Agenda and minutes

Apologies were received from Liz Tucker and Clive Holt.

None.

Members of the public wishing to take part should notify the Head of Legal and Democratic Services  in writing or by e-mail indicating the nature and content of their proposed participation no later than 9.00am on the working day before the meeting (in this case 27 September 2016).  Enquiries can be made through the telephone number/e-mail address below.

None.

The Minutes of the Meeting held on 13 July 2016 were agreed as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

The Strategic Property Manager attended the Panel to provide an update on the Property Asset Strategy, which had been agreed by Cabinet in March 2016.  This update was a precursor to some scrutiny the Panel were starting to look into from the 2016/17 Scrutiny Work Programme:

Worcestershire County Council use of Property

·                   Accountability of the Place Partnership

·                   How do we use our property?

·                   Review of capital monies and property

By way of introduction, the Panel received a presentation which covered:

·         An overview of the strategic goals of the Strategy

·         How the goals would be achieved

·         An overview of how the County Council's Estate was made up

·         2017/17 Financial Summary relating to the non-operational Estate

·         An overview of the Council's small holdings

·         New developments

·         An overview of the role of the Place Partnership

Following the Presentation, there was an opportunity for further discussion and questions, the main points made were:

·         Not all District Councils were partners in the Place Partnership Limited (PPL) – Malvern and Wychavon District Council's weren't partners in PPL.

·         £26m worth of assets had already been disposed of through the Disposal Programme.

·         The Small Holdings Estate had an approximate value of £17million with the average acre per holding being 30 acres. 53% of tenants were protected for life, which could pass down to other generations depending on the terms of the lease.

·         There were a number of initiatives being explored and developed under the terms of the Property Asset Strategy as approved by Cabinet:

Ø   The One Public Estate Place Reviews which were a review of all public assets within a location carried out by PPL to identify needs/resources for sharing solutions to release surplus assets and exploit development opportunities. Redditch was nearly complete with Worcester to commence in the autumn with Wyre Forest to hopefully follow shortly after.

Ø   Development of a Phase 3 property list for disposal and/or income generation via a thorough portfolio analysis of the operational and non-operational estate.

Ø   The Integrated Housing model – A project had been established to produce business cases to use surplus land and property assets to support meeting the Council's extra care, supported living and residential care demand with the benefit of enhanced capital receipt and /or additional revenue. The project includes exploring the scope and options to develop an Extra Care Village.

Ø   A review had been commissioned to look at the long term strategy for County Hall

Ø   Continued delivery of the Better Use of Property Phase 1 and 2 disposal programme set to delivery capital receipts in the region of £20million during the period until 2019/20.

Ø   Development of a Phase 3 property list for disposal and/or income generation via a thorough portfolio analysis of the operational and non-operational estate.

Ø   Sustainability and Transformation Plan – development of a combined estate strategy with the NHS and public sector partners and Herefordshire.

It was agreed that following on from this initial discussion, at its next meeting, the Panel would like to look in more detail at:  ...  view the full minutes text for item 183.