ASSET STRIPPING IN RICHMOND (YORKSHIRE) 

The Sorry Saga of Richmondshire District Council and Colburn Business Park 

REMEMBER - NONE OF RICHMONDSHIRE'S ASSETS ARE SAFE IF YOU HAPPEN TO LIVE OUTSIDE RICHMOND DON'T THINK YOUR TOWN OR VILLAGE IS SAFE - IT ISN'T

THE STORY SO FAR

For those who don't know where or what Richmondshire is, a brief explanation sets the scene for the saga that is being played out.

Richmond is the place where Count Alan the Red built his castle in 1071. The name, Richmond is derived from the Old French, Riche-Monte (strong hill). According to Simpson (North East England,2003) the area surrounding Richmond became Count Alan's territory and was named Richmond Shire although the earliest reference to Richmondshire found by the local historian, Peter Wenham was 1173.

The historic market town of Richmond with its famous Norman Castle, its cobbled market place, ancient churches, elegant Georgian buildings and numerous listed buildings is the gateway to the Yorkshire Dales. In October 2002, Richmond was designated the '8^th Best Place to live in England' and is visited by many thousands of people each year. Tourism is a vital industry throughout the whole of Richmondshire, which includes the bustling market towns of Leyburn and Hawes, the ancient towns of Middleham and Reeth and many traditional villages. Richmond itself has the heaviest concentration of listed buildings and protected landscapes of any town per square mile in the UK, a heritage the townspeople take seriously and intend to preserve.

The ancient name, Richmondshire was re-used when the District Council (RDC) with its 101 parishes, was created when local government was re-organised in 1974. The RDC is administered from Richmond and is the major employer in the area. Its offices are located in five buildings in the town.

Richmondshire District covers 509 square miles, its boundaries stretch from the River Tees to Cumbria and in 2004 its estimated population was 50,700. The area is predominantly rural and a large part of it is situated in the Yorkshire Dales National Park.

1.

19 February 2002: Resources Committee Because office accommodation required refurbishment several options had been explored: refurbishment of existing buildings, relocation to alternative accommodation or a new build. The Committee resolved:

'To support wholeheartedly the principle of relocating the District Council's administrative base; . . . support the possibility of the relocation (of) purpose built office accommodation at the Colburn Business Park and any other options which emerge including any within Richmond; . . . that a Working Party be set up to deal with the issues of relocating the Council offices.'

Subsequently, visits to eight sites were made but on 25 June 2002 the Council decided not to pursue any of the sites other than the Colburn Business Park site [a location several miles outside Richmond with few local amenities]. In doing so the RDC disregarded an expensive consultants' report it had commissioned in 2003 which recommended the repair and refurbishment of the five Richmond offices at a total cost of £465,000 i.e. just one-tenth of the projected £4.5m needed to build the shell of a new building at Colburn. Since the 2003 report the RDC has carried out only basic maintenance to any of its office accommodation, much of which is not 'fit for purpose' in its present state..

2.

31 August 2004: Full Council meeting (Minute DC31) The Council confirmed: 'that the principle of moving all "back office" functions to the Colburn Site . . . and the development of a full business case and plan to achieve this move . . . to authorize seeking (to) maximize the value of the Council's (current) accommodation, aimed at maximizing the value of that accommodation (and) to agree a purchase price for the Colburn site'.

Richmondshire residents, while agreeing wholeheartedly that office staff have a right to work in good accommodation that is 'fit for purpose' are concerned that:

• many office staff would be relocated to offices outside Richmond with few amenities;
• the damage that relocation would do to Richmond's trading economy where staff are regular customers of shops and services;
• the RDC's plans would strip and/or damage many of its historic and essential assets to pay for an unnecessary move to Colburn e.g. 2 major carparks (Station Road and Yorke Square) that are essential for local people and for attracting tourists and maintaining the tourist industry; the damage - visual and physical - to Yorke Square, a sensitive area of outstanding beauty in a conservation area surrounded on three sides by listed buildings.

3.

17 March 2005: Resources Committee (held in Swale House) - adjourned for Health & Safety reasons because the Council Chamber could not accommodate the more than 200 members of the public who attended to express their views about the proposal to move the RDC's offices and almost all the staff out of the town.

4.  

30 March 2005: Resources Committee (held in Richmond School Hall) adjourned for Health & Safety reasons because the Hall could not accommodate the 1,000 members of the public who attended to express their views about the RDC's plans.

5.

12 April 2005: Resources Committee (held in Swale House) The RDC had arranged a strong police presence outside the Council Chamber (3 police cars, 2 police vans, 1 ambulance, 5 policemen, 4 security men, crowd control barriers, traffic cones lining all access roads). Of the 50 people who attended to express their views about the proposed move 35 were admitted.

6.

22 June 2005: Resources Committee (held in the Zetland Centre - holding 300 people)
The Committee resolved (Minute R14):

• not to sell off Station Road carpark to help fund the move to Colburn (but only because a covenant preventing this has been brought to light);
• the Yorke Square carpark to be developed . . . the receipt of the sale being allocated towards the funding of the Colburn Office Relocation Project . . . (and that the) scheme be promoted through the Council applying for planning permission with prior local consultation. [Yorke Square is an essential and vital tourist carpark and coach park in a conservation area - see the website picture].

91 letters of objection from the public were read out at that meeting. The RDC had arranged for 4 security guards and a van of police dogs to 'control the crowds' - neither of which was necessary!

Public opinion is firmly against the plan to a degree never seen before in the area. Petitions totalling 8,262 signatures have been signed (Richmondshire has a population of approx. 50,000 and at the 2001 census, the town of Richmond had a population of 8,178), 555 letters of objection have been written objecting to the sale of the assets - ALL HAVE BEEN IGNORED

7.

December 2005: Planning application for the development of Yorke Square carpark was submitted. The plans are for 14 luxury apartments in buildings resembling barrack blocks with a central tower. [See website pictures for the position and scale of the proposed buildings].

8. 

15 February 2006: Yorke Square Site Visit by Environmental & Planning Committee With the exception of the Chairman, all members of the E & P Committee attending the Site Visit left before the end of the meeting and did not view the site from all the vantage points required. Four security guards attended the meeting, presumably to keep the 20 or so members of the public present under control!

9.  

23 February 2006: Environmental & Planning Committee meeting to consider the planning application for Yorke Square development (held in the Zetland Centre) About 180 members of the public and 4 security guards were present.. The conduct and the process of the meeting were disgraceful:

The Planning Committee was composed of 11 Members.

• the Chairman, very early on in the debate, seconded the motion to accept the Officers' recommendation to develop Yorke Square, thus clearly indicating her partial approach. She should have remained impartial until after the debate!
• 5 councillors, representing Richmond wards and opposed to the planning application were refused permission to speak and were obliged to leave the meeting because they were said to have 'prejudicial interests'. This took place despite having been assured by their own monitoring officer that they would be allowed to speak. A monitoring officer brought in from a different Local Authority to sit in at the meeting reversed the original information;
• 5 councillors (those who were committee members themselves or were substitutes for some of those not allowed to participate) voted against accepting the application;
• 5 councillors representing wards outside Richmond, all of whom were in favour of the application, took almost no part in the proceedings except to vote! One of the five appeared to drop off to sleep at intervals but, in a waking moment, said he did not realize that he was being asked to vote on a 'full-application' and that he had reservations on the size and scale of the planned development. Despite that, he voted to accept the application.
• the Chairman announced in advance of the vote that she would vote in favour of the application. The remaining 4 virtually silent councillors were galvanized by her words and voted with her;
• the application was passed by a majority of 1 vote (5 voted against, 6 for).

Note: Apparent irregularities have been taken up with the Standards Board for England.

10. 

6 March 2006: Full Council meeting (held in Swale House) Only 20 members of the public were allowed in. Note: the venue has limited seating ensuring that few of the public can attend a full-council meeting.

• the meeting was brought forward by four weeks so that the Council's Chairman, Councillor Campbell-Dawson could go on holiday;
• the imminent Government White Paper will almost certainly signal the end of District Councils as we know them;
• the detailed papers for the meeting were published on 24 February, i.e. less than 24 hours after the vote in favour of the application was taken at the Planning meeting. The Chief Executive's report (in Appendix 6) appeared to know what the outcome of the Planning meeting would be since it was compiled and printed in advance of the Planning meeting and recommended authorization of the sale of Yorke Square carpark to raise income for the move to Colburn;
• the Council decided by just one vote to sell off several of its assets in Richmond and Brompton on Swale to raise the capital in order to build itself a new office block on Colburn Business Park;
• the Council itself was equally divided, 17 (Coalition councillors) voting for the move to Colburn and 17 (Lib-Dems, Conservative and Independent) voting against. After a heated debate and some eloquent speeches by those against the move, the Chairman used his casting vote in favour of the move. Several amendments, including one to defer a decision until the government's plans for local government reorganization are known, were voted for in the same way - with the Chairman making the casting vote each time to win for the Coalition;
• a major element of the whole sorry affair only came to light at the meeting. It is that although the proposed Colburn building will have a life of just 30 years the Council says it will consider taking out a 50 year loan at 4% interest to pay for it if the sale of assets does not raise sufficient money for the new build!
• Please note: The Council is very happy to spend our money - so far it has spent more than £200,000 on consultants' fees alone in preparation for its proposed move. The true cost is thought to be twice that amount since legal costs and staff time were not included!