Agenda and draft minutes

To receive apologies for absence and notification of substitutes (if any).

There were apologies for absence from Councillor George Cornah and Deborah Evans.  Councillor Judith Skinner was substituting for Councillor Evans.

To receive declarations of interests in respect of any item on the agenda.

Councillor Paul Goodale declared that he was a Member of the Town Board.

The Cabinet minute and report are attached with the Call In form.

The report author, Tim Leader, Deputy Chief Executive (Strategy), and the Portfolio Holder, Councillor Nigel Welton, will be in attendance at this meeting.

At its meeting on 9^th September 2020, Cabinet received a report by the Deputy Chief Executive (Strategy) on PE21: The Next Steps.  After debate, Cabinet made three decisions, which were set out in the Minutes and circulated to Members in the usual way.  The Cabinet report and Minute (93) were appended to the report as Appendices A & B. 

The Cabinet decision was:

In accordance with the established procedure, one of the executive decisions on the report was called in within the five-day time period and by the stipulated number of Members. 

The reasons given for the call-in were:

·         All Elected Members should have been consulted prior to the decision being made

·         All information relating to the project should have been made available

·         No presentation had been made to the Corporate and Community Committee

·         There were no indication of costs in the 2020/21 Budget and MTFS

A copy of the call-in form was attached to the report at Appendix C.

The meeting had been arranged to enable the Committee to consider the called-in issue in accordance with the call-in protocol and decide whether the decision should be called-in (and referred to Cabinet or Council) or allowed to stand and take effect.

Invited to address the Committee, the Deputy Chief Executive (Strategy) explained that the Chief Executive had tasked him six weeks previously to deliver the PE21 project as part of the strategy for the regeneration of Boston. PE21 was especially significant because it was a critical component of the Town Fund bid, which was taking shape and would be presented to the Secretary of State that month. It was imperative to move forward with it.

Once fully up-to-date with the current the state of the scheme, the Deputy Chief Executive (Strategy) had made this report to Cabinet. However, a significant amount of work needed to be undertaken in a short amount of time in order to persuade the Secretary of State that the bid was one that was worthy of investment in order for it to succeed.  In addition, if the bid was not successful, there would be a fallback plan to regenerate this important and prominent, under-used 10-acre site in the near future.

The specific decision that had been called-in related to the site of the Geoff Moulder Leisure Complex (GMLC).  Deputy Chief Executive (Strategy) explained that this was not a decision as such; it simply indicated that the Council would contemplate the leasing of the site to Boston College in principle.

The provisional master plan referred to a project to be advanced by parts of the NHS for the re-siting and combination of three doctors’ practices and the outpatients’ service of Pilgrim Hospital.  They wanted to bring these  ...  view the full minutes text for item 47.