To receive questions in accordance with the provisions of Council Procedure Rules 12.2 and 12.4 which require a Member to give at least 3 working days’ notice, in writing, of the question to the Chief Executive.
Minutes:
A question on notice had been submitted by Councillor Whitaker to Councillor Hamilton-Cox regarding the upstairs of the former Co-op building on Regent Road in Morecambe.
Councillor Whitaker asked:
The upstairs of the
Co-op building on Regent Road does remain a major concern and needs
to be urgently dealt with. It reflects badly on ourselves when we
fail to do anything with it. It does have a lot of potential use
for the community or business opportunities.
What is being done about this building and what realistic options
are there for the future use of this building?
Councillor Hamilton-Cox replied:
In July 2020, Cabinet approved £425k to help renovate the Co-op building in a decision which agreed to work with the Exchange, as it was then known, to bring the building back into use, where the Exchange would apply for funding to effect substantial internal refurbishment and take a long lease on the building.
Two years later, the Council is continuing to work with the Good Things Collective, as it is now known, in making funding bids. The situation round funding is, as everybody is aware, challenging and highly competitive and subject to rigorous bidding criteria. This is compounded by current inflationary pressures and supply chain issues that will add to increased costs.
The designs for the internal refurbishment have been updated to try and mitigate this. The quantity surveyor involved has updated costs based on the revised plans and projected the estimates forward to quarter 3-4 of this financial year. The £425k allocated in the capital programme to the Co-op building is being used by the Good Things Collective as an inducement to attract external funding. It helps demonstrate to potential external funders the Council’s commitment to the project.
However, there will come a point at which the external appearance – you could argue that’s now - or the integrity of the roof will mean that the Council can no longer continue to hold out. Councillor Whitaker will remember that the property was acquired because it was a large vacant poor condition building that had a negative impact on the local area.
The intention remains to secure a positive outcome for this building but the challenges and constraints are considerable. In the absence of an external community partner funding opportunities available are severely diminished. The cost would largely fall to the Council and we would still need to find a viable use. Previous work has shown that all options for the building require gap funding as the cost of any refurbishment is greater than the resulting value, in either sales or rental terms.
By way of a supplementary question, Councillor Whitaker asked whether Councillor Hamilton-Cox agreed that it needed to be a priority?
Councillor Hamilton-Cox did accept Councillor Whitaker’s premise and told him he would welcome his involvement looking at options going forward. He invited Councillor Whitaker to attend a review meeting in September with the lead Council Officer.
It was noted that Councillor Dant had withdrawn his question to Councillor Dowding and that Councillor Cleet, who had submitted questions for Councillor Hamilton-Cox, had given apologies for the meeting. It had been agreed with Councillor Cleet that the answers to his questions would be circulated to all Councillors via email after the meeting.