Council officers quizzed on how faith group bids for land in new town were scored

South Cambridgeshire District Council officers have been asked for details on how they scored faith groups bidding for land in Northstowe new town

Council officers have been asked to show how they scored two bids from religious groups for use of land in a Cambridgeshire new town. Northstowe is planned to be the largest new town since Milton Keynes with 10,000 homes, 1,700 of which are already built and occupied.

Land to be used by faith and community groups was allocated as part of an agreement with the developer when the proposal was approved. Two groups submitted bids for use of the land – Northstowe Church Network (NCN), a Christian group with support from Northstowe Muslims, and Hindu Samaj Northstowe (HSN).

For several years, Cambridgeshire’s Hindu community has been without a dedicated space for spiritual process after their Mill Road temple was shut in 2019 due to water damage.

Council officers said their bidding criteria was based on the group’s local association, charitable status, the feasibility of their plans and a guarantee that a shared space be open to all other groups “regardless of faith, belief or lifestyle”.

A panel of eight officers, six from South Cambridgeshire District Council and two external specialists, scored both bids with the Northstowe Church Network winning out. Their bid received a score of 81% while Hindu Samaj Northstowe’s bid was given 65%.

The council’s scrutiny and overview committee were asked to approve the recommendation to the cabinet that the bid be accepted but questioned how the panel came to their figures.

Cllr Heather Williams, the Conservative opposition group leader, said: “I can see the bid but what I can’t see is the scoring for the matrix, where can I find that information? Surely how can you assess and scrutinise if you haven’t actually got the results of that process?”

Monitoring officer Katevu Nurainatta said the scoring “wasn’t directly requested by scrutiny as a whole” but it could be provided on a confidential paper.

Cllr Dr Lisa Redrup, lead cabinet member for healthy communities, said it was left to officers to assess, come up with their scores and give their recommendation. She said it was the job of scrutiny to determine if policy had been followed and pass the recommendations on to the cabinet.

She said: “I’m not sure in my opinion if you would need to see all the details of what has happened to be able to make that determination.”

Cllr Dr Richard Williams, chair of the committee, said the officer’s assessment of the recommended bid was just 151 words long.

He said: “Now I assume that the value of the land at least in commercial terms that’s being disposed of here is significant, hence the need for the secretary of state’s consent. We are proposing that the cabinet makes a decision of that significance on the basis of a 151 word summary which doesn’t include much detail.”

Cllr Heather Williams said she felt the cabinet “cannot make a good decision” with the information from the report. She said: “We don’t need the granular, we don’t need who said what or anything like that.

“But, in order to come to the top figures – those figures were calculated somehow and I think it’s important that scoring is before the cabinet before they make a decision.”

The committee added a recommendation to provide further details of the assessment.