Cabinet had previously agreed, when discussing the Service Level Agreement for Rother District Citizen’s Advice (CA) located in Bexhill, to assist the CA in finding and locating alternative premises within Bexhill, and a number of options had been discussed by the Council’s Member representative, the Executive Director and CA, as detailed in the report.

The report gave details of an alternative premises located by the CA that their current landlord had agreed to purchase and lease to them, in order that he could redevelop the remainder of the building the CA currently leased.

The alternative premises in St Leonards Road, Bexhill would meet the CA’s specification with some modifications and their current landlord had also agreed to contribute to the modifications. CA had funds of their own and were proposing to use these towards the costs, but there was still a shortfall of some £30k to £40k.  They had approached the Council to fund the shortfall in addition to contacting other funding bodies/organisations to potentially reduce the gap further.

In order to meet their timetable for the relocation of their offices, the CA needed to undertake the refurbishment works of the new premises as a matter of urgency.  Cabinet agreed that a loan of up to £40,000 be granted to the CA and any Community Grant applied for and awarded, would be deducted from the outstanding value of the loan.

RECOMMENDED:  That a loan of up to £40,000 be granted to the Rother District Citizens Advice and the Capital Programme for 2020/21 be increased accordingly;

AND

*RESOLVED: That:

1)         Rother District Citizens Advice be invited to apply to the Council’s Community Grants scheme;

2)         any amount awarded under the Community Grants Scheme will be deducted from the loan amount; and

3)         the Executive Director, in consultation with the Portfolio Holder for Finance and Performance Management, be authorised to agree an appropriate rate of interest and repayment schedule for the loan.

*The RESOLVED parts of this minute are subject to the call-in procedure under Rule 16 of the Overview and Scrutiny Procedure Rules.

(Councillor Gray declared a Personal Interest in this matter as she was the Council’s appointed Member representative on the board of the Rother District Citizens Advice and in accordance with the Members’ Code of Conduct remained in the meeting during the consideration thereof).