Shapley Heath Audit Report Shrouded in Secrecy

Posted on July 20, 2022July 20, 2022

Shapley Heath Audit Report Kept Secret

The long awaited Shapley Heath Audit Report is being kept secret. Apparently, the report is available to members but has not been made public. The discussion about it at next week’s Audit Committee will exclude members of the public.

Shapley Heath Project Review Report Restricted

We must admit that we don’t really understand why it isn’t been made public. Unless of course it contains some material that is embarrassing for either officers or councillors. We think the public ought to be able to see behind the curtain and the report should be published forthwith.

This latest hiccup comes just after it was revealed that they overspent on the Shapley Heath project yet again last year.

Shapley Heath New Settlement Overspent in FY21-22

The £69K overrun comes despite the project being cancelled last September. It’s quite a feat of management to overspend your budget in only half the planned time.

They have also closed the fund they had set aside for Shapley Heath. They have transferred £367K from reserves earmarked for the New Settlement.

New Settlement £367K Transfer from Reserves

Shapley Heath Audit Report History

The whole idea of auditing the Shapley Heath project has been controversial for some time. Last August, Tim Southern tried to get the Audit Committee to review the project but was rebuffed. In a rambling response, Councillor Axam refused and audit, saying:

I can understand that people might want to look at it in terms of in depth, I don’t think anyone should be worried about that but I am not quite sure you can build it into an audit plan in the way you would normally audit most other things. I just don’t think it, at this stage I don’t think at this stage it lends itself so easily to that…

Unless I am being naive here, everybody who is working on Shapley Heath knows that they have a budget and what it is and they are engaging in going through a process.

We asked questions at Council in September. Initially, the Audit Committee chairman “didn’t recognise our numbers”. However, they relented after we emailed the whole Audit Committee with our evidence. Then, in a remarkable U-turn, CCH sponsored the paper calling for the Internal Audit of Shapley Heath.

Now they seem to be blocking publication. Hopefully, we will be able to see the report in its entirety in due course.

Proposal for Massive Distribution Centre at Lodge Farm

Posted on July 13, 2022January 13, 2024

Proposal for Massive Distribution Centre at Lodge Farm

There is a new proposal for a massive distribution centre at Lodge Farm, North Warnborough. The backers have submitted a “scoping opinion” for an Environmental Impact Assessment and a separate pre-app to Hart Council. The company promoting the scheme is Obsidian Strategic.

The proposal is enormous in scale. Their cover letter calls for 105,000 square metres (or over 1.1m sq ft) of B2/B8 (storage and distribution) floor space over 5 separate warehouses. They also plan to provide space for 200 EV charging points. The overall site is over 32 hectares or 79 acres. The cover letter says the buildings will be 18-20m tall. However, the “Theoretical Visibility Plan” says 15-35m above existing ground level.

[Update 13 Jan 2024]: A dedicated group has been set up to oppose this development. You can visit their website to see their detailed objections here. [/Update]

Proposal Details

The scoping opinion application (Number: 22/01347/EIA ) can be found here.

The pre-app (Number: 22/01355/PREAPP) can be found here.

The scoping opinion was submitted first and at the time of writing had attracted 333 public comments, mostly opposed. Only 3 comments were in favour. The pre-app appears to have slipped under the radar, attracting only 3 public comments, all opposed.

We think that those who have objected to the scoping opinion should also submit their comments on the pre-app. It is difficult to object to a request for an opinion. Better to object to the actual application. However, Hart seem to only allow comments on the scoping opinion and not on the pre-app. This seems very odd to us, but we have sent in an objection direct to [email protected]. Both applications seem to have been delegated to officers to make a decision without the involvement of councillors, another worrying feature of this proposal.

Below we set out our main reasons for objecting to the proposed distribution centre at Lodge Farm.

Fatally flawed Flood Risk assessment glosses over groundwater flooding.
Incomplete Ecology Assessment misses out Basingstoke Canal impact.
Defective Transport Assessment.
No Analysis of Noise and Pollution
Impact on Key Views from the Canal.
Optimistic Economic Assessment overlooks Pyestock/Hartland Park distribution centre was cancelled.
Impact on Food Production.

Each point is covered in more detail below:

Flood Risk at Proposed Distribution Centre at Lodge Farm

As part of the application, they have produced a Flood Risk Assessment. The document covers fluvial, surface water, reservoir, sewer and groundwater flooding.

The site is adjacent to the River Whitewater and part of the site to the South East is deemed at risk of flooding from the river. They have carefully avoided siting any of the warehouses on that part of the site. Roughly the same part of the site is assessed as being susceptible to surface water flooding. They propose to address this issue using a Sustainable Drainage System or SuDS.

However, their assessment of groundwater flooding is superficial and they do not provide a map. Helpfully, Hart has an online map that shows areas subject to groundwater flooding. We have superimposed the site boundary on to that map and it shows that most of the site is subject to groundwater flooding. See the image below.

Distribution Centre at Lodge Farm – Groundwater Flood Risk

We can certainly add anecdotal evidence to that map. A few years ago we got stuck axle deep in muddy water while attempting to cycle through the adjacent Bartley Heath woods. We recall the fields that the site covers were also flooded at that time.

Incomplete Ecology Assessment

The promoter have also produced an ecology assessment. However, this is incomplete as it fails to address the proximity of the site to the Basingstoke Canal SSSI and conservation area. About a third of the site is within the 500m buffer zone for the canal and all of it within the 1,500m buffer zone. As can be seen in the image below, the site is adjacent to a large number of SINCs and other SSSIs.

Distribution Centre at Lodge Farm – Ecological Constraint of Basingstoke Canal

The report also highlights important species that have been found nearby including dormice, otters, water voles, hedgehogs, harvest mice and rare breeds of bats. Indeed some of the trees on site are assessed as being suitable to support roosting bats. They propose keeping those trees and implementing a “sensitive” lighting scheme. However, we remain to be convinced that the noise and pollution from thousands of daily HGV movements will be conducive to supporting bat or any other habitat.

Defective Transport Assessment

Obsidian Strategic have also produced a transport assessment. Unfortunately it is defective in two key respects:

It omits the additional traffic movements from the 1,500-2,400 employees at the site.
It doesn’t cover the impact on roads and junctions in the wider area.

Employee Traffic Movements Omitted

The assessment covers the additional traffic movements from the vehicles using the new centre. It quotes a range of additional movements dependent upon the eventual end use. The range is somewhere between 4,509 and 12,273 additional movements per day. The highest peak morning would be 581 2-way movements. the evening peak could be as high as 810 2-way movements. The report also says that a “high proportion of the vehicles to/from the site will be HGVs”.

Distribution Centre at Lodge Farm HGV movements

The report also covers the additional movements generated by the 200 EV charging stations. They estimate the 200 charging stations could lead to 2,000 additional 2-way movements per day. This gives a total maximum number of 14,273 additional movements per day. We estimate that could be 700 total additional movements in the morning rush hour and nearly 1,000 in the evening busy period.

The economic assessment suggests that the proposal could deliver 1,500-2,400 jobs at the site. However the transport assessment doesn’t seem to take account of the additional movements from the employees. Of course, not all of the employees will work on the same day. But it is reasonable to expect the additional employee movements will be of the order of 1-2,000 per day.

They also talk of potentially providing service facilities to support the EV charging stations. It is possible that non-EV vehicles may stop at the services too, further increasing traffic.

Overall, this is a massive increase in traffic, mostly of heavy vehicles. We hesitate to think what impact it will have on J5 of the M3 and surrounding roads, especially at already busy peak times.

Wider Impact Ignored

The backers have not run a full Traffic Impact Assessment. They assume that the biggest impacts of the proposed development will be on the A287/B3349/Holt Lane roundabout and the Station Road/B3349 roundabout in Hook.

However, they have not really considered the wider potential impacts. They haven’t looked at the additional traffic likely to be generated on the B3349 from the A33 and M4. It is inconceivable that such a large warehouse would not attract traffic from the M4. Nor have they looked at the potential impacts further along the A287, notably the junction with the B3016 to Winchfield and the single carriageway part of the A287 towards Farnham and through Upper Hale.

Surely, this can’t be allowed to go ahead with such a superficial analysis of the traffic impact.

No Analysis of Noise and Pollution

In addition to the big increase in traffic movements, such a massive development is bound to have an impact on noise and pollution levels for the surrounding area. As far as we can tell, Obsidian have not provided any analysis of noise or pollution. We would have particular concern for the residents of Holt Lane, Derby Fields and Mill Lane

Surely, they can’t be allowed to get away with this?

Impact on Key Views

Hart’s Conservation Appraisal of Basingstoke Canal contains a number of key views. One of them is view number 6 looking northwards across the river Whitewater flood plain.

Basingstoke Canal Key View Number 6

We can’t imagine how 5 warehouses, each 20m tall will do anything to enhance this view.

Optimistic Economic Assessment for Proposed Distribution Centre at Lodge Farm

They have produced an economic assessment for the proposed development. They do make some good points about additional jobs, extra business rates and an increase in gross value added for the area.

However, they make extensive use of the 2016 Hart, Rushmoor and Surrey Heath Employment Land Review in their assessment. They make the claim that “only two out of the 24 [employment] sites have ‘distribution’ identified as their core use”. This may well be true.

What they don’t mention is that Pyestock/Hartland Park was removed from the review. Outline planning permission had been granted in 2005 for a 125,500 sq m distribution centre. The permission was extended in 2012. Even though the nearby road system has been improved to cope with the extra traffic, no takers could be found for the distribution centre. Later the site was sold and is now being redeveloped for housing.

It is difficult to believe their claims for a shortage of distribution sites, when a site of similar size could not find an investor at a time vacancy rates were even lower than today.

South East Logistics Availability from CBRE report

Note that the vacancy rate data shown above is taken from the CBRE report included in their own application. We conclude that the economic benefits they promise should be taken with a rather large pinch of salt.

Impact on Food Production

It is widely acknowledged that the world is about to endure a food crisis. The Prime Minister has outlined plans to boost UK food production with his “Grow for Britain” strategy. The site of the proposals is currently used for agriculture and food production.

It seems to us, that we should do all we can to protect the nation’s food security and keep growing food on productive fields, rather than concrete over them.

Conclusion on Proposed Distribution Centre at Lodge Farm

We believe that we should oppose this development because of the flood risk, the risk to local ecology, the additional traffic, noise and pollution, impact on the views from Basingstoke Canal and the apparently illusory economic benefits.

Hart and Rushmoor Working Together

Posted on June 30, 2022August 16, 2023

Hart and Rushmoor are looking at working together more closely. The topic will be considered by Hart Cabinet next week. Regular readers may remember that we put forward the idea of Hart sharing resources with another Council last year. Rushmoor was one of the candidate councils.

They have produced a “Joint Working Together” statement. This covers the opportunity for a number of benefits:

A reduction in overall costs. By identifying ways to deliver services and share resources, it will be possible to reduce duplication and overall management costs.
A stronger voice in the County and with Government. The increased scale and combined resources will bring a stronger voice to represent our communities.
Improved joined-up service delivery. By working closely together, in an area that shares many similar challenges and history, it will be possible to deliver better organised, coordinated and joined up services for our communities.
Better use of scarce resources. The combined capability of two organisations working collaboratively together to recruit and jointly manage, will provide an opportunity to attract and retain higher calibre candidates.
Improved resilience. In potentially sharing services and staff resources, over time each council will improve its resilience to deal with both planned an unplanned event.

They are looking specifically at creating a shared Chief Executive and sharing more services. They rule out a full merger of the Councils. The paper specifically about sharing the chief executive is has been restricted. The formal words suggest they are just at the stage of creating the business case for sharing a Chief Executive. However, the statement says that an early step would be to

“Establish a process to appoint a shared Chief Executive responsible for leading the change programme across both councils.”

This suggests the business case step is little more than a formality. Indeed, the timeline suggests a new chief exec will be in place by November 2022.

Hart and Rushmoor Working Together Timeline

In our view, the business case should be very simple. Currently, the two councils employ 3 CEOs between them. Even if they have to pay the new CEO more money, there’s opportunity for savings of around £250K per year across both councils. Plus, there’s opportunity to consolidate the senior management teams.

We welcome this project and look forward to seeing it develop. However, we note that late last year Hart’s leader, Dave Neighbour defended the current management structure when we challenged him. So, there is a doubt about whether his heart is really in it.

Hart Launches Fleet Civic Quarter Regeneration Consultation

Posted on May 29, 2022May 29, 2022

Fleet Civic Quarter Regeneration Consultation

Hart Council has launched a Fleet Civic Quarter Regeneration Consultation. The survey runs from Monday 23 May to Monday 4 July. They have created a specific page on their website giving more details. It can be found here.

There is a leaflet giving more details about what they are trying to achieve that can be found here. The Council is encouraging residents to read the leaflet before answering the questionnaire that can be found here.

We set out below some more details of the consultation followed by our view.

Fleet Civic Quarter Regeneration Consultation Details

The questionnaire asks respondents say how important 8 aspects of regeneration are:

A dynamic, active town square all year round
A better connected town centre
Enhancing the cultural scene in Hart
Encouraging increased footfall to support the high street
An Inclusive space for all generations
Creating places to meet, socialise and celebrate
Prioritising sustainable, healthy design
Upgraded, modernised community facilities

Residents are then asked to choose their top-3 uses to which the Civic Quarter space can be put. The fourth question is a bit fiddly. It asks respondents to rank the relative importance of 10 “critical success factors”. The final two questions are freeform and ask people to set out their hopes and concerns about regeneration of the area.

Our View

It is good to see some progress finally happening on this project which was given the go ahead nearly 3 years ago in August 2019. However, the focus is very strongly on the Council owned assets including Hart’s offices, The Harlington and Gurkha Square.

Fleet Civic Quarter Regeneration Map

We think the Council should think bigger and consider the whole of the area outlined in the map above, together with the Hart Shopping Centre and the area surrounding Church Road car park for a more comprehensive revitalisation on the whole town. However, we have to start somewhere, so we think this project should be encouraged.

Given the recent controversy surrounding the proposed Gurkha Square redevelopment and other matters, we think they should set some principles for the redevelopment to allay people’s concerns. Examples would include:

Promise to not develop Gurkha Square itself – focus on keeping the square for the market, public performances and outdoor restaurant seating
Promise to retain the Views and enhance it as a public open space
Ensure that a healthcare centre (GP Surgery or Drop-In centre) is included as part of the development
Consider providing a gym and even potentially a primary school and/or nursery
Constrain any development to a maximum of 5 storeys
Utilise the work of groups like Create Streets, to ensure that the built environment is of human scale, the proportions are sensible, adequate green space is provided and the buildings are beautiful.
[Update from a user comment] Introduce free parking to encourage more visitors to the town centre and support businesses [/Update]

We encourage readers to have their say and complete the questionnaire using the links above.

Government Drops Shapley Heath Funding

Posted on May 25, 2022May 25, 2022

RIP Shapley Heath Again: Government Drops Shapley Heath Funding

The Government has issued a press release about funding of new Garden Communities. Shapley Heath is conspicuous by its absence from the list of projects.

The release boasts of the £15m funding being made available this round. They expect the programme to deliver 16,000 dwellings per annum from 2025 and almost 200,000 jobs. Here is a quote from the press release:

£15 million funding to support delivery of thousands of new homes in beautiful, green garden communities across England.

Part of a £69 million programme to deliver up to 16,000 homes per year from 2025, creating almost 200,000 jobs and boosting the economy.

Builds on the government’s plans to level up the country, regenerate underused land and bring forward beautiful new developments.

The full list of projects receiving support is shown at the foot of this post.

Impact of Government Dropping Shapley Heath Funding

We now have a situation where the council rejected a new town at Winchfield in 2012. The Inspector threw it out again in 2018/19 saying it wasn’t necessary and citing concerns about viability and deliverability. Since then, the Council have spent over £700K on essentially the same project and delivered nothing of substance. Certainly, they have produced nothing to alleviate the Inspector’s concerns. Now they have been unable to convince the Government to continue supporting the project.

Yet, during the recent election, CCH councillors were proposing to hold another consultation about the same failed project.

Katie Davies Public Consultation on Shapley Heath

Katie Davies Public Consultation including Shapley Heath

Are they mad?

Full list of Garden Communities receiving support

Garden Towns

Hemel, Hertfordshire.
Otterpool Park, Folkestone and Hythe.
Manydown, Basingstoke.
Harlow & Gilston, Essex and Hertfordshire.
Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire.
Taunton, Somerset.
St Cuthbert’s, Carlisle.
Greater Exeter, Devon.
Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire.
North Northants, Northamptonshire.

Garden Villages

Longcross, Runnymede, Surrey.
Newton Abbot, Teignbridge.
Langarth, Cornwall.
Burtree, Darlington.
Chelmsford, Essex.
Dunton Hills, Brentwood.
Golden Valley, Cheltenham.
South Ashford, Ashford.
Tendring – Colchester borders.
Skerningham, Darlington.
Long Marston, Stratford-on-Avon.
East of Biggleswade, Central Bedfordshire.
North Dorchester, Dorset.
South Seaham, Durham.
Whetstone Pastures, Blaby.
Uttlesford Park, Uttlesford.
West Carclaze, Cornwall.
Culm, Mid Devon.
Halsnead, Knowsley.
West of Elvington, York.
Dunsfold Park, Waverley.
Welbourne, Fareham.
Meecebrook, Stafford.
Dalton Barracks, Vale of White Horse.
Salt Cross, West Oxfordshire.
Infinity, South Derbyshire.
Berinsfield, South Oxfordshire.
Borough Green Gardens, Tonbridge and Malling.
Bailrigg, Lancaster.
Spitalgate Heath, South Kevesten.
Tresham, East Northamptonshire.
Pan-Essex.

Impact of Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill on Hart

Posted on May 14, 2022May 14, 2022

Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill – RIP Shapley Heath

Earlier this week, the Government launched the long awaited Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill. The full Bill, all 338 pages of it, can be found here. A summary of the proposed measures can be found here. The interviews carried out by Michael Gove and the Bill itself had a number of potential impacts on Hart.

National Housing Target
Five-Year Land Supply
Neighbourhood Plans
Duty to Cooperate
Enhanced Environment Protection
Mandatory Infrastructure Contributions
Regeneration

On first examination, these look to be positive proposals for Hart, particularly in that they appear to weaken the case for Shapley Heath. The proposals also strengthen powers to drive regeneration of town centres, which should be good news for Fleet and its businesses.

Let’s go through the detail.

National Housing Target

Michael Gove gave a number of interviews about the new Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill. On BBC Radio 4, he was repeatedly asked about whether the Government was sticking to the national housing target of 300,000 new dwellings per year. He refused to give a clear answer each time he was asked, saying he didn’t want to be “tied to a Procrustean bed”. Yes, we had to look that up too. Essentially, it means an arbitrary target. He also said that that while “arithmetic is important”, he was not “bound by one criterion alone”.

On the face of it, the Government is backing away from this target, which means that Hart’s housing target should fall from the current 286dpa. However, the Telegraph reported that a Downing Street spokesman stressed the target remained – while saying it was important to build the right sort of houses.

So, this is not something we can bank on yet. However, the current Local Plan calls for 423dpa. We are currently building far more than that. It seems unlikely to us that the current target of 286dpa will rise, so the upcoming Local Plan review ought to relieve pressure into the future. This will make the claims that Shapley Heath is required even more difficult to sustain.

Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill – Five-Year Land Supply

Related to the housing target, the new Bill proposes to scrap the requirement for Councils to maintain a five year land supply.

Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill – Five-Year Land Supply Requirement scrapped

However, this is conditional upon the Local Plan being up to date. By this they mean adopted in the past five years. To benefit from this proposal Hart will have to have an updated Local Plan in place by April 2025. Our current Local Plan is front-loaded, with completions falling below target beyond around 2026/27. This proposal should help with that problem.

At the very least, this Bill should scupper CCH’s “suicidal” plans to build Shapley Heath at a rate of 500dpa.

Neighbourhood Plans

The summary of the proposals says that neighbourhood plans will be strengthened to have equal weight with other planning documents.

Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill – Neighbourhood Plans given equal weight

On the face of it, this is a positive development because is inconceivable that Winchfield Parish Council would include Shapley Heath in their Neighbourhood Plan. However, this must be tempered by statement in the full Bill that seems to prohibit Neighbourhood Plans reducing the amount of housing a Local Authority can deliver.

Neighbourhood Plans Cannot Cut Housing for the Authority

Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill – Duty to Cooperate

The current duty to cooperate requirement will be repealed and replaced with a more flexible alignment test.

Duty to Cooperate Repealed

This is a positive development, because the current Local Plan includes an allowance to build housing for Surrey Heath. This allowance was already under question because the housing target for both Surrey Heath and Rushmoor has been reduced. Rushmoor is building far more than it is now required to do and could easily take any unmet need from Surrey Heath. However, the requirement to build houses for neighbouring authorities appears to fall away. This is good news in that it reduces Hart’s housing target.

Enhanced Environment Protection

The Bill also seeks to enhance environmental protections.

Enhanced Environmental Protection

We know that parts of the Shapley Heath contain significant areas that are at risk of flooding. On the face of it, these proposals will make it harder to build in such an area. Moreover, the area contains SSSIs, SINCs and other protected areas. Enhanced environmental protections ought to help fend off proposals for Shapley Heath.

Mandatory Infrastructure Contributions

The Bill proposes changes to infrastructure funding. A new mandatory infrastructure levy is proposed to replace S106 contributions and Community Infrastructure Levy.

New Mandatory Infrastructure Charge

On the face of it, this seems to close the loophole where developers converting office blocks under permitted development rights were able to avoid infrastructure contributions. This should help the council adopt a better attitude to brownfield development.

Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill – Regeneration

New compulsory purchase powers are proposed in the Bill. These should help Councils rejuvenate town centres and regenerate brownfield land.

Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill – Strong Support for Urban Regeneration

Taken together, these proposals should finally end the ridiculous proposals for a new town at Shapley Heath. There will no longer be any excuses for Hart not to come up with bold new plans to regenerate Fleet, Blackwater and Yateley. These urban centres should be the focus of the updated Local Plan so we can make Hart an even greater place to live.

CCH Commits “Political Suicide”

Posted on April 20, 2022August 16, 2023

A CCH Councillor has said that it would be “political suicide” to impose more housing on Hart than is needed.

Political Suicide to Build More than Needed

However, the same Councillor has also outlined her party’s plans for Shapley Heath that amount to the very same “political suicide” she mentions.

Katie Davies 5000 over 10 years

Let’s go through how CCH commits political suicide:

Shapley Heath Not Required

CCH as a party are still pushing the very same development that was removed from the Local Plan by the Inspector because it was not required to meet our housing targets out to 2032. In their bid for Government funding they even claimed they would deliver Shapley Heath “in addition to” the requirements of the Local Plan.

Shapley Heath in addition to Local Plan

CCH Propose Faster Build Rate than Required

Moreover, Councillor Davies has proposed a far faster rollout for Shapley Heath than was proposed in the Council’s bid for funding. The plan they put forward then ran for 16 years from 2024 to 2040, with a steady state run rate of 360dpa.

Shapley Heath Housing Trajectory Sept 2020

CCH are now proposing the development takes place over 10 years. Simple arithmetic would indicate an average build rate of 500 dpa. The pace of this single proposed development is nearly twice the latest Government target of 286dpa.

Government Housing target climbdown: New targets Hart Rushmoor and Surrey Heath

New targets for Hart, Rushmoor and Surrey Heath

CCH Not Addressed Inspector Concerns

They have said that they will “explore all options”. However, they have spent over £700K on Shapley Heath since FY19/20 and delivered nothing of substance. They have not formally considered any other option. This is in direct contravention of the Inspector’s findings:

I am of the view that a significant level of further supporting work would be required for Policy SS3 [Shapley Heath] to be found sound in its current form, which would need to include appropriate and proportionate area/site assessments, infrastructure considerations, viability testing, evidence in support of deliverability and further SA work, which would need to be done in an impartial manner with sufficient evidence to support its findings and comparisons with alternative options

Summary

They are proposing to consult on the same proposal that:

Is not required to meet our housing needs
Was rejected by the Inspector
Will deliver housing at nearly twice the rate required

They will do all this without properly considering any other option. Political suicide indeed.

Virtue Signalling Council Refuses Help for Hard Pressed Families

Posted on February 26, 2022August 16, 2023

At Council last week, we asked a number of questions to challenge the budget for next year. One of those questions asked what specific deliverables would be produced from the £250K they have set aside to “tackle climate change”. The answer revealed that they didn’t have the faintest clue what they were going to spend it on or what they were going to deliver with the money. The supplementary question asked if they wouldn’t be better to keep the money in reserves to balance future budgets or offer a rebate on council tax to help families struggling with the cost of living rather than signalling their virtue with other people’s money.

The full exchange can be viewed here: https://youtu.be/sa2I5KxdmsM?t=3809

This accusation caused offence to the Leader of the Council. We’re sorry if the truth hurts. Remember, climate change is supposed to be their “top priority”, but they have no plan. During the debate about the budget many of the Councillors got up to ~~virtue signal~~ express their outrage at such a suggestion. As they expelled lots of hot air containing 40,000ppm CO2, not one of them came up with a single idea to reduce emissions or improve the environment. The Conservatives proposed a motion to remove that item from the budget and instead offer a council tax rebate to the poorest households in the district. This amendment was rejected.

Among the critics of the amendment was ~~Saint~~ Councillor Peter Wildsmith, who asked for the £250K annual budget to be extended indefinitely to tackle the problem. Again, he didn’t come up with a single idea on how to use the money effectively. Now he has taken to social media to describe as a “disgrace” anyone who has the temerity to disagree with him.

The budget was eventually passed with a small amendment to offer a welcome £10,000 grant to Fleet Food Bank.

6 Ideas to Improve Hart’s Environment

We are very concerned about waste at Hart Council. Over £700K has been splurged on the doomed Shapley Heath project since FY19/20 and nothing of substance has been produced. They squandered ~£140K on planters and signs for the disastrous Fleet pedestrianisation project. Now it appears they want to create a permanent £250K/yr climate slush fund to parade their virtue and produce nothing but CO2-laden hot air.

We think if we criticise the Council we should offer some alternative ideas.

The Council has substantial capital reserves. They should invest some of this to insulate better the social housing in the district. This would reduce emissions and reduce residents’ soaring energy bills.
They have been talking about the “green grid” for a long time now and delivered nothing. They should accelerate this project to encourage and enable more walking and cycling.
The Council offices are far bigger than they need. They should move to smaller, better insulated premises and reduce their own energy consumption.
Apply for one or more of these grants to support planting trees in the District.
End support for their disastrous plan to build 5-10,000 unnecessary houses at Shapley Heath. Construction alone would emit 1m tonnes of CO2 and destroy valuable habitat and carbon sinks.
Extend the range of items that can be recycled in the blue bins.

Readers should also note that earlier iterations of Shapley Heath pushed the idea of a locally-sourced biomass energy plant. This is essentially chopping down the wonderful trees in the district to produce electricity. Burning wood produces more CO2 per unit of electricity generated than burning coal. At Drax, it also produces more particulate emissions than burning coal.

The Council declared a Climate Emergency last year. Since then the committee has met several times and produced nothing but hot air. None of the ideas above would require a single penny of the £250K they have allocated to be spent, but would help Hart residents directly and improve the environment. It’s time for the Council to stop the hot air and start acting.

Hart Budget Ugly News

Posted on February 21, 2022February 22, 2022

Hart Budget Ugly News

This is the third post covering the Good, the Bad and the Ugly news arising from the release of Hart’s latest budget book. This news isn’t strictly about the FY22/23 budget, it’s about how they have changed the past budget and actuals.

They have changed the current year budget yet again.
The actuals for FY20-21 have been changed.

Hart Budget Ugly News – Another Change to the FY21-22 Budget

We have reported before on the many changes to the FY21-22 budget. The finance department have excelled themselves and made yet another change to the budget. This is best illustrated by looking at the “Appropriations” section.

Changes to Appropriations FY21-22

The slide above shows the Original FY21/22 budget, approved in February 2021. The two extra columns show the “Final V2” budget published in July and the latest version published as part of the FY22/23 budget book. Clearly, even “Final V2”, wasn’t final.

The first row shows the change in reserves transfers from capital. We’re not too concerned about this because to cover depreciation and is a non-cash item. They have previously disclosed that depreciation wasn’t included in the Original Budget.

The second row shows that they somehow forgot to budget over £1m of pension contributions in the Original budget. They then added them in Final V2.

The third row shows that they budgeted to transfer £381K to reserves originally. Note that positive numbers are costs in public sector accounts. In Final V2, this had changed to a £639K transfer from reserves. A swing of over £1m. In the latest iteration, they have increased this to a £769K transfer from reserves. We believe this is the same £130K that is replacing the Government grant that has been moved to last year’s accounts.

The level of change in the budget defies belief. How on earth can councillors or members of the public properly judge performance against budget when the budget itself is a movable feast?

Changes to FY20-21 Actuals

Not content with changing the budget during the year, they have now started changing the actuals. This can best be seen in the slide below.

Changes to Actuals FY20-21

Back in July 2021, they presented the performance for the year in the draft accounts. The budget they presented was different to all other prior representations of the budget, as we reported here. In the draft accounts, the actual controllable expenditure was recorded as £11,868K. In the latest budget book, that has jumped £1.23m to £13,101K, an increase of £1.23m.

Where on earth has this extra spending come from? How did they miss it when presenting the accounts to the auditor for approval.

Hart FY22-23 Budget Bad News

Posted on February 20, 2022February 22, 2022

Hart FY22-23 Budget Bad News

This is the second of our three posts covering the Good, the Bad and the Ugly parts of Hart’s FY22-23 budget announcement. The four main areas of bad news are:

The Health and Wellbeing Service has been cut completely.
The costs of the finance department has gone up dramatically.
Large salary increases for the Leadership Team.
Above inflation increases across several contract areas.

Hart FY22-23 Budget Bad News – Health and Wellbeing

The Health and Wellbeing service has been cut to zero. As there’s a mental health crisis after the trauma of Covid lockdowns this seems to be a crass decision.

Hart FY22-23 Budget Bad News- Health and Wellbeing Cuts

£118K was the budgeted spend for this year. However, next year no funds have been allocated. The have announced this in quite a sneaky way. They originally published a summary of budget changes and this cut was not flagged up in the summary. Moreover, we could find no reference to this cut in the papers submitted to O&S or Cabinet.

The cut was buried in the bowels of the detailed Budget Book that was published after the deadline for public questions. We only found it because we were checking that budget added up properly, which of course it didn’t last year.

Hart FY22-23 Budget Bad News – Cost of Finance

The cost of the finance department has gone up dramatically. The budget for this year is £497,999. Next year the budget soars to £891,958, an increase of 79%.

Hart FY22-23 Budget Bad News – Budget Changes Corporate Finance

Given the errors identified and the changes made to this year’s budget, perhaps some upgrading of skills in the finance department is justified. But 79% looks like an outrageous increase to us.

Leadership Salaries

Careful examination of the image above will show that the salaries for the Leadership team are going up by £42K. Remember, Hart has two full-time Chief Executives, so any increase awarded to one has to go to the other. Rather than increasing salaries, we should be cutting at least one of the posts. Regular readers may recall that Havant and East Hampshire share just one Chief Executive between them. There is no justification for keeping two JCXs. With yawning deficits as far as the eye can see, it’s time to bite the bullet and restructure the Leadership team.

Contract Inflation

There are worrying increases in the costs of a number of contracts the Council has awarded.

IT Contract up 46% (£164.1K/£356.4K)
Grounds Maintenance up 24% (£86.3K/£356.7K)
Street Cleaning up 23% (£138K/£604.2K)
Waste up 10% (£181K/£1,775K)
5 Council Contract up 9% (£219.7K/£2,497K)

The latest figures we can find show the CPI measure of UK inflation went up 5.5% in the year to January 2022. Why is Hart facing such massive increases in the cost of services?

Hart FY22-23 Budget Changes Corporate Services

Hart FY22-23 Budget Bad News – Budget Changes Corporate Services

Hart FY22-23 Budget Changes Technical and Environmental

Hart FY22-23 Budget Bad News – Budget Changes Technical and Environmental