Agenda and minutes

To remind Members of the need to record the existence and nature of any Personal, Disclosable Pecuniary or other interests in items on the agenda, in accordance with the Members’ Code of Conduct.

The Monitoring Officer noted that Councillors Adrian Edwards, Anthony Pick, Lynne Doherty, Mike Johnson, Jeff Beck, James Fredrickson, Jeanette Clifford, Howard Bairstow and David Goff  had completed an Application for a Grant of a Dispensation to the Governance and Ethics Committee. The Governance and Ethics Committee had granted a dispensation for them to speak and vote on this matter.

To obtain authority from full Council to purchase private land by agreement or by using compulsory purchase powers under the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976 and the Acquisition of Land Act 1981 to enable the new junction to be built from the A339 onto Fleming Road (the Scheme)(Appendix C); and to appropriate the land within the Scheme for planning purposes.

(Councillors Adrian Edwards, Anthony Pick, Lynne Doherty, Mike Johnson, Jeff Beck, James Fredrickson, Jeanette Clifford, Howard Bairstow and David Goff declared an other interest in Agenda item 3 by virtue of the fact that they were Members of Newbury Town Council. As they had applied for and had been granted a dispensation by the Governance and Ethics Committee they were permitted to take part in the debate and vote on the matter).

The Council considered a report (Agenda Item 3) seeking authority to purchase private land by agreement or by using compulsory purchase powers under the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976 and the Acquisition of Land Act 1981 to enable the new junction to be built from the A339 onto Fleming Road. The report also sought to appropriate the land within the scheme for planning purposes.

MOTION: Proposed by Councillor Garth Simpson and seconded by Councillor Paul Bryant:

That the Council:

“having given consideration to all the provisions of this report (including the impact on Human Rights and Equalities) resolves to delegate authority to the Head of Legal Services to make a Compulsory Purchase Order(s) and other such powers as detailed in paragraph 6.3 of the summary report.”

Councillor Simpson in introducing the item noted that in July 2015 the Council resolved to proceed with the Compulsory Purchase of land to allow the construction of a new junction from the A339 to the London Road Industrial Estate.  The junction was essential to the redevelopment of this key brown-field site and had attracted £1.9m of funding from the Local Enterprise Partnership towards its construction.  The decision to proceed to Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO) was taken to avoid the loss of this funding and ensure the delivery of this essential infrastructure scheme.

A number of matters had progressed in relation to the land since the July meeting including:

·         The signing of the development agreement for the London Road Industrial Estate with partner St Modwen;

·         The subsequent challenge to this agreement by Faraday Development Ltd, by way of a judicial review;

·         Linked to this challenge, Faraday Development Ltd had issued a challenge to the procurement process used for the development agreement, claiming that the Council had breached the Public Contract Regulations;

·         A further appeal had been submitted by Faraday Development Ltd (FDL) against the decision to refuse the renewal of the planning application for the Faraday Plaza site.

The developer of the Faraday Plaza site (Faraday Development Ltd) (FDL) had lodged an appeal against the decision to refuse the renewal of their 2009 planning application. This application entailed the construction of a junction from the A339 in a similar position to that proposed by the Council.  A comparison of the schemes showed that, in terms of traffic modelling, there was little difference in performance in terms of the morning peak.  However, in the afternoon peak the FDL scheme showed a 42% greater average delay per vehicle across the network when compared to the Council’s  ...  view the full minutes text for item 91.