Agenda item

To consider the joint report of the Director of City Development and the Director of Environment and Neighbourhoods on the recommendation to dispose of the former Royal Park Primary School site at less than best consideration to allow for a development comprising 66 assisted living units, with ancillary warden accommodation, some small-scale local retail space and the required library and community space.

(The appendix to this report is designated exempt under Access to Information Procedure Rule 10.4(3)).

The Director of City Development and the Director of Environment and Neighbourhoods submitted a joint report on the disposal of the former Royal Park Primary School site. The report recommended the disposal, through the grant of a long leasehold interest, to the preferred developer with the required library and community space being the subject of a long sub-lease back to the Council at a peppercorn rent. 

Further to a marketing exercise to identify proposals for the site, Members were informed that two such proposals were considered to be viable options for consideration. These were as follows:

1. That all of the school building, other than that given over to the Council’s uses, be converted to residential use with around forty apartments and twenty seven car parking spaces, with a complete separation between the residential element and the Council’s uses.
2. That more recent extensions to the school building be demolished and replaced with more sympathetic new-build elements. The main use of the building would then be given over to eighty age-related assisted living units with an on-site warden to be managed privately. 

Documentation and correspondence from Councillors Hussain, Morton and Rhodes-Clayton, the Leeds Muslim Council, and Royal Park Community Consortium were circulated to members of the Board.

Following consideration of the appendices to the report designated as exempt under Access to Information Procedure Rule 10.4(3), which were considered in private at the conclusion of the meeting, it was

RESOLVED –

a.)  That a preferred developer be selected on the basis of the schemes described at section 3 of the report as recommended in the exempt appendix;

b.)  That the proposal that the disposal should be on the basis of less than best consideration exercising the Council’s powers under the General Consent 2003 as set out in the report be approved;

c.)   That the disposal of a long leasehold interest in the property to the selected developer at the value set out in paragraphs 3.3 and 3.8 of the exempt appendix, subject to a requirement that the Council be granted a sub-leasehold interest at a peppercorn rent, be approved;

d.)  That the decision on any ‘less than best’ reduction in this disposal value which may arise as a result of the detailed negotiations be delegated to the Director of City Development in consultation with the Executive Member for Development and Regeneration;

e.)  That the consultation process described at 4.5 of the report to determine the precise nature and use of the community space be approved and that a report be brought back to the Board in this respect;

f.)  That the commencement of negotiations with the preferred developer for the undertaking of the fit-out of the library and community space as part of the main contract for the refurbishment with the costs of these works to be deducted from the capital receipt, subject to the Directors of Environment and Neighbourhoods and City Development being satisfied that these costs represent value for money, be approved.

(Under the provisions of Council Procedure Rule 16.5 Councillor Wakefield required it to be recorded that he voted against this decision).