Transcript

Good afternoon, everybody. I'm pleased to welcome you to the main meeting of Cabinet. I'm Ashley Baxter. I'm the Leader of the Council and Chairman of this committee. I have alongside me to my left, the Deputy Leader and Vice Chairman, Councillor Richard Cleaver. To my right, I have Karen Bradford, the Chief Executive, and to her right, Graham Watts, the Monitoring Officer. Please ensure your mobile phones are switched off or turned as a stun. I have been notified of the fire alarm practice. No, I have not been notified of a fire alarm practice, so if your alarm goes off, please leave by the fire exit, which is under the projector. If you wish to ask a question, sorry, the assembly point for the fire practice, if there is one, which I hope there isn't, is on St Peter's Hill. If you wish to ask a question, please raise your hand. I will invite members of the rest of the Council be on the Cabinet to speak if there is time and if they wish to. Once again, at the end of this meeting, I'm quite happy to take questions procedurally. It's unusual for the Cabinet. It's not a fixed item on the Cabinet agenda, but I'm happy to keep the tape rolling so that any questions that members of the Council want to be asked in a public setting can be. So, that's fine. So, the meeting will be recorded and can be watched via the SKDC Public Eye website. We will now make our way through today's agenda. Item 1 is Apologies for Absence. Thank you, Leader. No formal apologies for being given me today, so everyone is here that should be. Thank you. Thank you. Item 2 is minutes of the previous meeting. Does anybody have any thoughts on the minutes of the previous meeting or preferably would anyone like to propose that we accept the minutes of the previous meeting? Thank you, Councillor Cleaver and thank you, Councillor Baker. Could we please show if we are in favour of accepting the minutes of the previous meeting and those against and abstentions? We have one. Thank you. They are ratified, approved, whichever word you would. Do we have any disclosures of interests from members of the Cabinet or any other member of the Council? If not, then I'll say thank you and move on to our first meeting item, the Housing Stock Condition Survey Contract Award and for this I'll ask Councillor Dukes to present the report. Thank you very much, Leader. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm delighted to present the report before you today inviting you to approve that we enter into a contract with MPART links for the provision of stock condition surveys and energy performance certificates to our housing stock. As it says in the report, we want to ensure that all, well, in our new corporate plan recently adopted, it says that we want to ensure that all residents can access housing, which is safe, good quality, sustainable and suitable for their needs and future generations. Of course, we also have a duty to comply with best practice where we can and a duty to comply with a decent home standard. This contract is one of the tools to enable us to do that. It's a contract for two years initially with the option to extend for a one-year plus a second year if agreed. In the recommendation, I would like to change the recommendation very slightly, alter it so that it reads, "Cavenna approves the award of a contract to MPART links limited for the provision of stock condition surveys and EPCs for a period of two years with the option to extend for a further one year plus one year with a maximum contract value of £281,000. So we're just moving the slightly changing the wording to improve the clarity. Thank you. I'm happy to answer any questions, but Alison Hall-Rite is here as well if there are any technical questions. Thank you. Do we have any questions about this report, the content, the recommendation? So other than saying that it's most welcome and we've been on a long journey with housing and this is part of that journey and we're in a much better position than we were this time last year or even two years before that and thanks very much to all the staff who were involved in that journey to date and those who were involved in the ongoing journey. But with that, I'm subject to the clarification that you've put forward, Councillor Dilks, can I have a proposal? Councillor Dilks is proposing, Councillor Rayside is seconding. Can I see those in favour of accepting this recommendation? That is unanimous. Thank you. Going on to the next report, agenda item 5, tree and Woodlands strategy 2024 to 2034. Councillor Baker, would you please introduce us to this report? Absolutely, thank you, Leader. I am delighted to, and not for the first time, present the tree and Woodlands strategy for South Coast Stephen, representing a frankly titanic amount of work from officers in collaboration with local experts, local charities. We have uniquely seen in our district the impact of climate change, it's no longer something looming on the horizon, it is something that we are dealing with and it is imperative that we take action and we plan to take action that is decisive to adapt to the challenges of a warmer world and trees and Woodlands often regarded as the guardians of our environment can play a pivotal role in this endeavour. As a county, Lincolnshire has one of the lowest levels of tree cover in England at 5.67% compared to an average for England of around 10%. This is in line with what we would expect given the land use of our district and the county because of the high proportion of agricultural land with low tree canopy cover. While some of the areas of the district may not be appropriate for tree planting in wetland areas, there remain significant opportunity to increase tree canopy cover and that is the important part that runs through the central thread of this strategy. It is tree canopy cover rather than simply number of trees. We have developed this tree and Woodlands strategy with the support of tree economics, a specialist consultancy who have worked with several other local authorities on the development of ambitious plans for tree planting but also tree management maintaining the stock that we have got where appropriate and planting again where it is appropriate. The right tree in the right place. Just to highlight the central love of the environment that we see among our residents, this public consultation which completed in February saw well over 900 people respond to and shape the trees and Woodlands strategy. A couple of key statistics, 99% agreed that trees and Woodlands are a valuable natural asset, really giving us an impetus to protect what we already have and 96% agreed that planting maintaining and protecting trees is a worthwhile investment that the council should be involved in. We have established a budget for the recruitment of a dedicated tree project officer who will be instrumental in delivering the aims of the strategy and locking funding opportunities but also working with our communities. This is not a top down approach, it is for give the pun a grassroots approach coming from the bottom up. The Environment Overview and Scrudeny Committee reviewed the strategy at their meeting on the 19th of March 2024. We picked over the detail of it. It was a very informative and helpful meeting. They endorsed this strategy and they recommend the cabinet approve the new strategy. So I am delighted to present this before cabinet today and I recommend the full adoption of this new strategy. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Baker. Councillor Dole's. I just wish to endorse what the cabinet member says. I just think this is a massive step forward and one that is something, as has been shown in the consultation, what the people of that we represent actually want to see. It is a real step forward in not just protecting the important trees that we have got and in my ward I have seen trees chop down almost on a whim, not by this council particularly but by others and actually protecting trees and planting new ones is a massive step forward and it is the future I have got to say. Not just are we low in Lincolnshire on the national base of tree cover but as I understand it, the UK has got one of the lowest tree covers in the whole of Europe. So we really need to be doing a bit more to protect trees and enhance our tree cover. They do so much for us, not just on climate change, people love trees. Thank you. Thank you Councillor Dukes. I'd like to invite Councillor Selby, who is the Chair of the Environment and Overview Scrutney Committee, who steered this item our way to say a few words if he wishes. Yeah, thank you kindly, Leader. Well, Reese has some things up really nicely. It is one little thing out there that I am going to give a mention for but it is quite right, you know, a mention about Lincolnshire, one of the lowest levels of tree cover in England. But there is obviously a very good reason for that because we are a rural farming community. So that is understandable. We've got to do whatever we can to try and increase that figure. But it is all about future generations at the end of the day. It is about our children's future, grandchildren's future. But one thing that we need to put more of an emphasis on in my view is regarding the Woodlands strategy part of the strategy is with hedges and hedge laying. I certainly shouldn't underestimate the value of hedges in the countryside, you know, the good that they do for the ecosystem, for the wildlife. There are so many benefits from hedge laying, which I hope we are going to explore more in the coming year in the Environment Committee, Leader. But I would just like to take this opportunity to say a big thank you to the Environment team that we have been working on this arena and all the other members that we have had at the Environment team. After that, we are very lucky to have them. They are a wonderful team to work with, Leader. And I must say thanks to them for the good work that they are doing and what we have got planned for the future. So thank you for giving them the opportunity to speak. Thank you. Thank you very much. The Deputy Leader has just whispered that as an authority, we need to be careful about hedge funds. I was going to say that the consultation response is phenomenal. Our response to consultations generally is increasing. I think it shows the importance of a subject that we have had over 900 responses. I think also partly it is to do with the way that we are engaging people with the SK Today sign up. We are prompting more responses and we are getting a far better response rate than we were a year ago for this kind of item. That is always very welcome. I would like to suggest that the Chief Executive has reminded me that all consultations are on the front page of our website these days. If you want to know what SKD sees doing in terms of consultations, please go to our website and see what is current. I would like to propose a second part of the recommendation which is to delegate authority to the Cabinet Member, Councillor Baker and the Chief Executive to make any minor amendments to the document as necessary before its final publication. The reason for that is that we have discovered the cardinal error that we suspect that a photo of Deepingson James has been labelled as market-deeping. This is unacceptable. It was unacceptable before the election. It continues to be unacceptable. Deepingson James and market-deeping are two separate communities although they are very much linked and working together in partnership and all that stuff. With that caveat that picking up any minor typos and mislabelling, we can agree that. So with that second clarification, Councillor Baker, are you proposing these recommendations? Do we have a seconder? Councillor DILKS, could you please show if you are in favour of accepting the tree and woodland strategy? Thank you. That is unanimous. Thank you for that. Was it not Gandhi who said, even if I knew I was going to die tomorrow, I would still plant a tree today? Moving on to the next item on the agenda, the cessation of the HelloSK app. The HelloSK app was introduced about two years ago, I think, at a time when we were recovering from COVID and the pandemic and we wanted to get some action back on the high streets, we wanted to encourage small businesses. It was funded by the Welcome Back Fund, a government grant with strict restrictions in place and it was an opportunity for us to support businesses. Bubble Town was procured to create a management app. The app was purchased or procured for a one-off payment of £50,000 by the administration before last, the administration before the election. It was suggested to us by Bubble Town that the app would become self-sustaining and the £50,000 of Welcome Back Fund would be the only money that was needed. This is no longer the case, as revenue has not performed as with the level of forecast and Bubble Town have now asked the council to consider paying on a regular basis to offset the lost revenue. By January 2024, the HelloSK app had been downloaded by 1,436 consumers with 211 business profiles across South Coast even with varying levels of interaction. Without a clear business case for a self-sustaining model, the usage does not justify the continuation of the scheme. At the same time, this is no reflection on our commitment to driving tourism, driving the high street, driving the economic development of the South Coast even district and so the second half of the recommendation in this report is that officers and members continue to work with destination Lincolnshire in order to offset the features of the HelloSK app. I'd like to publicly apologise to those very small number of businesses who were using the app to its best ability to offer discounts to promote events. In terms of promoting events, we will certainly, as an SK Council, we would like to continue to promote events for those businesses and any other businesses where we are promoting footfall in the high street of any of our four towns or, indeed, our villages. I'm happy to say that yesterday at the UK Share Prosperity Fund, the UK Share Prosperity Fund board looked favourably upon an application from Destination Lincolnshire for the development of tourism initiatives in the district, including trails, including incentives for coach operators to come to this town and others, and a general scheme of think of £170,000 to put together a thoughtful package which connects South Coast even with itself, with its neighbours and with the rest of the world. So we certainly haven't forgotten about tourism and economic development or the high street. But the cessation of the HelloSK app was endorsed by the Culture and Leisure, sorry, Culture and Leisure Overview Screwing Committee on the 26th of March, and this is the recommendation from that committee, and so I would like to recommend to you, Cabinet, that we approve the cessation of the HelloSK app relationship work, and we encourage officers to work in partnership with Destination Lincolnshire on some of the features of the app to offset their lots. I'm happy to propose that from the Chair, do I have a seconder? Thank you, and I should say, do I have any comments or questions? Councillor Baker and then Councillor McDonald's. Thank you. I don't think our commitments to businesses can be understated. We really do want to help get the word out, see what sort of offers are going on, see what people are offering. Unfortunately, the low user engagement on the engagement metrics just doesn't justify the continuation of this app. Every app has maintenance costs and our original understanding was that this app was going to be maintained separately to any further injection of cash from this council. That is no longer the case, so I think it is the right decision, and I think what else this shows is that overview and scrutiny is doing its job. We are reviewing our active policies. We are seeing are these good value for our council taxpayers, and in this case, we've found that it isn't. I'm absolutely gutted for those business people who are using it and have actively engaged in the early adopters, but we do have a duty of care to all the money that we spend under this council, so I think it is, unfortunately, the right decision. Thank you. Councillor NOLS. Yes, thank you, Chair. Can we point out that not only did we give £170,000 to tourism at the meeting yesterday, at the Prosperity Fund meeting, there was also £100,000 to enable the shop fronts in all the towns to be improved, so there has money been put into the shop in the town centres as well, so money is coming from other sources to try and improve tourism and use of the town centres in various ways. Thank you. Councillor C yes, I'd just like to add my voice to what Councillor Bekker and Councillor NOLS have said, and just reinforce the point that the council is, of course, completely committed to supporting tourism, footfall, town centre businesses, markets, and I think people will see that our commitment to that over the last year has already, is already showing fruit, bearing fruit, and we will continue to do that, and the loss of this app is not going to stop us from continuing to support business across the district. Thank you. Councillor Selby, Leader, thank you very much today. I would like to add to the list of things that came out of the UK shared Prosperity Fund meeting yesterday, Leader, is the ground that was awarded to South Linkertia Blinds Society for Hive FM. I was absolutely thrilled to be with that committee yesterday for awarding that grant to that organisation. Not only is it going to help with the things that's just been raised here in this item, Leader, but the events that will be promoted, the community groups that will benefit, there's a lot of volunteers already lined up to help out with that initiative that it will be called Hive FM, and I was seriously thrilled to be at yesterday. I'm still so excited about the future, and what that's going to do for the community of Grantham, and so for helping the local economy, the businesses as well. So yeah, it was fabulous yesterday, so let's shout that one from the rooftops, and yeah, that's money, money, very, very well spent, it will be, thought of it, can't tell you enough, Mr Chair. Thank you, thank you very much for that. Also discussed yesterday were other initiatives around the district, including in the deepings. The outcome of that meeting has not yet been made public, but I think we've got a sense from Councillor Noel's and Councillor that there is good news to come, as those issues are ratified and endorsed by officers, and some of them will be supporting the businesses that are affected by this Hello, S.K. up. Just before going to the vote, I'd like to say that one of the businesses which was using the up to its fullest extent was the Iron Horse Ranch House in market deepings. That place is a hub of activity, not just for people in the deepings, but also for the biker community across Lincolnshire, I'd say, and into Peter M Beyond. On a typical Wednesday, I think it's a Wednesday night, might be a Thursday night, but on bike night, I get my nice muddled up, depending on which parish councils I'm going to. They have sometimes over a hundred motorcycles converge in market deeping town centre, a friendly old bunch. We know that some of the motorcyclists in our area, Councillor Dilks, can be both friendly and old, but what that's doing for the tourism economy is fabulous. I think it's somewhere where the destination Lincolnshire can work with businesses in the deepings and elsewhere in the district to promote what's already happened and make it even better. Shout out to that business. Without further ado, I'd like to propose this from Vijay I've had a seconder. Can we please vote on this, who is in favour of the cessation of the Hello S.K. up and working with destination Lincolnshire as in the recommendations? And those against and abstentions, that was unanimous, so I'm pleased with that. We now move to items for information, and I should have said probably at the beginning of the meeting, Councillor Stokes has some good news for us. Thank you. I was delighted to learn that we had secured a further 3.587 and a half thousand for energy efficiency upgrades at the Mayor's Legislature Centre. How much? Three and a half, oh three five eight seven five hundred, three million, five hundred and eighty seven thousand five hundred. It was a million that we were listening for. Yeah, three, three million. The money from the public sector decarbonisation scheme Phase 3C will pay for a new low carbon heating system with an additional four hundred ninety two thousand, five hundred coming from the Council's own budget. This is an excellent result for the Council, and I cannot thank the team here enough for their hard work and determination in securing it. The utility costs for Grantham's Legislature Centre are substantial and have increased significantly since 2021. This funding will allow for design and installation of a new low carbon heating system to replace the existing gas boilers that are old and inefficient, and helping ensure the long term sustainability of the Mayor's. Once in place the upgraded heating system will reduce carbon emissions from the site by more than five hundred and fifty tons of carbon per year, which equates to eight percent of the Council's total carbon emissions and a quarter of the Council's carbon reduction target of at least thirty percent by two thousand and thirty. The scheme is being supported by the installation of additional solar panels and heat retaining pull covers that are being funded by a separate allocation from the swimming pool support fund Phase 2, which we announced in March this year. In addition, we have also installed heat retaining pull covers at Born Legislature Centre and Stumford Leisure Pool funded from our own climate reserve. Thank you so much, Councillor Stokes. This is indeed fantastic news that we've got over three million pounds to invest in energy efficiency in our leisure centres. You know that for many years I've been banging on about Council's leisure centres, and it's really good to have a good news story about our Council's leisure centres. I echo what you've said about the contribution of the officers and all those people who have nagged to get this money out of central government. Great news. Councillor Rayside. This news is very welcoming. Electrical costs is an ongoing threat to our leisure centres. So this reassures us that we can potentially keep the doors open a bit longer and offer this service to our community. Thank you to the staff for this application. Thank you, Councillor Rayside. Councillor BAKER. The resilience that our staff have had to show during this process, I don't think, should be underestimated. This has been a slog. This has been a lot of back and forth. This has been a lot of can we have more technical detail? Can we have more technical detail? And I just want to put on the record as everybody in the cabinet and everybody in the Council would my sincere thanks for not giving up, because we could have taken the initial decision, the initial erroneous and unfair decision, and just put our hands up and go, we'll go somewhere else. But we didn't. We knew we trusted our own assessments. We knew what we were doing was right, and our staff plugged away and got a huge, and that level of money is incredible to show a fantastic investment in our leisure facilities. It's going to show tangible progress on our 30% reduction by 2030. It's showing a joined-up approach to our other recent investment in our leisure facilities, and it shows our commitment to a greener, sustainable approach for South Costa, so just thank you all so very much. Thank you, Councillor BAKER. I think the message is that across the district, when talking about leisure centres, don't take no for an answer. We now move on to the, thank you for that news. We move on to the work plan. This is for information only. It's a lively document. It's changing all the time. As for chief executives about to tell us. Thank you, Leader. Can I just bring your attention to the next meeting, which is the 11th of June, and we've got the lease to Grantham Town Football Club. There's a non-key decision on there. I need to advise members that that will need to now move to the 9th of July, because we still have outstanding information, and nothing has been received from Grantham Town Football Club. They do have a lease in place for a year, but we're yet to receive the necessary information to finalise a longer lease, so it will have to move. Thank you. Thank you for that. I'm not ever to football, but I think congratulations to Grantham for staying up. Absolutely. Yes, they did. They stayed up. Big congratulations. I'll be united. Wow. They won the playoff final at Newark Town. They won at 2-1. I was there. Tenors of about 12 hundred people there. Absolutely brilliant. Also, in the district, let's give a congratulations. Well, they won their league. Absolutely did brilliant. So, Araby Knight had bought down. Brilliant. Well done. Thank you. That concludes this week's authorised results service. Any other comments on the work plan? Yes, Councillor Cleaver? Yes. Just to reiterate, obviously, the details of this, I'm going to appear on the public livestream or on the video version of it, so it's good to emphasise to anyone watching. Just how important this document is. It is the list of everything the Council is going to be deciding upon, discussing, until February next year, so if anyone watching, if you want to know what we're going to be discussing and what we're not going to be discussing, by inference, come and have a look at this document. It is on our website. It is a very key and important document. Thank you. Thank you very much, Councillor Cleaver. With that, that would normally be the end of the meeting. In the Chamber, we have Councillor Selby. I don't see any other members. Councillor Selby, do you have any questions for the Cabinet? No, thank you. Mr Chair, I'm for asking. Now, the important points that I've raised have been said. Thank you. Councillor Harrison, do you have any questions for the Cabinet? Thank you for that. That concludes today's meeting. Thank you very much for your time and have a safe journey home. [end of transcript]