The Chief Officer Finance, Performance and Change provided an update with regard to the capital position at the end of quarter three. By way of background, she explained that the Council's capital strategy was approved by Council on the 23rd of February 2022 and at that time the approved capital budget totalled £69.9 million.

The Chief Officer Finance, Performance and Change outlined the current position on the program. The revised programme for 2022-23 currently totalled £61.732 million, of which £28.242 million was met from

Bridgend County Borough Council (BCBC) resources, including capital receipts and revenue contributions from earmarked reserves, with the remaining £33.490 million coming from external resources, including Welsh Government General Capital Grant. A breakdown of the program across services was shown in table one and more detail regarding how they were actually funding that program was included in Table 2.

The Chief Officer Finance, Performance and Change highlighted the slippage of some schemes which were likely to slip into the new financial year. At quarter 3 the total requested slippage was £28.542 million, the reasons for this were detailed in the report.

The Chief Officer Finance, Performance and Change explained that since the last capital report approved by Council in October 2022, there had

been a number of new externally funded schemes approved and proposed

internally funded schemes, which had been incorporated into the Capital

Programme and were detailed in the report. A revised Capital Programme was included at Appendix B to the report. With regard to the Capital Strategy, Appendix C to the report showed that the Council was operating in line with the approved limits.

The Cabinet Member for Resources thanked the Chief Officer for the report and added that slippage was not desirable but the reasons given were acceptable. He asked the officers to look at reprofiling the schemes before presenting the latest position to full Council in March. With regard to the new external funding schemes that had come forward, in particular the Urban Centre Property Enhancement Scheme, he requested that a report be submitted to Cabinet on why this scheme had been successful for the authority.

The Corporate Director Communities provided further information regarding the Welsh Government Transforming Towns Fund and included details of two of the larger schemes. A detailed report would be submitted to Cabinet in Spring. The fund would be reopening at that time and she explained that officers were available to advise businesses how they could apply.    

The Leader agreed with the comments made by the Cabinet Member for Resources regarding the potential to reprofile some of the schemes, in particular the Waterton Depot. The Corporate Director Communities provided more information on why the site was no longer viable and efforts made to secure a new venue.   

In light of the recent call-in, the Deputy Leader referred to the additional £0.608 million awarded from Welsh Government’s Housing with Care Fund for the Children’s Residential Hub. This would enable net zero carbon and landscaping works to be completed, which were not included in the original scheme. There were issues with procurement around costs and she provided the example of Enterprise Hubs where tender costs were returned in the region of 250% over budget.  

The Cabinet Member for Communities explained that there would be a capital demand for the Waterton Depot and further reports would be submitted in due course. He added that there were pots of money for various net zero schemes and that the Council had been awarded £0.300 million funding from the Welsh Government’s ULEV Transformation Fund to support the delivery of electric vehicle charging infrastructure within the Council’s public car parks.

The Leader asked if a list was available of where the additional charging points would be installed. The Corporate Director Communities replied that a strategy was in place to transfer the Corporate fleet to electric and to install charging points for this and the public and she explained how the charging infrastructure would be delivered.

RESOLVED:              Cabinet:

·      noted the Council’s Capital Programme 2022-23 Quarter 3 update to 31 December 2022

                                       (Appendix A)

·      agreed that the revised Capital Programme (Appendix B) be submitted to Council for approval

noted the projected Prudential and Other Indicators for 2022-23 (Appendix C)