 good evening and welcome to this this extraordinary meeting of South Cambridgeshire district council my name is councillor Peter Suntford I am the vice chair of the council I will be chairing this meeting in the absence of the chair of the council I propose to ask councillor Anna Bryddon to act as vice chair for this meeting could I ask for a seconder for that proposal Tilly Hawkins I think you were first hand up so thank you seconded by council Hawkins Can I take that decision by affirmation? Anyone against? Thank you. Councillor Bradner. Sorry members, there's a problem with the sound online. This meeting is being live streamed and recorded. We also allow recording, filming and photography so long as the meeting is not disrupted. Please ensure your phone is on silent. You should keep your microphone switched off until you were invited to speak. If participating remotely when you are invited to address the meeting please make sure your microphone and camera are switched on. Then when you have finished addressing the meeting please turn your microphone and camera off. Members attending remotely should indicate their wish to speak through a chat message in the Teams meeting. Those present in the Chamber should indicate their wish to speak by raising their hand. I will ask the Vice-Chair to note the order of speakers. The chat facility should not be used for any other purpose except where necessary to write down a simple amendment. Complex amendments should have been shared with democratic services in advance of the meeting. When we move to a vote on any item and there is not clear affirmation I will state that a recorded vote will be taken. Members in the Chamber will then vote electronically selecting for, against or abstain. The result will be displayed. This meeting is quarried so we will proceed. Item 1 on the agenda, Apologies. Are there any apologies for absence? Thank you, Chair. We have apologies from councillors. Hart, Hales, Handley, Ellington, Haling's, Leaming, MacDonald. Oh, my apologies. Sorry, I don't know where I got your name from. My apologies for councillor Ellington. Sorry who the record is here. If anyone else is here that is on my list, I'm very sorry, councillor Leaming, MacDonald, Stovart, Waters. Oh, it's going well. Drew, Wilson, Atkins, Ripth and Jacksonwood. Thank you and are there any members who are participating remotely? I can see that councillor Carla Hoffman is online. And councillor Fane. Don't go there. And councillor Fane is online as well, yes. Item 2, Declarations of Interest. You're ahead of me. Do any members have interests to declare in relation to any item of business on this agenda? Get to the Stovart. Chair, thank you. So I have another registrable interest as a board member of the SCIP partnership. I've taken advice from the monitoring officer. We've decided that it's best if I leave the meeting and leave you to the discussion. So I'll leave the meeting and wish you all well. Thank you very much, Chair. Thank you. Are there any other... councillor Batticharia. If an interest subsequently becomes apparent later in the meeting, please raise it at that point. Mr Maddo. Just for completeness, the director of Camborn Business Park Limited referred to a CBPL. That's everything. We're going to have a brief pause. Can we adjourn for one minute? Chair wishes to discuss the matter with the monitoring officer. Thank you everyone for your patience. We're now ready to resume the agenda. Next item, Exclusion of Press and Public. I would like to draw everyone's attention to the fact that the appendices in today's agenda contain exempt information. For this reason, the press and public will likely need to be excluded from the meeting during the consideration of those items of business. We will make that resolution when we reach that point and we will ensure all substantive votes are taken in public session. But, Chair, could I raise a point for the please? Councillor William. Thank you, Chair. Members might benefit from an explanation that we just had a declaration that the director of a company that stands to benefit, or at least is directly concerned in the matter before the council is present in the chamber. Councillor Stobart had to leave. I think it would be useful to get an explanation as to how this conflict is to be resolved. Sorry, we're going to have another brief adjournment to discuss this matter. Thank you, Chair. Mr Maddock will respond to Councillor William's point of order. Thank you, Chair. So, I've declared an interest as a director of Campbell Business Part Limities. My role here is effectively to support members in relation to the finances as they are pertain to the council. I therefore won't be commenting or feeling any questions in relation to Campbell Business Part Limities. Clearly, as an officer, I don't vote, and I'm not a member. So, I hope that that's acceptable to Councillor Williams. So, Chair, can I just... I think it's unfair that Mr Maddock has had to respond to that because it's not about Mr Maddock's birthday. It's about the office and the position he's been put in. So, I do think it's a clear conflict of interest, but it's not fair to put Mr Maddock personally in the position of having to respond to me because it's not actually about him. It would be better if the monitoring officer gave us his legal opinion on the problem. Mr Maddock's comments reflect the monitoring officer's opinion, but if Mr Murphy would like to add any further remarks. Thank you, Chair. I know Councillor Williams' comments, and I'll take them to heart next time, but I have nothing further to say beyond what Mr Maddock said. I think that is their declaration from an officer. Thank you. Thank you. I think we can now move on to item three on the agenda. Sir, the Cambridge Investment Partnership. Thank you. Councillor Bataigaria. Regarding the number two, I just wanted to ask that can I not give this meeting public? And if not, why not come on residents in the town, or the town members and the members of the public are not allowed to witness this meeting? Because it is the witness this meeting, and can I not add this report to my, can I add this report to my town council meeting? I mean the town council report. And if I write about this meeting to my town council report that I attended, how much transparent can I be on the report? Mr Murphy will respond to your question. Thank you, chair. Thank you for the question. A principle that I have repeatedly talked to officers and members about is that we want to be as transparent as possible and to do as much of our discussion in public as possible. We also have to be mindful of the law of the land, and the law of the land sets out definitions of information which is categorised as exempt. That means that in simple terms, we have to discuss them in private and exclude the press and the public. We have reflected, and something the chair may touch upon later when we come to the discussion, we want to encourage as much discussion as possible to be in the public section. Before I imagine, we will inevitably have to get into private because certain members may want to ask questions about the exempt information, as is your right, and I fully expect that there will be many questions. We will come back into public for the vote because it's very important that your constituents do see how people vote. As for your other question, and for your recording, as for how much you can report to your parish council and feedback on, I'd be delighted to sit with you tomorrow and explain, but the principle is that the paper is public, the vote will be public, and we won't have as much discussion in public as possible. But there are issues with the exempt information, and we must follow the law on that point. Thank you, chair. Can't do better, chair. Are you happy with that response? Councillor Heather Williams, I think you have a point. Thank you, chair. Just so we're all clear before we start, because this isn't the normal arrangement for things. How and when will it be made clear to us about, because normally it's you go into private session for an item, or you don't. Who's going to ring a claxon when it's time to go into private session? How's that vote going to be conducted? Because it does require a vote of majority of members to go into private section. How is that going to be handled? So we're all clear on procedure before we begin, chair. Thank you for your question. Alternate the chair will declare when we go into public session by majority vote, of course, of the members. But I will be taking advice from the monitoring officer. Thank you, chair. We don't know, and we're hoping that we're going to have the assistance of you, the members here tonight, because you will appreciate that we're following the law on the exempt information, and that is the point. We have to go into private session. I hope that members have come here and will have some questions in mind. I'm sure you have. I'm sure the chair and I would want to encourage people to think about what questions they have that can be debated in public, and there may even be questions on the private exempt information, which, if phrased differently, we can keep in the public domain, because that's what we want. But equally, there will be members. You've maybe got an idea of your questions. If you're certain that your question is about the exempt information, I'm hoping maybe with the chair's assistance, we can work out who has questions that we can do in public, and if we've exhausted that list, those remaining members with questions about exempt information with your cooperation, then we can go into private. I think it would be ill-judged if we started bouncing in and out of private, and also it would take a long time. So I'm hoping members can maybe self-asset what you have and what you want to ask and phrase things the way that we can do with all the public questions, and then move into private. Thank you, Jay. Thank you, Mr Murphy. I think I can resume the agenda. Item three, South Cambridge Investment Partnership. Investment at Campbell, starting at page five of the pack. My vice-chair has helped me point it out that the restricted papers start at page 15. Correct. So there's a lot of restricted information. Before we start, I'd like to ask members that when we start the debate, we'll start with any discussion points that we can take in public. I prefer to minimise debate taken privately. So if you could prioritise your questions accordingly, please. This point I'd like to call on Councillor Bridget Smith, leader of the council to present the report and move the recommendations. Thank you very much indeed, chair. So I'd just like to begin by thanking both our officers and our consultants for all the work they've done to get us to this point. It's been a considerable amount of work, and I'm extremely grateful for it. It has been work of a very, very high calibre and a very high intensity. So back in 2018, when Liberal Democrats took control of this council, one of the first things we did was we, the Cabinet and members of the leadership team at the time, were piled into a minibus and bounced all the way round to Eastley, which is a council with an outstanding reputation for acting as a major developer and delivering housing. We'd heard a lot about Eastley, and we went down to see how they did it. Their record of housing delivery, of high standard housing delivery and of affordable housing delivery is noted nationally. So having seen them and talked to them at length, we came back enthused with their ambition and their vision, and as part of our, we now at the point with this council, with the significant improvements we've made with this council, that we are now confident that we are in a really, really good place to not compete with Eastley because they do things on an absolute mammoth scale, but to do what is appropriate for South Cambridgeshire. So, as you'll be aware from the papers, we were part of acquiring the land opposite these offices in Cambor, which is a very, very successful new town where it's quite difficult to buy the house for sale because actually people who come here really like it, and therefore our vision of delivering an exemplary development within Camborn I think will sit very comfortably within this already very successful town. So it was one of our overarching aims that this development should be built to the very highest energy efficiency standards. And at the time when we were working on this vision was before we were in a cost of living crisis. So, you know, it was, it's always been one of our ambitions that we are responsible for approving and delivering in our own right housing that's truly affordable for people to live in. They're not giving half their money to electricity companies that actually they are freeing up as much of their disposable income as they can to actually enjoy life rather than just have it all invested in the necessities of life. Since we've had the cost of living crisis which doesn't show any signs of going away any time soon this imperative to deliver homes that are affordable for people to live in becomes ever more critical. So the affordable rented houses will have triple glazed windows, passive purple membrane about which I now know quite a lot because it delivers fantastic levels of air tightness, mechanical ventilation heat recovery, nylon compact P, ventilation and heating systems, footable panels on the roof and upgraded cavity insulation thickness to the external walls. And the result will achieve 100% reduction against the government's building regulations part L 2021 baseline. And it's this council that will be funding the upgrade on those affordable houses because we believe it is right, it is a moral obligation that the housing, the affordable housing we are delivering is as affordable as possible for people to live in because actually it's going to be people on lower incomes who are living in those houses. So it's an absolute imperative that their lives are as affordable as possible. So the original reason for building to these very high environmental standards is that it's demonstrative of the council's commitment to being green to our core. And it's a really important signal to developers right across the district and all those developers who are eyeing us up in light of Michael Gove's Cambridge 2050 vision about what we expect of them, what standards we want in South Cambridgeshire. We want to get the message through them very, very strongly that we're not engaging in a race at the bottom when it comes to protecting our environment and we want this development to be an exemplar. So when people come and talk to us or talk to Michael Gove or his development corporation or whatever, we say, okay, if you want to see the sort of standards that we expect that we believe residents of South Cambridgeshire deserve, go and look at this development in Canborn because it will be exemplary and hopefully they will be knocking on the doors of people who will reiterate what a great place it is to live. So there'll be lots of new public spaces, a park, a new square, orchard and origin routes, which I'm looking forward to, to really sort of connect residents with nature within their community. And despite the government's recent lack of ambition when it comes to biodiversity net gain and the 10% that they're saying is all that developers have to achieve without exceptional circumstances, and we're told time and time again that the risk with only 10% is that the risk is it's missed altogether and you end up with a net loss. So by insisting that there is a minimum of 20% by diversity net gain, we want to deliver that ideally within Canborn, subject to some land transfers, so that's what we're aiming for. If we can't do it all within Canborn, then we'll be doing it as close to Canborn as we possibly can. So this development will deliver 40% affordable homes, that's 102 in total, of which 72 will be affordable and 30 will be shared ownership. A lot of people really like the shared ownership model. In my own village we can't deliver enough of them, it really works for our residents. Michael Gogh's own case for Cambridge has pointed out how high the housing inequality is across Greater Cambridge, and it does say, and we agree, that actually the people who suffer the most are young people. It's just impossible, unless you've got a very affluent bank of mum and dad to get on the housing ladder. So by building a really wide variety of affordable properties, and the details are all in the pack, we're building towards the needs of young people trying to get their first home and new families in need of more space and those who need accessible housing. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Smith. Can I now call for a seconder? Happy to second the motion and reserve my right to speak till the end. Thank you, Councillor Mills. Does anyone wish to speak on this item? Recognise Councillor Battagiorlia? Well, digital area. I'm just carrying a book here. I hope you all can see. Nearly 12,000 people, they spoke up their mind in 2017. There was a big survey in Cambon for a few months, and this is our parish plan, and this is a plan where people of Cambon they really put their minds out, what they actually want. So have you checked those? Have you actually checked the issues what Cambon people like to have it? I don't think so. There are 100 pages report on that, what they like, the survey, and there was... I mean, the people in Cambon asked for many things to upscale their life here. I do not think anything happened. But number 85, if you see here, they ask for business units, commercial units, industrial units, set up more business, they ask here, and strongly they ask for it. Instead, what they did not ask, extra housing on that business unit, that is happening. So what the people in Cambon they like to have, they like to ask, they are asking to the local government, instead of doing their jobs, they are just doing something what they do not need at all. They do not need something that is coming here and what they ask to the local authorities to have in their life to bring up their children, nothing given. So this is a parish plan anyone can see and look at into it. So it was a massive job happened that time. So a lot of information data and surveys reported there. Thank you councillor, next I call councillor Heather Williams. Thank you chair. Just before we carry on, I would like to remind the headline that was after the planning committee approved this, was 256 houses, despite ex-head teachers' warning of fatal accident waiting to happen. So before this proceeds, just try and remember the warnings we were given at the planning committee and I appreciate it has now got planning commission but there was very passionate representations at that meeting that this should not be going ahead and just because you can do something now you've got permission does not mean that you necessarily should do it and when these investment partnerships were presented to us it was how the council would have control it would be more about the more influence and yet what we see here is policy no more just policy level affordable homes at 40% something that you'd not expect to see if the council is involved you'd expect more. That was on the planning consent. There's reference to energy efficiency and chair I won't refer to the numbers but I would like members to look at page 25 for numerous reasons but a lot of the net zero cost are attributed to the affordable units and not the market so it would be good to know exactly how much is going to be spent on that market houses for greening purposes or perhaps they don't need to meet the same credentials as you're doing here so some more information around that because it's odd that it's separated for affordable but not market also on page 25 when we talk about the report I have real concerns about the quality of the decision that can be made today when I look at this so if you look at the rows and you look at the totals they're not in the right places it's in the wrong place I can't obviously refer you to which one perhaps you might want to get your calculators out because otherwise they'll probably say I've got to go into closed section but that's not for us to make decisions equally accessibility when reports come to us they need to be accessible and yet there are phrases in here which those of us that use it in our day to day lives or for accounting or legal perspectives yes but a lot of things parry palsy they're not things that are accessible to everybody so what steps have been done to ensure that all members here are fully able to make this decision and talking about easily perhaps there are two easily councils but should we really be taking the advice of a council that's been ordered by the government to reduce their debt and just before Christmas debt laden easily by our council votes for extra housing residents of Campbell don't want it I will share hopefully we'll be allowed to discuss at some point the rest of this pack because very little is actually not restricted Campbell residents don't want it we shouldn't be doing it it is not a social benefit this is to make profit and this is why we should never have taken that gamble with taxpayers money in the first place by doing these agreements it's a conflict and it's just wrong thank you council of and of a council of and of a please thank you very much this is a really really good development, a really high standards exemplary equality I'm really pleased to be able to support this today I'm particularly excited that there's 102 council homes being added to our stock that represent an increase of 2% or so to our housing stock really quite a significant amount 105% or so of our housing register could be housed there that's a really big achievement it's worth reflecting I think on the role of the council as a housing in the commercial housing sphere and which underlined some of the debate so far on commercial developers and taking this on why should we I'm very clear that we have different objectives to commercial developers we can take a different view on what could be achieved in development that does make it worth our while both commercially and in order to achieve our objectives if we are clear about what our rejections are if we are clear about the risks and take them seriously and mitigate them and if we take the decisions very carefully and that's what we're doing here so I'm very confident that there were because there was raised it's not a perfect development there never are there might be some missed opportunities but overall I think this is an excellent development and I'm really pleased to be able to support it thank you councillor Sue Wellington thank you I suppose my first question is why are we having an emergency meeting this is such a big decision it has been obviously in the planning for a considerable amount of time and suddenly it gets sprung on us and trying to read 300 in some odd pages over a couple of days is not practical or reasonable and what's more I didn't get any papers so I had to read them on my iPad which is not even worse so that's number one number two is I would like to express serious and I mean serious concerns about the planning permission in that all the effluent and surface water that comes off this site will end up in Utenstrove sewage works which is my village and it is already known to be overflowing and they have not got adequate provision to deal with another 256 houses I mean the idea of cutting it all the way across countryside seems a bit daft to me in the first place but that's the way it goes so I would like to I will be opposing this proposal on the grounds of inappropriate permission for drainage and I thought we were all worried about fresh water and we'd refuse planning permission for a number of things and we haven't got enough fresh water but it's okay to have another 256 houses if it's going to give us a bit of profit thank you Thank you Councillor Wellington just to respond to a couple of points this is an extraordinary meeting not an emergency meeting also the planning permission was granted several weeks ago for this site we are not reopening that decision at this point at this point Councillor Smith do you want to respond to any of the comments particularly Councillor Butterchari is Thank you chair so why is this an emergency emergency meeting why is an extraordinary meeting it's not an emergency meeting it's an extraordinary meeting it's because we are about to go into pre-election period and we wouldn't be able to have this meeting and that the delay to the start of the build will cost money so that's why it's imperative that we reach a decision as soon as possible so that hopefully if everybody approves it or a majority of people approve it that construction can start this summer and I just want to pick up on Councillor Heather Williams comment about are members well enough briefed are they in a position to make this decision beginning of this week started with a member briefing firstly for the conservative group to which I think only three people attended but also for the Liberal Democrat group Liberal Democrat group so there was a detailed Councillor Williams that meeting the briefing that was held it was expressed at some of us because it has been rushed we found out as it was being declared about this meeting not an advance in the normal way so there was no time to negotiate dates of briefings so I think it's that should be knowledgeable that this was rushed we were given no notice and actually we have parish councils we have to attend as well well the Liberal Democrat group had the same notification and they managed to attend if I may how does the leader know how many people were in a briefing which was attended by conservative members and officers how has that information gone back to the leader which has been used for political advantage I doubt any conservatives passed that information so we know what the Lib Dems had please I can probably tell you that I think you're missing the point leader so it's important to me that members are fully breathed on this because it's an important decision to take tonight and it's important that members are breathed so I shall continue if I may please so there was an accusation that we were that this is all about profit actually I think this is probably in the confidential papers but in order to deliver the highest quality energy efficiency actually South Cambridge is forgoing some of its profit in order to make sure that the houses are built to the highest energy efficiency standards and I think just in my notes if there's anything else I need to respond to so what's in it for people of Camborn so what's in it for people of Camborn well the marketing suite will turn into a cafe and we're in discussions to make sure that well try and ensure that that happens as early on in the development as possible and I'm sure residents of Camborn will be really pleased to have another cafe in the village there will be cycleways which we know the school and the village as a whole are calling out for park place and play space which again you know I'm pretty confident that the town of Camborn want in relation to the business site you know the reason that the use change was there was a change of use of the site was that it's down to market forces to deliver the employment sites and you know nobody done it it had been vacant for years and years and no applications had come forward at all to build employment space there so that was the justification for the change of use to residential Thank you Councillor Smith Councillor Cohn indicated you wish to speak Thank you chair on a separate point actually thank you so on page 29 where we talk about the affordable housing I'll keep it general the leader of the council talked about it being really important to go over and above when it comes to green in those houses because it benefits the affordable element and the residents that live then within them do you think we should have taken even less profit and decided to put more green in measures on the private shared equity houses which do fall within affordable housing bracket should we have gone over and above for those houses because when you have your government ministers come around to show them what is exemplar or not you might not show them the only some of the affordable houses because many of them are not the standards that you've just alluded to it's only the rental proportion not the shared equity that have the net zero carbon benchmark element to them thank you okay so the Smith you wish to respond thank you so I mean it's a question about viability but really but if I start with councillor John Batger John Batger on the question of shared ownership and its affordability the reason that we haven't further invested there is because we took the view that they would become unaffordable there's a very significant amount of money we've invested in the rental properties but a decision was made that the shared ownership to make them affordable we couldn't go to that level but let's not forget that the face the building standards have increased and the standard is much higher and that also we do meet all those chair can I come I accept the points that councillor Batger has made and I accept that there are the set standards but the point was that we were going over and above which we are not in the case of the shared equity houses we have made the provision on the rental affordable housing could we not make the same provision on the shared equity ones that does not have to be reflected in the value of the house if the council went above and beyond like the leader said to meet that cost well let's not forget that the HR the housing budget has to actually meet all the housing costs within itself so everything has to come out of rents and so on and so the amount of money that we can invest is controlled by that but I come back the affordability we have to be in a position where we can actually sell the shared ownership which without going into the numbers is a key element of how we are actually going to pay for the the overall build so less profit to the council like we are doing on the rental side we could do the same with the shared equity the affordable housing doesn't reflect on the overall business in that we are buying the houses this is an arms length business that we are buying the houses from arms length but we still have an influence on the rental side I think I've made my point I just wanted to reflect that affordable housing as a term in the context of Cambridge housing prices is clearly an issue that we wrestle with £580,000 for the average house price in the city a single bed apartment in Eddington £4,000 so this affordability even on a shared ownership basis is a key issue thank you thank you councillor Dr Richard Williams thank you chair I just want to make a few points I do have to say that before I make my comments I think that the most extraordinary breach of confidence has been revealed in this meeting and I would like to put on record my serious concerns and how members of my group can have trust and confidence in officers if our supposedly confidential briefings are being reported back to the leader of an opposing political party that is extremely serious I can't quite believe the leaders let slip in a public meeting then that's what's happening but there we go I think that's going to have to be addressed later on I would also just like to make one other point to just refer to the council authority company review guidance which says quite clearly that section 151 officers shouldn't be appointed as directors of companies because it can lead council owned companies because it can lead to exactly the sort of conflict of interest that poor Mr Maddox has been put in today so I would certainly urge the council to read that because it's quite clear that 151 officers shouldn't be directors of companies in terms of this development there are questions I would like to ask that probably to be asked in a private session because one of them refers to something on page 337 of the agenda so I just want to put that on the record I mean just generally it's all very well to talk about this is an example of our development that the council has gone above and beyond the council is only offering the minimum amount of affordable housing a lot of the material we have in front of us talks about profit and you're not supposed to use limited liability partnerships for profit as we've discussed previously all of the local members of Camborn were against this development including two Liberal Democrats and either of whom I think are here this evening the town council was against it it's a huge missed opportunity that South Commons council has brought forward a proposal that had so little support such a wasted opportunity Thank you Councillor Williams Thank you chair Councillor Richmond has been quite generous there because I would like to know immediately how the leader is obtaining things that are meant to happen in politically private briefings because I think that's that's a very serious situation and chair as you are meant to be independent in this I hope that yourself and the chair when he is better will look thoroughly into how all parties are being served appropriately because this is a very public way of displaying how they very much aren't and it's not the first time and we have had other things that have been out of line and un parliamentary as it were in relation to the housing it's quite clear from what Councillor Coen was saying you don't have to put the price of the shared ownership up you just have to be willing to take less profit and to be taking profit from affordable housing taking money out of the HRRA to give profit to the general fund through an arms length company is something that I think is actually immoral it's not the purpose of what it's there to do there are many other things many other ways in which this council has secured external funds over the years and on those now at least there is cross party support but this let's be very clear it's not wanted locally it's been forced on residents residents that have repetitively said no and yes chair you're right we're not here to rerun planning committee but as I said earlier just because you can do something doesn't mean you should if you start taking that approach to everything and it's happened a bit too much in this council for my liking you keep doing this that's a very slippery slope and I'd say that also goes for the impartiality of officers thank you councillor doctor buttercharya thank you very short very passionately I joined politics very passionately I came to the politics that I can change people's lives and you got that opportunity for many years and and you could have done you could have done a wonderful job that would have changed people's lives instead in the local newspaper last week we saw Cambon as a named as a toy town and the toy town it was named in the local newspaper because we do not have enough facility to run the town in eight years is a quite a long time when a whole generation can transform from one thing to another thing like the primary school children will go to the universities and to other cities and towns and they will not come back here for their for their living so how council is not paying attention to the public consultation and the town council itself and doing the things for their what they want you are coming up with a plan that Cambon town council opposed the town council are opposed the town clerk came here and represented everyone opposed so why we are coming up with a plan that Cambon town council Cambon people Cambon resident Cambon students, Cambon lives they are not liking it you just you just want to do it that's a question thank you I don't see any more requests to speak, Councillor Smith did you want to come back on any of those points well not really because I think it's perfectly obvious from the report why we're doing this I don't think it needs further explanation thank you which case Councillor Brian Millans would you like to close the debate yeah thank you chair so I'd just like to add my thanks to where the team involved several of them here Kathakonlin, Gerson Donaldson and Abe Wood, didn't hear this evening Peter Maddock and so on for their huge diligent work over an extended period of time bringing this to fruition and we are delighted that it's got to this stage it is something that we have wanted and planned for and worked very hard on delivering we've had several challenging issues of get over and the team has done a tremendous job in doing that as Councillor Van der Beyer said it is bringing a huge number relatively of additional council houses into our stock which is a real achievement I've mentioned the issue of affordable pricing and how that really is a misnomer in this part of the world but it will be an excellent quality housing into the area it will be the exemplar that we seek to achieve and I'm very pleased to recommend this proposal to the council this evening thank you Councillor Millans I'm assuming that no one wishes to discuss exempt matters on the restricted sections I hope that there is a request to do that J, you told us not to refer to it Does anyone wish to take us into private session and ask questions Chair, I would like to ask questions that are in the bit that we've been told we can't however I'm happy to ask those in public session No, I think we have to go into private session for those questions I'm sorry we do we do, monitoring officers advice we do in which case information we will need to resolve to temporarily exclude the press and public from the meeting this is in accordance with the provisions of section of 184 of the local government act 1972 exempt information is as defined in paragraph 3 of schedule 12a as amended of the act paragraph 3 refers to information relating to the financial or business affairs of a particular person including the authority holding that information I propose to resolve to exclude the press and public can I have a seconder for that please thank you can we take this vote by affirmation public session at the end to take the vote on this item can you give a sign of electronic vote please chair it's a motion that needs to be debated yes no, this is just to go into a confidential session it's a motion that's been proposed and seconded we debate whether we go into closed session or not as we have previously is anybody rejecting going into private session yes it's no, I said I want to refer to and ask questions in this document that we've been told we're not allowed to while in open session I believe that we can ask these questions as we own the company and it's owned by the public and the taxpayer I believe we can actually ask these questions, give some details in public I don't believe there is a need it's not a commercially sensitive thing as it is completely within the of the council we just heard it earlier, it's an armed council so yes I want to ask questions no I don't believe it has to be done in private session if a majority of councillers believe for me to answer the questions I've got here I have to go into closed session they'll need to debate that or not but my view is we do not need to be able to go into some of these details we do not need to go into closed session as the chair has alluded to I'll ask the monitoring officer to respond thank you chair my advice still stands we are following the law the law sets out a definition of what is exempt information information referred to by councillor Williams is considered to be exempt information accordingly it must be discussed in private we have to exclude the press and the public I refer you to my earlier comments chair I wanted everyone to discuss as much as possible in public but inevitably we have to go into private session to discuss the details in the exempt information my advice has not changed thank you Mr Murphy it's a matter of law so I think we can vote on excluding the press and the public at this point so vote green to exclude the press and the public or red to oppose the motion is that everyone? the motion is carried by 18 votes to 6 we will now move into closed session can you take us offline please thank you we've come back public now I apologise I asked you to second rather prematurely about two hours ago do you remember everybody remembers every word of it chair absolutely the recommendations are set out in paragraphs 1 to 6 on pages 5 and 6 of the agenda I'm assuming we're not happy to take this by affirmation I would ask Erin to set up a electronic vote please green will be in favour of the motion red against thank you Erin 17 in favour of the motion 6 against the motion is carried thank you we can now move on to item 4 on the agenda affordable housing acquisition 102 new homes at Camborn starts at page 341 on the agenda crack that's with a previous motion when we get into the debate please keep your public comments up front and then if we need to move into the private debate again we will do so can I call on Councillor John Lee, Cabinet Member for housing to present the report and move the recommendations thank you very much chair first thing I would like to make very clear that the housing department dealings with skip are no different to any other negotiation with a developer underlying any negotiation or any contract by affordable housing is underlined by one a totally independent valuation if the price is above the valuation that contract cannot go forward second firm element is a viability criteria which is there has to be a payback in a maximum of 45 years if either of those items are not fully met contract would not go forward so what we are proposing is that we should go forward with the contract because both viability and cost meet our criteria so I don't not sure if is the number of years that we anticipate the payback an exempt item it's a public policy it's a public policy ok so the payback period is 44 years so you appreciate that this is very near to the maximum why is it near to the maximum because we have chosen to actually invest in carbon reduction standards there is a substantial figure for each of the 72 houses flats mostly and some houses that is incurred by bringing the standards up to the passive house so as we were speaking about earlier you can see that we have invested to the maximum that we possibly can in these circumstances and whilst we still meet our obligations as far as the criteria is concerned bearing in mind that the housing budget is a closed one and the rental income has to pay for all the costs involved the other side of this is how can we afford to pay what we are proposing to pay the answer to that is yes underlying we have significant funds coming from the right to buy and the sale of shared ownership this would cover something of the order of one third of the costs the rest would be found by internal borrowing first and if necessary we would go to external borrowing so this meets all their criteria it's a a good deal in terms of carbon reduction we are doing all we can and in that case we are an exemplar project before I move the recommendation I'd like to take the opportunity chair to thank Kirsten Donelson and her team who have done a huge amount of work to bring this project to this stage and there's still plenty of work to do for them so thank you very much to her and her team so given all those circumstances I'm delighted to move the recommendations chair thank you thank you councillor bachelor do you have a seconder? I'm going to second and reserve my I'd like to speak at the end or somewhere in between I'll try and keep you to the end this time councillor Melons thank you councillor Heather Williams thank you chair so I do think it's a shame that it is at the high rate I appreciate the environmental standards given that the company has the partnership in skip you'd think they might be able to do better on the price however when it comes to who is going to deliver the affordable services I would always prefer that the council and the housing department deal with affordable units over other providers as is here so I am supportive of I don't support to be clear the fact that this is happening but that vote's already happened you're doing it so I'm being practical here they're going to happen you've had the majority vote so if they are going to happen I'd much rather they were run by our council department than somebody else but just to be clear chair I'm voting on that way and I'm saying what I'm saying because that's what I believe not because you have brought me into line as it was mentioned earlier on the debate by a member opposite I think that's derogatory and it's not the chair's job to bring us to heal or bring us in line it's the chair's job to ensure that there is fair open debate thank you thank you chair a lot has been said this evening I don't want to repeat but I just need to say this there are a lot of young people and families who would love to be able to live in houses of this type of standard but I don't want to repeat but I just need to say this there are a lot of young people and families of this type of standard that we're building on this site and the fact that we're going to have 102 affordable houses of which 30 will be shared equity especially when house prices are so many times the average rent we are investing one way or the other in providing affordable homes for people in our communities and I declare I have children who will be wanting to live on their own in the area who can't afford it on what they'll be earning so this is a good thing it really is a good thing and I just want to say thank you to everyone who's been involved in bringing this to this stage it's been a lot of hard work and as you know I've been in the industry as well so I know what's involved so thank you and I will be supporting this and definitely our housing department should be looking after these properties for the good of our future generation thank you thank you anyone else who will seem to speak oh Councillor Warren I'd like to just add to what um Councillor to me has said just to ring to the room the fact that so many young people nationally over 50% of young people aged 20 to 24 and now tending not to be able to leave home or returning back to their parental home after university or going to work and find themselves returning to home now and I think in Cambridge we have as we all know a double situation where there was a lot of new jobs arising in the area we've got an economic growth in the area from an employability point of view but we still have people coming into those entry roles that can't afford to live here so when they do come back they live with their parents they're very frustrated and on those grounds I think I really fully support us doing this I'm really pleased to see the young people will get the opportunity for affordable housing in addition to that I think as a single parent as well I like to see the fact that there's going to be affordable housing in the area for single parents so that we don't dissuade them to come to Cambridge which is a fantastic place to live and it's got great employability opportunities so on those grounds I do support this motion Thank you I can't see any other speakers so can I invite Councillor Millans to second Thank you Chair, it seems as though we're all in agreement that the acquisition of these 102 houses to the council is what we would prefer to do so with that I think we ought to move to the vote Thank you I agree and we asked in a public session the recommendations are set out in paragraphs 10 and 11 on page 342 of the agenda Erin could you set up an electronic load we can do it by affirmation if you agree anyone against by an agreement the motion is passed, thank you all that concludes our extraordinary meeting thank you all for attending next meeting with the annual council meeting on the 23rd of May