Rutland County Councils Public Statement Rutland County Council votes to decline Government Housing Infrastructure Fund grant of £29.4M

Rutland County Council votes to decline Government Housing Infrastructure Fund grant of £29.4M

Date Published: 23 March 2021

Last night Rutland County Councillors voted to not accept Government Housing Infrastructure Fund (HIF) grant totalling £29.4m.

Rutland County Council submitted a successful bid to the Government to help fund infrastructure improvements for the proposed future redevelopment of St. George’s Barracks in North Luffenham as a garden village.

HIF is a national programme managed by Homes England that has made £5billion available to support the building of new homes by making sure important infrastructure, such as improvements to roads and public transport, can be put in place at the right stage. Only local authorities were eligible to apply for HIF.

Full Council met last night to consider the HIF grant and after considerable debate, Councillors voted to not accept the Government grant and will not receive the additional central government funding to support the St. George’s development. In the vote, 13 members voted against accepting the HIF grant, 12 voted for and two abstained.

“The decision on whether to accept HIF was extremely important and Full Council has now had their say. The Council will now be looking to work through the implications of this decision.” Council Leader, Cllr Oliver Hemsley

Rutland County Council submitted its application for HIF funding in February 2019, based on the latest Evolving Masterplan for the St. George’s site. A report noting the bid’s success was presented to Cabinet on 19 November 2019, with Full Council given the final say on whether to accept the funding. In January 2020, with some of the terms and conditions for the HIF grant still to be confirmed by Homes England, Councillors voted unanimously to defer their decision on HIF until final details were known. 

St. George’s Barracks, which is owned by the Ministry of Defence, is due to close in 2021/22, prompting proposals for a new Garden Community that would include up to 2,215 new houses, together with a further 30 possible houses on the site of the current Edith Weston School. 

Rutland County Council decided whether to accept £29.4m to redevelop St George's Barracks in private Rutland County Cllrs voted against accepting the HIF grant.

Rutland County Council decided whether to accept £29.4m to redevelop St George's Barracks in private after voting to exclude the public from the online meeting.

Rutland County Council decided not accept the Housing Infrastructure Funding which has been allocated to build a garden village on the site at North Luffenham.

It will provide 2,245 new homes and associated facilities including a new school and health centre.

More than 100 members of the public had joined the virtual meeting to listen to this evening's debate, but on the advice of the council's monitoring officer, the debate has gone into closed session.

Several councillors had called for the meeting to continue in public because of the scale of public interest.

Including Conservative Councillor Kenneth Bool, he said: "We've always tried to keep meetings as open as possible and this should apply here, particularly as we have so many people listening and following the issue." He told members the St George's Barracks issue began four years ago "shrouded in secrecy" adding: "If we go into excluded debate it makes me and the public wonder what else there is to hide. "There is a dark shadow over this project. This is a matter that affects everyone in Rutland and I can't see why residents can't hear their elected representatives discussing it."

Lib Dem Councillor Gale Waller backed the call to continue in public. She added: "We are often told that this development is as key to Rutland as the reservoir was in the seventies. We owe it to residents to make a decision in public."

Fifteen councillors voted to continue the meeting in private. Twelve others voted against.

Rutland County Cllrs voted against accepting the HIF grant.  13 against, 12 for and 2 abstentions