Agenda item

To receive a report of the Cabinet Member for Community Services and the Corporate Director for Growth, Economic Development and Transport and asks the Cabinet Committee to consider and endorse, or make recommendations to the Cabinet Member for Community Services on a proposed decision.

1.            The Cabinet Member for Community Services, Mr M Hill, introduced the report and set out briefly the background to the current proposal, which was being supported jointly by Southborough Town Council, Tunbridge Wells Borough Council and Kent County Council.  Mr White added that the Memorandum of Understanding, included in the agenda papers, was due to be signed by participating Councils very shortly. He clarified that the Project Board set up to develop the proposal included one elected Member from each of the three Councils, including Mr Hill for the County Council. Upon completion, the freehold ownership of the hub would transfer to the Town Council and the library would be leased to the County Council on a long term peppercorn lease. The County Council would retain ownership of the football pavilion and would sell off the old library site. In response to a question, he explained that the medical centre was not part of the hub but rather would be part of the enabling development and would help to attract additional footfall to the area.

2.             The Cabinet Member and officers were congratulated on putting together and bringing forward a very complex development project, which had met with the general support of the Committee.

3.         RESOLVED that the decision proposed to be taken by the Cabinet Member for Community Services, to support the delivery of the community hub in Southborough by agreeing to incorporate the library service within the project, and to support the nomination of the Cabinet Member for Community Services within the Memorandum of Understanding as the designated representative to vote on all such necessary matters, be endorsed.