Issue - meetings

[Report of the Director for Planning, Regeneration and Development. To be introduced by the Cabinet Member for Corporate Resources.]Cabinet to consider  the Council's Future  office accommodation requirements and recommendations.

The Cabinet Member for Corporate Resources introduced the report which proposed relocating the Council office towards the Clarendon Road/ Coburg Road area, to release prime accommodation for redevelopment and to encourage a significant footfall to walk away from the High Street, creating depth to the currently narrow retail strip and meeting regeneration objectives for Wood Green.

Cabinet noted that existing accommodation is deteriorating, expensive to run and no longer fit for purpose. No one building was of sufficient size to accommodate the requirements of the Council in the future. The existing office sites were included in the Haringey Development Vehicle. In order to enable that development to take place the buildings will need to be vacated. Moving to a single new building would create an opportunity to save on the Council’s revenue costs, reduce the amount of space the Council occupies and its Carbon footprint.

In response to Councillor Engert’s questions it was noted:

• Cross Rail 2 update  – public consultation on November 17^th  in the borough ,by  that time council will have knowledge on a preferred route , and  there are more positive soundings about a north/ west  branch of the route.

• In relation to the £10m allocation to the new Council building, given the Council’s commitment to Wood Green regeneration, having a stake in the regeneration in wood green, though significant landholding is required to support regeneration and the same strategy that has been followed in Tottenham.

• Current staff numbers were 2703.

RESOLVED

1. To note that a bid for £425,000 from the Transformation Fund has been submitted to Resources Priority Board in order to appoint a Programme Team to deliver the Future Ways of Working programme to complete the business case over the remainder of 2016/17. The business case will be brought back to Cabinet with a five year plan for the delivery of the programme;

2. That the head leasehold interest in the sites set out in Part B of this report be acquired by the Council.  A budget of up to £10m is approved to acquire both head leases from the Council’s site acquisition fund. That the final price and heads of terms for both sites be delegated to the Director of Regeneration, Planning and Development in consultation with the Section 151 officer and Lead member for Corporate Resources;

3. That if the headlesses cannot be acquired, then in the alternative, a joint venture be agreed with the head lesses in order to procure the building of both sites or either site within the same budget as in (b), and the heads of terms of the joint venture be delegated to the Director of Regeneration, Planning and Development in consultation with the Section 151 officer and the Lead member for Corporate Resources.

4. That the sites identified in Part B of this report be included as a site for the HDV and become part of the Competitive Dialogue process and to note that the details of the delivery of the new office development will be reported at a  ...  view the full minutes text for item 98