FUTURE OF THE ASSET - UPDATE (Report of the General Manager, Alexandra Palace) To advise the Committee on progress, and for the Committee to consider those matters to be considered by the Board at a special meeting on 24 July 2006.
Minutes:
The Chair asked the General Manager – Mr Holder to give his verbal update to the meeting.
The General Manager – Mr Holder advised that he was tabling a letter from the Board’s Project Team legal advisers in respect of the negotiations with the Firoka Group in respect of the lease, and the letter outlined the current state of play.
The Chair felt that the Advisory Committee should consider the contents of the letter prior to the General Manager commencing his introduction. The Committee then took an approx. 10 minute break from 19:50HRS to 20:04HRS to consider the contents of the letter. Members drew the General Manager’s attention to the fact that on the very last page there appeared to be some text missing from their copies.
Mr Holder then read out the details of the missing text which were suitably annotated by those present.
In a succinct introduction Mr Holder advised that the Board of Trustees would consider the draft lease, draft project agreement and draft employment and pension agreement at its special meeting on 24th July 2006. Mr Holder advised that the recommendations in the brief overarching report to those documents were - that the board formally resolve to request from the Charity Commission an order under sec. 36 of the Charities Act allowing the lease to be granted and - that authority to settle any outstanding drafting issues be delegated to the General Manager.
Mr Holder advised that this was the last opportunity for the Advisory Committee to provide its advice to the Board prior to that formal consideration and resolution. Mr Holder stressed that there will, of course, be ample opportunity through subsequent processes for comment about the actual plans once these were completed by Firoka.
Mr Holder went on to state that the letter before the Advisory Committee was almost the same as the one being presented to the trustees as an interim report on 24 July., though the letter had been sanitised to the extent that commercially confidential information arising in the bid process had been removed. The content of the letter was consistent in all other respects. Mr Holder commented that the entire negotiations had been based on the complete footprint as attached to the statutory instrument providing the wider powers of leasing. The same footprint was also publicised throughout the Park following the resolution of the Board on 27 March 2006 to seek sec.36 (6) representations. Having received those representations the board considered them at its meeting on 4th July. The board resolved not to vary its previous resolution in respect of the total development footprint.
In taking the Committee through the letter’s contents Mr Holder highlighted that in essence it set out the current state of play. Mr Holder felt that it should be noted that all discussion and negotiation with Firoka had been on the basis of the concepts originally described and there had been no changes from those submitted. The letter also provided an explanation of ... view the full minutes text for item 7