I asked for a copy of the lease between HDC and Turnstone Estates. Easy enough I would have thought. This was on 2nd March 2012. On 5th March I received the following reply:
Freedom of Information Group noreply@huntsdc.gov.uk 05/03/2012 Re: Freedom of Information Act Request No 2176.
Thank you for your request for information under the Freedom of Information Act. We have received your request and it has been passed to the appropriate Officer for investigation. As required by the Freedom of Information Act we will be responding to you within the next 20 working days. However, there may be some instances where it will not be possible to deal with such an application within 20 working days. If this is the case we will contact you to give an estimate of the date by which we expect to reach a decision.
I should have received something by the end of business on 30th March 2012. On 17th April 2012 I received the following:
Re: Freedom of Information Act– FOI Request No. 2176
I am writing in respect of your recent enquiry for information held by the Authority under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act. We have dealt with your request under the Freedom of Information Act.
You requested “Closing Orders and Demolition orders made by the Huntingdon Rural District Council…. Minutes for the Council for the period 1957 - 1972?” - Err.. No I didn't
Your request for information has now been considered and I am not obliged to supply the information you have requested.
This letter acts as a Refusal Notice under Section 17 of the Freedom of Information Act.
I apologise that your request will not be met but if you have any further information needs in the future then please contact me.
If you have a complaint about the handling of your enquiry then please contact Freedom of Information Officer in the first instance quoting “FOI Request No. 2176” at one of the following addresses:
Not only late but late with the wrong information. Under Cllr Abelwhite, HDC is going downhill rapidly.
I was looking to see whether HDC has finally approved the Accounts for 2010/11 which were supposed to be approved by 30th September 2011. According to the Councils own website these accounts have yet to be approved. This is just plain wrong.
HDC believes its residents should obey the law and will try and send us to prison over non payment of Council Tax. Yet HDC is very relaxed when HDC breaks the law.
Another reason for an increase in Council Tax by 3.5% is the introduction of a budget to fund "cover for staff side representatives" This just adds £50,000 to the council tax bill. Another addition to the costs which mean we have to pay a 3.5% increase.
9.2 The following table shows the current number of properties in each tax band and demonstrates that 66% of properties have tax levels lower than band D.
To the left are the all England averages. To the right are the Huntingdonshire figures
As can be seen whilst 66% of HDC properties are in bands A to C, the national average is 67%.
The inclusion of these statistics are pretty useless. None of these statistics are unusual. Indeed HDC does better than the English Average for Council Tax. So HDC is better off. Again HDC looks to throw around statistics for no real reason at all. The only reason I can think of is these statistics show that many of the Council Taxpayers pay below the band D average. But that is true nationally as well as locally. So I still don't see the point!
With Conservative run HDC hiking Council Tax by 3.5% it comes as a bit of a surprise that neighbouring South Cambs District Council is keeping freezing its already low Council Tax rate.
With Council after Council freezing their Council Tax for next financial year, the Conservatives need to explain why HDC won't be accepting the freeze money.
9.8 The Council believes that local residents will wish to preserve these grants, recognise the Councils need to meet unavoidable inflation (there will be no pay rises again in April) and preserve valued services as far as possible both this year and in future. In order to do this the plan is based on increasing Council Tax next year by £4.34 per year for a band D property (£3.86 for Band C and £3.38 for Band B). This represents a percentage increase of 2.6% of the average District Council tax level, and 3.5% of this Council’s lower tax level.
Of course the Council believes that local residents will wish to pay more for services. That is how it works. Where are the consultations to back up this belief? I can't find one. So this is really a delusion because it hasn't asked the residents.
HDC believes that:
Local residents will wish to preserve these grants. Of course residents will want to preserve these grants.
Recognise the Councils need to meet unavoidable inflation. I don't recognise the need to meet unavoidable inflation. If something goes up in price then either change providers or cut services. Yes, it is that simple.
Preserve valued services as far as possible. The Council has not defined what it considers as "valued services". Are these "valued services" what the public wants? or what the Council itself has decided are "valued services"? Take CCTV for example. The public decided through a consultation to scrap this service. The Councillors decided this service needed saving.
In order to do the above plan this is based on increasing Council Tax next year by £4.34 per year for a band D property. This is where Council thinking always goes wrong. Just because the Council believes the arguments, as set out above, then the people will pay for these services. I don't think they will. Otherwise the Conservatives will be pushing for a higher rise and a referendum to boot.
I feel HDC is deluded it if feels people will pay more. If it does then put the whole thing to a vote at a binding referenda.
Instead of reducing the cost of local government, Cllr Ablewhite and his fellow Conservative Councillors are increasing the cost of the District Council. Borrowing is going up by £11 million in the next year alone.
This is a pretty silly promise to make, but one the Conservatives did make and should be held accountable for not keeping this promise.
I was intrigued that some of our councillors think HDC and the Town Council have nothing to do with the cinema project. This notion seems ludicrous seeing that HDC decided on the cinema project, owns the cinema land and gave planning permission for this project. Below is another example on how HDC and SNTC are enmeshed in this project.
I was intrigued by the statement of Cllr Ablewhite - Executive Leader of HDC - in which he claims HDC has built 798 new homes. Sounds good! In reality HDC has built nothing. It is the developers and housing associations which built this housing. HDC gave planning permission that is all.
Cllr Ablewhite takes credit for developers and housing associations building in Huntingdonshire.
In the middle of the article is:
That is true! HDC has received £832,000 in NHB and is looking to spend £2,029,000 disabled facilities.
Now compare this to the forecast for the New Homes Bonus over the same period.
The New Homes Bonus is bringing in £20 million and the Disabled Facilities is costing £8 million. Whilst Cllr Ablewhite's assertion is true for the current year, much of this has to do with a backlog of work.
9.3 The Secretary of State has announced that Council Tax increases in excess of 3.5% will have to be supported by a positive referendum result as a replacement to the previous capping regime. This seems unfair to Council’s with low tax levels as they will effectively be caught in a “poverty trap” of very small cash increases thus requiring higher levels of service reductions than in the high taxing Councils. The Leader has therefore written to the Secretary of State proposing that the referenda limit be based on a cash sum equivalent to a percentage of the average District Council level.
Low taxing/Low spending councils will not be caught in a "poverty trap". Low taxing/High spending Councils are caught in a trap. That was the same with capping. Unlike capping HDC has a way out of this situation by holding a referendum and letting the electors decide on whether they want to pay a higher Council Tax rate. This is what this Conservative run Council wants to avoid because they don't think the electors want to pay more!
As is says further on:
9.5 Overview & Scrutiny recommended that the Council should not accept the freeze grant as future referenda limits may prevent the Council ever being able to increase its Tax level to compensate for the freeze.
If the Conservatives want to up the Council Tax to a much higher rate they need to have the balls to hold a referendum. This, of course, will mean they will have to face the electorate which this council doesn't want to do. The Conservatives have already won the next election. Yet they are trying to find ways around putting this issue to a binding referendum.
Getting council business out in the open will revolutionise local government and enable the Big Society. Transparency is the foundation of accountability. It is also a powerful means of promoting efficiency, without requiring the heavy-handed intervention of an unaccountable bureaucracy.
Local people should be able to hold politicians and public bodies to account over how their council tax is being spent, and decisions made on their behalf. This will work in tandem with decentralisation to foster a new spirit of local enterprise; allowing local institutions to compete, innovate and diversify increasing the accountability of councils to their residents.
So when HDC looks into how the Leisure Services are being run and the finances the deliberations and reports remain secret. Hardly transparent. The public is hardly able to ...hold politicians and public bodies to account... when all this is discussed behind closed doors.
As seems to be the case, this Conservative run Council is picking and choosing when it comes to Conservative Government policies. One like transparency and New Homes Bonus it simply ignores.
Nick Guyatt (NG), Deputy Leader of HDC, was on the Jeremy Sallis (JS) Breakfast show on Monday trying to defend HDC's stance on the New Homes Bonus. Nick didn't do very well. Below is a transcript of what he had to say. The transcript isn't verbatum but is as near as I can get it. What snrednek says about what they say is in red.
If you want to hear the interview on the video below (give it a 5 seconds): Background.
When the Coalition came to power on of their first initiatives was to introduce the New Homes Bonus. This is to reward communities accepting new developments with a bonus thereby showing communities there is a good financial reason for accepting new developments. A good idea, one rooted in a Government report. The The Government decided on an 80/20 split in favour of the District Council over the County Council. The normal split for Council tax is the other way round. The New Homes Bonus is funded for one year and thereafter Councils will see a reduction in grant to pay for the New Homes Bonus.
HDC firstly hid the New Homes Bonus as the New Homes Reward Grant and now is spinning that it is a reward for itself and not the communities accepting developments.
Anyway here is the transcript of the interview:
Jeremy Sallis: Is St Neots being robbed of cash which should be going towards new developments?
Nick Guyatt: No! Not at all
JS: Why?
NG: Erm because the first thing is Cllr van de Kerkhove has obviously misunderstood what the New Homes Bonus is about. The government has decided that it is going to re-look at the way it is going to finance local government and it wants local government to be more responsive to its desires for economic growth and the Government wants new economic growth to come in via new houses. So what is actually doing is reducing the grant it gives to local authorities erm to cover all the services it gives throughout the whole of their area. And is saying we will reduce your money one end and we will give you some more money if you achieve some of these spending targets.
Cllr van de Kerkhove hasn't misunderstood what the New homes bonus is about. The misunderstanding is HDC's. The Government is looking into how local government is financed. That has nothing really to do with the New Homes Bonus.
There are also no spending targets. These have been taken away by the Coalition. So what Nick was on about in his answer is a load of rubbish.
JS: That is not the impression given by the Government’s own Communities website which suggests this is an incentive as to why communities should accept new homes in their area.
Very true
NG: I can’t speak for the Government.
Well your informing us what the Government is telling you. A get out by Nick which didn't work.
JS: Well your speaking on behalf of the Government when you say they are telling you it is to be spent all across the board as opposed to just the areas where new developments are going up.
This is a Conservative/Liberal Democrat government and this is a Conservative policy.
NG: Let me give you two analogies first of all. If I say to you that I live, I don’t, in a house that pays £1000 tax to the local authorities and you live in house that gives £200 tax does that mean you should receive a fifth, er 20 percent of a year less spending on you because you produce less council tax? No it doesn’t. Council tax is spent across a whole district for the benefit of every member of the communities. If government reduces the money it gives us for spending on all the communities then all the communities have to suffer that cut.
So what has this answer got to do with the New Homes Bonus? I just don't know! The answer must be in the last sentence. What Nick can't seem to accept is the areas accepting new housing should get more money than those areas not accepting new housing.
JS: Love’s farm residents suffering more than most. If they are having houses put up without the facilities being put when there is money there to provide those facilities.
Now Love's Farm has yet to be completed. Much of the housing was built before the New Homes Bonus was introduced. Section 106 agreement monies from the developers to pay for local facilities is where the money comes from to pay for a community centre and play areas.
NG: Can you differentiate please between what there provided by the Council and what is provided by the developer. It is a relatively new development which is happening. I heard people talking about the drains in the road. That because the roads haven’t been brought up by the developer to the standard required by the Council to adopt them.
And it is up to HDC to ensure these things happen.
JS: Residents are telling us about the lack of facilities for young people. Your getting £8000 per property.
NG:We are not getting £8000 per property. We are getting £800,000 of new money in the first year. Thereafter all the money is coming, we are told by the Government, out of the revenue support grant.
How does Nick know that? HDC cannot produce any figures on how the New Homes Bonus is calculated for HDC. So how does Nick know it isn't £8000 a property? The Council is looking to get £1.8 million in NHB for 2012/13. Indeed it is forecast to rise even further in future years.
JS: That will be the tune of?
NG: That will be to the tune of a £1 million next year.
JS: Is any of that money being spent on these new Developments?
I think Jeremy get the wrong end of the stick. Nick is going on about a cut whilst Jeremy thinks it is a gain.
NG: A lot of this money is being spent in St Neots and the new developments.
Where and how much?
JS: How much of that money? The majority or all of the money intended by the new homes bonus.
NG: If your granny lived on Love’s Farm and she fell down the stairs and went to hospital and came back as said she needed a stairlift. And she was eligiable for a grant for a stair lift we would be put in a stairlift in for her. OK. That is the kind of way we spend peoples money.
So no answer on where and how much. Indeed with this answer I have to wonder how Nick got to be Deputy Leader. "That is the kind of way we spend peoples money".
JS: lets go back to the communities website again. This is money coming from the Government. I just want to quote something from this website. Communities themselves will decide how to spend this extra fundingwhether council tax discounts for local residents boosting frontline services like rubbish collections or providing local facilities like swimming pools or Leisure Centres. Of which these people talking to us are calling out for. Have these communities, have these residents been consulted. Have you spoken to them and asked them how they would like these monies spent.
NG: Lets go back the very basics. We have spent a lot of money on St Neots swimming pool and leisure Centre. A lot of money was spent before, in fact, Love’s Farm was even digging the foundations of Love’s Farm. So a lot of the money the council is spent isn’t spent on a whim, erm based on what happened last year we have to plan what we spend going forward.
Yes money has been spent on the Leisure Centre. But this was all planned before the New Homes Bonus was introduced. The New Homes Bonus is there to show communities the benefits of new housing. Now the argument seems to be we have given you a Leisure Centre so we'll take the money back for that.
JS: A very simple question. Have these residents been consulted?
NG: Most of them weren’t here to start with when the decisions were made. They have elected representatives who have an input into how into deciding how the money is spent.
The New Homes Bonus is intended for the communities accepting development. The DCLG wants councils to consult with the communities accepting development on how the money should be spent. HDC will not do this.
This is the problem with the New Homes Bonus. The Government thinks if it tells local authorities what to do then they will do it. Councils have a reputation of taking the money and doing something else. Whether the Leisure Centre has been upgraded is a backwards argument. The money is new and here and HDC is nicking this money to prop up it failing budget.
I can hear the frustration in the voice of Jeremy Sallis as he fails to get answers to many of the questions he asked. If Nick is deputy leader of HDC and this is the muddled thinking behind HDC decisions then you have to wonder whether the Conservatives are best in charge. All we got from Nick is a mixture of muddled arguments and answers that went no-where.
I don't understand why the Town Council feels it should contribute to the District Council owned CCTV system. The first item was to find out is where the CCTV cameras in St Neots are located. HDC provided me with the following information.
1. A map:
2. There locations:
Most of these are public spaces. The yellow ones are covering District owned car parks. One covers the skateboard park on the District owned Riverside Park.
Only one of these 13 CCTV cameras covers Town Council land and that is Shady Walk. So why are we paying for these cameras? Basically because the owners (HDC) is running out of money and rather than close the system they get there Town Council to pay up half the costs for St Neots.
There is a case for doing this. The Town Council wants the CCTV system to continue. It helps the keep the Town Centre secure plus catch criminals and anti-social behaviour.
The arguments against the Town Council paying for CCTV are also numerous:
1. These CCTV concentrate only on the Town Centre. So the people of Eynesbury, Eaton Socon and many other parts of St Neots are paying for a service which doesn't cover them.
2. St Neots Town Centre is used by many residents from outside St Neots for shopping and services. Yet these don't pay for this service via their Town/Parish Councils. Only via HDC Council Tax which St Neots residents also pay.
3. Quite a few of these CCTV cameras are on District Council land and cover District Council run Car Parks. The District Council derives an income from these car parks. The Town Council doesn't.
4. HDC owns these cameras and should pay for the whole cost rather than taxing the Council taxpayer via the Town Council.
Whilst I could dream up some more but those arguments will do.
These CCTV cameras are owned and run by HDC. They are there for all residents of HDC and not specific residents who use the Town Centre. They protect HDC assets and yet St Neots is being taxed by stealth to pay for these cameras.
I say as HDC owns these cameras and many of the locations they cover then HDC should pay for them and tax all residents for this privilege. Why should all St Neots Council taxpayers pay extra for these cameras? Only to keep the District Council tax down and the St Neots Council tax higher than it should be!
The Corporate Governance Panel seems to have given up on agreeing the annual accounts which were due on 30th September 2011. In a recent report the CGP says:
The Panel was informed of efforts made by the Head of Financial Services’ staff and the Council’s external auditors to complete the process for finalising and publishing the Council’s accounts for 2010/11. Members are hopeful that the work will be finalised early in the New Year.
.... and the current intention is to submit them to the next programmed meeting of the Panel on the 7 December.
Even this date has been missed.
What has been dropped is any target date. Just "early in the New Year". Whatever that really means.
The law is very clear:
(3) Subject to paragraph (4), a larger relevant body must, no later than 30th September in the year immediately following the end of the year to which the statement relates—
(a)consider either by way of a committee or by the members meeting as a whole the statement of accounts;
(b)following that consideration, approve the statement of accounts by a resolution of that committee or meeting;
(c)following approval, ensure that the statement of accounts is signed and dated by the person presiding at the committee or meeting at which that approval was given; and
(d)publish (which must include publication on the body’s website), the statement of accounts together with any certificate, opinion, or report issued, given or made by the auditor under section 9 (general report) of the 1998 Act.
(4) The responsible financial officer must re-certify the presentation of the statement of accounts before the relevant body approves it.
To me this is straight forward. The Corporate Governance Panel cannot delegate these powers away to Council Officers. Yet that is what it seems to have done. HDC does like Breaking the Law.
The Town council budget for 2012/13 brought one point to the fore. That is the amount of money the Town Council is now contributing because of HDC cuts. Lets remember that by ending a service and getting the Town Council to pick up the cost doesn't mean those costs go away for the Council taxpayer. Just they are charged by a different Council. In this case it is the Town Council.
In the 2012/13 budget the cost of HDC cuts are adding to the budget. The 2 public conveniences are costing £34,000. CCTV cameras (Town Council paying half the costs) £22,750. The Town Centre Initiative is costing an extra £10,000. This adds up to £66,750 or £6.17 per Band D Council taxpayer.
I feel I can argue that as SNTC has made provision to operate the toilets at South Street, the £15,000 allocated to run and maintain this facility should also be added to this list. This would make £81,750 a year that SNTC is paying for services formally run by HDC. This is essentially a Conservative Stealth Tax on the St Neots Council Taxpayer of £7.55 per Band D Council taxpayer.
It can be argued the Town Council has taken over these services. Yet when HDC made some of these cuts it was boasting at keeping their rise to 2.5%. In truth the Town Council is taxing us to provide these services. If these services weren't to be run by the Town Council but by the HDC this would save the Band D council taxpayer £7.55 a year.
The problems HDC face has been with them for coming up for a decade. Now, under the cover of coalition cuts, HDC is cutting.
But this motion is wrong. The Coalition Government has ended capping and allowing each Council to decide the rate of Council Tax itself with a referenda for the electorates. If HDC feels it has a good case to increase their portion of the Council Tax then HDC should put this to the public by way of a referendum.
Instead HDC group leaders, by putting this motion forward, are trying to wriggle out of a referendum by allowing higher increases for low taxing authorities. This is wrong. All authorities should be looking to communicate with there residents over what the Council wants to spend and the tax rate to achieve that spending. If the residents don't want to be taxed so highly then service cuts will happen.
There is an argument that referendums may penalise low taxing and low spending authorities for previous good financial performance. With referendums and re-billing having significant costs, the benefits of holding referendums are more attractive for authorities with higher Council Tax as the percentage increase would generate greater receipts for them and make it easier for them to fund the additional costs.
But HDC isn't a low taxing/low spending authority. It has for a long time been a low tax/high spend council which spent reserves to prop up the failing budget. It is not for HDC to compare with other District Councils tax levels. It is for HDC to decide its spending levels and tax accordingly.
In Cllr Downes email he states the following:
A 3% increase in Council Tax would net £292,800 in extra tax. The current estimate is £100,000 for carrying out a referendum. But that is a one-off and could be used from reserves to pay for this. But that is the question. Do the HDC political parties actually want to give the residents the right to vote over excessive increases or carry on the same? The answer seems to be carry on the same.
A referendum would give a big headache to the political parties as they would have to campaign for an increase. The likelihood of getting enough people out to campaign for an increase is minimal. Likely there would be a revolt in there own ranks to any increase.
I hope Eric Pickles stays the course and dismisses this way round the rules. What is the point of giving this power to the people when those in charge just want to get around the rules.
Excessive Council Tax rises must mean a referendum. In my view the 3.5% level is itself excessive and should be 2.5% or less. If HDC wants to increase the tax it should go for a big rise and the political parties should campaign for an increase. If they don't want to campaign for an increase then they should cut services and cost accordingly.
We will freeze Council Tax in England for at least one year, and seek to freeze it for a further year, in partnership with local authorities.
So all authorities have the same information. So it shouldn't have come as a surprise, as it seems to have done, that the Coalition has announced money for a second year of funding for a freeze. Yet this seems to be the case.
On the other hand how has DCLG worked in partnership to ensure this freeze can go ahead? I cannot find evidence to back up any notion of partnership.
Lets get back to the Councils. The Town Council isn't in receipt of Government grants so is unaffected by the grants cuts. HDC finances are in such bad shape that they need the Council Tax rise to maintain a semblance of providing services.
HDC was happy to throw £millions at keeping services going. These reserves are running out. HDC has still to decide whether it is a it is a low tax/low spending authority or not. The rhetoric seems to be HDC wants a higher Council Tax rate, but is trying to find ways around the referendum needed to increase their portion of the Council Tax. Yet if services are to be maintained there needs to be a substantial Council Tax rise.
CCC has yet to decide whether they
The District Councillors need to get it into their heads there needs to be cuts.
The accounts must be approved by 30th September of each year. This year HDC has missed the deadline and has done so by a wide margin. The accounts and annexes are down as "To Follow".
We therefore propose to include a report be exception following our vfm conclusion for 2010/11 to confirm that we have identified significant weaknesses in the Council’s arrangements for ensuring reliable and timely financial reporting that meets the needs of internal users, stakeholders and local people, as a result of the delay.
The report goes into detail:
However, the authority was not able to provide us with a comprehensive set of supporting working papers at the start of our audit. There are a number of reasons for this including:
The Council’s capital accountant was absent on the grounds of ill health, and other finance staff had difficulty interpreting and understanding elements of capital accounting and capital financing information.
The Council underestimated the level of resource required to do the IFRS restatements and produce the 2010/11 financial statements and the restated 2009/10 and 2008/09 information.
As new auditors it was always expected that we would not have the same degree of knowledge of the specific circumstances of the Council as an incumbent, however, the Council underestimated the number of questions and supporting information that we would require to support the accounts.
This has had a knock on effect of our audit, resulting in working papers that did not agree to the accounts and significant gaps in the information provided to us, predominately in relation to capital accounting. During the audit the finance team has on occasion, struggled to provide sufficient relevant and reliable information to us in respect of the Council’s leases, capital accounting and other elements of the accounts.
Yet the Capital accountant was one of those being made redundant!
As of 28 November 2011 we are still waiting on information from the Council to enable us to complete our audit. We will provide a full verbal update to the Panel when we meet with you on 7 December 2011.
An interesting bit:
Leisure Centres
Our review of leases identified that the five leisure centres included on the Council’s balance sheet are held under management agreements. These agreements indicate that the assets are jointly controlled assets between the Council and Cambridgeshire County Council. The Council has prepared an assessment of the proportion of the assets attributable to the County Council based on capital investment in the assets since they were built. At the date of writing this report management were still in the process of making the necessary adjustments to the financial statements.
Initial calculations expect this to impact the cost of the assets on the balance sheet by decreasing their value by approximately £1.5 million - £2 million (£19.8 million total assets).
From the Auditors report I can surmise HDC were unprepared for the new IFRS accounting standards. Even though the Capital Accountant was ill and was subsequently made redundant this was a problem that HDC management should have managed. If there are not the right people to do the job then find someone who can. It is not as though the auditors just turned up unexpectedly. In the report the auditors state:
Following discussions with management following our appointment as external auditors we performed early audit work in February and March 2011 on the restatement of the prior year comparative information. At that time the evidence available to support the Council’s work to date on the IFRS conversion was not sufficient to enable us to carry out detailed audit procedures. We provided an assessment focussing on the key areas of the conversion and discussed this with Management in April 2011 who continued to work on the transition process.
So the Council's Management knew back in April 2011 there was trouble, though had an idea in February/March 2011. Yet as far as I can see the Management did little to resolve this situation so the accounts could be presented by the deadline of 30th September 2011.
In the draft budget for 2012/13, the Conservative run Huntingdonshire District Council still doesn't get the reason for the New Homes Bonus (NHB). In the draft budget it says:
Members have expressed interest in the use of the Bonus. It is not ring-fenced for specific communities but there is ample evidence within this report that it will be used to enable the protection of services and for in investment in key growth areas.
The Government that pays the New Homes Bonus informs the public that HDC should be consulting with the communities which are accepting development on how the money should be spent. Yet HDC simply ignore this and carry on its merry way.
(ii) Development in towns and villages (a) Development within a Town or Parish area Where development takes place in Droitwich Spa, Evesham, Pershore or the rural areas of the district, the Council will normally award up to 40% of the NHB accruing to be reinvested in the local community. This reward will not be ringfenced to any particular use but it must deliver ‘added value’ to the local community and area and where possible, benefit those communities close to any new development. (b) Significant developments adjacent to towns It is likely that some of the urban extensions to the three towns, which may be constructed over the next few years, may be delivered outside the administrative boundary of the town whilst clearly serving the growth of the urban area and reliant of amenities and services in the urban area. The Council may determine that the NHB payments to be reinvested in local communities, in circumstances where it is serving urban growth, is split between the town and the rural parish(es) accommodating the urban growth. Of the allocation in (a) above, the split will normally be 80% to the town and 20% to the Parish.
In Wychavon up to 40% of New Homes Bonus money can go to the local community accepting this development. Not exactly what I would like to see. But it does go some way to meeting the needs of the Towns accepting developments.
The Wychavon NHB policy goes on:
9. Procedure for payment 1. The Council’s Executive Board will determine and authorise the release of any payments under the NHB scheme. The Council will publish on its website an annual statement of the NHB monies attributable to each town or parish area. Payments will generally be held until there is a commitment to spend the monies.
In a recent FOI request I was informed HDC cannot work out the New Homes Bonus attributable to St Neots. Yet Conservative run Wychavon will be doing so!
Before I get too carried away, there are difference between Wychavon DC and Huntingdonshire DC. These are:
Population: W=117,000 / H=167,300
Area: W=256.2 sq mi / H=352.3 sq mi
Density: W=456.7/sq mi / H=474.9/sq mi
Council Tax proposed for 2012/13: W= £108.44 (Zero increase) H=£127.17 (2.5% increase)
Even with a population density slightly lower, Conservative run Wychavon DC has a policy on New Homes Bonus and a lower Council Tax rate which isn't rising. In Huntingdonshire, we have a Conservative run Council with no real policy on New Homes Bonus, apart from denying its intended use, and is looking to put up the Council Tax.
