Henblas Street Development
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Posts
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Councillors ned to wake up to the whole issue of payments from developers for other Council services such as Education, Open Spaces, Housing etc. During last financial (2018/19) year the Council collected more than £397,000 and have only allocated £36k- unsure why the £300,000 from Henblas Street is not listed. In previous years it is the same. It looks like over the past 5 years they have approx. £1,000,000 that has been collected on Section 106 agreements that they have never used. WHY? Who is responsible?
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/section_106_and_community_benief#incoming-1328010
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/council_collection_and_use_of_se#incoming-1317491In respect to Henblas Street the loss (potentially- there would have been named store signs up by now if this was a genuine arrangement) of the retailer going into the old BHS will have made a significant impact on the developments financial profitability. Each of the other retail units are also still available To Let- wait for some other planning amendment for change of use for these units.
Developers are not breaking any regulations as the attachments to Planning Applications are a bilateral agreement. They are generally unenforceable as the costs could prove to be prohibative.
Didn’t this come up recently, in that the education department haven’t been collecting S106 payments?
Very stern words from the Leader of the Council Cllr Pritchard to his fellow Councillors. Does he have the full facts?
I wonder if the transfer of the Henblas Street development to one of the very many (approx. 35 property holding companies) Mandale property companies has already taken place or whether a new one for Wrexham is being established- this is a very common practice with a development being undertaken by one company and then the asset moves to a managing company but none of the problems like Section 106 transfer. The developer is left with no assets or income so can’t make any obligation payments and the holding company has no obligation at all.Councillors and Officers need to wake up to the commercial world of property development if they are ever going to secure any funding such as the original £300k promised. Commercial companies by their very nature have a sole role to make profits not to be generous to Councils.
With so many housing and commercial developments in the pipe line it is time the Council looked at themselves to ask the question do they have the expertise to secure a single £1 because at present it does not look like they have.
The company wanted to reduce their contribution towards the cost of affordable housing from around £300,000 to just under £29,000 amid claims the original requirement would render the scheme unviable.
Finally planning committee are sticking to there guns, that makes a change they usually give in to developers. If the developers had gone from £300,000 to £200,000 then maybe but this sounds like greedy developers or they calculated wrong, which is their fault.
Council leader Mark Pritchard is wrong its the developers fault not the planning committee’s fault if they walk away.
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