Merging south east Dorset’s councils will allow the area to compete with bigger cities for resources, a member of Bournemouth Council’s cabinet has told our Bournemouth event. Councillor Philip Broadhead, who leads on local government reorganisation and economic growth at the authority, told delegates that the revamp of Dorset’s councils will happen in April next year after the recent conclusion of a judicial review.

Under the planned reorganisation Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole councils will be merged into a single authority. In addition, one entity will replace the county council and Dorset’s five remaining districts. The new south east Dorset authority will be bigger than Southampton and Cardiff city councils and on a similar scale to Bristol’s, said Broadhead.

Bournemouth had lost out funding to other authorities because it is easier for the government to deal with larger entities, he said: “Having one voice to speak for the city-region is very important. This gives us much more clout in terms of government.”
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Meanwhile as part of the new authority’s aspiration to create a ‘21st century city by the sea’, Bournemouth is ‘close to signing’ a deal with a hardware provider to be the first area of England to open up a particular band of the 5G broadband spectrum, said Broadhead: “We will be one of the first to launch in 5G, which along with the Premiership football team, will really put us on the map.”

And he said the council is pushing ahead via its Bournemouth Development Company, a joint venture with Morgan Sindall Investments, to redevelop spare land in the town.

Plans to build a new hotel-on a currently vacant site next to the Bournemouth International Centre (BIC) are back on track following a hiccough, prompted by a legal challenge earlier this year from rival operators. The council’s cabinet will be asked to approve plans to market the site, which is also only 100 yards from Bournemouth beach, for two hotels which are designed to help improve the resort town’s conference offer.

He told delegates that plans by the joint venture for 370 residential units on a council car park at the Winter Gardens are due to go to planning this week. And Broadhead revealed that the council is exploring whether it is possible to increase the heights of new buildings proposed in the Lansdowne to more than 20 storeys.

He added that construction work will start within the next few months on plans to pedestrianise the half of Holdenhurst Rd, which runs through the area.

Bill Cotton, Executive Director for Environment and Economy at Bournemouth Borough Council, said that it hopes to announce the name of the winning bidder for the redevelopment of the Happyland amusement arcade in the new year. The race to revamp the rundown seafront site, which has been lined up for hotel and A3 uses, has been whittled down to three ‘strong’ bidders.

And Cotton said Bournemouth Development Company should be on site early next year with its private rented sector scheme at St Stephen, having already secured funding.

Edwin Davies, Associate Director – Capital & Estates at the Royal Bournemouth and Christchurch Hospitals (RBCH) NHS Foundation Trust said his organisation is pressing on with its One Acute Network plans to merge with neighbouring services in Poole despite the prospect of a fresh legal challenge. A judicial review from west Dorset residents was upheld in favour of the area’s clinical commissioning groups by the High Court in September.

The merger plans involve reconfiguring the Bournemouth-Poole conurbation’s existing acute medical provision to create one major emergency hospital and one major planned hospital, which is supported by £147m of government funding. Davies said: “We have two hospital trusts in Bournemouth and Poole with many areas of duplication. There is a huge shortage of these services to bring additional benefits to patients and ensure the long term sustainability of our services.”

He said that the trust is on the verge of appointing a principal supply chain developer partner to build the new facilities through the NHS Procure 22 framework arrangement. But Davies said the trust’s procurement strategy offered lots of opportunities for local suppliers and contractors for business as usual work

He said that future development plans include a housing at its St Mary’s site in Poole and key worker homes on land at Royal Bournemouth hospital site, where it has already developed 230 units, to attract good high-quality staff.

Other plans include a new pathology processing hub and working with the local authority to establish the best location and funding model for a district heat and power network.

Lorna Carver, Director of the Dorset Local Enterprise Partnership, acknowledged that work to improve the area’s road networks is causing traffic jams. But she said that the projects to improve access to the airport and along the A338 to Bournemouth hospital are ‘desperately’ needed.

Carver said that the LEP’s future projects include developing a local industrial strategy for the county.
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