Frome councillors call for scrutiny of Saxonvale sale decision

Four Frome councillors have submitted a formal request for Somerset Council’s decision on the Saxonvale site to be examined by the council’s Scrutiny Committee.

They want to establish whether Executive members had all the information and advice needed to make a fully informed decision when they selected Newcore Capital as preferred bidder and authorised the disposal of the site on 23rd September.

The site covers 12 acres of brownfield land and has been the subject of plans for redevelopment.

Cllrs Dominic Ellison and Martin Dimery (Green Party, Frome West), Cllr Shane Collins (Green Party, Frome East) and Cllr Adam Boyden (Liberal Democrat, Frome North) have submitted the formal ‘call-in’ request.

A call-in allows a scrutiny committee to examine an executive decision before it is implemented and can recommend that it is reconsidered.

The councillors are not asking scrutiny to choose between developers or rerun the bidding process. They want it to examine whether the executive had the information and advice it needed, including on the financial and legal implications of the decision.

They have asked for implementation of the decision to be paused while their request is considered.

Cllr Dominic Ellison said, “Saxonvale is an exceptionally important site for Frome and it is essential that people can have confidence in the way such a significant decision has been made.

“We are not asking the scrutiny committee to decide that one developer should have been chosen over another. We are asking whether the executive had all the material information it needed, understood the options legally available to the council and was able to make a properly informed assessment of the financial and other risks.

“One of the most significant questions concerns the possibility that the Council could have to repay £3.6 million of Homes England funding. We want to understand how that risk was assessed and how it affected the financial case for the sale.

“We also want clarity about the council’s legal options, how the prospects for delivering the regeneration Frome needs were assessed, how the financial offers were compared, and the governance arrangements around the professional advice received by the council.”

The councillors have raised five areas for scrutiny, including the potential £3.6m repayment of Homes England funding, the council’s legal options, the prospects of delivering mixed-use regeneration, how bids and payment arrangements were assessed, and governance arrangements relating to professional adviser CBRE and Newcore Capital.

If the committee finds that material information was missing, inadequately assessed or insufficiently explained, the councillors are asking it to recommend that the decision is returned to the Executive for reconsideration.

Pictured: Cllr Dominic Ellison at the Saxonvale site