Gloucester car boot lease awarded legally and properly, auditors conclude
The leasing caused a lot of controversy amongst traders
The leasing of Gloucester’s car boot was done properly and legally, auditors have concluded.
An internal audit reviewed the Hempsted Meadows lease which was awarded earlier this year to Capital Car Boots.
The City Council agreed in February 2024 to undertake a competitive lease for the site for 15 years.
It was announced that Capital Car boots had been successful in their bid for the site with the car boot initially expected to re-open on July 20 this year.
It was postponed for a week due to vandalism and the formal lease was signed by both parties on August 1.
Auditors told the the audit and governance committee at North Warehouse on November 10 that they undertook a thorough piece of work in reviewing the process.
The report said the lease had been subject to more oversight than both the managing director and cabinet member found would be useful for a lease of such a value.
“Suffice to say, it’s been a thorough piece of work and the council has properly and legally awarded the lease for Hempsted Meadows,” head of audit risk assurance Piyush Fatania said.
Responding to a question from Councillor Alwin Wiederhold (LD, Hucclecote) about comments on social media and information being shared by councillors, he said any concerns with behaviour or comments should be raised with the monitoring officer.
“We were looking at the process not around any of the social media comments or anything else,” he said.
And Cllr Terry Pullen (L, Moreland) asked if auditors were surprised there was no specific policy in place.
Mr Fatania said he was not. “The council has financial procedure rules and also employs a number of professional and expert officers who have undertaken this kind of exercise previously,” he said.
“With this exercise there was also an external consultancy which provided an independent input into this process.
“Just the overall management and member overview of the process meant that the right things were done, as far as we are concerned.
“This lease has been awarded in a legal and proper manner.”
However, he said they recommend an overarching policy to pull all of the expertise and knowledge together.
Head of place Andrew Hearne told the meeting the council does leases quite regularly and they are all negotiated in the same way following the regulations and code of practice.
“This was no different,” he said.
He explained the reason it was given a higher level of scrutiny was because there was public interest and it was felt necessary to have a complete level of scrutiny across the decision.
“That in itself is over and above what we would normally do for something of this scale,” he said.
Vicechairman Andy Lewis (C, Quedgeley Severn Vale) said the issue was “blown up by social media”.
“They didn’t understand the process because the overarching process wasn’t really there,” he said.
“It did cause some friction, some unfortunate social media stuff, which I don’t think was called for.
“But I’m now happy this is going to happen. It was just badly handled to a certain degree.
“And I don’t think it was the officer’s fault to be totally honest but I would say let bygones be bygones now.
“Let’s get on with it, get the policy in place so that it will not happen again.”
Auditors told the meeting that officers took a “belt and braces” approach to the process and the lack of an overraching policy did not impact the process in any negative way.
“It was done in a legislative compliant manner,” one of the officers concluded.