Agenda and minutes

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No. Item

13.

Members' Code of Conduct - Declarations of Interest

Members of the Cabinet are asked to consider whether they have any disclosable pecuniary and/or any other relevant interest, in connection with any item(s) on this agenda and, if so, to declare them and state the nature of the interest.

Additional documents:

Minutes:

Councillor Pat Hackett, Leader of Council welcomed Members, and residents to the meeting of the Cabinet.

 

Members of the Cabinet were asked to consider whether they had any disclosable pecuniary and/or any other relevant interest, in connection with any item(s) on the agenda and, if so, to declare them and state the nature of the interest.

 

No such interests were declared.

14.

Celtic Manor Resort pdf icon PDF 70 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

Councillor Pat Hackett, Leader of the Council introduced the main item of business, that was to review the recommendation of the Business Overview and Scrutiny Committee which informed that, as part of the Celtic Manor Resort project, the Council had received an application from Nicklaus Joint Venture Group (NJVG) for a loan to progress to the next stage of the project.

 

The application formed part of an existing Development Agreement between the Council and NVJG, whereby if certain conditions of the agreement were met, the Council could offer a loan opportunity to the company to continue to the next stage. The conditions in the agreement were sequential and the first condition, to provide a funding and phasing agreement had been met. 

 

The funding and phasing report was considered by the Business Overview and Scrutiny Committee on 27 June 2019, and the resolution of the Committee was as follows:

 

1) The financial and investment landscape has changed significantly since the Council sought the option to further invest in this project in 2016 to sit alongside its commitments under the development agreement.

 

2) In that time, the Council has expanded its acquisition and investment portfolio considerably, seeking to create income to invest in services, to make wider economic and social returns, to regenerate areas and to continue to attract high quality investment by businesses in the Borough.

 

3) This has led to increased borrowing by the Council to invest elsewhere than that envisaged by Cabinet when it last looked at the development agreement and outline proposals, a revised risk profile for those wider investments and further thought to the priorities that the Council should employ in making investment decisions.

 

4) In the light of that, this Committee considers that the Council’s investment profile and limited resources would be better served if this business venture was funded on the open market, rather than through Council borrowing, and it

is therefore recommended that Cabinet do not enter into a separate agreement to fund the Celtic Manor project at this time.

 

The minute of Council (25 February 2019), and draft minutes from the Business and Overview Scrutiny Committee (27 June 2019) were attached at Appendix A to the confidential report. The funding and phasing report considered at the Business Overview and Scrutiny Committee contained commercially sensitive information and was included at Appendix B to this report, together with the Overview and Scrutiny Committee Report.

 

The Leader informed those present that Cabinet was not to decide on whether to allow the scheme to go ahead, that was a decision for a different time, Cabinet would purely be considering the investment element of the scheme.

 

The Leader also took the opportunity to place on record his thanks to the Members of the Scrutiny Committee who had reviewed the detailed proposals and provided the recommendation to the Cabinet.

 

Councillor Janette Williamson, Cabinet Member Finance and Resources commented on the proposal and stated that the benefits of the scheme were clear: jobs, visitors, support for the local high street,  ...  view the full minutes text for item 14.