Icklesham Parish Council January 2015 meeting
Report about the lease of the Public Conveniences and Car Park at Rye Harbour from Rother District Council.
Introduction
This report concerns the leasing of the public conveniences and car park at Rye Harbour from Rother District Council. The Parish Council has made the decision in principle to take over the Lease and the work undertaken since that decision was made concerns: 1. the wording and content of the lease, 2. the running costs involved in operating the toilets and car park, 3. the current state of the toilets and car park, 4. future maintenance arrangements and 5. break clauses. This report is to update members on progress made to date and to consult on key decisions that need to be made at this time.
Description
Councils are not required to provide car-parks and public conveniences except in certain particular cases which do not apply in Rye Harbour. RDC need to continue to make financial savings for the foreseeable future and therefore wish to continue to dispose of non-essential services including loss-making car parking and toilets. Their options include closure. The Parish Council doesn’t want these important local facilities to close; this might severely damage important visitor patterns to the attractive Harbour area and The Sussex Trust Conservation Area. Parish and Town Councils are not “rate-capped” and are not likely to be in the foreseeable future. Therefore they can ask for an increased precept to run the costs which are then borne by the Parish Council Tax householders only rather than all the householders of Rother. The situation in IPC is further sharpened by the fact that all four wards (villages) pay for one village’s facilities. They already do this, for example, with play equipment.
The total costs per annum of the PC and CP facilities is unknown, but if it is say £18,000, shared between c1800 households in the Parish; a cost to each of £10 P.A. assuming there is no off-setting income. I have not yet had the time to find out the views of the Local Government Association, SSALC etc. on this issue of transferred facilities to non-commercial bodies such as IPC. The issues arising need consideration to ensure that as far as possible we act in a reasonable and just way for residents.
Consultations
Over the last two years meetings have taken place between Officers and Councillors of both RDC and IPC and drafting of a lease between Solicitors for both parties. During the past month I have discussed and made suggestions concerning the term of the lease with Ian Davison of Hedleys (our solicitors in this matter) and had a useful discussion with Lisa Haywood Bartlett, Team Leader, Neighbourhood Services, at RDC. I am due to meet on site with Alan King, RDC Property Manager, early in the New Year and I have received helpful advice from the Clerk of Polegate Town Council, who has recently taken over the management of the public conveniences on Polegate High Street. I have discussed the Parish Council’s decision not to sub-let to a third party with both owners of the business cases so that they fully understand the rationale of the decision.
Conclusions
The draft Lease deals jointly with both the car-park and the public conveniences and the term is 100 years at a peppercorn rent of £1. I have raised the issue of reviews or break periods and RDC are resistant to these. The following is pasted from the exchange of emails between solicitors:
RDC Solicitor to our Solicitor: “I now have my client’s instructions regarding the break clause. My client is not willing to accept a tenant-only break clause at years 5 and 10. The lease was negotiated with the maintenance contributions on the basis of a 99 year term without any breaks. Is there any particular reason for requiring a break clause at these dates?My client may consider a mutual break provision but this would need to be on 12 months’ notice and the provisions for RDC maintenance contributions will need to be renegotiated. If your client would wish to consider this option, please let me know.
Ian Davison’s reply to the Clerk: “Herewith response from Rother. It does not really surprise me. After negotiating this deal, you would want necessarily to allow Rother unilaterally to pull out. You can offer to surrender at any time (although Rother might refuse). I suggest that you drop the requirement although I appreciate your nervousness if the Council has not operated public conveniences before.” Please note that clauses 11 and 22/7 in the lease states that IPC can relinquish or re-assigning the lease by agreement with Rother District Council although we have no “rights” to do this.
Turning now to clause 24 Car Parking charges. It states that the Tenant is not to make any car parking charges for use of the Property unless such charges are previously agreed in writing by Rother District Council and any such approval will be subject to agreement between the parties of a formal sharing of the charges.
This surprises me as I assumed that Rother expected IPC to charge as means of generating income to meet the running costs of both facilities. This raises the question why haven’t they done this to ease their cash problems? I fully understand that there is concern that charges will result in unwelcome on-street parking around the village. I would suggest that the Council keeps an open mind on this until proper enquiries have been made with well-established parking firms such as Creative Parking Solutions and RING GO and with ESCC Highways to explore the possibility of Resident Parking only zones being established to the streets around the Harbour. As an early experiment Honesty Meters such as are used by National Trust could be introduced with a small tariff, the income of which would at least cover the costs of cleaning and fixing potholes and repairing the fencing. I will query this with our solicitor as I would like to see the lease changed to reflect that charges levied to meet running costs are not shared.
Now to running costs. I have not succeeded so far in getting any accurate figures from RDC, who say that their P.Cs are managed and financed en bloc by Hastings B.C, so detailed breakdowns are difficult to provide. Based on some RDC figures and Polegate T.C comments, the following is a guide to the various cost headings per annum.
Public Conveniences
Cleaning, opening and securing the premises -say 10 hours p.w 4000 (No T.U.P.E issues here)
Water and sewage 2600
Electricity (NO Gas) Hot water, heating, lighting 500
Repairs/maintenance/blockages 700 (Less any RDC contribution)
Buildings insurance 300
8100
Add Central admin costs at 10% 810
Total £8910 per annum
It should be noted that the RDC original Cabinet decision was to lease its PCs after refurbishment. Monies to do this were not released and the current likelihood is that the PCs will be in “fair” condition. It will be necessary for the Parish Council to create a fund to refurbish the toilets to a good or better standard in the foreseeable future or to challenge this with RDC. A figure of £3000 will need to be put aside for this work in addition to the above.
Car Park
No figures available at this stage.
Recommendations
I recommend that members drop the requirement for break clauses in line with solicitor’s advice. I further recommend that our solicitor pursues the issue of the sharing of car parking charges so that it is removed from the lease.
AE and TC 29th December, 2014