Arundel Street gets belated spring clean

Published on Sunday, 5th July 2015

A decade or so after half a million pounds was spent on the pavements and street furniture in Arundel Street, everything is starting to look tired once more. Most of the blue uplights that used to illuminate the street no longer work, the blue surface pavements have been spoilt with ten years’ worth of ground in dirt and even the metalwork is worn.

While extensive improvements to the city centre are a non-starter giving the costs involved, the council can at least maintain what it has got. I have authorised the expenditure of about £40000 on repairs. While that may sound like a lot of money the works were designed without much thought for how they could be maintained and just using a pressure washer would destroy the surface. That means having to use specialist equipment and that drives up the cost.

Tags : City Centre

New investment fund to be launched

Published on Sunday, 5th July 2015

One advantage local government has over the private sector is that it is able to borrow at very low rates of interest. This creates an opportunity to take out loans to buy income generating assets. Subject to agreement by the Full Council later this week, Portsmouth will join the growing list of local authorities across the country that doing just that and building investment portfolios. Neighbouring Fareham, for example, owns three supermarkets and a couple of shops and earns more in rent than it pays in additional debt servicing costs. 

The City Council administration wants to be able to borrow up to £30m to buy commercial property. There’s always a measure of risk in doing anything of course, but if a high calibre tenant is in place then it’s manageable. The surplus that will be generated will be used to cover some of the losses in government grants that will happen over the next few years.

Tags: Commercialisation

Beach huts plan

Published on Sunday, 5th July 2015

Planning applications for three lines of beach huts were submitted a month or so ago – each contains around 25 huts. A presentation showing the details is available here.

The proposals were drawn up following extensive consultation both during the budget process and via a special policy document that was published and open to comment last autumn. The motivation throughout has been to address the 500 strong waiting list for huts and to raise some funds for the council – the profit before borrowing costs for 73 huts would be about £60000 pa.

I presented outline plans to the East Southsea Neighbourhood Forum back in October and got a fairly positive response, so I was - I admit - taken aback by the very different feedback I got when addressing the Forum again a couple of weeks ago. From the comments there and that I have received since it is clear that the Canoe Lake line causes the majority of the concern.

Reflecting on it all, I have decided that:

• The Esplanade and St George’s planning applications will both go to the July Planning Committee
• The Canoe Lake application will be put on hold for about two months while final costings for different numbers of huts are calculated and alternative locations considered
• Officers will look at the viability of using some land to the east of Lumps Fort instead

So potentially the Canoe Lake application will be withdrawn, but I'm not in a position to make a final decision on that yet.

Tags: Seafront, Commercialisation

Spinnaker Tower deal good for Portsmouth

Published on Sunday, 5th July 2015

There’s been a great deal of controversy over the deal with Emirates Airlines to sponsor the Spinnaker Tower, but setting emotions aside for a moment, it’s a really positive result for Portsmouth.

The city will be promoted on Emirates’ aircraft and will be associated with the airline - which is good for the economy. In my role over planning and corporate property I meet quite a few businessmen – many from London and some from abroad – and they all mention Ben Ainslie and those I have spoken to recently have mentioned the tower as well (which all surprises me, but they are both important to the image of Portsmouth). There will be an investment somewhere in the city or the region that takes place because of it.

Even more importantly the council will receive £3.5m in cash over a five year period. The £700,000 a year payment is roughly equivalent to the total cost of running community centres and school crossing patrols – it is not an insignificant sum. The council has to cut spending by another £10m every year and it is becoming increasingly difficult to balance the books. This cash will really help.

It is also very much at the upper end of expectations of what we thought we would get for the naming rights (…and if you think that’s a case of ‘he would say that wouldn’t he’, I refer you to the council budget: that allowed for £80 000 from tower sponsorship in 2015/6. Of course that was only going to cover part of the financial year and the figure was necessarily cautious, but even so it points to this payment being a generous one)

Tags: Spinnaker, Commercialisation 

Election result

Published on Sunday, 5th July 2015

Predicting election results from canvas returns is not as easy as it sounds – returns always flatter the party of the person asking, but not always by the same amount. In other words apparent support of 50% may translate into 40% one year and 33% the next.

Still I always felt confident about this year’s election and in the event Jennie Brent ended up winning by a margin in excess of 1000 over the LibDems. UKIP, Labour and the Green Party were fairly close to each other some way behind.

Jennie Brent, Conservative 2574

• LibDem 1500
• UKIP 890
• Labour 805
• Green 646
• TUSC 60

The Conservative-minority administration of the City Council will continue this year and in all probability for the two after that.

Tags: Elections

Ferry Road traffic calming

A map of the proposals is available here

A covering article will appear on this later. 

A history of Savoy Buildings

Published on Wednesday, 22nd April 2015

There is an interesting three part history of Savoy Buildings available here. Much of it is familiar of course, but there are still enough surprises to make the articles worth reading. Who even knew that in 1955 there was a plan to extend the building along Clarendon Road and that work was supposed to start within twelve months? I certainly didn’t.

A Planning Inspector will hear the case for and against McCarthy and Stone’s proposed block of flats in mid-May. There are no fixed timetables for determining appeals, but my guess is that we will get a decision in September.

(hat tip: Nick Courtney’s petition against the appeal, which is here )

Tags : Local History, Planning

Arundel Street repairs

Published on Wednesday, 22nd April 2015

The public art, pavement and street furniture in Arundel Street is to get a long overdue spruce up. A decade after the council spent half a million pounds improving the road, £34000 is going to be spent on a full deep and on repairs to the up lights, the pavement and public art.

Repairing what we already have is by far the cheapest way of giving the city centre a boost.

Tags : City Centre, Shops

Money found for rural show and kite festival

Published on Wednesday, 22nd April 2015

A couple of much loved events have been saved from the axe after the council has found the money to allow them to continue. The previous LibDem administration removed from funding for both the rural show (aka the heavy horse show) and the kite festival. Neither is particularly expensive and money for both has been reinstated into the budget, meaning both will go ahead this year.

Tags : Seafront, Events