Thanet council’s agreement to sell the Pierremont Park depot in Broadstairs to the highest bidder, rejecting a town council offer, has been ‘called-in’ for scrutiny by the authority’s overview panel.
It has also been the subject of a protest held yesterday (August 14) by upset campaigners and residents who had hoped the site would come under the wing of the town council to provide community uses.
Thanet council published notice last week that it had accepted “the highest financial offer obtained,” after the depot site, without the access road, was marketed with a price tag of £475k.
The price achieved is not listed, other than “the preferred offer exceeds realistic commercial expectations (£300,000 to £315,000),” and there is no indication of the buyer’s identity as yet.
The town council bid, which was lower than the figure noted above, included a social value element, including retaining the depot for use by town council staff and the community for gardening.
However, Thanet council says the town council offer was rejected because it “was significantly below two independent professional valuations, as well as two other commercial offers, which were both considerably higher.”
The authority added: “While local authorities can consider community benefits in certain circumstances, strict legal rules mean non-monetary benefits cannot replace direct financial value unless they deliver clear, cash-equivalent savings to the council.”
Councillors have now asked the chair of Thanet council’s scrutiny committee, Cllr Phil Fellows, for an ‘extraordinary’ meeting to be held to call in the decision for further discussion.
A council “call-in” is a formal local government procedure that allows non-executive councillors to pause and review a significant Cabinet decision after it is made but before it takes effect.
The call-in has now been granted with a meeting due to be held in the next fortnight.
Cllr Fellows said: “As chair of Overview and Scrutiny, I was contacted by members of the council regarding the decision to dispose of the Pierremont Depot in Broadstairs.
“I was presented with a number of reasons why members felt that this decision should be called back into Overview and Scrutiny. Personally, I felt there were sufficient reasons and public interest to go ahead with a call-in.
“I presented those concerns to the TDC monitoring officer. Subsequently, the monitoring officer has contacted me and agreed that the decision can be called in and debated at an Extraordinary Overview and Scrutiny meeting to be convened within the next two weeks.”
Yesterday The Friends of Pierremont Park, who had been campaigning for the site to be kept for community use, held a protest to demonstrate their opposition to the sale.
Members gathered at Pierremont Park and were joined by residents, town and district councillor Mike Garner and county councillor John Finch. Among the protestors were many who had dressed as suffragettes – a movement in the early 20th century which used direct action and civil disobedience to win women the right to vote – and Tricia Hamilton (pictured below), the wife of the late Jack Hamilton who was the founder of Broadstairs Folk Week.
Friends group member Lorraine Williams said: “The march was well attended with people of all ages and backgrounds carrying homemade banners, several had taken the trouble to don suffragette costumes.
“The public response was amazing with people giving us thumbs ups from the start as we were gathering in the park and a big round of applause from the audience at the bandstand when we arrived and did our die-in – in support of ‘the unimportant trees.’
“We had printed some leaflets which folk were coming up and asking us for and some children with their grandmother ended up handing them out to bandstand audience members as they also wanted to help.
“ Lots of people said to us “we know about this, we’re really concerned about it, you’re doing a great job raising awareness and we have to stop the council selling off this site which is needed to support the park”.
“The park itself was strewn with litter and full of weeds. It’s very obvious to everyone, except it seems TDC, that the depot site is badly needed as a base for future maintenance of this vitally important green space as well as the other green spaces in the town.
“The lack of comprehension of how important this is from decision makers at TDC has shocked us all and we will not be quiet about it. It may be that we need to seek a judicial review of the decision to sell to stop it going through.
“This land can only be used to benefit the park and the land registry clearly states that.
“Our next demonstration will be outside TDC offices before the Overview and Scrutiny meeting on 25 August.
“We will also speak at that meeting and encourage as many supporters as possible to attend.”
The former district council depot had been in use since the 1970s but TDC said it was “vacated due to its condition and its location, which is too far out from the council’s main depots to continue as an operational basis.”
A decision to market to site was agreed by council Cabinet members last year with notice that a bid had been accepted this month.
The council will retain ownership of the adjacent access road through Pierremont Park, although campaigners say they believe there will be disturbance by commercial development.
Last week Thanet council leader Rick Everitt criticised the opposition and questioned why the details of the town council bid were not being released.
He said: “It is time for the leadership of Broadstairs and St Peter’s Town Council to be honest about the size of the bid they made and the legal reasons which mean it could never have been accepted by the district council.
“This was set out in detail in a letter to them which they could release but haven’t. Why not? Town councillors, particularly those also on TDC, know that we have to follow the law.
“They should explain where they think the professional lawyers are wrong if they think we could have made a different decision, not just pretend that we could ignore the law because it suits them politically.”
Whitehead selling to her mates and then agree planning for house’s?
No piece of land is safe from her clutches!
Beat me to it! She doesn’t care about anthing or anyone that gets in the way of her unhealthy obsession with concrete.
Tdc have already dug deep into reserves, they’re currently panic spending to try and deal with the refuse collection fiasco. So they are going to need every penny they can get to limit the damage.
If they were’nt so blinkered the council would have approved its own olanning application and made the site worth more.
In a facebook post Ms. Whitehead appears to express the opinion that most households don’t pay enough council tax, along with their being no fat they can trim from any bone. So are we being lined up for a significant council tax increase if tdc get their way?
It is a sad shower of self serving, incompetent politicians (all parties) and senior management who have brought us to this sorry state – selling the silver to prop up the vanity projects and to hide the financial disaster they have created.
Everitt struggling to justify this mess, Whitehead out of her depth and Notso (Bright) nowhere to be seen since announcing the Pierremont grant before it had been through any proper decision process.
Bring on the May elections and reorganisation – fresh faces, fresh ideas.