THE chairman of BCP Council's arms-length regeneration company has promised outline details for up to five major schemes in the new year.

There has been criticism of BCP FuturePlaces for its apparent lack of progress and doubts about whether it is likely to offer a return on the £8million capital working loan from the council.

Chairman Lord Bob Kerslake, a former head of the civil service, pledged more openness and consultation in an address to councillors on Thursday evening.

He said he understood the criticisms which include a lack of public openness on published meeting minutes and the public not having seen any business cases since the company was created last year.

He confirmed BCP Council deputy leader Philip Broadhead had now left the board and said that once other directors were found the council leader, Drew Mellor, would also leave his position with the company.

“There is huge potential in Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole, huge opportunities, it’s already a great place…but it could do better,” he told the place overview and scrutiny committee.

“We need to improve some buildings and offer more housing, accessible to people with different incomes.”

He said that the focus which was needed for such projects was hard to achieve for council staff on their own, who also had other work to do.

“The last year for FuturePlaces has been a year of set up – our target is to bring forward four or five schemes for outline business case approval to the cabinet in January,” he said, adding that he hoped the business would become something which everyone valued and which justified the spending on it.

He said the £8m loan facility offered to the company by the council had not been spent and he did not intend it all to be.

“It is our intention to recover that cost through the development of schemes and the added value they produce” he said.

Lord Kerslake offered to hold cross-party meetings every three months.

He said a revised overall business plan should be produced by February or March.

Cllr Andy Hadley made a plea for all councillors with an interest to become involved, not only ward councillors where projects were planned.

He also called for uses to be found for sites while awaiting final development projects to be finalises.

Cllr Mohan Iyengar welcomed the pledge of greater transparency warning that meetings might need to be more frequently than quarterly once schemes began to emerge.