Is this really ‘fit for the future’?

Mr Hunt’s report to the executive set out an improbable timetable. Preparation of the development brief and specification is to start “late May” and take six weeks. Meantime the architects are to complete the HQ design in just eight weeks, starting “end May” – at the same time as the brief is still being prepared. How can that work?What compulsion is driving this frantic timetable ? Allegedly this scheme is the best option because it is said to be “capital cost neutral”. This involves selling both the Riverside House site and the council’s Court Street land for development. But the Court Street site is a totally separate council asset: selling it off is a capital write down just as surely as drawing from reserve funds.

It also appears that no capital cost has been allocated to use of the Spa Centre land – an open space highly valued by the community. By what definition is this new HQ to be magicked into being at no capital cost?

The project is to be run in a 50/50 partnership with a company called PSP (Public Sector PLC). We are told that the “benefit” is that Warwick District Council (WDC) shares 50 per cent of profits. But hang on – such profits can only be generated at the expense of the council – although “profit” is defined in a confidential annex hidden from the public.

What seems to be driving all this is a desperate push for a very short term budgetary fix. For example, the HQ is costed at £6.8m, but this is a guesstimate. Mr Hunt’s report suggests that if they happen to get it for less – then and only then – will they look at specifying a more efficient building.

How “Fit for the Future” is a policy brief to build a second rate HQ so as to trim the estimate?

No doubt the executive is within its powers to push ahead, even while the matter has been referred for consideration by full council. But it says little for the expressed Local Plan town centre policy of commitment to engagement “with key stakeholders and the community”.

Richard Ashworth, Chairman, Leamington Society