Councillor Pugh, Deputy Leader and Cabinet
Member for Economic Development made a presentation and made the
following points:
- The council was awarded £51
million for the Levelling Up Funds projects to be implemented in
the district;
- Thanet District Council (TDC) was
one of a few councils in Kent who received these funds;
- Officers should be commended for the
efforts they put into these successful bids;
- An officer to support with the
administrative processes for the project implementation was
recruited;
- The reporting protocol and
governance arrangements were different for each project;
- For example the Margate Town Deal
has a Board that monitors the implementation of the town deal
projects;
- On the other hand, Levelling up Fund
have Scrutiny Panels for Margate and Ramsgate;
- TDC’s Cabinet Member sits on
the Board and the two Panel;
- An Interim Director was recruited to
deliver the town deal projects through the Creative Land
Trust;
- The Winter Gardens business case was
had also been approved;
- Each of these project had its own
performance indicators to report on and measure progress
against;
- The Town Deal Board was no longer
meeting monthly as before because projects had been approved and
now the main task was implementation and monitoring.
Members of the Panel asked questions and made
comments as follows:
- In this current business
environment, were the business plans still appropriate in term in
relation to budgets?
- It was pleasing to note that there
will be additional staff to the Regeneration team. Engagement with
the public was an important aspect of project implementation. One
of the public representatives has not been attending meetings and
this needed looking into;
- How effective were the
People’s Panels? Was it doing the job it was set up to
do?
- The public were asking when they
would be able to see the evidence of the funding results on the
ground;
- Had the Creative Land Trust
identified buildings in Margate to be used under the Town Deal
projects?
- The Trust could consider buildings
in Arlington Square;
- Has Dreamland started
operating?
- Was the council likely to get an
investor for the RoRo refurbishment?
- The Regeneration team had done a
commendable job by submitting a number of successful bids. Could
the business cases information be shared with Members?
- If the public could be given
information regarding the project implementation timetable that
would help;
- Could the council assist community
groups to apply for such funding?
- With regards to the Band Stage, was
the funding given directly to the community group? Who was
responsible for overseeing the spending and accounting for the
funds? Who was responsible for monitoring project
implementation?
- Was there any scope for the public
to see how the funds were accounted for?
- Was there any progress regarding
security ferry services for cargo for the Ramsgate Port and were
there any destination ports identified?
- Were there any alternatives used for
the Port together with match funding that had been identified to
date?
- Was the project related to the Port
going to leave Smack Boys and Sea Cadets without suitable space to
operate and had any suitable alternative space been found for
them?
- Was there a time limit for the third
party to claim funding for completed project work?
Councillor Pugh, Louise Askew, Director of
Regeneration and Chris Blundell, Deputy CEx & S151 Officer
responded to Member comments and questions as follows:
- Each project had a contingency
element in the budget to cater for changes in costs of project
implementation;
- Officers have been in discussion
with government regarding likely changes in costs for project
implementation due to the current economic climate;
- All of the current projects would be
implemented but maybe to a lesser degree;
- Some of the projects would been to
be value engineered;
- The intention of the government was
for these projects to boost the economic environment of local
economies throughout the country;
- The Deputy Leader would look into
the issue Board members who do not attend meetings;
- It was important for the Board to
engage with the whole community;
- A lot of community engagement work
had been done and the government were complementary about
Thanet’s level of that engagement;
- There were current discussions on
streamlining the reporting process for the various projects;
- It was appreciated that the public
could be frustrated by not seeing what work being carried out on
the ground. However the projects had different implementation
phases. Once work starts on the ground the public would be able to
see what was going on;
- However it was important to keep the
public informed of what was going on;
- It was equally important that the
correct prescribed processes were followed as the council was the
accounting body for the funds;
- It should not be long before the
actual project work on ground would start;
- The Creative Land Trust was
beginning some work of identifying spaces within Margate;
- The Trust was now beginning to make
some progress;
- The buildings in Arlington Square
was a good idea and would be passed on to the Trust;
- The £4.9million for the
Dreamland was to kick-start the process and get private investors
to join in. This was the only project that required match
funding;
- The Deputy Leader was going to
confer with the Town Board the request made by the Panel for the
Board to share information with Members;
- The Town Board used a scoring
process to adjudicate on projects to receive funding and Dreamland
and Band Stage had gone through that same process;
- With regards to the assurance
process; the council’s S151 Officer would be responsible for
the process sign offs;
- The third sector players that got
funding signed up to the process in the grant agreement;
- The profile of spend would be
submitted by each of these groups;
- There would progress updates on all
projects;
- Due process had to be followed for
awarding contracts;
- All projects would be required to
evidence expenditure including receipts;
- Payments to the Dreamland and Band
Stage would be made in arrears. That means they spend and recover
their costs through the grant;
- The was a detailed process for
accessing the grants;
- Discussions were ongoing with
interested parties regarding the future of the Port;
- The successful completion of these
current projects would contribute to a successful port;
- The Port was an attractive asset and
there had been approaches from private investors;
- A Project Manager would start the
zoning of the Port which would lead to a detailing out of ideas for
developing Ramsgate Port;
- The project would ensure the
accommodation of a broad range of boats;
- Discussions were ongoing with the
Sea Cadets to identify alternative working space for them;
- March 2025 was the deadline for
delivering the Margate town Deal;
- The profile of spend was an
important milestone for checking progress on delivery;
- If the third sector started to
struggle there a reprofiling would be carried out and project
adjustments made and sent to the government seeking alterations to
the project.
The Char thanked Councillor Pugh and Louise
Askew for the presentation and the Panel noted the
presentation.