Cabinet Member for Communities & Leisure

To note the report and:

i)               Reconsider the decision of Cabinet not to dispose of open space land at Braywick Park taken on 27th July 2023, taking into account representations made in two resident led petitions;

ii)              Reaffirm the original decision to stand;

iii)             Or, if Cabinet approve a change in decision, delegate responsibility to the Executive Director of Place in consultation with the Cabinet Member for Communities and Leisure to recommence the open space notice process in relation to a proposed disposal of the land at Braywick Park

AGREED: That Cabinet noted the report and reaffirmed their original decision to not dispose of the Open Space Land at Braywick Park, Maidenhead.

Councillor Werner, the Chair and Leader of the Council and Cabinet Member for Community Partnerships, Public Protection and Maidenhead, provided some background history as to why the Cabinet had chosen to review the decision that they had previously heard at a Cabinet meeting in July 2023. The decision that the Cabinet made was to not dispose of the land at Braywick Park, Maidenhead. He said that 2 different petitions had been launched since then by residents. One by Shay Bottomley, which sought for Cabinet to reconsider the July decision and one by Doug Watts, which sought to uphold the original decision respectively. Both lead petitioners had been invited to attend the meeting to address the Cabinet for five minutes each. Four additional speakers were also attending, with one of these being an extra public speaker slot above the usual three speakers, which was made at the Chair’s discretion. This was due to the significant public interest in the agenda item.

The Chair then invited Shay Bottomley (Lead Petitioner for ‘Move us or Lose us’) to address the Cabinet. He was followed by Doug Watts (Lead Petitioner for ‘Protect Open Space and Maidenhead United’), Jon Adams (Maidenhead United), John Scaife (Maidenhead Athletics Club), Steve Bough (Maidenhead Rugby Club) and Andrew Hill (Open Spaces campaigner), in that order. The Lead Petitioners were each given 5 minutes to address Cabinet, with the remaining speakers being given 3 minutes each.

The Chair thanked the registered speakers for each of their contributions and said that it was very valuable to gather the thoughts from a variety of persons from both sides, which were reflected in each petition. He then invited Elaine Browne, the Council’s Monitoring Officer and Deputy Director of Law and Governance to provide some historic information in terms of previous Cabinet and Corporate Overview & Scrutiny Panel discussions, stretching back as far as 2019.

Elaine Browne stated that on 19 December 2019, Cabinet approved in principle, the request for relocation of MUFC, subject to a valuation report required pursuant to s.123 of the Local Government Act 1972 (“the 2019 Decision”). The 2019 Decision was called in and was considered by the Corporate Overview and Scrutiny Panel on 15 January 2020. The Panel agreed to take no further action but requested that the next Cabinet Report in relation to MUFC’s request for relocation be brought to the Corporate Overview and Scrutiny Panel for further scrutiny. On 24 November 2020 the proposed further Cabinet Report relating to the request for relocation of MUFC was considered by the Corporate Overview and Scrutiny Panel. The Panel noted that the comments from the meeting would be passed to Cabinet for consideration. Then on 26 November 2020, Cabinet further considered the request for relocation of MUFC following the commission of the s.123 Report confirming the valuation of the land at Braywick Park. The decision of Cabinet (“the 2020 Decision”) was to approve the release of the land at Braywick Park, subject to planning for £460,000 and delegated authority to the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6