The Peterborough City Council Conservative group have called-in the decision made by the cabinet regarding the sale of the Fletton Quays hotel.
Of course, there are lessons to be learned about the process that led us to this position, and some is the benefit of hindsight. Nobody could have foreseen covid, a very volatile global situation with conflicts, rampant inflation with rising costs, and soaring interest rates since the original decision in 2017. But we cannot see a decision made now that will also have a future learning opportunity or gift of hindsight, which is our reason for making the call-in.
At the cabinet meeting, 10 pages of documentation were made available to the public with over 85% of the papers being exempt. The cabinet member suggested that seeing through the hotel build could still probably bring in money for the council many years down the line, therefore it is imperative that we ensure the decision being made is achieving the objective of best value. The council is obliged to decide based on achieving best value, and therefore we want to see full scrutiny of the decision with all the possible outcomes presented, so that the scrutiny committee can make a recommendation to cabinet ensuring that whatever decision is made, it’s in the best interests of the finances of the council.
This is the first time any part of the decision-making process on the Hilton has been called-in, but we feel it’s vital to get this right. This call-in can’t change the history, but we feel there is a responsibility to ensure the best decision is being made of getting best value for the council.
The call-in was requested by Councillors John Howard, Marco Cereste and Alex Rafiq. The call-in meeting will take place on Monday 20th October at 3PM.