Purpose

Considering future uses of the
sites.

Content

The Council entered into a
lease agreement with Wycombe Film Studio on 14th April 2022, which
would provide revenue income for 5 years. During this lease,
Wycombe Film Studio were obliged (under an agreement for lease) to
pursue a planning application for a film studio development. The
current tenant Wycombe Park Ltd (name changed on 21st November 2024
from Wycombe Film Studio) had been taken over by the main funder
and the management of the company was being undertaken by new
Directors who were also Directors of the funder. Details of the
lease arrangement were within Confidential Appendix 5 of the
report.
 
The current tenant, Wycombe
Park Ltd, was unlikely to progress a film studio development,
because the landscape had changed commercially and from a funding
perspective. The tenant was looking into ways to extract value from
the site and had taken advice from their own agents and determined
that their best exit strategy was to abandon the film studio
project and to enter into an agreement with the Council to sell the
site for use as a Data Centre.
 
RESOLVED
 
1 That the Service Director for Commercial
Property and Regeneration in consultation with Cabinet Member for
Accessible Housing and Resources be authorised to:
a.  negotiate with
the tenant to agree heads of terms and subsequently agree a
contract, exchange and complete with the tenant for the marketing
and disposal of the site jointly in accordance with the contents of
this report for a Data Centre usage (Option 2 in the confidential
annex to this report).
b. In parallel with recommendation a,
investigations into power availability will be
progressed.
c.  if required
terminate the Lease agreement by serving a valid notice on the
tenant, on the earliest date after the Cabinet approval, that
corresponds to the Long- Stop date in the tenancy (earliest
termination is 27th December 2024).
d. negotiate with the
long leaseholder of the aerodrome, to include a further 6 acres in
the disposal (Site C), subject to those terms coming back to
Cabinet for authority to proceed to market.
e. if negotiations with the tenant are
successful, to:
 
i. submit a planning
application to change the use of Site A (funded by the tenant) and
part of the area around Site A to accommodate a Data Centre (DC)
development.
ii. market the site as a Data centre development
site as set out in this paper, agree heads of terms with a
potential purchaser, and bring back a paper to Cabinet for
authority to subsequently dispose of the site.
 
f.  If negotiations
with the tenant are unsuccessful, Service Director for Commercial
Property and Regeneration is further authorised in consultation
with the Cabinet Member for Accessible Housing and Resources to
explore other options to obtain power, such as appropriation of the
site under section 122 of the Local Government Act 1972, and consider other options for the site
disposal for employment uses.