All Decisions

Establishment of terms of reference for the Fees and Charges Cabinet Advisory Group to inform the 2020-21 budget setting process.

Approval of the Terms of Reference of the Fees and Charges Cabinet Advisory Group.

Orbit Housing undertook a property rationalisation in 2018 which identified their current office in Margate High Street as surplus to requirements. Orbit vacated from the property at the end of February 2019 after securing a change of use from office to residential under Permitted Development Rights. Under Permitted Development Rights, the scheme has prior notification approval for eight residential units (6 x 2beds and 2 x 1 bed).

The Council has made an offer of £500,000 to Orbit to acquire the property to safeguard a key asset in the High Street and control how the property is used and managed in the future. The intention is for the Council to refurbish the property up to lettable standards to meet housing needs.

The Council has power under section 9 of the Housing Act 1985 to acquire properties for the purpose of providing housing accommodation. This purchase is in accordance with the provisions of the Act, and any relevant subsequent legislation and may become subject to Right to Buy.

To enable the purchase, a £1.63m capital scheme for Homelessness Accommodation was approved by the Council on 28 February 2019 as part of the 2019/20 capital programme. It is proposed to use this for the acquisition, design and build.

The indicative total cost of the proposed scheme is £1.2m, which can be met from the existing approved funding headroom. The residual £400,000 will be retained as contingency until more accurate and detailed costings are available.

Subject to further detailed design and any required planning approvals, the conversion could commence in early 2020.

Cabinet agreed the purchase of “Foy House”, a vacant office building formerly owned by Orbit Housing.

The Council appoints representatives to outside bodies in order to express the views of the Council to those bodies on the work they undertake, and to feed back to the Council issues emerging from those bodies that relate to Council activities. Due to the in-year changes to the Council administration, changes were sought to council representatives on executive appointed outside bodies.

Cabinet agreed the following list of Councillors to be the Council’s representatives on the executive appointed outside bodies for 2019/20:

List of TDC representatives on Executive Appointed Outside Bodies – for 2019/20

*A substitute is still to be confirmed

This report provides an update of the Council's 2019-20 revenue and capital forecasts against budget as at the end of June 2019.

Cabinet agreed the updated General Fund and Housing Revenue Account capital programmes as set out in Annex 1 and 2 to the Cabinet report.

This report deals with the 2018-19 outturn for: 

? General Fund – Section 1. 

? Housing Revenue Account – Section 2.

Cabinet agreed that the General Fund Capital Programme is carried forward as shown in Annex 1 to the Cabinet report.

The Council has declared a climate emergencyand now needs to follow up on this with actions.

Cabinet agreed the following recommendations:

1.  To form an 11 member working party to advise the Cabinet, Chaired by Cllr Pugh, Cabinet Member for Corporate Governance & Coastal Development, and a public focus group following on from this;

2.  To compile a full report on the current situation, immediate and longer term actions to be taken to be reported back to Cabinet by December;

3.  To ensure that the report includes the current environmental impact of the Council, suggestions for actions to address this, and any measures to support positive environmental impact across the District.

A Petition was submitted to re-open the Margate Clocktower Toilets and referred to Cabinet for decision.

Cabinet agreed the following:

1.  That the update detailed in the Cabinet report be provided as a response to the petition. The Margate Clocktower public toilets be not re-opened for the remainder of the season.

2.  That further updates on the review of public toilets be provided through the appropriate channels at a later date to be agreed with the working group.

This report proposes that a project to deliver the Commercial Berth - (Eastern Gully, Ramsgate Harbour) be approved for inclusion in the 2019/20 capital programme, and for the project to be funded via the reallocation of part of an existing 2019-20 capital project budget. The existing 2019-20 project from which funds are proposed to be realigned is the Port of Ramsgate Berth 4/5 project.

To approve the capital project to deliver the Commercial Berth in the Eastern Gully of the Royal Harbour and realign the existing 2019/20 budget for berth 4/5 as described in the report.