Agenda item

In accordance with Council Procedure Rule 9, to allow Members to ask questions about Council activities.  A question may only be asked if notice of twelve clear working days has been given.

a)    Question submitted by Councillor Tom Kirkham

b)    Question submitted by Councillor Peter Roberts

Question submitted by Councillor Peter Roberts to the Leader of the Council;

The meeting was advised that since the publication of the agenda, Councillor Peter Roberts had withdrawn his question to the Leader of the Council as a response in writing had been provided to him.

Question submitted by Councillor Tom Kirkham to the Leader of the Council;

As a Pleasley Parish Councillor, Councillor Kirkham firstly spoke about Caroline Randall - She was the first female chair that we had at the council and shortly after being elected she found out she was ill – she fought the illness with bravery and courage – she was somebody who would go out of their way to do anything for anybody and she raised money during her illness and continued to attend meetings and she will be missed.

My question is regarding sale of land in Glapwell –

Last summer the sale of land at the top of Park Ave in Glapwell raised around a quarter of a million pounds for Bolsover District Council. What has this money been spent on? 

Response from the Leader of the Council;

Yes it’s a serious question and obviously were looking at what benefits are going to accrue and this is the point of the question – well the proceeds of the sale, like any other capital receipt, goes to the General Fund in support of the future capital programme.  As regards benefits, I’m going to ask Duncan here because a lot of these benefits that will accrue to Glapwell are enshrined in the planning permission and the development itself.  So with your permission Chair, I will invite the Deputy Leader, Duncan McGregor to comment on the planning benefits.

Councillor Duncan McGregor;

Thank you Chair, Councillor McGregor, Member on the Planning Committee when the decision was made as well.  But to be helpful, the benefits that would be derived eventually is as following.  Under the section 106 agreement that was agreed on that planning application:  Affordable housing - 10% would be on dwellings, Public open space would accrue 0.25hectare per dwelling for open space, plus children’s play facilities, £136 per dwelling will be allocated towards children’s play facilities in that area, percent for art is 1% of art or overall development cost to provide a piece of art work on site.  Off site, sports facilities contribution is £995 per dwelling towards sports development in the Glapwell area.  Education is £227,996.01k towards the Bolsover School which is for the older children from that area, and the travel plan is £3,750k for monitoring the process of these particular section 106 agreements.  I thought this would be interesting for Councillors to know Chair, and hopefully that will help Councillor Kirkham and the residents of Glapwell to understand that there are benefits derived from that particular decision.

Supplementary Question form Councillor Kirkham;

Thank you – so the 106 money as we all know is further on down the line when the houses are built it could be 10/20 years when that money is realised.  The community is recovering from the pandemic, we’ve lost a resource which was much needed use for the carnival and other events, so my question is, can we borrow the equivalent of the 106 money now to address the needs in our community and I appreciate it would be a loan from BDC, and looking at the BDC accounts, loans to other parish councils and town councils have happened in the past and with that in mind would it be possible to receive a copy of the business case made by Shirebrook Town Council for a loan so we can refer to that when making our application for a loan – thank you.

Response from the Leader of the Council;

Yes that’s not a problem Chair, in actual fact, I visited Glapwell Parish Council in 2019, to offer the same facilities at that particular time.  The arrangements between Shirebrook and BDC are slightly different because BDC has a share in the land and the other interests which were transferred in 2010.  There’s no problem Chair, if Councillor Kirkham wants to make an application to BDC, I’m sure that will be considered.