This Land is a County Council owned property company, everything that happens now is tied up with it’s history so here’s how we got here and what we have done.

This Land is a property development company which was incorporated in 2016 with the intention of developing some County Council land for high quality, sustainable housing. At this time the council was under political leadership ‘no overall control’.

In 2017 the County Council became Conservative led.  

During this period This Land scaled significantly in size, it took on £113.9m of debts and bought County Council land at market rates.  The debt was owed to the County Council who took out a loan via the Public Works Loan Board.  Rules have since changed and this is no longer possible.   Although the money invested in This Land was not from county council funds the risk if This Land were to default on this loan sits with the council.  

Liberal Democrat County Councillors flagged their concerns about This Land at the time. 

In 2021 Conservatives left office and a ‘Joint Administration’ (coalition) of Liberal Democrat, Labour and aligned Independents formed.   This Land became the new Joint Administration’s responsibility.  

The Joint Administration inherited a difficult situation with This Land. Since that time an extraordinary amount of effort including independent advice from a variety of experts has gone into managing the risk associated with This Land.  

Since 2020 we have experienced; covid, the invasion of Ukraine, the Truss government, global instability and inflation.   Other Cambridgeshire property companies of a similar size to This Land have not survived these crises.

In 2024 a further £5.9m loan and £0.4m of equity was advanced to This Land to see it through a cash flow shortage.  The interest payments the County Council has received from This Land far outweigh this sum. This Land is now on a far more stable financial footing.  

Cllr Neil Gough, with a strong corporate track record, served as an unpaid Non Executive Director on the This Land board since 2021.  Frank Jordan, the county council’s Executive Director of Place and Sustainability, is also an unpaid Non Executive Director.   There has been one political and one technical, officer appointment sitting on This Land’s board for the last 4 years.

Governance advice has changed since 2021.  Current advice is that board members should be chosen on the basis of their expertise, that councillor board members should be avoided and that councils create a dedicated scrutiny function. The Shareholder subcommittee has been created to fulfil that scrutiny function.  

There are regular calls for the This Land business plan to be made public because it is a County Council owned business.   This Land is a commercial business operating within the highly competitive property development field.  Other property development companies are not required to make their business plans public.  Were This Land to publish their business plan it would put them at a significant commercial disadvantage. 

As Councillors we have a duty to the taxpayers of Cambridgeshire to achieve value for money.  That means sometimes operating confidentially.  A number of County Council decisions such as procurements and property deals involve confidential information.  To use the obvious analogy the council would be at a significant disadvantage when operating in the corporate world if every other player were allowed to hold their cards tightly to their chest and the council always had to lay their cards out in public.   We operate in public as often as possible but there is a balance to be kept between full transparency and best value for money.  All councils and government operate in this manner.   Regularly all decisions are taken in public session even when they relate to confidential information. 

Achieving best value for taxpayers money is a principle that has guided the Joint Administration since taking office in 2021.

I am the chair of the Shareholders Subcommittee.