Sainsbury’s Sec 106 Update

Sainsbury’s Sec 106 Update

I have blogged before about the Sec 106 agreement for Penzance here, and what a bad deal it was for the town, in brief, out of the £1,935,315 that was on offer, only £15,000 went to the town directly.

Since this offer was put to the town by a joint team from Sainsbury’s and Cornwall Council, the Town Council has held meetings to discuss the proposals, with a different set of officers from Cornwall Council assisting with the legal aspects and other issues, following these meeting a different set of proposals were agreed to be put forward. At a further meeting between Sainsbury’s and first set of officers, these revised options were put forward.

Park & Ride

Original offer:

 Dedication of Land for 250 space Park & Ride site with access through store site and £1.2m to construct the Park and Ride.

Revised Offer:

Safeguard land for a 250 space Park & Ride site for a period of 5 years and the contribution of £1.2m (BCI Indexed) to construct the facilities either on site or within the area.

Explanation:

This revised offer provides for the facility to be delivered but enables time to establish, as part of a wider transport strategy for Penzance, if the site is the right location and best park and ride solution for Penzance.

Justification/Background: 

The need for a Park and Ride was originally identified in the Penwith Parking Solutions Report 2005; and subsequently in the Aecom Study (2010) and the draft Penzance and Newlyn Framework (2011).

The above is very important, as I don’t think many people realise that when you go along to one of Cornwall Councils “Consultations” and look at the pretty maps, and fill in the loaded questionnaire, what happens next. Your views are added into a report, report accepted by Cornwall Council, that’s it, you have agreed that Penzance needs a Park & Ride, all the sites identified as being possible for development are now development sites, developer comes forward with application, outcry from everyone, but because you did not object at the “Consultation” you have already agreed to it, it’s in the plan. So when you go to a “Consultations” ( very few do) look at what it is you are agreeing to.

Park and Ride facilities encourage more people to make trips by bus.

 In addition to this proposed facility, there is a proposal to consider the feasibility of providing a Park and Ride facility at Eastern Green which forms part of the draft Penzance and Newlyn Framework (2011).

The Park and Ride site would be targeted at longer term parkers such as employees, day-trippers and ferry passengers thus freeing up parking capacity for short term parkers such as shoppers and other users of the town centre.

The siteing of a P&R at Eastern Green could also provide the option of walking or cycling along the beachfront into the town centre. However its final location and introduction should be part of a wider strategy that has considered complementary actions such as: rationalising parking in central Penzance, establishing a residents parking scheme and a public parking pricing strategy designed to increase the sustainability of the park and ride and discourage inappropriate long-stay parking in and around the town centre particularly the impact of employee car parking within the existing residential areas which will be achieved through the draft Penzance and Newlyn Framework (2011).

Pros: 

• The revised offer provides for the delivery of the facility but offers flexibility in its execution.
• It fits well with the proposed Transport strategy within the draft Penzance and Newlyn Framework (2011).
• Opportunities to support other town centre initiatives/developments
• Potential to alleviate existing parking pressure in Penzance
• Replaces ad-hoc and unmanaged parking solutions within the town to enable economic and regeneration benefits.
• Existing scheduled bus services provided by First and Western Greyhound pass the site
• Site offered is accessible and available on the main approach to town
• Development provides new destination which should be attractive to commercial bus operators
• The Section 106 offer allows flexibility over delivery.

Cons: 

• Early implementation would rely on current bus service level which might not meet target users needs
• Will require strong marketing and support to ensure people use it.

Bus Stops & link Jelbert way

Original Offer: 

Contribution of £213,000 to cover cost of constructing bus stops and pedestrian link between store and

Jelbert Way

Revised offer:

Contribution to cover cost of new bus shelters, pedestrian link and real time information. Savings achieved (to be confirmed by Sainsbury’s £150K) from not constructing lay-bys.

Opportunity for funding to be transferred to other town centre mitigation measures.

Bus Fares

Offer: 

Contribution of £75,315 to subsidise reduced fare stage on buses between site and town centre for a 15 year period

Revised Offer:

£75,315 to subsidise a reduced fair stage from Lugvan to Penzance via Eastern Green and return.

This bus route is under threat, part of the proposed Sainsbury development falls within Lugvan Parish. Will enable people from Lugvan/Longrock to access Penzance Town Centre on a subsidised bus route.

Linkage Improvements Offer: 

Contribution of £225,000 to cover costs of linkage improvements on A30

Current Position: Financial offer remains same but Sainsbury’s to revise proposals to focus on changing environment on A30. e.g reduction of  carriageway widths and provision of better pedestrian links along carriageway to enable reduction in speed limit.

Justification/Background: 

Approach to Penzance is widely accepted to be very poor.

The carriageway looks like an urban motorway with little thought or space given to pedestrians and other users. 

The Framework seeks to create a prominent “boulevard” with enhanced pedestrian, cycling and landscaping features to improve the environment and provide a high quality gateway into Penzance enticing visitors into the town rather than past it.

Pros:

• Proposed reduction in speed from 50 to 30mph between Branwell Roundabout and new store roundabout.
• Improved safety and environment for pedestrians and cyclists.
• Initiates the transformation of the entrance to Penzance.
• First phase towards significant environmental and visual improvements.
• Better pedestrian and cycle routes improve sustainability and health.

Cons:

• Funding proposed would not deliver the complete transformational change envisioned for all of the A30.
• Will require further contributions from other development and sources to improve whole length between Bramwells and Chy-an-Mor.

Replacement Signage

Offer: 

Contribution of £20,000 for replacement signage as required by Highways Agency

Current position:

Highways Agency to advise if costs can be reduced and if so any savings to be savings to be transferred to other mitigation measures.

Justification/Background: 

Signage on the A30 Trunk Road currently directs users to the Heliport site. The loss of the service from the site means these signs will need to be modified. This is a must do requirement.

Pros:

• Required to properly inform traffic users

Cons:

• This is a development cost  rather than of wider public benefit

Contribution to Business Improvement District (BID) Set Up

Offer: 

Contribution of £35,000

Revised Offer:

Contribution of £35,000 to be used to enhance the vitality and viability of the town centre through alternative means.

Justification/Background:

 BID identified by Stakeholders as appropriate. 

It may however be beneficial to review all options available to boost the town centre; alternate opportunities need to be allowed for in the audit of how the contribution is utilised.

Pros:

• A degree of flexibility exists over how the £35,000 is used to enhance the vitality and viability of the town centre.
• A BID could be an option
• Intended to be self financing after start up
• Intended to provide a wider impact than a town centre manager function
• Shown to be successful in other Cornish towns
• Led by local businesses
• Other options need to fully explored first to maximise the effectiveness of the whole town centre contributions package.

Cons:

• Funding will have to be identified to a specific activity that is CIL  compliant
• Need to gain support from local businesses.

Subsidised Town Centre Car Parking

Offer: 

Contribution of £152,000

Current offer:

Contribution of £152,000

Flexibility over the timing and use of the contribution to allow the Town to develop a strategy to secure the maximum benefit from the contribution.

Justification/Background:

Most popular element from Stakeholder meeting.

Based on previous events this would allow up to 19 full day free parking events across all car parks in the town centre. Alternate mixes could include a focus on specific car parks such as Causeway Head which would enable the funding the be used on more days.

Pros:

• Popular
• Can significantly boost town centre trade especially if used strategically and in conjunction with other town centre events, activities and marketing
• Within Councils control – has backing from Cornwall Councils Community Transport Manager.

Cons:

• Expensive and will only support  a number of events
• Requires advertising to be effective

Specialist Advice and Support to Penzance Town Council

Offer:

Contribution of £15,000 for Penzance Town Council to promote the vitality and viability of town centre.

Revised Offer:

Contribution of £15,000 remains but scope widened over funding use providing it remains CIL compliant.

Justification/Background: 

Opportunity for Town Council to have access to technical expertise to help develop strategies and initiatives.

Pros:

• Expertise can be invaluable and prevent pitfalls
• Raises and focuses awareness of potential current opportunities

Cons:

• Lack of support from Town Council
• Needs a clearer focus on delivery of practical benefits that will help enhance the town centre rather than focusing on strategies or reports for reports sake.

From the above you can see that this is a major change in the proposals, Sainsbury’s are currently talking to their legal team to ensure that these revised proposals meet all the requirements of a Sec 106 (Cil) agreement, and are robust enough to withstand a legal challenge from other developers.   

Sainsbury's Sec106, Benefits to Penzance

Last night Penzance Town Council had a Special Full Town Council Meeting to discuss the Section 106 agreement and Food / Other goods split regarding Sainsbury’s Supermarket to be built on the heliport site.

[Section 106 of the Act, in conjunction with DoE Circular 5/05, allows for Local Planning Authorities and persons interested in land to agree contributions, arrangements and restrictions as Planning Agreements or Planning Obligations. Applicants can offer such agreements unilaterally or negotiate and agree them as support for their application to make it accord with local planning requirements, but without some of the rigorous controls of Planning Conditions under s 70(1).

It relates to monies paid by developers to Local Planning Authorities in order to offset the costs of the external effects of development. For example, if a developer were to build 100 new houses, there would be effects on local schools, roads etc., which the Local Authority would have to deal with. In that situation there might be a Section 106 agreement as part of the granting of planning permission. The developer might agree to make a contribution towards the provision of new schools.]

The Town Council are rarely if ever consulted on these agreements, but this time we were to be consulted because when this application came before the Strategic Planning Committee at Cornwall Council part of the resolution proposed and passed was that Sainsbury’s had to negotiate with Penzance Town Council & Ludgvan Parish Council on the retail split and sec 106. (Something I wrote about in a previous blog…. Here).

So all is good……… Sadly no, in fact a very big NO.

The first big problem is what the resolution of Cornwall Council was….?

Having viewed the web cast of the meeting many times (available here   at 2hrs 52mis to 2hrs 57mins)

My reading of this is “to pass the application with the condition that Sainsbury’s negotiate the retail split with Penzance Town Council & Ludgvan Parish Council proposed by Cllr A Wallis, and the section 106 agreement added by the chairman of the meeting, and a failure to do so, the application was to return to the Strategic Planning Committee”.

The Minutes of the Meeting do not reflect the above resolution.

Representatives of Penzance Town Council & Ludgvan Parish Council were asked to a meeting (in Camborne), by officers of Cornwall Council, the purpose of the meeting was to consult, the Town Clerk and two members attended along with two members from Ludgvan. Two officers of Cornwall Council, Sainsbury’s representative, a representative of JBP planning and a rep from British International Helicopters, were in attendance. The meeting was not productive, with Cornwall Council and Sainsbury’s making it very clear that they were not prepared to vary their original proposals. The Councillors and the Town Clerk were then put under pressure to make a decision on behalf of the Town Council but where steadfast in not doing so, and in fact had no mandate to do so. Remember this meeting was meant to be about consultation not negotiation.

A long way to get to last nights meeting, in fact this was the first chance the Town Council had to discuss the Section 106 agreement, the details of which where only made known to the council the day before the Strategic Planning Meeting.

So what are we talking about….

SAINSBURY'S SUPERMARKETS LTD & BRITISH INTERNATIONAL

HELICOPTER SERVICES LTD

PROPOSED MIXED USE DEVELOPMENT ON LAND AT PENZANCE HELIPORT

PA10/08714

S106 HEADS OF TERMS

Transportation

Item 1. Dedication to Cornwall Council of land with access rights through the Sainsbury's site for the purposes of constructing a Park and Ride facility (250 spaces).

Financial contribution to Cornwall Council to cover the cost of constructing the Park & Ride. (£1,200,000)

Item 2. Financial contribution to Cornwall Council to cover the cost of constructing two double length bus stops on Jelbert Way and pedestrian links to the Sainsbury's site before the store opens for trading. (£213,000)

Item 3. Financial contribution to subsidise a reduced price fare stage on public buses between the application site and Penzance town centre. (£75,315)

Item 4. Financial contribution to cover the costs of linkage improvements on A30 Eastern Green including a new at-grade crossing of A30 Eastern Green with the works to be completed before the store opens for trading. (£225,000)

Item 5. Financial contribution to cover the cost of replacement signage on the A30 Chy-an-Mor roundabout as required by the Highways Agency. (£20,000)

Town Centre

Item 6. Financial contribution to cover the costs of setting up the Penzance Business
Improvement District. (£35,000)

Item 7. Financial contribution to cover the costs of free or subsidised parking events for town centre car parks between September and May inclusive. (£152,000)

Item 8. Advice and support to Penzance Town Council on a strategy to promote the vitality and viability of Penzance town centre. (£15,000)

Item 9. Free in-store advertising space for town centre businesses.

A055583/SC   17 October 2011

A total of £1,935,315 that is a lot of money, all of the above was negotiated with Sainsbury’s by officers of Cornwall Council without any reference to any elected member and what a good job they have done for the highways department.

Item 1 & 2.  A Park & Ride for Penzance cost £1,200,000.

£1.2 million to turn a car park into a car park? Does Penzance need a park & ride? I was not sure about this so I sent an e-mail to the officer concerned to ask on what data was the decision made that Penzance required a Park & Ride (remember Cornwall Council are spending £9.5 million on a Park & Ride at St Erth just up the road), a week later I got a reply, well I didn’t in fact, I got an e-mail saying something else, so by return I sent a further e-mail asking the same question, 16 days later and no reply, I submitted a Freedom of Information request,( FOI’s cost you and I £350), why can’t you just answer an e-mail. Still waiting.

But this money is just for the building the Park & Ride, where are the funds coming from to operate it?

Item 3. £213,000 to build a bus stop.

WHAT, and that sum does not include any land cost, this is going to be some bus stop.

Item 4. Subsidise a reduced price fare stage on public buses between the application site and Penzance town centre. £75,315

Cheap bus to get you to and from their Supermarket. Big benefit to the town.

Item 5. Linkage improvements on A30 Eastern Green £225,000.

A roundabout on the A30 so you can get to our store.

Item 6. Replace signs on roundabout. £20,000

Going to have to anyway, they say that there’s a heliport down the road.

Town Centre

Item 7. Financial contribution to cover the costs of setting up the Penzance Business Improvement District. (£35,000)

Penzance has not decided if it wants to be a Business Improvement District. If it did this money would go to Cornwall Council.

Item 8. Financial contribution to cover the costs of free or subsidised parking events for town centre car parks between September and May inclusive. (£152,000)

I’m not sure what this means, but I do know that the money goes to Cornwall Council

Item 8.  Advice and support to Penzance Town Council on a strategy to promote the vitality and viability of Penzance town centre. (£15,000)

Thanks guys.

So let’s get this straight of the £1,935,315 for Penzance 98% goes to Cornwall Council and you tell us how to spend the other 2%.

Not such a great deal for Penzance.

We had an interesting meeting, I’m not going to post here (yet) what our plans are, as I wish to keep Cornwall Council Officers as much in the dark as they like to keep us. But I can assure you this is going to run and run.

Update: Penzance Town Council did return to the table and you can read  the outcome  Here 

Tesco's and Sainsbury’s

In the council chamber at the Tory led Cornwall Council today the outcome of two planning applications were heard by the Strategic Planning Committee with two different outcomes.

Tesco's  were applying to extend their store in Penzance, Tesco's have to some extent fallen foul of their own success, in that when they built the store they underestimated  the popularity of the store and now need to extend, I’m sure also that they have an eye over their shoulder at the Sainsbury application, currently Tesco's are limited to the range of goods they can sell at the store, being restricted pretty much to foodstuffs, expanding would enable them to increase the range of other goods on sale (more on this later), the problem for Tescos is that the only way to expand was onto a greenfield site Ponsandane field. Penzance Town Council had voted against the application. Greenfield site building by supermarkets is always going to be a hard one to win and in due course the application was refused.

Sainsbury’s application was different, a new store on a brown field site, (I know the heliport is actually a green field) so the issues on this application are different, it may come as a surprise to some people (including a few councillors) but building a new supermarket next to an existing one are not grounds to turn down an application, that’s a commercial decision for the applicant, the main point of discussion was what the store would sell, what! you may be thinking, but what the store intends to sell is very important as it will affect its impact on town centre shopping and this may well be grounds for refusal, as mentioned above Tesco’s range of goods is restricted by size, this will not be the case with Sainsbury’s,  and they wish to have a 60/40 split, that’s 60% of floor space given over to food retailing and 40% to other goods, its these other goods that have the most impact on town centres, there was a lot of discussion over the numbers with Cllr Andrew Wallis, Helston South & Porthleven, http://cllrandrewwallis.blogspot.com/, determined to get the number down to 80 – 20 which would be a very good result for the town centre, at one point asking the Sainsbury’s rep if he would be happy to lose the application by not going to this 80 – 20 split, this rather took the wind out of the rep’s sails, in the end saying he could not answer. Another area for debate was the Section 106 agreement (or planning gain) this is something negotiated with the applicant to offset their impact on the location they are building in, this had been negotiated with the applicant by officers at the Tory led Cornwall Council without any consultation with the Town Council, the information of the detail only being available to the Town Council the day before the meeting, it so happened that the town, by good luck, had a planning meeting that night, voting in favour of the application, but voicing concerns over the fact that 85% of the planning gain in value was going into a roundabout (to allow access to the store) and other highways work, not a lot of gain for the town in that. The town decided to send a member to the meeting to voice these concerns and Cllr John Pender did a very good job in presenting the towns position.

A lot of quite honestly in places poor debate followed, the problem with a single council is that a committee like this one, has many members who have very little if any knowledge of the town they are making decisions  about, after 4 hours debating the two applications, Cllr Wallis proposed that the application be approved on the condition that Sainsbury’s hold discussions with the Town Council regarding the food retail split and the section 106 agreement, before the Officers had a chance to realise what was happening the resolution was passed.

Now I should say at this point that the town council was also so surprised that we have asked for a copy of the precise resolution, because if it is as detailed above it’s a landmark decision, giving the power to the town council to negotiate directly with the applicant on two very important issues, something that the towns have never had a chance to do.

I look forward to the trail of Cornwall Council officers from planning, highways and legal making their way to Penzance Town Council to watch as the Town negotiate. This will be localism in action, but not I expect as the Tory led Cornwall Council and its officers ever imagined.  

Thank you Cllr A Wallis, you may have just made a precedent that will give localism its true meaning.