Decision details

Subject to endorsement from the Crawley Town Deal Board, to seek approval of the business cases for various Town Fund projects as set out in the  Crawley Town Investment Plan Heads of Terms (confirmed by the government in July 2021)

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Information relating to the financial or business affairs of any particular person (including the authority holding that information)

RESOLVED

That the Cabinet

a)            approves in principle the Towns Fund projects listed in section 1.1 above for which the business cases for each project are summarised in Appendix A of report PES/399, subject to the completion of due diligence checks on the full business cases by officers to the satisfaction of the Council’s S151 Officer.

b)            delegates authority to the Head of Economy and Planning and the Head of Corporate Finance in consultation with the Cabinet Member for Planning and Economic Development to:

I)     assess the full technical business cases for each project and make any technical modifications required to their wording and content, and

II)    produce summary versions of the business cases and to submit those summary versions to the government for review

Full Council is recommended to agree to :

a)            add the following new capital schemes to the capital programme and the respective capital allocations to each project as set out below, worth a total of £18.1m, subject to a viable business case and to the receipt of the Towns Fund government funding.

·         1B – “Invest in Skills for Crawley”  - Skills training facilities - £4.4m

·         1C – Green Tech Business Grants / Business Premises green retrofit - £2m

·         2A – Crawley Bus Station Transformation - £2m

·         2B – Town Centre-Manor Royal-Gatwick cycle route - £2m

·         3A – Manor Royal “Gigabit” connectivity / business park - £1.95m

·         4A – Crawley Town Centre Cultural Quarter design - £250,000

·         4B – Manor Royal Business Environment Improvements £1.5m

·         4C – “Green Retrofit” decarbonisation of homes in Crawley - £4m

c)            allocate up to £500,000 of Towns Fund revenue funding to the following Towns Fund projects, subject to a viable business case and to the receipt of the government funding.

·               1B – “Invest in Skills for Crawley”  - Skills training facilities - £100,000

·               1D – Commercial Eastern Gateway design - £150,000

·               3A – Manor Royal “Gigabit” connectivity / business park - £50,000

·               4A – Crawley Town Centre Cultural Quarter design - £200,000

Reasons for the Recommendations

To enable the Council to finalise and confirm approval of the business cases for a total of £18.6 million of Towns Fund monies to be allocated to the nine projects listed above.

Full Council approval of the projects will enable submission of summary versions of the business cases to the government for ratification by their deadline of 24^th April.

To enable the allocation of £18.1 million of Towns Fund monies to the CBC capital programme, subject to:

·                Full Council approval

·                The viability of each of the individual project business cases satisfying the Council’s S151 Officer

·                Confirmation of the funding from the government

To enable the allocation of up to £500,000 of revenue finances from the Towns Fund, subject to the requirements as set out above in section 3.3.