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Minutes:
Mr Roger House spoke on Agenda Item 6, Draft General Fund Revenue Budget and Capital Estimates 2021/22:-
The Victoria Park Action Group had been campaigning for new safer public toilets in our park for five years. The current toilets were closed having failed the Covid 19 test, we had recentlywritten tothe ExecutivePostholder, askingfor financeto beassembled tobuild anew extension withtwo newsafe andaccessible toiletcubicles. Therecent debateon FlookHouse revealed the only town public toilet north of the river had no insides, with an obvious need for new public toilets in the evolving Coal Orchard and Firepoolsectors.
At the same time a new Unitary Council or Councils in some form looked likely to emerge, and as a consequence with either, a long overdue new Taunton Town Council too. From the example of Weymouth Town Council in the new Dorset Unitary reorganisation, this new Council would suddenly have duties to provide and maintain garden town green spaces, publictoilets, marketsand community halls,the latterwere nowwell belowthe standardsof our villages.As theWeymouth Councilcame intobeing, somehigh qualitytoilets werebuilt onthe· seafront and handed over tothem.
Soregards thefuture creation ofthe TownCouncil, withits fairshare ofthe oldBorough area financial and builtassets:
Q1 - Inthe capitolprogramme tablelast pageof thereport, couldthe councilintroduce anew line in order to build up capitol for new toilets and community halls or conversions, the key need for the successor Town Council? The December Executive meeting, financial monitoring Q2 showed a CIL projects and infrastructure budget with Community Development £500,000 slipping to the 2023/24 year, perhaps after the Town Councilformation.
Q2 - Connected to the same cause, the recent schedule of S106 developer’s contributions for the Taunton Unparished Area revealed monies being collected under headings of Play, Outdoor Recreation, Allotments and Community Halls. In our parks case the toilets and community hall were both linked. Was it possible, given the need for more Town Centre Toilets, that the S106 heading could be amended to Community Buildings/Public Toilets? This would requireactionand documentation todemonstrate boththese werea leadinginfrastructure need as Taunton expands with its central residents and visitor’s numbers, bothrising.
The Portfolio Holder for Corporate Resources responded:-
Q1 - Thank you for your question but at present resources wre fully committed on the current priorities within the capital programme. Table 9 in the Qtr 2 Budget Monitoring report presented to Executive on 16th December showed the indicative timing of how any CIL collected may be utilised. The figures have therefore been allocated to the years based on this indicative timing and the budget had not slipped from this financial year. The budget allocation was based upon the money that might be collected based on an estimate of new build property that could come forward and did not guarantee funding in any one particular area. At present the Community Development allocation of £500k was to support the delivery of the Multi-Purpose Venue at Firepool and to provide match funding to support the Taunton Future High Street Fund bid. (https://www.gov.uk/government/news/830-million-funding-boost-for-high-streets)
This project was no longer included in the Future High Street Fund project list because of the lower provisional award from Government, but the Council remained committed to delivering this project.
Q2 - The headings for S106 allocations reflect the terms under which the money was originally collected. The council published its available S106 money on its public website. If any interested party was minded to apply for S106 funds they were able to do so and their application would be judged against the legal basis for which the money was originally collected.