Transcript

this meeting of the first one of the Municipal Year for Transport Regeneration and Climate as a Policy Committee. The meeting today is open to the public and there are no items that contain exempt information. The meeting will be webcast and the recording will be available for people to view later through the Council's website. It's also possible that Sheffield Live TV will record and be broadcast this meeting. Please can I request that mobile telephones and other such equipment are switched to silent mode so as not to disturb the conduct of the meeting. There's no fire test planned for today, if there is an emergency evacuation please take instruction from the Town Hall staff and the assembly point is Tudor Square. Now before we start our meeting I'd like to remind everyone attending and speaking today that we're in a pre-election restrictions period. That means that the Council has to be especially aware of its legal duty not to publish any material that may be seen to favour a candidate or party in the election. There's also a requirement to ensure that government policy, so this is a requirement to ensure that government policy is presented in a balanced and even-handed manner. Publicity is given a wide meaning and includes matters set in Council hosted meetings like these, so therefore I require everyone speaking today to confine their questions and comments to those strictly necessary to conduct the business on the agenda and not to stray into incidental or related matters that might breach the publicity restrictions. In addition public questions, petitions and members questions are not permitted during the pre-election period but we will welcome those back for our next meeting after the general election. I'm going to turn to Robert Parkin who is the Assistant Director of Legal and Governance to clarify how we've reviewed our agenda today, thank you. Thank you for the promotion, just to assure the committee, so officers carefully consider the agenda items today and a number of them were deferred to a later meeting on account of their being politically sensitive or contentious, so we've got a fairly slim agenda today. It may be that, and those items that are on have been judged to really be business as usual, but it may be that for example the work programme item entails members wishing to propose additional items which may be the cause of debate as to whether or not to go on. My suggestion through you Chair would be that where members wish to propose something that in order to avoid the constraints of the debate today it may be that those discussions could be taken into a workshop session and brought back to the next committee so that a free debate can happen and then come back at a normal non-pre-election meeting Chair. Thank you Robert for outlining how we have prepared the agenda today. Do I see a consensus amongst members that that's the way that we should address any matters that may arise, particularly with regards to the work programme, the guidance that we should take it outside this meeting and discuss it at a workshop and bring it back to our next meeting in order to stick within the confines of the pre-election period. Councillor Campbell-Pugh. Hi, thank you Chair. I understand the constraints that we're working under during the pre-election period, however I am not comfortable with the prospect that should there be anything that's too politically contentious that we should take it out of the formal committee meeting. I think I would prefer if anything such as discussions about the political ramifications of the work plan we should defer it to another meeting and not take those items in this meeting. I think that would be a much more publicly accountable and democratic alternative to the suggestion that we do it behind closed doors in workshop sessions. Thank you Councillor Campbell-Pugh. Obviously in preparation for our meetings we do have pre-discussions and those are right and proper but decisions that are taken on items like the work programme are always taken at a formal policy committee meeting. So there of course will be no suggestion that the policy will be decided outside this place. It would of course be at this place but in order to get us up to a certain point to make a decision then on a cross party basis we often do have those discussions outside this place. Councillor Diamond. Just a question on your direction really. So if I wanted to propose the changes to the work plan would it be sufficient just to say what the things that we would like to discuss in a meeting outside would be and then leave it at that? I will ask for guidance Councillor Diamond on that particular point. I think what I'm suggesting is that we would simply seek to pass the work programme as is and we'd have discussions on a cross party basis as is right and proper outside this chamber and then we would seek to bring any amendments to a next committee meeting in order to stick within the confines of the pre-election period. However I'll ask for further advice and guidance from Robert. Thank you Chair. That's the cleanest way to do it. I understand it will feel slightly frustrating. I think the danger in opening up to new proposals is that they might in some people's view be inevitably connected with an election stance. So whilst I appreciate it's frustrating, Chair it does seem to be the cleaner approach to bring it to a future committee and I'm completely acknowledging Councillor Gamble-Pugh's point about the need to have that debate in a public setting. Thank you Robert for the clarification. Is the committee minded to agree with me that that's the way that we should proceed? I can see that colleagues are nodding. Thank you. That therefore takes us onto item one of the agenda which is apologies for absence. Apologies for absence have been received from our colleagues Councillor Andrew Sanger and Ruth Mersereau. Do we have any other apologies to pass on? No Chair. No we don't. Thank you. I'll also ask every member of the committee as well as officers who are sat next to a microphone to introduce themselves if that's okay. I'll just start to my left. Hello I'm Robert Parkin, Assistant Director for Legal and Governance. I'm Will Stewart, Director of Investment, Climate Change and Planning. I'm Councillor Christine Gilligan-Couveau and I'm a substitute member of this committee standing in for Ruth Mersereau. I'm Councillor Alexi Diamond, Deputy Chair of this committee. Hello I'm Councillor Janet Riddler, Ward member for Stocksbridge and at the dock. Hello I'm Craig Gamble-Pugh, I'm Councillor for East Ecclesford Ward. Hello I'm John Wright, I'm Councillor for Walkley. Ian Horner, I'm Councillor for Bacon, I've got an echo in here. Councillor Richard Shaw, Councillor for Beechfield and Greenhall Ward. I'm Rachel Appleyard, Principal Democratic Services Officer supporting this committee. Thank you Rachel and I'm Ben Miskill, I'm Chair of this committee and a Councillor that represents Park and Arborthorne Ward in the city. That therefore takes us on to item 2 which is an opportunity for us to consider whether there is a need to exclude the public or the press. The meeting today of course is open to the public and there are no items on the agenda containing exempt information. Item 3 is declarations of interest. Can I ask whether there are any members who wish to declare an interest in any of the items of business on the agenda? And if you do can I please ask you to refer to this specific item of business and state whether it's a pecuniary or personal interest and outline the reasons for the declaration. I don't see any member who wishes to declare an interest. So therefore we'll move on to item 4 which is minutes of our previous meeting. I'm cognisant of the fact that we have had a churn of membership in the new municipal year and therefore some members here won't have been at our previous committee meeting. This is an opportunity to ask members of the committee to approve as a correct record the minutes of the meeting of our committee, the TRC committee that was held on the 13th of March and also I think on the 15th of May as well. Which apparently I have to sign as well. Is the committee minded to approve those minutes as a true and accurate record? At least those colleagues who were at those committee meetings. I can see nods from colleagues. Thank you very much for passing and approving those minutes from our previous meeting. Item 5 is our work programme. This is on page 25 of our unusually very light agenda pack today. The work programme has been updated by officers and councillors with reports coming forward during the year. As there's no city council elections next year this provides a good opportunity to undertake a longer term planning and as many members will be aware workshop is being arranged with members to review the work programme and to look at priorities for the committee over the coming year. I think Rachel will take us through any items that we may well need to be particularly aware of. Thank you chair. The work programme is owned by the committee in collaboration with officers and its purpose is to enable the committee to plan their work over the year. The aim is to display all known substantive agenda items for forthcoming meetings. This is the first meeting of the year so as you can see there are a number of new items on there. These are set out in part 1 of appendix 1 which is on page 27 of the pack. Then starting on page 29 is part 2 and this shows each meeting of the year and the agenda items for those. The work programme will develop through the year and will be brought to each meeting of the committee for consideration and as the chair mentioned earlier it's also presented to the regular pre-agenda and pre-meetings for review. The recommendations are outlined on pages 25 and 26 and we ask the committee to agree the work programme and consider any changes to that. I'll hand over to officers in the service if you've got any specific questions on items. Thank you. Thank you very much Rachel. Do I see any member who wishes to ask a point of clarification or a question or make a point? Councillor Shaw. Thank you chair. You pointed out next year we don't have any scheduled elections for the council. Might that mean that we'll be able to add an additional meeting in April because like with previous years we have a very full work programme and we always seem to struggle to get through it all. So would that be possible? Councillor Shaw. I think that's something that I've been mindful of as well and I think it's a question that I've asked. I understand that committees are not normally meeting in April in this municipal year and I have asked that question as to why when we don't have an election, a local election scheduled. I think that's something that we probably need to work to given the high workloads and agenda items that come before this committee. It's quite clear that we are already having to add another committee meeting on in July aren't we in order to get through one particular item of business in a timely manner and it may well be that we have to do that further down the road in the municipal year. I will however just ask Rachel for some guidance on that matter. Is there anything else that we need to be aware of Rachel? Nothing else to be aware of, it's something we can look at but just be mindful even though we might not have elections in Sheffield there could be other elections which might impact it as they are this meeting but that is something we can look at if we need to put in an additional meeting. Thank you. Councillor Diamond. Thank you very much chair. Given that we can't actually suggest amendments, I think Craig Campbell's suggestion was sensible. Is there anything stopping us from deferring it to the next meeting in terms of advice from officers because we can't meaningfully vote on the work plan as is? Councillor Diamond of course the work programme is owned by the committee and the committee can take whatever decision it wants on that work programme. I'd just like to remind members that the work does continue and that officers do need some certainty about their report writing deadlines and we as an organisation do need to be able to live on priorities for the city. So therefore not passing a work programme would potentially have some adverse consequences on the work of this committee. I am mindful that you may well want to make a number of additional contributions and items for the work programme as may colleagues from other political groupings as well. And we can continue to do that and add them in addition to the items that we already have or we can of course continue to take items off the work programme at our next meeting. Would you be reminded to accept that? Thank you, I do appreciate that it is frustrating. We do have a general election and therefore this pre-election period which has constrained us a little bit in some of our discussions which is regretful. So let's move us onto, apologies, Councillor Campbell. Just to be clear, we've got another meeting scheduled to take place on the 24th of July. The work plan identifies three items at the moment for that meeting. If in the meantime members wish to put forward any additional items, are we able to do that? Of course, Councillor Campbell, outside this meeting we meet regularly at knowledge briefings and in cross party settings as well. So we can make those suggestions and we will be having a workshop in order to do that. I guess we've also got to be mindful that when we do add items to the work programme that they need a period of lead-in time for us to go through the normal processes and that means making sure that officers can write those reports and then making sure as well that they can go through the correct checks with our legal colleagues. However, I think Will would like to add further clarity. Thanks, Chair. Just a quick point on items. We've been working with members' administrative support to try and find a date for the workshop where we can discuss the forward plan, the work plan and additional items. And the current thinking is that Wednesday the 26th where we do have a 90 minute knowledge briefing in the diary with all members could be the day that we come together and discuss the work plan. Obviously we'll need to confirm that with members but just to let you know as Chair there is a proposal that we do discuss that. We do discuss the work plan on that day rather than going for the scheduled knowledge briefing which is currently in at that time. 26th of June. Thank you, Will. So it looks like on Wednesday the 26th of June members of the committee are due to meet and that will be a good opportunity for us to be able to have those cross-party discussions about the work programme. With a view to bringing those items to our next committee meeting which is in July as well. So I'll ask the committee whether they are mindful to approve the work programme as it is. Obviously we know that we will be having a workshop on Wednesday the 26th of June and there will be another opportunity to refresh the work programme in July as well. Are members minded to approve and agree? I can see that colleagues are nodding and that there is no dissent and therefore we will pass the work programme in its current state. I'd like just to take a quick opportunity because it's a new municipal year just to explain the conduct of our meetings and how we'll go forward. So for each of the substantive items which we'll be moving into on our agenda today, and this I guess is particularly important when we're discussing perhaps more controversial items, please can I remind everyone of the process that we're going to follow. The officers of course will be invited to present the report to the committee. Members of the public have had access to reports in advance so please assume that members of course have read the reports which we all will have done. Our officer colleagues will be providing that high level summary that will then be followed by questions from members to the officers. Once all those questions have been asked and of course responses provided, we'll then move on to the discussion. And after any discussion has taken place, the recommendations may be moved and seconded and taken to the vote if necessary. This will enable us to conduct the business of the meeting smoothly and efficiently and I'd like to thank us all for the cooperation that we show in that process. So item 6, which is the first item on our formal decisions today, is the 2023-24 final budget out-turn monitoring report. It is on page 37 of your agenda pack and the presenting officer today is Jane Wilby. Hi Jane. Hi, thank you Chair. The paper gives an update of the final revenue out-turn position of 2023-24. It's a summarised position of the full paper that will be taken to the Finance Committee next week. It's also worth noting that the position has been published as part of our draft unaudited statement of accounts that was published on the 31st of May. The Finance team are proud to be within the 41% of councils nationally that has achieved the publication deadline. So the headlines are the council did overspend against budget by $15.6 million in 2023-24 against a net revenue budget of $497 million, which is a 3.1% variance. So between the quarters, the early forecast in Quarter 1 indicated an overspend of $17.6 million, which improved by $2 million throughout the year, which is shown in Chart 1.3. The relative stability in the forecast throughout the year does show a good commitment by council officers to financial management and realistic estimates of service costs. The improvement was largely due to corporate underspends through sustained improvements on our interest income from treasury investments rather than service improvements, however. This did provide mitigations of around £6 million for our increasing unfunded overspends. The challenging underlying budget issues do remain for the council that have been discussed throughout the year in children's services, SEN transport, adults' care and wellbeing and homelessness. Adults continue to be challenged through high cost packages and underlying issue in learning disabilities of $10.5 million, which has somewhat been offset this year through one-off funding. Children's services have faced increased costs of external residential placements and persistent demand for SEN home to school transport, and we're now supporting over 2,400 children in the city with transport provision, which has increased by over 1,000 children in four years. The homelessness situation has arisen due to the use of hotel and bed and breakfast accommodation to support homelessness duties, where a shortage of affordable housing in the city has pushed families and single people to crisis point. Government legislation around housing benefit rules has meant that the council is subsidising the cost of this provision without funding or any available budget, leading to an overspend of about $8.4 million in the accounts this year between temporary and supported accommodation. The council put in place a £47 million worth of savings targets to balance the 23/24 budget, of which 78% were delivered within the year. 6.5% were deemed 'undeliverable' and will present a risk to budgets in 24/25 alongside further budget challenges of $26.7 million, as noted in table 1.6.2. One-off grant income or offsets from provisions have mitigated some of the core issues that need to be addressed in order to be sustainable going forwards. The majority of the issues span our three key overspending areas in adults, children and homelessness. For the committee, the Transport, Regeneration and Climate Committee reported a very small overspend of $67,000 against budget, which is within 1% of target and demonstrates effective budget management overall. Services within the committee delivered the majority of the savings targets, with planning falling short by $77,000. It is worth noting the key risks in the service do lie within planning applications and building standards, with the services not meeting income targets within the year and a likelihood that revenue targets will not be achieved in 24/25. Some mitigation has come from permit income in highways networks this year. The issues faced in Sheffield are not unique and councils across the country are experiencing similar challenges and financial context with uncertainty over future funding streams. Sheffield City Council has been able to manage the overspends against the budget by drawing down from reserves from the past two years and have done so again this year, so the $70 million of reserves that were set aside in 2021 for budget contingency will leave $27.6 to manage the overspends for 24/25. We are currently in the process of refreshing our medium term financial analysis and will begin the process to set a balanced budget for 25/26. Pressures on services from the increased demand, inflating cost base and reductions in funding on top of the undelivered savings and issues with underlying budget gaps will make the process even more difficult this year as the gap continues to widen. The committee is asked to note the financial position for 23/24 and take action to mitigate the underlying overspends within the committee budgets for 24/25. Thank you. Thank you Jane for taking us through that report. Do I see members who wish to ask a question and make a contribution? Councillor Gilligan-Cubo. Is there a lack of planning applications coming in the city or is it due to the complexity and the number of planning applications that are going to tribunals and things? I'll answer a little bit but I'll pass over to Will to continue with that. I think a lot of it has been not recovery post-pandemic to the income levels that we were seeing before that. There has been a little bit of a lack of confidence in the market. We are seeing that trend starting to recover but not quite to the levels that we had seen before. I'll refer to Will for some further detail on that. Yeah, happy to come in on that. Councillor Gilligan-Cubo, I think Jane is right. I think there are some wider strategic reasons why we are seeing a slight drop-off in planning fee income but also I believe some localised issues as well. I think strategically we've been dealing with periods of economic turmoil and European events that are affecting things like material prices. We've seen inflation having an impact as well on the ability of people to finance investments and also make that commitment around planning applications. So I think this is not something that's unique to Sheffield, this is something that we're seeing all around the country in terms of planning applications. I guess the positives are, and Jane's outlined those, that we are starting to see a recovery in terms of the level of interest in planning applications. One of the things that I've said before in committee but I think it's worth restating is that for the first time in a long time, hopefully within the next year or so, we will have a local plan in this city. Which will give that certainty to people looking to put in applications or maybe been thinking about making a move to make an application. Actually give that certainty now that there's a policy framework, there's an agreed set of planning policies which they can refer to and give some confidence that their application is going to be in line with what we want to achieve as a city. So my expectation is that we will see an increased confidence from people who want to make applications, from the developer industry, from people like registered providers. We're being really clear for example in the new local plan about our commitment to affordable housing and set a minimum threshold in that document so we believe that will have an impact on applications. So I think it's something where we need to keep a watching brief but this isn't a trend that's isolated just to Sheffield, it's something that we're seeing across the country. And I think as we hopefully enter into more stable economic times and inflation has a less of an impact on people's investment decisions, I think there will be more confidence from interested parties in submitting planning applications. Thank you, Jane and Will, for adding clarity to that. Councillor Diamond. Thank you very much, Chair, and thank you for the report. I'm just interested in terms of the budget of this committee. So we had some income from the Clean Air Zone that came to this committee. I'm wondering on what basis it's decided which money comes into this committee and why the income from parking and bus gates is not included in the budget for this committee. Thank you, Councillor Diamond, I think it's a very good question and one that we're all very live to. Jane. So I was just going to talk a bit about the budget that's set that does come to this committee. I mean, in terms of the committee remits, I'm not going to comment on that. Again, that's probably illegal and democratic services in terms of how that's been cut specifically. But in terms of the budget, what's covered within that budget, certainly the income from the zone itself and any costs associated with the operation of that zone. You will see that that does not off to zero at the moment. So basically, the way that we're managing that is over a whole life costing basis with the assumption that there is a core level of cost that needs to be covered over that whole life costs. And, you know, at the end of that, we do hope that there is a surplus that we are able to make some decisions to invest in line with the legislation that says that we need to be investing that in the right things around cleaner initiatives in the city. So I think given the fact that it's sustainability, clean air initiatives and transport, it did feel probably more relevant to be in this committee rather than the waste and street scene which holds the parking income in that service. So in terms of how that's been caught, again, I think that's a legal issue, but in terms of the money that is included in within that budget, I think we are as a council, particularly given the financial context, we're really, really trying to make sure that we have covered all the costs associated with the whole life costs of operating and running the zone, decommissioning costs, etc. Any contractual obligations are associated with running the zone and at the point where we feel comfortable that a surplus is available to start making those investment decisions, there will be a rigorous process in terms of how we do that. I don't know whether, Will, you want to come in and talk a little bit more about that? Yeah, happy to. I mean, the Council of Diamond, the first sort of tranche of income that came through the Clean Air Zone came through this committee and was allocated for those initial measures, including school streets and other initiatives, 20 mile an hour zones also. I think Jane's right, one of the sensitivities around clean air is that we need to make sure, as she's outlined, that we've got enough money to be able to administer the system and employ the right number of people in order to be able to administer the system through the whole lifespan of the scheme. It will become apparent as we move closer to the end game or the next phase, I guess, how much money we will have in terms of surplus. And then, of course, we will be bringing proposals back through this committee to make sure that members have oversight of that and are in agreement on what we spend the money on. Just in terms of your other point, just an example around how money flows through from enforcement schemes in the city, it was the case that last year we did use some bus gate income to meet a pressure in this committee around the transport contributions we make regionally to the MCA. So, money does come in to transport measures through those transport enforcement schemes. I think what members of this committee have asked for is further clarity on that and that's something we're working on as an officer cohort at a senior level, actually, because it's certainly something that I'm very, very keen to outline and drive more clarity into. There are some really quite stringent criteria against bus gate income, against parking enforcement, so you're only allowed to spend that income on certain programmes. That's all clearly set out in legislation. I guess the bit for us is, once it does come into the organisation, how is it then distributed around committees? And that's, I think, the piece that members would like some further clarity on. Thank you. And I think it's a really important question, isn't it, that Council Diamond raised. It is one ultimately about committee remits, which we all need to be live to as we review our committee system in the future. I think Will did talk about how we used one million pounds of CAS income for our clean air investment fund, and that was about investing in school streets, about motif stars, and it was about part-time, 20 mile an hour zones outside schools to protect some of the most vulnerable road users. So we are very live to that particular issue. So, do I have any other questions or comments about the work programme to members of the committee? I don't think I do, so I'd like to direct members to page 37, which contains the recommendations for approval of the report, and I'd like to ask whether we are all agreed. If any member wishes to dissent, then please do raise your hand. But am I seeing nods from people? I am seeing nods from colleagues. We therefore can pass the 2023 to 2024 financial budget, the final budget out-term monitoring report, so thank you, and thank you very much, Jane, for presenting and taking us through that report, it's very much appreciated. So, therefore, it takes us on to item 7, which is about the Clovdike Deepcar culvert repair and replacement report, which is a wonderful project that we are going to be presented on by James. I've got a couple of slides that I've prepared that I've brought along following previous discussions that there wasn't actually a plan or a map in the report. That information is available in the Outland Business case, which I can supply to anybody if they'd like to read a little bit more into the detail behind the project. I'll just run through the slides, if I may. So, Clovdike, a little bit of an extract of a plan there, we're looking at Stockbridge Deepcar, the top end of the city, the River Don valley there coming down on the right-hand side of that plan. Clovdike is a small water course that comes down off the steep-sided hill, if you know that part of town, you'll know how steep that hillside from Deepcar down into the Little Don valley is. It comes down in a very steep-sided ravine off that hillside, rattles down in heavy rain, and it comes down to a location of culvert, we've got a picture there of the culvert inlet. This culvert has been deteriorating for a number of years, and it goes underneath a piece of made ground, which we're not quite sure of the history of, but it was certainly there by the 60s, 70s, and this culvert has been there for a number of years, deteriorated over time. On top of that embankment, you can see behind the culvert inlet, there's a children's playground, and there's a road that runs across the top of there, adjacent to a public park, this area is publicly accessible up the valley. We've had to fence off areas of the parkland in order to keep it safe with respect to the over-pumping situation in that area. So, the culvert has partly collapsed, and is substantially blocked at one point, which you can see there in the image on the slide. This lies about 15 to 20 metres deep underneath this embankment, and we've got an extract there from some of the flood modelling that's been done that shows the depth of water that builds up in the valley, upstream of the embankment that's been caused by the fill underneath Woodroyd Road. This culvert, we're not 100% sure exactly when it collapsed, but it had been deteriorating for a number of years, but the heavy rains and flooding that we had in November 2019 caused this to almost completely block, and has caused water to come up over the little bit of parkland, over Woodroyd Road, and flooded nine properties which sit on the downhill side of Woodroyd Road back in November 2019. Ever since that flood, we've had to have temporary pumps on site, and enhanced emergency response procedure with Amy, our highway supplier, and have had to go out every time it rains heavily. We monitor that situation very, very closely. This has been a costly business, circa £80,000 a year, to maintain that operational response. And it's not really just the operational response, it's the worry that sits with that, and the need that we actually have to physically go out there and respond, and as you can imagine, the stress and strain that that puts on the residents who suffered that flooding in November 2019. We have avoided any flooding to property since then through our operations and actions, but not been cheap, and as I say, that stress, and what those people are experiencing, and the risks associated with it being an actual operational procedure, we have to send people out there, risking getting stuck in traffic or that kind of thing in the height of a flood, so really something we've been quite nervous about, one would say, since 2019. We came very, very close in October last year in Storm Babette, we had sandbags on the road, we had people there for several hours dealing with the flood risk. And then the extract flooding shows there are actually more than those properties potentially at risk of flooding, there are more properties further downstream that could suffer flooding, around 35 properties in total as you carry on down the hill. So what's the plan? What have we done? So we have now secured, numbers are on the table, I won't read them out and risk getting them wrong, but the best part of 1.5 million in total for the project, secured from the Environment Agency, as I say, the outline business case is referenced in the report and is available for anyone who would like to delve into that a little bit further. We are just going through internal processes to set the procurement in train, and we should be out to tender in the next few weeks. The works themselves, basically the plan is we will do a vertical dig down, using what they call caissons, which is basically dropping big concrete rings into the ground. You dig them down, drop them in as you go down, until you get to the point where the key blockage and key collapses. We'll go in there, dig out where the collapse, where you saw that photograph that you saw, and then we'll work our way out from that area there, upstream, downstream, repairing the damaged sections of culvert and those sections which are, we've surveyed upstream and downstream that they do have some damage but they are sound. In the long term we'll be using a cured in place plastic lining, you put this plastic liner in and then it gets shoved into the outside of the pipe and then you put a UV light down and it solidifies under the UV. Create a structural repair to the inside of that culvert and sort out the problem. It's been a while coming, as you can see from the dates, but very pleased to be able to come and report that this problem is now going to be permanently addressed. Thank you, thank you Geoff. Thank you James and thank you for including that picture deep down in the culvert as well which we can also see on page 53 of the report. Do I see any member wishing to ask a question with regards to the report? Councillor Shaw. Thank you Geoff and thank you for the report and the presentation. I've got a couple of questions. The first question is why has it taken five years to get this funding so that we can put something in place, a permanent solution. Leading on from that, what has been the total cost to the authority to date as a result of this blockage? And then my final question is, are there any other culverts in the city that are similarly at risk? Are there any other potential liabilities and things coming down the line? Have other culverts been inspected recently to make sure they're in a good state of repair? Okay, thank you. In answer to the first question, one of the reasons why it's taken so long unfortunately was we did go down a bit of a dead end of an overly expensive suggestion from some of the first surveys. There was some work done that suggested we should consider coring all the way through the embankment from one side to the other and completely replace the whole, bypass the whole culvert which was far too expensive basically. So we did go down a bit of a dead end with some early investigations before coming to the solution that we've now come to. It's also weighed up by the fact that £80,000, £90,000 a year compared to £1.5 million takes a little bit of justification from a financial perspective. So those two things combined of the is it really worth it from an investor save perspective plus going down a few little dead ends with respect to optioneering early days that has unfortunately led to that. Should we move to the second question? The second question was about the total cost to the authority to date. I'll confirm that but it's of the order of £18,000, £90,000 a year for 19, 20, 21, 22 so if I could get back to you on the exact figures I'll get those checked but it's of the order £18,000 to £90,000 a year since 2019. Thank you. And then on the matter of other culverts, unfortunately this isn't the only culvert of concern across the city. It is however the only one that we're aware of that is substantially blocked to this level. Between ourselves and the Environment Agency we do inspect a large number of culverts across the city. We do have other flooding problems, we do have other hot spots across the city that we're much aware of but we don't have anything to this scale. Thankfully we don't have issues like this but there are ageing culverts. There was the issue at Decathlon a few years ago that people may be aware of where these things can cause problems. We have those mapped, we are aware of them, we do monitor them and we do work in partnership with the Environment Agency to make sure we're keeping a close eye on any issues. I wouldn't want to hide away from the fact that these things can happen and we do need to be mindful and conscious of monitoring those across the city. Thank you James. I can see two colleagues who wish to ask a question and make an intervention. Councillor Vidler. Thank you Chair. I'm Ward Councillor for Stops, Bridging Upper Downs so this is an issue that I'm very familiar with. I've had a lot of conversations with people who have been living under this constant threat of flooding. It's no fun for people, it really has brought about a lot of uncertainty for people so I'm really, really pleased to see that this permanent solution has been found. I know it's been a very challenging piece of work so I would congratulate the team for everything that you've done to come to a permanent solution. I was also really glad to see from the report also that the design of the culvert repair is going to avoid any disruption to Foxglen playground. There is a very active Friends of Foxglen playground who have raised in the last 18 months or so over £60,000 for new play equipment to renovate this park. It's really serving a very deprived area so it's fantastic that you've managed to actually take that into account and to avoid any disruption. I know they were worried at one bit that it was going to all get dug up again so really pleased to see that, that it won't be affected. Thank you on behalf of the people from the ward, it's much appreciated what you're doing, thank you. Thank you very much, I don't think there's any question, do you need anything? Not a question, just a comment if that's alright yeah. Absolutely, Councillor Widler, we're mindful that this is in your ward and something that you've been working on. Councillor Diamond. Yeah I'd just like to echo Councillor Widler's thanks for the work that you've done on this and that there will be a permanent solution. I was just wondering if the money is sort of definite regardless of the outcome of the election and is there any risk to that being taken away again? No we can be confident in that, the funds are already allocated and they are outcome based so they are allocated on the outcomes that we've submitted via the Environment Agency to get that funding so there is no concern with that. Councillor Horner. Thank you Chair, you did sort of allude to the fact that there may be other parts, other culverts around that we're looking at. I mean at some point, not now, but are we going to find out, is it a lot of culverts or is it one or two that may have particular problems? And I ask the question because as we're all aware, I mean for some reason at the moment I'm a bit obsessed with looking at the weather forecast, I can't think why. I'm sure that affects other people around this room but it's been a tad wet for the last, well ever since I came back to Sheffield, I'm not taking the blame for bringing it with me. But I am concerned with the amount of weather we're getting, weather in fact this is a more serious problem than it might once have been. I think, Councillor Horner and Councillor Misko as Chair, there may be value in us bringing a report, at least to a knowledge briefing, to update on condition reports that we do hold. So we have those condition reports, we do know what's out there, as I said in response to Councillor Shaw, we haven't got anything of this scale of magnitude of concern. But I think that would be something we could do if that's of interest to committee to provide that condition report of culverts more broadly across the city. With respect to your comment about the weather and the wetness, if I don't want to refer it to that, we have had, thankfully it's been steady, so we haven't had since October the storm intensity that's caused the localised flooding. We have had an exceptionally wet autumn into the winter and we are unfortunately seeing a lot of localised issues, you know, seepage from adjacent land onto highways, culverts overloaded, water courses, you know, flowing across rivers. We've had various kind of issues where that general wetness of the catchment has caused some problems this winter, it's been a difficult one. But as I say, there isn't anything quite like Clough Dyke, thankfully, but I'd be happy to bring more detailed information back to the committee if that would be of interest. Thank you James and I can see Councillor Horner nodding there, I think it would be a good thing for us to have a knowledge briefing, we all know, don't we, that the climate emergency does mean that we're likely to face an increased risk of flood events, in particular extreme flood events. It shows us, doesn't it, as a committee, and this issue is within our committee's oversight, just the important work that James and his team led by Nicky Rust, our new Head of Sustainability, what they do as a set of colleagues. So I think it would be really good to have that knowledge briefing, so thank you James. Do I see any other members who wish to make a contribution, or any further point? I don't, so therefore we'll move to the recommendations for approval, which are on page 53 of your agenda pack, and I would like to ask whether we are all agreed. I can see colleagues in agreement, stick your hand up if you wish to dissent, but I don't see that, so therefore we are all in agreement, and that item, item 7 on Clough Dyke in Deepcar, therefore is approved. Thank you very much James, and your colleagues for putting that report together, it is very much appreciated. Next and final item on our very short agenda today is item 8, which is an update on the Devonshire Quarter, and it's a regeneration update. It's on page number 75 of your agenda pack, and our presenting officer will be David Mason. David can I also say thank you as well for coming to our cross party, and also officer of regeneration board this morning, and presenting a similar item for information for them as well today. It's wonderful, thank you. Thank you chair, and good afternoon everyone. I am the principal development officer in the city regeneration team, working on various new neighborhoods in the city so the report today concerns the Milton Street, Milton Street neighborhood within the Devonshire Quarter, which is one of 23 identified within the city centre strategic vision, and the priority neighborhood frameworks that led on from that piece of work. It identifies some guiding principles for regeneration in this part of the city which are that we should be seeing a mixed residential demographic in that area, and an area that preserves its former industrial feel and celebrates its historic assets. So really the report that I'm bringing today is three elements to it. One is looking at progress to date, and how that marries up to that vision. Another is then looking at how we can use our own land holdings in the area to make sure that vision is delivered. And thirdly, there are some very interesting proposals for grade two listed beehive works on Milton Street, which could potentially provide complement that housing development that we're looking for and provide a heart to the emerging neighborhood. So in terms of progress, we've got schemes on site at the moment at Eyewitness Works, at DQ, the DQ scheme on Edgerton Street, we've got permission for 410 built to rent units on Hanover Way which has just been implemented. There are permissions in place on Moore Street for 80 units and on Fitzwilliam Street for 93. And there's also the tower at Trafalgar Street overlooking Pounds Park which has been resubmitted for over 1000 co-living units. So plenty of activity, but what we are finding is that we are moving towards built to rent as the dominant tenure, so in particular we have the Eyewitness Works scheme which was originally conceived as one for a new occupation which is now going forward as built to rent. And similarly we may find ourselves, discussions with the developers suggest that we may be in a similar position with the DQ scheme as well, in which case all of those schemes that I've outlined will be likely to be moving towards some form of built to rent. So that does not necessarily tie up with the vision of a mixed demographic for the area and what we may find if we leave the market to its own devices that we move from one predominant tenure which was student accommodation in the early years of development in the Milton Street neighbourhood through to built to rent now. So what we've been considering is how we can use our now considerable stock holdings in the area to address that. So following a cabinet decision in 2017 a number of strategic acquisitions were made and what that means is that most of the land, undeveloped land that remains in the neighbourhood is within council ownership. There is within the appendices to this report a detailed site by site consideration of what we may wish to do with each site that we own, I don't propose to go through that site by site now, I'm happy to do that if members would like me to. But just to pick up some key themes from that, I think firstly to take a look at what the area is missing, one obvious thing is family housing so Devonshire Quarter, more widely one of the more suitable places in the city centre for families. So you've got the primary school there, you've got Devonshire Green, Gel Street playground, the existing Broome Springs Estate, so there's a real opportunity to expand family housing in the area. And the other thing that's missing at the moment is more non transient tenures for want of a more elegant expression so providing tenures and typologies that allow people to embrace Milton Street as their home and make it their home for the longer term. So within the appendices we consider how that might be done, affordable housing potentially could play a large part in that, there is a separate piece of work ongoing at the moment with colleagues in the housing growth service following the rationalisation of the council's own stock increase programme, looking at sites across the city, assessing their potential for disposal to housing associations to maximise total affordable housing delivery. All of the sites in this paper will be part of that process, some of them are being soft tested with housing associations, soft market tested with housing associations at the moment to gauge interest. If any of those do come forward as disposals that would be via the finance committee, but in the interim it's worth noting the role that affordable housing could play in meeting some of those shortfalls that we're talking about. So from a family housing perspective we know that there's a greater demand for social family housing within the city centre than there currently is for private family housing, certainly when it comes to apartments. There is also a potential through shared ownership to offer the benefits of owner occupation both to the residents who would move in and take advantage of that and also to the area in terms of people being able to make a decision to buy into it. So shared ownership is a tenure that could potentially come forward at times when the private market isn't able to bring forward private sales schemes and then more generally if you're delivering affordable rent or social rent you're delivering secure tenancies which are obviously long term tenancies for people to make their home for the long term. So that all figures into the proposals within the appendices for the individual sites. Then thirdly coming on to Beehive Works I think when you look at all of those potential housing sites and around you might ask where is the heart going to be to this neighbourhood and we think potentially Beehive Works could be it. So it's one of only two great two star listed buildings of its type in the city so an important part of Sheffield's industrial heritage 1850s purpose built cutlery factory. Recently been it's in the family ownership the third generation the same family and is partially occupied at the moment so we have a situation where we have offices in there we have some maker space, cafe, beauty salon etc a number of uses but the building is only partially occupied and also has a number of areas that are in the poor state of repair. Such as on the heritage at risk register so in order to save the building some investment is required. The owners have come to us with some ambitious proposals to bring the entirety of the building back into use. A variety of uses expanding on what's already there more maker space potentially some community or art space as well particularly within the Edgerton Lane frontage. So a wide variety of potential uses that could provide a mix within that largely residential emerging neighbourhood around it. The cost as ever with the listed building is going to be significant so recognising that the owners have broken those proposals down into four phases which could ideally be delivered together but could be delivered independently to take advantage of grants that may become available. So the situation at the moment is that we do not have a clear route in terms of gap funding there's not an obvious funding pot at the moment that we're working towards or the owners are working towards. But the plan at the moment is to get a robust business plan in place sort of an offer ready scheme if you like so as funding does become available as we move forward through whatever funding streams it is we're then able to put forward a convincing case for that funding. Now at this point what the owners are looking for from the council is some reassurance that what they are putting forward sits comfortably with our aspirations for the area with our heritage strategy that we recently adopted and would be something that we would support strategically when it comes to accessing those funding streams in future. So we've been working with them quite closely over the last year or so with partners at Historic England as well who would be prepared to put some money towards saving the more at risk parts of the building and we're now bringing it before you as a committee to get that steer and confirmation that this is something that you're happy for us to continue working with them on. So that is in summary a package of proposals which we think will deliver the vision for the neighbourhood as set out in the priority neighbourhood frameworks but which will if it comes to particular individual sites being disposed come through as separate business cases and reports to other committees at the appropriate time. Thank you David for taking us through that report today. Can I see members who wish to ask a question? I can see Councillor Gilligan-Cubo, Councillor Diamond and Councillor Horner. Councillor Gilligan-Cubo. Thank you Chair and thank you for your report. Mine is a kind of a general question, the BTR, the build to rent. Why is that preferred over owner occupancy and how do we ensure that we get affordable rents and we get long term tenures in buildings that we build to rent? To start off with, to answer the first part of that, it's essentially down to market conditions and the difficulty of providing in particular high density development for private sale. So apartments generally less attractive to the private sale market so inevitably when you're in a city centre situation and you're building at high densities that does tend to mean that you more often than not are led as a developer towards a rental model and there tends to be less risk involved as well. So that's how we're, that's what we're seeing, why we're seeing more build to rent coming forward on certainly larger sites. Then in terms of affordable rents, we will, once the local plan is adopted, we will then have a 10% affordable housing requirement across the city centre. It does actually already apply in this part of the city centre but we'll have that requirement across the city centre. How we then look to secure that as part of individual schemes is an interesting question because a lot of these build to rent schemes you will have noticed have quite a few additional amenities, quite high service charges. That doesn't always sit very comfortably with affordable rent within the same building so there's a question then about whether you try and deliver affordable housing as part of that scheme or whether you pool contributions and try and deliver a specific affordable housing scheme on another site. So that is an open question and one that I think we will be, for example in other parts of the city centre, Furness Hill and Neeps End, where we've got the money that's just come through to Homes England to do acquisition there and we're looking to increase the amount of affordable housing. How we actually deliver that practically within those parcels of land is still something to be discussed. The last bit of my question was, you talked also about you wanted to make it a place for homes for people to live in longer term. Again, how do you secure longer term tenancies with the rental property? Well the simple answer to that of course is that you make them affordable homes and as a landowner we have the opportunity to do that. There's obviously, I should have mentioned this in my summary, a potential financial implication there when it comes to capital receipts which you obviously have to as a way up against the benefits of the affordable housing. It becomes much more difficult, certainly as a council, to enforce longer term tenancies beyond affordable housing that's already subject to those regulations and that legislation. So I don't think there is an obvious answer for us as a council as to how we are able to impose greater security of tenure beyond actual social/affordable housing. Thank you David. Councillor Diamond. Thanks David for the report. There's lots of really interesting things in there and particularly exciting the beehive works element of that which I hope will preserve the heritage of beehive works. I think just to echo what Councillor Gilligan said in terms of aiming for a mixed community, I'm not quite sure about the definition of affordable housing. It might be useful to include it in a later report because there's lots of different definitions of affordable housing and some of them aren't actually what I would consider affordable or out of reach for a lot of people so be reassuring if social housing and social rent is included in this. I was also wondering if there is any scope for looking at the city centre as a whole in terms of nearby amenities increasing the green spaces because if we're going to have families living here we need to increase access to the green spaces. For example, expanding Pound's Park might be a possibility or furthering the pedestrianisation of Division Street. Also a bit concerned about the shared ownership because I think there was a DLUC committee report published saying that shared ownership schemes are drastically failing to deliver affordable routes to home ownership. So I'm just a bit concerned about that reference to shared ownership and sort of conversely to what we've been saying in terms of wanting to ensure that housing there can be long term. But has there been any sort of thinking around whether some temporary accommodation, particularly for families and couples, could be provided because that's when we're looking back to the budget outcome, part of the meeting, if the Council were to directly own its own temporary accommodation that might be able to alleviate some of the budget pressures that we're going to see increasing as the homelessness crisis seems to be. Thank you, I think there were three questions there. The first one about public space and open space and the greening of these areas. There's a challenge with these former industrial areas, obviously I have quite a hard urban feel as to how as they change use through to residential how you bring in some softening of that, some greening of that, especially in where you have listed buildings or conservation areas where you might be rubbing up against some guidance that contradicts that. We did at the regeneration board that the chair mentioned, we discussed that this morning and there was an agreement to set up a separate workshop with planning colleagues to look into that with reference to this neighbourhood in particular, but I know there is wider work going on with planning colleagues looking at the provision of open space throughout the city centre as aligning with that ambition to deliver 20,000 homes there. On the shared ownership one, I think it's really important that we don't tardy the whole tenure with the same brush. I think there are a lot of poor examples that you can point to around the country and a lot of those are in apartments, apartment blocks rather than single family houses, which I think would be more what we might be looking at within the sites described in this report. A lot of the time that is related to fairly extortionate service charges for example, which again is something that is obviously more relevant to apartment development. So as a landowner considering potential disposal of a site for shared ownership, that is something that we're able to set out working with any provider to make sure that what's provided is genuinely affordable and I think there are lots of good examples around the wider city region that we could point to. I'm afraid I've forgotten the third question. Could you repeat that? Oh, temporary accommodation. I've forgotten it because that really isn't one that I'm going to attempt to answer I'm afraid very much a question for housing colleagues. I know that provision of temporary accommodation for the city as a whole is very much a live issue that's being considered and looking at all options for it so I would have to pass that on to housing colleagues I'm afraid. You also in your previous answer on the presentation talks about the rationalisation of the stock increase programme. I'm just wondering when that when that decision was taken or what that was referring to. It was referring to the reduction in the amount of units or the amount of sites to be taken forward as part of the stock increase programme. Again, one being led by housing colleagues so I wouldn't be able to refer you to the particular committee decision. But off the back of that some pieces of land that had been identified for potential direct council development at some point in the future are now more of a live possibility for housing association development in the short term. Thank you David and Councillor Diamant I guess that is the question that you asked particularly about the stock increase programme for council houses would be a matter for the housing committee wouldn't it? Councillor Horner. Thank you chair. As has been said before the Beehive works does have the potential to be a fantastic core for this area. However, what I'm not clear about you've talked, you've sort of mentioned throughout the scheme that it's not clear where the funding would come from. What exactly are we entering into with the owners? An agreement to support them to try and get funding or are we going to end up funding it ourselves? Because the Victorian buildings, I mean the Victorians certainly were very good jerry builders on some occasions. If you look at what's happened with various, particularly you look at bridges and railway buildings and so on. People who have run schemes have discovered when they've got into them that the buildings were in a worse state than they thought. Because once you start removing things, we all know that. I moved into a house I'm not pleased to say which appears to have a large amount of engineering brick in it and therefore my shelf fitting programme is running behind schedule because drilling into the wall takes rather longer than I anticipated. But that's the kind of thing that will happen with buildings of this nature and so the moment we have various costings and a large funding gap I would suggest it would be likely that those costings will rise as they get further into the work. So what exactly are we entering into? I think the scheme looks very good but one of the problems is we often get into situations like that where a scheme can look fantastic and then we end up with a massive overrun and all sorts of things like that. Thank you Councillor Horner. David I think it's probably important isn't it to refer in your answer to the fact that we are simply noting the recommendations here. We're not approving a project, we're simply noting the report. David. Yes thank you Chair and to add to that, what we're doing at the moment is exploring an opportunity. We're in a fortunate position I think and often if you've got a list of buildings sat in the middle of an area that you're looking to regenerate it might be in the hands of an owner who isn't particularly interested in bringing it forward or who wants to use it for something that you don't want to see it used for. We've got an opportunity here where the owners are really committed to saving the building if they possibly can and to having the building make a positive contribution both in terms of preserving the fabric but also the economic potential. I think there are other examples, Layers Yard being an obvious one, of schemes coming forward in the city where you're providing really attractive places for people to work and grow businesses and I think that's what's lying behind the vision of the owners. In terms of any financial commitment there is none other than Officer Time to explore the possibilities at the moment and part of the rationale behind breaking it down into phases is recognising that there may be as we move forward different funding streams that come to light. Whether it's through the Combined Authority or through Heritage Route which may be applicable to a certain use for a building and not to another. There is a simpler route, again we were discussing this at Regeneration Board this morning, the simpler route that you just say we're going to do this as residential but it's not an easy route, you will still have a real problem to stack that up and the need to attract investment. I think you will also miss the opportunity to provide a really sort of vibrant hub at the heart of the emerging neighbourhood so it is just at this point giving our support to the principle of what the owners are wanting to achieve with the building and working alongside them to explore whatever opportunities are out there to attract finance and not looking to fund the project ourselves. Thank you David. Councillor Vidler. Thank you Chair, just again it's more of a comment than a question, just coming at this from my capacity as the Council's Heritage Champion and I'm really pleased to see that a building with such an important historical identity which really encapsulates the City's industrial heritage is going to be restored and renovated in a sympathetic manner. And I'm sure that the heritage strategy will be very important in strengthening funding bids from this coming at it from a heritage point of view. I did notice in the report there was reference to including maker spaces within the development, I think again this is very important in terms of attracting investment and also adding more vibrancy to what is essentially a residential area. And so it would be interesting to learn in due course how those envisage to be incorporated. And I think it is clear, I've got the message myself that the owners are very sympathetic to this, it is the place where Sheffield's last job in Grindr worked until last year when he died at the age of 81. And I'm going to be putting a plaque up later this month to him so I know that the owners are very sympathetic to really bringing out the huge history and heritage of that building. So I for one will be looking forward very much to seeing how this develops and goes forward and I think it's a very positive scheme. Thank you. Thank you Chair. Thank you Councillor Vidler as well for your positive comments there about the scheme. Do I see any other colleague who wishes to make a point or ask a question? I don't so therefore we'll move through to the recommendations. So the report of course contains recommendations for your consideration and potential approval on page 76. I'm going to ask whether we are all agreed and if any member wishes to dissent then please do raise your hand. I can see that people are nodding that they are in agreement so therefore that item has been carried and passed so item 8 on the Devonshire quarter. Thank you David for bringing that item to us today and also for the work you did earlier today with the cross party and officer regeneration board as well. Thank you. So that therefore brings us to the end of our agenda today which I can't believe because our agendas are normally much longer however Will would like to bring something to our attention. Just a clarification from earlier on the workshop date. I'm just going to turn to Will Stewart just to clarify the workshop date that we had. If you recall at the start of our meeting we talked about the work programme and a workshop, a cross party workshop to discuss the work programme. Sorry Chair and sorry members to delay you further. I just wanted to offer some clarity around the workshop date. Originally I said 26th June. My PA who is watching really diligently has just messaged me to say actually the 10th July is the day that we've booked for the workshop. We've booked a specific room in Howden House for that workshop so I just wanted to provide that clarity and apologies for getting the date wrong earlier on. Thank you Will for that clarity and also for Kay for picking that up. It's really appreciated. Thank you very much colleagues. I look forward to seeing you all next month for another very exciting meeting of this committee. Thank you. [BLANK_AUDIO]