Issue - meetings

The Poole Museum Redevelopment Project delivers against Big Plan and other strategic Council priorities as well as national and regional priorities and policies. The Project will conserve and open up nationally and internationally significant heritage assets and transform the visitor and community experience of the Poole Museum Estate.

In the wider context of Culture and the Cultural Compact, the Project will deliver on the Cultural Enquiry recommendations for talent, infrastructure, and quality of place and will provide new opportunities for under-represented and under-served communities and groups to participate in and co-curate their culture and heritage.

The project has strong support from NLHF as a priority project, third party match funding has been secured and there is a strong pipeline from trusts and foundations, with invited applications for additional grants totalling £250-450k. Council agreement to submit the NLHF round 2 application for the Poole Museum element of the project (deadline August 2021) is requested.

Project development work demonstrates an opportunity to extend the scope of the capital works to increase the transformative impact of the project for Poole rejuvenation, outcomes for people, built heritage and museum collections, and the financial sustainability of the service. Council agreement is requested for prudential borrowing to support these extended works.

There are two scenarios for prudential borrowing, dependent on whether a round 2 NLHF application for the Poole Museum project is successful. Scenario 1, should the grant bid be successful, requires the utilisation of £1,029k prudential borrowing, as well as £200k CIL (agreed by Cabinet in 2018) as match funding. Scenario 2, if the NLHF application is unsuccessful, requires the use of £278k prudential borrowing for Scaplen’s Court as well as the repurposing of £200k CIL allocated within the Scenario 1 model.

RECOMMENDED that Council: -

(a)           approves the submission of a Round 2 funding application to NLHF for £2,240k for the Our Museum: Poole Museum Redevelopment Project (total project value £4,242k);

(b)           approves the use of up to £1,023k new prudential borrowing in support of the Round 2 funding application. This will reduce to £278k new prudential borrowing should the Round 2 funding application be unsuccessful;

RESOLVED that Cabinet: -

(c)           approves the repurposing of £200k CIL allocated to Our Poole Museum Redevelopment Project to Scaplen’s Court development, in the event of an unsuccessful Round 2 funding application; and

(d)           notes the resulting unfunded revenue pressure of up to £17k in 2022/23 and £70k in 2023/24 from income forgone during construction phase.

Voting: Unanimous

Portfolio Holder: Tourism, Leisure and Culture

Reason

To facilitate funding of the Our Museum: Poole Museum Redevelopment Project and enable it to deliver on the Council’s Big Plan aim to rejuvenate Poole and strategic aims for Culture.

The Portfolio Holder for Tourism, Leisure and Culture presented a report, a copy of which had been circulated to each Member and a copy of which appears as Appendix 'F' to these Minutes in the Minute Book.

Cabinet was advised that the Poole Museum Redevelopment Project delivers against Big Plan and other strategic Council priorities as well as national and regional priorities and policies, and that the Project will conserve and open up nationally and internationally significant heritage assets and transform the visitor and community experience of the Poole Museum Estate.

In addition Cabinet was informed that in the wider context of Culture and the Cultural Compact, the Project will deliver on the Cultural Enquiry recommendations for talent, infrastructure, and quality of place and will provide new opportunities for under-represented and under-served communities and groups to participate in and co-curate their culture and heritage and that the project has strong support from NLHF as a priority project, third party match funding has been secured and there is a strong pipeline from trusts and foundations, with invited applications for additional grants totalling £250-450k. Council agreement to submit the NLHF round 2 application for the Poole Museum element of the project (deadline August 2021) is requested.

Further to this Cabinet was advised that project development work demonstrates an opportunity to extend the scope of the capital works to increase the transformative impact of the project for Poole rejuvenation, outcomes for people, built heritage and museum collections, and the financial sustainability of the service, and that Council agreement is requested for prudential borrowing to support these extended works.

In addition, Cabinet was informed that there are two scenarios for prudential borrowing, dependent on whether a round 2 NLHF application for the Poole Museum project is successful. Scenario 1, should the grant bid be successful, requires the utilisation of £1,029k prudential borrowing, as well as £200k CIL (agreed by Cabinet in 2018) as match funding. Scenario 2, if the NLHF application is unsuccessful, requires the use of £278k prudential borrowing for Scaplen’s Court as well as the repurposing of £200k CIL allocated within the Scenario 1 model.

Members of the Cabinet spoke in support of the report stressing the importance of this fantastic asset.

RECOMMENDED that Council: -

(a)           approves the submission of a Round 2 funding application to NLHF for £2,240k for the Our Museum: Poole Museum Redevelopment Project (total project value £4,242k);

(b)           approves the use of up to £1,023k new prudential borrowing in support of the Round 2 funding application. This will reduce to £278k new prudential borrowing should the Round 2 funding application be unsuccessful;

RESOLVED that Cabinet: -

(c)           approves the repurposing of £200k CIL allocated to Our Poole Museum Redevelopment Project to Scaplen’s Court development, in the event of an unsuccessful Round 2 funding application; and

(d)           notes the resulting unfunded revenue pressure of up to £17k in 2022/23 and £70k in 2023/24 from income forgone during construction phase.

Voting: Unanimous

Portfolio Holder: Tourism, Leisure and Culture

To consider the following Tourism, Leisure and Culture related reports scheduled for Cabinet consideration on 14 April:

·       Our Museum: Poole Museum Redevelopment

·       Management & Development of Leisure Centres

The O&S Board is asked to scrutinise the reports and make recommendations to Cabinet as appropriate.

Cabinet member invited to attend for this item: Councillor Mohan Iyengar, Portfolio Holder for Tourism, Leisure and Culture

The Cabinet report for this item is included with the agenda for consideration by the Overview and Scrutiny Board.

Please note: A number of appendices for the Management and Development of Leisure Centres item contain exempt information under paragraph 3, Information relating to the financial or business affairs of any particular person (including the authority holding that information, of schedule 12A of the Local Government Act 1972.  If the Board wishes to discuss information contained within the appendices the Board may need to resolve to Exclude the Press and Public from the meeting during this consideration.

Our Museum: Poole Museum Redevelopment

The Portfolio Holder for Tourism, Leisure and Culture presented a report, a copy of which had been circulated to each Member and a copy of which appears as Appendix 'C' to these Minutes in the Minute Book. The Portfolio Holder outlined the key issues within the report. The Portfolio Holder and the Poole Museum Manager responded to comments and requests for clarification, details included:

• Part of the cultural compact was to get a board/wider forum in place to ensure that there was a fluid and diverse mechanism to uplift the cultural scene across the conurbation.
• A series of public engagement sessions had recently concluded and the national lottery heritage fund had congratulated the council on the inclusiveness of these sessions.
• Traditionally, Scaplen’s Court had been an immersive schools experience for many years and the same advantage had not been taken with the museum to date, which would be addressed as part of these proposals to bring a ‘wow factor’ to the museum and there were plans for immersive digital interaction and opportunities for play activities as part of this project.
• The history centre would be moved out of the Town Cellars and relocated to the museum to allow this historic building to be shown off to members of the public.
• Officers were confident that moving the café from the main museum to the Scaplen’s Court building would not cause any harm and would in fact bring the space that it currently occupies into community use, whilst creating more ‘covers’ for the café in its new location.
• There was no intention to charge for entry into the museum, although it was acknowledged that there would need to be a review of the museum operation policies across the conurbation and possibly harmonise them in the future, although it was highlighted that the various museums have different offerings, so this would need to be addressed carefully.
• It was an ambition for hireable community spaces to remain as inexpensive as possible to ensure that local groups were not outpriced of being able to use the facility.
• One of the main opportunities that these proposals provided was to increase the dwell time of visitors and therefore increase revenue raised by, catering, donations and retail etc. As the proposals were not actually increasing the footprint of the existing buildings it was projected that the revenue created from increased visitor numbers would offset the additional costs of the operation.

Management & Development of Leisure Centres

The Portfolio Holder for Tourism, Leisure and Culture presented a report, a copy of which had been circulated to each Member and a copy of which appears as Appendix 'D' to these Minutes in the Minute Book. The Portfolio Holder outlined the key issues within the report. The Portfolio Holder and the Head of Leisure responded to comments and requests for clarification, details included:

• The project to review the management of leisure centres was due to commence imminently (within the next few months) and whilst it would have  ...  view the full minutes text for item 180