Echo News Fossetts Farm 1,300 homes to be decided next week

[Evening Echo]

Special policy and resources committee and cabinet meetings will be held on Wednesday and Thursday respectively to discuss the final details

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[Cricko]

PLANS for more than 1,300 homes, which could see £20million released to the new owners of Southend United to improve Roots Hall, will be decided at crunch meetings next week.

Special policy and resources committee and cabinet meetings will be held on Wednesday and Thursday respectively to discuss the final details of the new homes at Fossetts Farm off Eastern Avenue, which are closely linked with the sale of the club.

It comes amid the final negotiations with a consortium led by Australian businessman Justin Rees to buy the club from chairman Ron Martin.

The consortium intends to renovate Roots Hall in Victoria Avenue and hundreds of homes planned to replace the stadium will instead be built at Fossetts Farm. However, the Echo understands that the money will not be released to the consortium until planning permission is agreed for the new homes and the development of Fossetts Farm begins.

The land at Fossetts Farm will be entirely turned over to new homes under the deal, including 911 flats and 400 houses.

The finance from the homes will enable Mr Martin to deliver a promised £20million to the club to help the Roots Hall revamp.

Tony Cox, leader of the council, said: “We will be discussing broadly what we can do with Fossetts. There’s still one or two things to iron out with Ron, that’s why we’ve had to leave it to allow the due diligence to go through.

“We are on the right trajectory. This is the cabinet paper that we said we’d bring to enable and help facilitate the sale of the football club.”

Mr Cox added: “We’re in a position where we’re hopeful, I don’t want to be in a position where I have to cancel it but it’s our commitment to put that in the diary. I’m still confident that it will happen.”

The homes are expected to be leased to the council which will then rent them out with an option to buy them for a nominal sum in the future.

Once details of the Fossetts development are agreed, a new planning application will be submitted. It is likely to be decided relatively quickly with much of the ground work already done under the previous Fossetts stadium and homes plans.

The sale of the club hit a snag when creditors asked for a winding-up petition against the club to take place on April 17. They have subsequently agreed to delay the petition ahead a new proposed sale date of May 15.

Mr Martin is 99 per cent sure the sale would take place by mid-May.

 

[Holy Joe]

No meetings showing up in the calendar for next week.

There's a special policy and resources meeting on 24th and I've previously mentioned the special cabinet on the 29th.

Will check again later, hopefully these meetings have been brought forward?

 

[Smiffy]

Can someone explain how this works?

This article leads with a headline "1300 homes to be decided next week" is that actually the case?

Or, will this paper be presented to the committee and cabinet next Weds/Thurs for final discussion. Then a final yes/no will then need to be agreed at a full council meeting at a later date, before the sale of the club can actually "complete" ?

 

[dusterman]

Mr Cox added: “We’re in a position where we’re hopeful, I don’t want to be in a position where I have to cancel it but it’s our commitment to put that in the diary. I’m still confident that it will happen.”

Does he mean cancel the meeting if DD is not complete or the deal?

 

[Holy Joe]

Mr Cox added: “We’re in a position where we’re hopeful, I don’t want to be in a position where I have to cancel it but it’s our commitment to put that in the diary. I’m still confident that it will happen.”

Does he mean cancel the meeting if DD is not complete or the deal?

I read it as cancelling the meeting -or hopefully he means postpone.

But one leads to another if they can't get a deal (and the article also hints at some negotiation/clarifications still ongoing) then there's nothing to approve!

 

[JD]

Clear as mud.

Doesn’t fill me with much confidence after reading that!

 

[Chrisb]

I thought 1,300+ homes was the original number agreed for FF - wouldn't the additional ones moved from RH bring the number up to about 1,800 ?

 

[The Eternal Optimist]

I thought 1,300+ homes was the original number agreed for FF - wouldn't the additional ones moved from RH bring the number up to about 1,800 ?

The rat will point this out and delay things further

 

[annie1954]

I thought 1,300+ homes was the original number agreed for FF - wouldn't the additional ones moved from RH bring the number up to about 1,800 ?

i thought someone posted a while back that Ron wanted some of the Housing to be changed to Flats ?

 

[Blue Yonder]

Thank F we’re no longer moving to a bloody great housing estate on the edge of town. Who’d have thought even a year ago we’d be in sight of a re vamped Roots Hall being our home for the foreseeable future. There’s been some very creative thinking applied by someone in this deal.

 

[Medway Blue]

I thought 1,300+ homes was the original number agreed for FF - wouldn't the additional ones moved from RH bring the number up to about 1,800 ?

Nope. It was going to be 500+ at Roots Hall and 700+ at Fossetts, for a total of c.1,300.

 

[kentblues]

Tony Cox, leader of the council, said: “We will be discussing broadly what we can do with Fossetts. There’s still one or two things to iron out with Ron, that’s why we’ve had to leave it to allow the due diligence to go through.

“We are on the right trajectory. This is the cabinet paper that we said we’d bring to enable and help facilitate the sale of the football club.”

Mr Cox added: “We’re in a position where we’re hopeful, I don’t want to be in a position where I have to cancel it but it’s our commitment to put that in the diary. I’m still confident that it will happen.”
Let's just call him Captain Gibberish. You would assume no full council meeting required as he continually fails to mention it. And any half competent aspiring journalist would have asked. He says this is the cabinet paper to enable and help facilitate the sale of the club- what does this mean? Is the agreement between Ron and consortium that the act of cabinet approval meets the condition of the sale (remembering the agreement reached was 'conditional" -does it satisfy that condition?)

Basically it tells us something and nothing all at the same time- I suspect the sole purpose is, in essence, to tell us that it won't be their fault if it doesn't happen by end of April- don't blame me. The trouble is such an approach normally alerts suspicions and results in precisely that...

 

[Maidstone Shrimper]

"There’s still one or two things to iron out with Ron." What could possibly go wrong?

 

[defender05]

1300 new flats and houses but no mention of any new schools, doctors surgeries etc.

Obviously as a club we need the deal to go through but surly the council should be including these as part of ant deal this size.

 

[Barry.C]

Im not greatly confident of the timescales and as such all this preventing a repeat of the winding up order, although like everyone would dearly love to see it all go through in the timescale concocted

I find it odd that the shiny knight Ron steps in and Steward Law agree to back off for a month

In consort they have effectively skillfully knocked back all the brilliant complaints and tactics against the law firm. that were showing positive impact. So we all sit back now and wait until the next court deadline is much closer? ( with less time to react?

I would have thought the opposite might be a wiser tactic?

 

[Liam AAS]

1300 new flats and houses but no mention of any new schools, doctors surgeries etc.

Obviously as a club we need the deal to go through but surly the council should be including these as part of ant deal this size.

I think that housebuilders only need to build those amenities when certainly thresholds are met on number of dwellings.

e.g. if you build 1,400 homes, you need a GP surgery, if you build 3,500 homes then a school must be built.

Lots of developers therefore build 1,398 homes or 3,485 units etc. Existing social and public infrastructure gets squeezed (to breaking point as we're seeing) but everyone blames immigrants and the property people make a fortune because they didn't have to build things that they don't make money from.

Great racket, no wonder Ron Martin is in the business.

 

[dusterman]

I think that housebuilders only need to build those amenities when certainly thresholds are met on number of dwellings.

e.g. if you build 1,400 homes, you need a GP surgery, if you build 3,500 homes then a school must be built.

Lots of developers therefore build 1,398 homes of 3,485 units etc. Existing social and public infrastructure gets squeezed (to breaking point as we're seeing) but everyone blames immigrants and the property people make a fortune because they didn't have to build things that they don't make money from.

Great racket, no wonder Ron Martin is in the business.

I love you Liam, that’s all.

 

[Liam AAS]

Can someone explain how this works?

This article leads with a headline "1300 homes to be decided next week" is that actually the case?

Or, will this paper be presented to the committee and cabinet next Weds/Thurs for final discussion. Then a final yes/no will then need to be agreed at a full council meeting at a later date, before the sale of the club can actually "complete" ?

The council have agreed a deal to see the 500 units that WOULD have been built at RH to move to FF.

The old deal
The council was going to have a long lease on those RH flats and then take over the freehold for (next to) nothing after 30 years. SUFC got a new ground at FF, Ron got money from housing and the council got new houses for the city and a valuable piece of land in the middle of town. Everybody won.

The new deal
The council has, provisionally, agreed to allow Ron to build the planned RH housing units at FF instead of a stadium. COSU (& POSU) will take control of SUFC, Ron Martin gets his housing but the council are now slightly (maybe) worse off because of a change in proposal for units for rent, freeholds etc. However, the deal between Ron and SCC was provisionally agreed (December) as it was seen as a way to save the club. The council eventually engaged a legal firm to conduct due diligence on the deal. The question for that due diligence is: is it in the public interest (including SCC finances) to go ahead with this deal? That report is what we've ALL been waiting for. The hope is that the answer is a yes and then the club takeover will be able to proceed.

The homes are expected to be leased to the council which will then rent them out with an option to buy them for a nominal sum in the future.

Once details of the Fossetts development are agreed, a new planning application will be submitted. It is likely to be decided relatively quickly with much of the ground work already done under the previous Fossetts stadium and homes plans.

The report is what councillors will read and help them decide to agree to a deal with Ron, thus enabling the COSU takeover to complete.

 

[Chrisb]

Nope. It was going to be 500+ at Roots Hall and 700+ at Fossetts, for a total of c.1,300.

OK thanks.