From our District Councillor
More than just an office for ECDC
ON TUESDAY OCTOBER 25TH the full East Cambs District Council met at Ely to
discuss, amongst other matters, the purchase of land at Angel Drove
(Cambridgeshire Business Park) in order to facilitate the building of new
office accommodation. However, the Council was in effect discussing far more.
By the end of the debate the Independent group, supported by the Liberal
Democrat group in particular, delivered a hammer blow to a vision that promised
so much.
Consequent upon the purchase of the land and the building of new offices there would have opened up several inter-related strands of opportunity for the Council, Ely as a city and East Cambridgeshire as a district. And this against the now familiar backdrop of a rapidly growing region which, in some 10-15 years' time, will see some of the strongest percentage growth rates in the country.
At stake therefore were the realisation of an optimum site for a 300 plus space Park & Ride scheme for Ely (a vital plank in the plan to ameliorate ElyÕs existing and future transport challenges), the release of several distributed pockets of Council-owned assets (which would have been sufficient to finance the purchase, build and occupancy of the new office accommodation) and an efficient office, fit for purpose in every way, ready to serve the current and future needs of our district.
Some grasp of the financial aspects is important here. Total project costs of £14.5m may have looked daunting at first glance. However the key to the plan lay in the swapping of certain redundant or partially redundant assets for a far greater, more productive and much more manageable asset. By providing the infrastructure at Angel Drove, ECDC, as potential owners of the full site, could have sold off the land not needed for its own development purposes (some 18 acres) in suitably sized and timely packages and recovered something in the order of £5.4m at current values. At the same time government grants of £3.0m, offered but not yet fully confirmed, would almost certainly have been brought forward. It is also highly likely that the Council offices on site would have drawn further development that could have provided up to 1000 jobs locally, with all the attendant opportunities and advantages.
The prestigious city-centre site on which The Grange currently stands would have been saleable at some point (estimate £1.5m); further land at Willow Walk and Parade Lane, Ely would have raised an estimated £2.lm. This would have left a borrowing requirement of just £2.5m, plus the interest charges during the construction phase. In brief, by 2027 the Council would have fully owned its own flexible, efficient offices on a site of 3.5 acres at a present day value of £7.5m. The 3 acre Park and Ride site would have been a bonus. The continuing revenue benefits of £12.00 per home per year would then have been available for other council projects or services - all this without a penny extra on Council tax.
The result of the meeting, however, was a dispiriting and ultimately damaging burying of heads in the sand. There is to be no purchase of land at Angel Drove, no building of offices or other facilities, no resolution to the multi-site offices, no immediate prospect of assisting in the transport scheme, no guarantee of an efficient, manageable operation under one energy-conserving, compliant, leak-proof roof.
Instead we are left with the ageing and only partially compliant office accommodation at The Grange which will need substantial sums spent on it simply to meet its current let alone future requirements. The vision was ripped up and it has been replaced by a blank wall. There is no "plan B". It was simply decided, by a majority vote, to go nowhere.
As a Council we are elected to serve the needs of the people of the district. We are also expected to show the lead on matters relating to the district as a whole. It is distressing to report that the vision, supported by 15 members of the Conservative group, died an untimely death on October 25th. We shall of course do all we can to build a new one. For now though it's a question of picking through the rubble. What a waste.