AN UPDATE on the £300m development scheme at Basingstoke Leisure Park will be given to the council cabinet in private early next month.

Press and public are to be excluded from the section of the meeting on Tuesday, September 7, in which members will receive an update on the project and receive recommendations from the cabinet member for finance and major projects, Cllr John Izett.

The exclusion is justified in public council documents as coming under Paragraph 3 of Schedule 12A of the Local Government Act 1972. This covers information relating to the financial or business affairs of any particular person, including the authority holding that information.

It comes after the Gazette revealed earlier this week that the future of the £300million project to rebuild Basingstoke Leisure Park could be at risk as both the developer and council are refusing to provide certainty it will go ahead, with plans described by one opposition councillor as "dead in the water".

Retail giant New River has refused to deny it is pulling out of the scheme to redevelop the 60-acre site, owned by Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council.

In June, the leader of the council Ken Rhatigan told The Gazette in June that he expected an update in July, but that the plans in their current form would need to be "rethought".

But now in late August, the public is yet to receive an update from either New River or the council.

Councillor Ken Rhatigan, leader of the council, described New River as the council's "current partners" and said an update is expected "imminently".

He said: “We continue to negotiate and work with New River until we stop negotiating and working with them, and we are working very hard on that. I am not going to do anything that could jeopardise anything by speculating on something that is not true.”