Agenda item

To provide an update on the Tottenham and Wood Green landowner groups and to set out the next steps to be taken in line with the new Borough Plan.

Peter O’Brien, Assistant Director for Regeneration, and Steve Carr, Assistant Director for Economic Development & Growth, provided the Panel with an update on the Tottenham and Wood Green Landowners Group. The Tottenham group had been ceased and the Wood Green group was still operational but had not met recently. However, there are future proposals on business engagement as part of the new Borough Plan including through the Business Pledge and close engagement with various local business networks.

Cllr Gordon said that the Panel’s main concerns on this issue were more about the feeling in parts of the local community that developers were getting a large amount of access to lead officers and that lessons needed to be learnt about maintaining transparency about these relationships. Peter O’Brien said that efforts had been made at an early stage to ensure transparency of the Tottenham group including by publishing the minutes of the meetings online and including Member representation on the group. In the context of Area Action Plans (AAPs), including the Wood Green AAP which is currently in development, planning policy requires the local authority to engage with landowners and developers and the AAP can’t be delivered without doing this.

Asked about the Wood Green landowners’ forum, Peter O’Brien said that it is not currently meeting and there had not been a meeting since the Scrutiny Panel has been looking into this issue. This is because a lot of work was currently being done in-house on the Wood Green AAP so there is not anything to consult about at the moment. However, when proposals had been developed it would be necessary to engage with landowners again.

Councillor Zena Brabazon joined the meeting at this point commenting that the Tottenham landowner group was not an exercise in democracy as it had been discovered by chance and the minutes were posted online two to three months after the meetings after community pressure. The community concern was that, with the Council also as a major landowner, the group looked like a cartel. Peter O’Brien responded by saying that the while the Council has influence and power as a landowner it does not own everything and has to look strategically at how AAPs can be developed and delivered. As part of the Wood Green AAP the Council was looking at working in different ways, how to use assets to achieve outcomes and working with local community groups.

Asked whether there were criteria/guidelines on who qualifies for membership of the Wood Green group, Peter O’Brien said that AAP site allocations are made to portions of land and it is the owners of that land who are included in the group. Asked why Argent were included in the Tottenham group despite not owning any of the local land, he said that this was due to the initial appointment of Robert Evans as the Chair after the Tottenham riots as part of the efforts to secure investment at that time, including because of his background of previous redevelopments such as at Kings Cross.

On the terms of reference for the Wood Green landowners group, Peter O’Brien said that that the draft terms of reference had been taken to the Housing & Regeneration sub-group 2-3 months previously. Asked why these had not been attached to the report for this meeting he said that it was likely that they had been attached to a previous report to the Panel. (ACTION – Dominic O’Brien to check this).

AGREED: That the report be noted.

AGREED: That the Terms of Reference for the Wood Green landowners group be circulated to Panel members.