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RESOLVED:
 
1. 
The Savings summarised in 2.6 and set out in detail in
Appendix 4 were approved.
 
2. 
£880k of capital expenditure (£460k in
2025/26, £290k in 2026/27 and £130k in 2027/28) to
enable the commencement of the first phase of the programme to
upgrade and replace the network and cameras sites for the Town
Centre element of the wider Public Space Surveillance (PSS) system
and supporting technologies, was approved.
 
3. 
The acceptance of the grant from the London Estate
Regeneration Fund of up to £5 million for Marian Court and up
to £5m for Kings Crescent Phases 3 & 4, and agree to
enter into a Grant Funding Agreement with the applicable parties in
respect of such funding, was approved.
 
4. 
The overall financial position of the Council and in
particular the overspend and the impact of the initiatives set out
to mitigate this, as at December 2024, was noted.
 
REASONS FOR DECISION
 
To facilitate financial management and control
of the Council's finances and to approve the capital and grant
approvals
 
DETAILS OF ALTERNATIVE OPTIONS CONSIDERED AND
REJECTED
 
This budget monitoring report is primarily an
update on the Council’s financial position.
 
The PSS capital expenditure proposal is
essential to allow Council officers to commence the first phase of
the programme to upgrade and replace the network and cameras sites
for the Town Centre element of the wider Public Space Surveillance
system and supporting technologies. The phase cannot go ahead
without this expenditure.
 
Further to the LERF £10m grant approval,
as part of programme-wide efforts to address the unprecedented
economic challenges facing the Council’s housing regeneration
pipeline and the wider sector, the Council has taken a ‘no
stone unturned’ approach to improving viability on
regeneration projects. Part of this strategy has been to explore
all options for accessing external grant funding. Without this
external funding through LERF, the estate regeneration schemes
would not be able to be delivered within the agreed financial
parameters of the Estate Regeneration Programme (ERP), nor with the
tenure mix that the Council has committed to. The Council would
also face a reputational risk for not accepting external funding to
deliver the project.