Issue - meetings

Recommendations

1)    To request approval from the Executive to authorise the acceptance of an offer for recoverable grant funding of £6,780,994.

2)    Approval is sought from the Executive to delegate signing of the final Grant Funding Agreement to the Corporate Director – Resources.

Considered – A report of the Corporate Director Community Development recommending acceptance of recoverable grant funding of £6,780,994 from Homes England’s Brownfield, Infrastructure and Land (BIL) Fund.  Approval was sought for delegation of signing of the final Grant Funding Agreement to the Corporate Director Resources.

The Executive Member for Open to Business, Councillor Mark Crane, gave an overview of the report as follows:

·       Strategic housing sites to the west of Harrogate were proposed to deliver approximately 2,000 new homes as detailed in the Harrogate adopted local plan

·       To ensure appropriate infrastructure, including new primary schools and roads, could be put in place to support the new homes before they were completed the government had offered an interest free loan of £6.7m.

·       The loan would only need to be repaid once the building and the section 106 agreements had been completed

In response to a question Nic Harne, the Corporate Director Community Development, confirmed that this funding had been possible because of the local plan led approach which provided a clear view of what housing would be coming forward. 

Resolved (unanimously) – that

1)    the acceptance of an offer for recoverable grant funding of £6,780,994 be authorised

2)    signing of the final Grant Funding Agreement be delegated to the Corporate Director – Resources.