Agenda and draft minutes

Apologies were received from Cllrs Cleary and Docwra.

The Minutes of the previous meeting were received by the Working Party.

The Livestock Market Working Party Members received a statement from the Livestock Market Company. The statement thanked the Working Party for the “work put in to take forward the project” and thanked officers for their continued stakeholder engagement. The Livestock Market Company acknowledged that, with the process of legal tendering, they could not prejudice the Working Party but set out a position of advisory support, where appropriate.

Since the last meeting, the level of progress has been limited. The reason for this is due to the continued negotiations around the user restriction that would be placed  upon the Livestock Market site.

Ahead of the meeting, Members received a confidential briefing note that set out further information relating to the on-going site negotiations and how Officers proposed to proceed.

Members asked questions and made comments on the following:

·         Clarifying various aspects of the Briefing Note and the approach to commercial negotiations for the site.

·         The budget for the project

o   It has previously been acknowledged that the budget for the project is very challenging (exacerbated by construction price increases over recent months). An increased budget is therefore expected to be required to successfully deliver the project.

o   Opportunities for funding will be investigated as appropriate.

·         Is there a risk that this will go over the deadline of vesting day for the new unitary authority?

o   It was acknowledged that the deadline of vesting day was approaching and there would be a need for the North Yorkshire Council to be involved in the project in the future.

o   Although the deadline is approaching, Members expressed a desire to keep pursing the project.

o   The way in which these actions will be taken can be found in Next Steps.

·         Could the Livestock Market Company create the design plans for the Market?

o   It would not be appropriate for the Council to appoint them to do so. Their expertise in operating a livestock market is, however, recognised and their feedback has been sought on initial designs and further input is expected as design development progresses.  

The risks and opportunities were covered under the Site Negotiations Update item.

The confidential briefing note provided to the Members set out a number of options and included an Options Assessment considering how best to proceed.

Each option was explained in detail in the briefing note and an Officer recommendation for a proposed approach was made.  The Members gave a steer to Officers that the proposed approach should be pursued and provided a steer that:

1.    Align Property Partners are to be instructed by Officers to progress the next stage of project development work (capped at a maximum of £20,000).

2.    No further project development funding would be committed without the Exclusivity Agreement being in place.

There will be a meeting with the FTC on Friday 4 November. Updates from the meeting will be circulated to Members of the Working Party.

Subject to agreement being reached with FTC, the following steps will be taken:

-       A report will be given to the Policy and Resources on 9 February.

-       Once approved, the report will go to Full Council on 23 February.

-       After Full Council it will need to go through the section 24 process, abiding by the financial rules of the new North Yorkshire Council. It is likely that the final approval of the project will occur after vesting day and within the remit of the new Council.

There being no further business, the meeting ended at 7:50pm.