Mayor Dr Nik Johnson says the “light of truth” is about to be revealed following a 3 year investigation by Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority into the housing policies of previous Mayor James Palmer.
The outcome of that investigation will include conclusions about the merits or otherwise of £40m loaned to Laragh Homes and a development company owned by East Cambridgeshire District Council, to help deliver affordable housing.
A report prepared by external auditors is with the Combined Authority chief executive Rob Bridge and he must decide if, or when, it can be published. First opportunity to do so will be on March 12 at the next meeting of the overview and scrutiny committee.
As part of the brief given to a special scrutiny subcommittee was to examine the links between the Combined Authority, East Cambridgeshire District Council, and Laragh Homes into an alleged ‘community led’ housing scheme at Wilburton.
Mayor Johnson hinted indirectly about the auditors’ report when he spoke at the Environment and Sustainable Communities Committee on Wednesday.
He referred to the Combined Authority having to become a housing delivery body instead of commissioning new housing programmes following the fall-out from his predecessor’s policies.
Mayor Johnson said the environment committee had before them a paper on housing and he felt it an appropriate moment to comment.
“I didn’t really know if I would get a chance to speak to it, but I thought I should partly because it’s mentioned in terms of the delivery of some final housing units but also when I looked through the papers and I looked at the finances.
“These are quite telling if you look at them because we’re not a housing delivery body, but we were.”
He said he was mentioning it to the committee because “as you can probably appreciate I’m clearing up a few things and I’m keen to acknowledge things that have gone before, and you know and maybe going forward”.
Mayor Johnson said there was a considerable amount for the Combined Authority to do in terms of creating strategic housing partnerships and he referenced successes in Cambridge and Peterborough.
“They are things that we would want to encourage but we’re not going to be the delivery body – and there’s a reason for that and there’s a real sad reason for that.
“We failed previously at it – we failed badly – and we lost over 40 million pounds because the Combined Authority previously under the leadership in the past made a disastrous decision to adapt and to impose ideas of how to deliver.
“I mean it’s an honourable idea affordable housing, social housing and we all know in all parts of this area that housing affordable and social housing is important.
“But the way officers and elected members went about it was fundamentally wrong and most importantly it was called out by civil servants and a previous Conservative government.”
The Mayor added: “Why am I mentioning this now? It is because I don’t want people to forget about it in any sort of ideas that going forward as a strategic partnership that those sorts of things should ever be considered again.”
Explaining that “frustratingly” he had not been involved in the investigation, he added that “I am grateful that there were officers in the Combined Authority who were willing to call out these problems.
“And I’m also very grateful that the overview and scrutiny committee is finally at the point of being able to report back into what exactly happened over those four years before I arrived
“That is going to be a very important and salient point when we bring those things to the overview and scrutiny in terms of how we do things going forward.
“There are huge lessons to be learned, and the light of truth has to come into the history of the Combined Authority as to what exactly happened and why we will never go back there”
Cllr Bridget Smith, chair of the environment committee, told Mayor Johnson: “Just for the record there were members of the board myself included and Lewis Herbert (former leader of Cambridge City Council) who were not complicit in some of the decisions that were taken “
The housing investigation was first announced in July 2022, but little was done until sometime later when pushed to do so by the Mayor.
His determination to see the investigation completed came last year when he fielded a question submitted by the Save Wilburton from Over Development group that campaigned vigorously against 115 homes planned by Laragh Homes at Camps Field, Wilburton.
Touted as a being ‘community led’ the group provided evidence that most villagers opposed it and after 4 years of wrangling, East Cambridgeshire District Council called time on the application last April.
Laragh Homes finally saw their plans for 115 homes on 47 acres of arable land at Camp’s Field, south of Stretham Road, Wilburton, ditched.
The company had failed to meet extended deadlines set by East Cambridgeshire District Council to deliver key documents, and planning chief Toni Hylton put them on red alert that she will “finally dispose of the application” on April 26, which she subsequently did.
The ‘Save Wilburton’ group put a question to the Combined Authority challenging the level of level of involvement of CPCA in the scheme.
It reminded the board that “in April 2020, the Mayor’s office submitted a letter in support of a planning application by the SWCLT (Stretham and Wilburton Community Land Trust) and Laragh Homes to develop ‘Camps Field’ in Wilburton, asserting its ‘community benefits’.
“Subsequently, in 2022, the Combined Authority determined that this ‘statement of community benefit’ had been improperly submitted and requested that it be withdrawn from the planning application.
“An investigation was initiated by the scrutiny and oversight committee in July 2022 into areas concerning the Combined Authority’s governance with specific regard to their housing programme.
Their letter/question adds: “On 26th April 2024 the Camps Field planning application was formally ‘disposed of’ by the LPA under Article 40 of the General Development Procedure Order (2015).
“With the application now terminated, we wish to ask a public question of the Combined Authority regarding the progress of the promised 2022 enquiry.
“Please could you provide an explanation for its delay, an update with respect to the ‘key lines for the enquiry’ set out in the 25th of July 2022 oversight and scrutiny committee agenda (page 80), and a timeframe for its completion.”
Two years ago, Lewis Herbert – at the time Cambridge City Council leader and CPCA lead member for housing – signed off on the review that included scrutiny of Camps Field.
It had asked for scrutiny of:
1: The process for establishing the partnership with Laragh Homes and the contractual arrangements put in place.
2: The decision to establish a loan fund with part of the housing funding, including communications with central government.
3: The governance of approval of loans to East Cambridgeshire District Council, East Cambridgeshire Trading Company (owned by East Cambs Council) and Laragh Homes.
4: The governance around the CPCA decision to support community land trusts
5: The issuing of a statement of community benefit by CPCA in relation to Stretham and Wilburton Community Land Trust (SWCLT).
Cllr Herbert suggested such a review would, if successful, “provide the public with greater clarity relating to historic governance issues.
And, he said, it would “draw lessons for governance arrangements that can inform the current wider governance improvement process”.
Little happened after that, but Mayor Dr Johnson has always been keen to see resolution of issues he inherited.
In 2022, the Combined Authority determined that the ‘statement of community benefit’ had been improperly submitted and requested that it be withdrawn from the planning application.
In essence the plan for Wilburton sounded promising, with 35 houses out of the 115 to be owned and administered by a community land trust.
Those 35 homes would be available for local people at affordable rents and would be built and paid for through the planning gain on the field with the developers using the market price homes to cross subsidise the community land trust homes.
But many villagers were never convinced of the wisdom of increasing the village housing stock by over 20 per cent on a field well outside the village envelope.
Questions began to be asked, motives for the advancement of the CLT model considered, and so began a mission to derail it.
Not because CLTs of themselves were considered a bad thing, but the scale, machinations, and seemingly ruthless pursuit of this particular scheme in Wilburton rang alarm bells.
Mayor Johnson is hopeful that publication of the recent audit report will provide if not but some of the answers he has been pressing to get into the public arena.
