Issue - items at meetings - Establishment of a Company

This report outlines a proposal to establish a company or companies to acquire, hold and trade in property, seeks to establish a working group with member representation, and seeks authority for officers to incur such costs relating to necessary advice and assistance to enable proposals to be brought back for subsequent approval.

The report also outlines and recommends an increase to the Commerical Property Acquisition Fund with a further addition of £60m to be funded from Prudential Borrowing.

The Committee;

(1) Noted and agreed in principle to the establishment of a company or companies to acquire, hold and trade in property;

(2) Agreed that a working group be established comprising the Chief Executive and other Officers listed at the top of the report (Kathryn Beldon, Rod Brown, Lee Duffy, Mark Shepard and Simon Young) together with the Chairman of Strategy & Resources Committee and the Vice Chairman of the Community & Wellbeing Committee for the purposes set out in the report;

(3) Agreed that any Member appointed to the working group who was unable to attend a meeting of the working group should be able to nominate another Member of the Council to substitute for them;

(4) Agreed that an initial budget of £50k be established to meet the costs of procuring specialist legal, financial and other necessary professional advice and set up costs;

(5) Agreed to recommend that Council increase the Commercial Property Acquisition Find by a further £60m to be funded by Prudential Borrowing;

(6) Agreed to recommend to Council a supplementary capital expenditure estimate of £60m in the financial year 2016/17 for (5) above;

(7) Agreed to recommend to Council that the Council’s Prudential Indicators be revised to reflect the additional £60m of Prudential Borrowing;

(8) Noted that a mid-year appraisal update report would be made to the Committee on the strategy, portfolio performance and status of acquisitions made from the Commercial Property Acquisition Fund;

(9) Noted that a new regular update report would be made to the Financial Policy Panel on the financial status of the investment property portfolio and rental income profile.

Note: Councillor Kate Chinn wished her disagreement to recommendations (5) and (6) be recorded.

The Committee received and considered a report which outlined a proposal to establish a company or companies to acquire, hold and trade in property. The report also sought the establishment of a working group with member representation and authority for officers to incur such costs relating to necessary advice and assistance to enable proposals to be brought back for subsequent approval.

It was considered that the potential benefits of establishing a company or companies were considerable and it was considered worthwhile investing in exploring the options via an officer/member working group. It was stressed that the issues discussed in this report were quite separate from those previously discussed regarding investment in commercial property within the Borough.

The report also outlined and recommended an increase to the Commercial Property Acquisition Fund with a further addition of £60m to be funded from Prudential Borrowing to take advantage of the current opportunities in the market grow investment property holdings.

The Committee welcomed the proposals and the direction of travel they signalled, particularly in regards to dealing with housing need in the Borough and accordingly: