WWFC Application Information Hub
Planning application PL/26/07779/FA

2. The baseline question

Where do we start?

WWFC repeatedly presents the case for its proposal by comparing what it offers with the Council continuing along its previous path of financial pressure, under-investment and limited improvement.

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That comparison is powerful.

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It is also the wrong starting point.

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Buckinghamshire Council had already decided not to continue indefinitely with the old operating model. It went to the market for a new long-term operator and received ten initial proposals.

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So the realistic question is not:

What does WWFC offer compared with the Council continuing as before?

It is:

What does WWFC offer that would not have been achieved if another credible bidder had been selected?

That distinction matters enormously.

 

A new operator could also have brought investment, management, maintenance, sporting provision and financial support. Those things are not automatically additional benefits of WWFC's present proposal merely because they are better than the Council's previous position.

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The correct baseline is therefore the credible alternative outcome of the tender process, not the continuation of a model which the Council had already decided to replace.

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A false start changes the whole race

If you begin the comparison from the wrong line, everything that follows is distorted.

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Suppose WWFC promises ten benefits, but another viable bidder would realistically have delivered seven of them anyway. WWFC cannot fairly claim all ten as additional benefits of its proposal.

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Its genuine additional contribution is the difference between the two outcomes.

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In simple terms:

WWFC can only claim as additional what would not realistically have been realised under the credible alternative.

That does not mean the Planning Authority has to rerun the tender or decide which bidder should have won.

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It means the existence of other credible proposals matters when WWFC claims that particular benefits depend upon its scheme or would otherwise not come forward. The fact that there were nine other initial proposals makes a simple comparison with continued Council austerity inadequate.

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