Agenda and minutes

Mary Stuart, Chair of the Lincoln Town Deal Board, welcomed those in attendance to this virtual meeting of the Board.

Apologies of absence were received from James Baty (Greater Lincolnshire Local Enterprise Partnership), Ruth Carver (Greater Lincolnshire Local Enterprise Partnership), Lord Cormack (House of Lords), Councillor Richard Davies (Lincolnshire County Council), Scott Fleming (Bishop Grosseteste University), Andy Gutherson (Lincolnshire County Council), Gary Headland (Lincoln College), Nicole Hilton (Lincolnshire County Council), Group Captain Kilvington (RAF Waddington) and Mark Speed (Siemens).

It was RESOLVED that the minutes of the previous meeting held on 25 September 2020 be confirmed as a correct record.

Mick Lazarus, Cities and Local Growth Unit, provided a brief update on the status of the Town Deal Programme, stating that Cohort one ‘deals’ were in the progress of being finalised and were due to be published shortly. He continued to explain the process for agreeing a deal, stating that this would firstly depend on the assessment of the Town Investment Plan overall and secondly on the assessment of the individual projects within the Plan. Subject to meeting a minimum standard, a conditional offer would be made. Where the amount of funding was less than £25 million, Towns would have to determine the split of funding between the constituent projects. It was reported that it would be useful to have a prioritised list of schemes to help within this process, should it be necessary, but Mr Lazarus confirmed that there was no requirement to provide the prioritised list within the Town Investment Plan itself since all schemes would be subject to assessment by Government officials as part of the due diligence process.

Mary Stuart, Chair of the Lincoln Town Deal Board, requested that in the interest of transparency, members declared any interests that may affect their ability to participate in the meeting if projects were discussed in detail. These were noted as follows:

·         Mary Stuart – declaration of interest in the Health and Wellbeing Centre, Lincoln City Football Club Stadium and Community Redevelopment and Hospitality Events and Tourism Institute projects due to her role at the University of Lincoln;

·         Liz Price – declaration of interest in the Health and Wellbeing Centre, Lincoln City Football Club Stadium and Community Redevelopment and Hospitality Events and Tourism Institute projects due to her role at the University of Lincoln;

·         Liam Scully – declaration of interest in the Lincoln City Football Club Stadium and Community Redevelopment project due to his role at the City of Lincoln Football Club. He also declared that he was a member of the Lincoln City Foundation;

·         Ursula Lidbetter – declaration of interest in the Barbican project due to her role as Chief Executive of the Lincolnshire Co-operative. She also declared she was the Chair of the Lincoln Business Improvement Group Board;

·         Charlotte Goy – declaration of interest in the Hospitality Events and Tourism Institute and Lincoln Central Market and Vibrant Public Realm projects due to her role at Visit Lincoln;

·         Councillor Ric Metcalfe – declaration of interest in all City of Lincoln Council projects due to his role as Leader of the Council;

·         Angela Andrews – declaration of interest in all City of Lincoln Council projects due to her role as Chief Executive;

·         Marc Jones – declaration of interest as he owned the building proposed by the Hive Project.

All members confirmed that should specific discussion ensue on any particular project for which they had declared an interest they would leave the meeting accordingly and have no involvement in the matter to be determined.

Jo Walker, Assistant Director for Growth, City of Lincoln Council, presented a final draft of the Lincoln Town Investment Plan for approval. She reported that the content and structure had been discussed at the previous meeting of the Board and that the document had subsequently been refined as a result of the Government’s check and challenge process. The main points emerging from this process were noted as follows:

-          overall it was felt that Lincoln had produced a strong Town Investment Plan, covering all of the key points;

-          the vision was very strong and should be included at the beginning of the document together with a Foreword;

-          it was important to emphasise how the schemes would specifically address the key challenges identified;

-          there was a need to highlight market failures;

-          it needed to be better demonstrated how the projects had been selected and prioritised, together with crystallising the funding and outputs for each as well as making it clear who the lead partner was in each case;

-          there was a requirement for a stakeholder engagement plan, looking forward to continued engagement post submission  ...  view the full minutes text for item 31.

Ivan Annibal, Rose Regeneration, outlined the process undertaken firstly by officers and secondly by the Board sub-group to arrive at a prioritised list of schemes for Lincoln’s Town Deal. He explained that this involved both a technical scoring process and a further independent ranking exercise undertaken by the sub-group members. The scores and rankings were reflected in the accompanying report, although it was now accepted that the Town Investment Plan was not required to include a prioritised list.

Whilst there was some variation in the project scores, there was consistency with the project at the bottom of the list in relation to Hive. However, as a result of savings and additional match-funding brokered in against the wider suite of projects, it was still possible to include the Hive project albeit with a reduced funding allocation.

Thanks were placed on record to Karl McCartney MP, Peter Neil and Leo Scott-Smith for meeting as a working group to undertake the independent project prioritisation exercise.  The breakdown of the scoring allocated to the projects was outlined at the meeting and noted.

Mary Stuart, Chair of the Lincoln Town Deal Board informed those present that nominations to fill the vacancies for the development and retail sector on the Board had been received as follows:

·         Development Sector – Nick Worboys from Longhurst Group

·         Retail – Valerie Johnson from St Mark’s, Lincoln

It was RESOLVED that the above nominations be approved.

It was agreed that a future meeting of the Lincoln Town Improvement Board be scheduled for a Friday in December, dependent upon availability, in order to maintain focus on the development and delivery of Town Deal Board projects.