Basingstoke & Dean Borough Council Manydown Overview Committee Meeting

Councillor Carruthers sent her apologies.

There were no declarations of interest.

There were no urgent matters.

The minutes of the meeting held on 5^th October 2022 were confirmed by the committee as a correct record and signed by the Chair.

The Cabinet Member for Finance and Property introduced the report which provided an overview of the Manydown Programme and an update on the progress of the Manydown North and Manydown South projects. 

The priority for Manydown North remained agreeing the financial terms for the drawdown of the land from the freeholder, the Manydown Company.  It was essential that the basis of drawdown was correct to enable our objective as a council to develop good quality homes on a financially viable basis.

On Manydown South, further technical work was progressing to enable us to respond to the further evolution of the new Local Plan Update and in particular the Regulation 18 stage later this year.

The Chair invited David Ainsworth and Barry Crabb to address the Committee with their update.

Barry Crabb advised outline planning permission for Manydown North was granted in December 2021 and since then, they had been working on the discharge of conditions of the site-wide frameworks (Tier 1) which were submitted middle of last year.  It would be followed by Tier 2 the key phase framework and Tier 3 the reserve matters application.

He confirmed that 5 of the Site-wide strategies and frameworks submitted to the Local Planning Authority had been successfully discharged: -

§                                     Ecological mitigation and management strategy

§                                     Countryside Park Development Brief

§                                     Travel plan

§                                     Phasing and delivery strategy

§                                     Construction strategy

David Ainsworth spoke about the approved site access junctions and confirmed that they were currently in the process of developing reserve matters associated to those junctions around levels of drainage.  In addition, they had submitted new applications for construction access in two locations, one north of Roman Road and one on Roman Way and the utilisation of the permanent access along Worting Road as a third access for the construction traffic.  The three access points could separate the construction traffic from existing developed areas and the primary network.

The committee discussed the report and made the following comments which included:

·      Clarification was sought on who was responsible for the day to day running of the Countryside Park for example if a tree had fallen.  Initially it would remain with the partnership and longer term the governance had yet to be determined.

·         Welcomed the proposal from Urban&Civic to meet with the Ward Councillors and representatives of Winklebury once a contractor had been appointed to discuss the concerns of the traffic management.

·         Acknowledged that a large part of the development site remained unutilised and consideration was now being given to short-term farming uses for the land prior to development commencing.  It was therefore requested that the PR would be comprehensive as Members pre-empted a lot of questions from the public.

·         Reassured that the public rights of way would still be maintained across the site during construction although they might be diverted temporarily for safety reasons.

The committee resolved that, due to the confidential nature of the information to be discussed, the committee passed a resolution that, by virtue of paragraphs 3 of Schedule 12A of the Local Government 1972, the public be excluded from the meeting.

On resumption of the meeting the Chair confirmed that members had received a confidential update from the Project Director on the land drawdown and a discussion had taken place.

Resolved: That the Manydown Overview Committee:

·         notes the progress made on the Manydown Programme.

·          following review of the contents of the report, provides comments for the consideration of the Manydown Executive Committee as recorded above in the minutes

The Project Director confirmed the proposed work programme and it was suggested that a summary be given at the start of the June meeting to brief the Committee on the project to date to assist any new Members.

Members asked that if the position of the land drawdown had changed could they be given an update and it was confirmed by the Executive Director of Corporate Services that at the point that they would be able to confirm whether they had managed to reach a negotiated position the report would be taken to Cabinet.

The committee noted the work programme.

The meeting ended at 8:00 pm.

Chairman