the decision taken by the Cabinet, that:

“(2)      That the following options not be given further consideration as part of the Local Plan process:

(a)          the intensification of aviation based solution; and

            (b)        the non aviation based solution with a focus on residential    development; and

            (c)        the non aviation based solution with a focus on commercial             development.

And

(3)        That, for the mixed aviation/development based option, a further high level master planning exercise focusing on feasibility, deliverability and incorporating the option in the Local Plan be undertaken as part of the assessment process leading to the Local Plan Preferred Options consultation in May 2014.”

The lead member of the call-in, Councillor Watson was asked to open the discussion. She noted that the Local Plan was the most important document being considered at this time. She thought that a wider, clearer set of options was needed with the level of risk associated with each option laid out. She noted the factors of the call-in were that:

1)    they did not believe the risk associated with the options were sufficiently considered;

2)    the model provided by Deloitte did not provide any analysis between revenue and capital;

3)    the issues and options have changed without any district wide consultation; and

4)    the options for modest development without aviation had not been considered.

She considered each option in turn and noted that the risk associated with the options took into account that the money available now was worth more that the same amount available in the future.  She also took into account the risks and uncertainty of the anticipated cash flows.

Deloitte had used a higher discount rate of 20% than would normally be used in the public sector because all the options carried certain risks. However, they used the same rate for all the options. Different rates should have been used. Deloitte confirmed that if they used different rates the net present values would diverge even more than on the report. So, the net value for options 1 and 2 would have been greater.

She then went through each option in turn saying that option 1 had the highest attendant risks. Under option 2a the main risk was the uncertainty of costs associated with the infrastructure. But, these ‘uncertainty of costs’ would apply to all options. Option 2b – the risk here was of competitors building similar facilities and thus having a reduced demand in the future, but on the other hand, it would create over 4,000 jobs.

Option 3 was mixed use and the main risk was the compatibility with aviation and residential use, with  ...  view the full minutes text for item 29.