Cabinet - Thursday, 25th April, 2024 7.00 pm
April 25, 2024 View on council website Watch video of meeting or read trancriptTranscript
[silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] Thank you. Your leisure reinvestment 333 split is exactly as listed on the report there. It is a financial arrangement, so from a property perspective, it will be very difficult for me to comment at this point, but there's something certainly we can take away and answer at a later stage. Thank you. Members, in respect to the recommendation from over the scrutiny, clearly, Cabernet doesn't have the powers to impose that as a planning condition, full stop, actually, never mind at this meeting, but I don't actually believe that it's something that we can do as a council, but it's certainly something that we can discuss through the local plan process, the local plan cabinet advisory group, and that's how I would describe it. That's how I would intend to take that idea forward, Councillor ABLE. Yes, thank you, Leader. It's something that I've been banging on about for ages in all developments across that. Unfortunately, there's nothing in the planning regulations which says that they've got to put solar panels in. But I do think it's something that we should be looking at within our local plan and review, so it's certainly something I would fully support. Thank you, Chair. Councillor WAVE. Just to echo Councillor OWEN's point, I think it's something that would be well explored within local plan review, but it's something that we're also exploring within our own builds in the long term, so we will endeavour to do as much as possible. Thank you, so I think that it's not that we're not supportive of that as an idea, but we need to look into the practicalities of it and what we can actually be able to do within the planning system, but it's certainly not something that we can make a decision about. I'm sure Councillor Yates is listening in his role as the cabinet member of the portfolio for climate change. Yeah, I'll just comment on that. Yeah, it's definitely something, but as well as the local plan KAG, the climate KAG, next one on Monday. I'm sure when we discuss issues around solar panels, we can have that discussion as well, but the local plan KAG obviously deals specifically on that issue, but the climate KAG has always got views. Thank you. Thank you, members. So it's been moved and seconded to note the progress achieved in the outcome of the SPSF grant funding award and approve the use of the swimming pool support fund capital grant of 674,740 to fund the installation of solar photovoltaic installation and variable speed field transition pumps at runs gate or legislature centers that agree, members. Thank you. And we move on to item five, which is the purchase of section 106 affordable housing units. Councillor Whitehead. Thank you, Leader. As part of our accelerated housing delivery strategy, we have adopted a policy of purchasing viable section 106 properties that have been turned down by registered providers in order to ensure that we do not lose the affordable housing that should be the key foundation of any larger development. Tonight, we are discussing the purchase of section 106 properties at Nash Road Road Margate, officers having been contacted by Bellway, owner of the development, who are legally required to deliver 18% affordable housing on site, but have been unable to secure a registered provider. As per policy, 70% of the affordable delivery is required to be affordable rent, which allocates us 31 units. The remaining units will be delivered to shared ownership. We have offered on 31 new affordable rent homes, as they have been unable to secure an affordable housing provider to deliver these. We are facing many complex and interwoven issues when it comes to affordable housing, linked to planning, central plans for housing delivery, the reliability of external markets to deliver sustainable affordable housing and far more. To build on and respond to a Councillor contribution at Overview and scrutiny, we are hugely limited in terms of central planning requirements and legislation and the affordable housing delivery model that we are faced with, which does rely on the external market. As I think everyone in this chamber knows, I would be thrilled if councils were funded directly to produce the housing that we know that we need, as we have an excellent record of delivery and of multi-organisation working, and know exactly what is required within our housing list. But our current central delivery model delivers affordable housing via the private sector, and ensuring that we do not lose affordable housing is essential, especially for the 1,907 households on our housing register. At Overview and scrutiny, a concern was raised that our approach only benefits developers. In actuality, this strategy not only saves affordable housing that would be lost, but also allows for direct and forward planning and influence of our housing quality, energy rating via our specification design, but also specific planning to aid those on the housing list, who may require more specialised provision. Combining the knowledge contained in our housing list with long-term development plans for these sites via providers potentially allows for very specific provision, both in terms of mapping and providing specialist and accessible housing need, which is a continuing issue for us as a council. We build from a home-for-life perspective when we build directly as a council to try and ensure maximum accessibility within the design of housing units. But our ability to produce via direct central funding is limited, which means that even within Band-A, for highest medical need, residents may be waiting a considerable amount of time for a property that meets their specific needs. Our new acquisitions policy has already produced accessible housing, and the strategy allows us to work with existing applications and developers to produce the housing that we genuinely need for residents with specific need. We are ensuring that anything that we purchased meets strong environmental standards as well as undergoing rigorous financial testing to ensure viability. These homes are anticipated to be EPCB, and construction will start early next year. The capital cost for the 31 homes is $4.275 million, as well as $225,000 for associated costs, including stamp GT land tax. The published report includes a figure of 574,000 for associated costs due to central changes around stamp duty linked to the last budget. However, we have taken further tax advice following the publication of the report and the meeting of the overview and scrutiny committee on 16th April 2024, and we can confirm that the commercial rates of SDLT are required to be applied by central government where six or more dwellings are purchased in a single transaction. These rates are 0% on the first 150,000 pounds, 2% on the next 100,000 pounds, and 5% on the remainder. We are writing to central government to request a commercial exemption where purchases relate to affordable housing. Due to this change, the correct figure for associated costs will be 225,000, including 203,000 to 148 pounds stamp duty land tax. This reduction in costs improves an already viable scheme and reduces the year one revenue deficit from 47,960 pounds to 32,240 pounds, and the break even point from year 16 to year 12. The proposed purchase would generate a cash flow deficit in year one of 32,240 pounds with a break even point in year 12, with surpluses continually accumulating between year 12 and year 50. The project shows a surplus over a 30 to 50 year period, ensuring long-term viability. As the homes have been designated as affordable homes in the planning consent and section 106 agreement, they have been designed specifically for that purpose, and accordingly are considered appropriate for the housing revenue account, in line with the needs of households on the council's register or those living in temporary accommodation. Our largest proportional need is for one-bedroom homes, although this acquisition also provides for larger family homes. This acquisition delivers 12 one-bed units, 16 two-bed units, two three-bed units, and one four-bed unit. Both three and four-bed homes are a significant need for families on our register, and it is pleasing to see them within this mix. It is proposed that the new homes are let in accordance with the council's adopted allocations policy. These properties will be let at what I refer to as a genuinely affordable rent, which will not exceed local housing allowance, ensuring that these properties are genuinely financially accessible to residents on our housing list. This acquisition brings another 31 properties into the council portfolio, at a time of extraordinary housing need in Thanet. This is 31 new homes for 31 households, creating a virtuous circle in terms of both investment and social good, and evidence is clearly how creatively and competently we are managing the challenges that central housing and planning policies present us with. Cabinet has presented with two options. To approve the purchase of 31 affordable rent section 106 units and delegate authority to officers to conclude the due diligence and complete the purchase, or not to purchase the section 106 units, which would mean the developer would negotiate a commuted sum, losing the affordable housing units. Thank you. So just to be clear, Councillor, what we're proposing is the purchase of the 31 new affordable homes using the additional capital budget approved by Council, and the letting of these homes in accordance with the council's allocation policy. We are indeed. So you've moved that. Thank you. It is incredibly disappointing to me that we are in the process of trying to add to our stock of affordable homes, and the government has intervened to make it even more difficult, presumably inadvertently, because they haven't thought it through, but we'll certainly be taking that challenge up with government, and as you alluded to. So speaking under 20.1 Councillor Bainbridge. Thank you. Yes, welcome this buying of these affordable homes, and it's really great. It was obviously the shortage that we have. I was just asking how far we are with the purchase of the homes. I saw there's a figure here, 400. How many have we purchased so far? Are we buying more this year? I know it says by 2027. The other thing is, I missed what you were saying, is this in the budget already? I mean, have we got the money for this, or is this all being borrowed? And the other thing I saw on here as well is about some of the developers not being able to find somebody to take over the affordable homes. I'm just wondering if do the Council have the first option to actually be able to take on the Section 106 homes before it's actually sent out to people like all bit, or do they go that route first and try and get a social housing company first? So, in terms of the number that we've delivered, the initial aim was to deliver over 400 homes within Council tenancy by the end of this administration, or this year, four years. We've already hit the halfway mark, so I think we're at 204 with 155 of those from the new acquisition. The new acquisitions strategy. Yeah, and we're not quite a year yet, so it's good. So, it's going very, very well. Obviously, they all have different delivery dates, so we've already had the transfer of the first transference bitfire green, so residents are already moving into those properties. We've got different dates for each development, and I think Ashley has a breakdown that we can pass forward of who is completing and when they'll be released onto the list. In terms of us being able to make the first bid, the idea behind the strategy is to ensure that we don't lose properties, so we want to ensure that we're not removing properties that could be delivered by registered providers, but that what we're producing is in effect a surplus as in, so these are properties that would be lost if we didn't step in to take them over, because if organisations are capable of taking them on, we want to make sure that they are effectively adding to the amount of affordable housing available. So, at the moment, we're very much going with units that have not been successful in finding a registered provider, which is usually smaller blocks of units. I can't remember what the last question was. It's a mixture of HRA and borrowing, depending on how we're delivering it, so when we're delivering temporary housing, for instance, there's a slightly different borrowing mechanism, but again, I think Ashley has a report on how we break down each day, so I can send that over. Thank you. Thank you. Councillor BAYford. Thank you, Leader, and thank you, Councillor Whitehead, for the comprehensive report. I am supported for the purchase of 31 affordable homes, particularly the mix of unit sizes and the letting's plan for 50% of the homes to be offered to people from TA and the rest to those prioritises from the housing list. In cases such as this, where construction has not yet started, do we have a say in where these homes are situated on the site? And what do the cabinet and officers feel are the pros and cons of spreading them across the development rather than placing them together? Thank you. I think that's a really interesting and useful question. Part of sort of bringing this strategy to bear is the idea that it gives us greater control over the housing that is produced in FANET generally. We effectively have a steer in terms of what we want to be produced and how we want it to be produced. Obviously, we're limited in terms of what planning gives specific permissions for, but we also have ongoing dialogue with the developers about what we want from the houses and also location and what would work in terms of the cohort that we're thinking of. So, what would suit the particular residents that we are trying tells at that point? I'm happy to pass over to you. Actually, for greater detail. So, all the affordable housing is agreed at planning stage and the housing strategy officers actually feed into that. So, that's part of the housing strategy role, to feed in where they think it would work best. So, is that only involved in that? Yeah, absolutely. So, we have those discussions with the developer, the contractor, and that's agreed as part of the planning decision. And then it comes to us, obviously, and then they try and find a provider. Yes, so, on some of the developments, all the affordable housing is placed together. On others, I believe this one is spread, isn't it, across the slide? I'm just wondering what basis we prefer to spread them or put them together. I think people have different views on this. Yeah, I mean, the site's not huge, so it's not a managerial problem, to be honest. And the sites, the units that we get are determined by what they need to provide us. So, if they need to provide us a full bed and the full beds are sort of separate from the three beds, and that's how it would work, the sites aren't huge, so it's not a managerial problem at all. So, they're not on together? On this, they're not massively apart. I think there's a couple of different streets. Yeah, a couple of different roads. Did you want? That's what I mean. I'm not sure anyone wants me to go back. I think it's a really interesting area because it does allow us to properly get involved in the design, especially if we're in an early stage. So, I definitely think that's something that we can explore more within planning, so that we're thinking constantly about what might work for residents and what we want from a development. Yeah, thank you. OK, Councillor Davis. Thank you, Chair. A very welcome initiative because we have an extremely distorted housing market relative to local incomes due to a number of reasons. Not least, and I'll freely admit that we have some lunatic targets which were imposed on us by central government. There's not big about the bush. However, Councillor Whitehead, you said extraordinary housing need. And again, I don't want to be combated with you. I question that because the actual population of Thane has been pretty static for the last decade or so. Who are these houses for? The point that you said about owning suits and developers slightly misses the point. Are we being held to ransom because we need and I support the delivery of social housing and I think it's better managed by us than outsourced? However, this seems to me, there's a danger in this process that our desire for the social housing will allow overdevelopment on things that may, even though planning permission has been granted, but these have seen numbers of houses, you know, viability comes into it. And are we enabling overdevelopment and the loss of open space in our island if we're not careful? Should we perhaps be more selective about where these homes are being delivered and to ensure a brownfield first policy? Because a lot of what we're looking at here is on Greenfield. I'd also like to know, please. I mean, you've mentioned again that this Nash Road development will not start until next year, but there's a substantial number of houses already built along Nash Road. So we're clearly on the tail end of these developments. Out of the 204 that we're saying we've bought, and again, if the spades are not in the ground and we haven't parted with the money, maybe we haven't bought them, we've just made a commitment. How many people have we accommodated out of those 204, please? Right, there's a few points there. And to be clear, we do have a brownfield first policy. We always have had that. But what we're talking about here or what you're referencing is two separate processes. So the local plan process, which, to a large degree, is imposed by central government in terms of housing numbers. And in terms of the land that we have available to deliver those numbers, that isn't something that we can directly influence in terms of our affordable housing purchase. Central government will always require those numbers, and they will, in an ideal scenario, require 30% of those to be affordable. What we know happens is that developers can bring viability queries, and therefore the amount of affordable housing gets argued down. So the idea of being held to ransom, I'm not saying that I don't understand that because I do feel it quite acutely, but to be honest, we're held to ransom by central government rather than developers. This is the process that we've got, and the only alternative that we have here is to allow developers to pay money instead of giving us the housing that we actually need. So, in effect, if we didn't adopt this strategy and we didn't word this strategy, the housing that we desperately want to be produced by developments is the only housing that we'd lose. We often discuss the figures. I find it very strange that as we don't have a direct delivery system in terms of councils, because we know exactly what is needed. Developers can anticipate growth and produce external planning or external developments and proposals that can meet external growth and could then be considered on their merits. The system that we have at the moment that combines affordable housing with external development means that you're effectively, a lot of the time, producing housing that you know will not affect the housing list, but will be produced anyway. So, the aim of this acquisition strategy is to ensure that we do not lose any of the housing that is actually precious to us and that we actually want. As I mentioned to Councillor Vambridge, if there is another registered provider that can do that, then we want them to go ahead and do that because it's simply that we don't want to lose what's available. We want to try and create excess rather than keep ascending level. But many of the issues that you're describing are linked to central planning legislation and the housing targets that we're faced with because, bluntly, if we had the brownfield, it wouldn't have been placed on agricultural land in the local plan. It just wouldn't. I'm not sure if I've answered every question. Oh, you had so how many? I know who's involved. Oh, yeah, no, it's definitely local people. It's only for people on a housing register, so they have to demonstrate a local link. So, we've actually completed on 23 units, so 23 households have moved into the units at Westwood Cross. Phase two is due to complete end of May, I think. 21 or 22, something like that. I can circulate. I have a chart with – I have a – we're actually going to do a members briefing on development and have a table with all the sites, with all proposed development, completion start on sites and completion dates, so I can circulate that. That'd be really useful, thanks actually. Thank you. I think from my point of view, it'd be extraordinary if we'd managed to deliver hundreds of new homes since taking control of the Council last May. I think we're making very good progress, but it takes time to acquire these properties and they're our new build properties in the main. So, the numbers that we've got through at the moment are a good start, and I think for the people who are desperate to be housed, we know that they exist because they're on our housing waiting list. There are also our residents who are in temporary accommodation, many of them placed outside the district because we don't have temporary accommodation to put them in the district. So, I don't think there's any question about the housing need in front of it. That's the housing need that we're trying to meet. The market need is a different subject and a subject perhaps for the local plan discussion and not for this item. Councillor Wyatt? Yeah, just to come back on that, because I completely lost that question within it. It's not, as Councillor Everett describes, what we're offering and seeing is an issue of availability and affordability simultaneously. So, what's being produced often isn't something that's affordable for residents, and what we're seeing, especially within the private sector, as we still have section 21, and we have simultaneously both regeneration and gentrification happening at the same time, you have the added pressure of short-term rentals, Airbnb, property as investment, and so although there may be the properties there, they're not available for the residents that have the greatest need. So, it's very much about making sure that we are providing for those who otherwise would be displaced within this process. Sorry. Any other comments, members? So, it's been moved and seconded for the purchase of 31 new affordable homes using the additional capital budget approved by Council. It's meeting on the 12th of October 2023, and the letting of these homes in accordance with the Council's allocations policy and an affordable rent and the Council's tenancy strategy, is that agreed, members? Thank you. We move on to item six, which is the Mini Woodland tree plantings game. As for me. Sorry, Councilor, I was just waiting up for it. I was just waiting up for it. You know, wait for your people to wake up. Right. This report before cabinet proposes locations for Mini Woodlands around the district following an independent assessment. The Tenet District Council has agreed a carbon reduction plan which lays out the steps the Council will take to reach net zero by 2030. Any emissions the Council is still producing in 2030 will need to be absorbed by carbon, I can't say this, sequestration projects such as Mini Woodland creation to reach net zero. The Council has investigated what land it owns that can be used for Mini Woodland creation to absorb these leftover emissions. A total of six sites has been identified as suitable locations for the Mini Woodland tree plantings scheme. The total size of the land to be used is four hectares spread across the six locations. There are funding opportunities available to the Council for progressing Mini Woodlands, but they often have short turnaround times to submit an application. In order to make these applications, the Council needs to have confirmed the land being allocated for these projects. The proposed Mini Woodland sites are as follows. Dane Valley Road, Garland Recreation Ground, Memorial Recreation Ground Broadstairs, Northdown Park, St Peter's Recreation Ground and Tivoli Park. I will go through these separately. Site I, Dane Valley Road, this comprises two areas of plantable space. The proposed planting locations, total of 1.2 hectares, it is currently a grassland buffer between agricultural and residential land. Site II is Garland's site. The Garland site is situated at the eastern corner of Garland's recreation ground, proposed planting totals 0.5 hectares. It is currently open grassland, neighbouring several football pitches and lends itself well to community engagement for planting. Site III, Memorial Recreation Ground Broadstairs, this site has the potential to host three small Mini Woodland planted areas, total in 0.4 hectares. It is situated in a high density residential area. Site IV, Northdown Park, Northdown Park could host 0.84 hectares of Mini Woodland across two planting areas. It is open space bordered by tree cover and interspersed with mature tree specimens. Site V, St Peter's Recreation Ground, planting at St Peter's Recreation Ground could cover 0.6 hectares. The land is currently open green space bordered by existing tree cover. The larger compartment falls between private gardens and an existing row of trees. Site VI, Tivoli Park, this site is currently open green space. Mini Woodland created here is designed to enhance the existing woodland on each side of the existing service access. In total it will create 0.5 hectares of Mini Woodland. I therefore recommend that cabinet approve the council land in the previous locations, as I have just said, is used for Mini Woodland tree planting schemes subject to external funding being identified and secured. Thank you, Councillor interjecting. Do you have a seconder? Councillor KAIN. And speaking under 20.1, Councillor MASSIFACE, please. Thank you, Leader. Obviously, more than welcome to hear that trees are being planted, but I have got three points to raise. Firstly, St Peter's Recreation Ground is not in St Peter's Ward, as the report indicates, actually, Beacon Road Ward, which is why I am sitting here. The site, the first site chosen, the larger site used to be allotments and then a few years ago, a long stand of trees was planted there sadly were vandalised and didn't survive. The long stand, which is actually between where you're going to put them and the path to the back gardens, a very large mature tree came down one night and turned out to be completely ruthless. Literally, it came down. Fortunately, it didn't do any damage. The others, I believe, have since been checked for stability. It mentions consultation with the rugby club, who do use part of the park, but I would request that consultation takes place with other users of the park, not just the rugby club. I would suggest consultation with the Pavilion Youth and Community Cafe, who use the part regularly for holiday clubs. The tennis club may have their own views, and I also think residents and other park users should have a chance to have their say on this matter. My final point is about maintenance. Bose Terzans and Peterstown Council planted a mini woodland on west of a garden screen and signed a contract with Thunder Urban Forest. Some of those trees were vandalised and had to be replaced, and I understand that the contract with Thunder Urban Forest expires next year. I would like to request that a long-term maintenance contract scheme is put in place and also crucially, protection from mowing of the grass and from streaming, be included, because the tree has planted another council, and Kitty's Green and Reading Street was badly damaged by council workers who were streaming the grass there. My final point to ask is the watering, obviously, in the first five years is crucial, and I'm just wondering what plans there are in place to get a bowser, because it will require a bowser to water. Some of the trees planted by the town council, they were asking residents to have buckets of water out there. You can't expect people to do that with three mini woodlands. So if you could tell me how this maintenance contract will be described, because it talks about up to 30 years, and also where the watering is going to be from, because there's no water supply actually close by there. Thank you, that's... Thank you, Councillor MASSIFICE. Councillor ABUN. Yes, thank you. Put the park in the right ward, please. This is the second time we've had something that was apparently given to some Peters, that actually belonged to Beacon Road Ward. Yes, you've just said that's why it's now Councillor. So I did get it the first time. Yes, all I can do is apologise on that, and I will ensure that that doesn't happen again. I'm more than happy for others to, within that area, within the St Peter's wreck, to be talked to, consulted, and I hope that they will accept that this is something good, not meant to be anything bad. And TDC will water, and we will ensure within the plan that that is undertaken. Okay. Councillor interjecting. No. [LAUGHTER] He said no. Well, as you're such a real visitor to Cabinet, Councillor MASSIFICE, I'll let you come back on this occasion, but it is important that we don't have a dialogue here because there's a lot of speakers, and it will extend the meeting. But if you can be succinct, please. I'll be very sick. Sorry, I was only joking really, but... I wasn't implying that people think it was a bad idea, quite the opposite, but I think if you are planning to do something in the public park, I think those people who use the park have the right to have the say on the matter rather than just find that something is being implemented without them being notified. That's the only point I wanted to... Yeah, well, I think when these works take place, wall counsellors will be notified, and also it will be published that these are getting planted. The same way as we do when we've got trees that need to be removed because they're either dead, dying or dangerous for one reason or another, that wall counsellors are notified and let them know that. But yes, certainly. Thank you, Councillor Austin. Thank you, Leader. I have a feeling that maybe Councillor Yates was wanting to come in. Oh, all right. Okay. I would like to echo what Councillor Mutterface said. In fact, she's taken some of the words out of my mouth about ensuring maintenance, watering, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And also the element of community engagement, which was actually in Councillor Albans' report with regard to one of the sites. It feels to me that it's extremely important that local communities are involved in discussions about this, that they feel a sense of ownership. Certainly with the tree planting schemes that we've been involved in in the past, where we've actually gone out ourselves, various of us were Councillors to plant trees along with local residents, and those trees are well looked after and are much loved. Indeed, the park where I know Councillor Whitehead and her son planted trees is one very close to me, where I walk regularly, and the trees are beautiful, they've grown really well, and they've been very, very well looked after both by our own staff and by local residents. So I do think that's a principle that we should adhere to as much as we can. And my other question, I think, follows on, actually, from the community angle. And it's about to what extent we expect to be working on the finance side with our town and parish councils and our community groups to bring in funding, because although there is funding available to us as a district council, we know that regular intervals schemes come up, which are not accessible to us, but would be accessible to smaller councils or local voluntary groups. And it feels to me like there are lots of opportunities there to engage our local groups and also perhaps to work with them to bring in additional funds for this excellent scheme, which I'm thoroughly in favour of and congratulate everybody who's been involved. Thank you. Yeah, thank you, Councillor Austin. I've already mentioned the community engagement, and I'm quite sure that that will take place. As for funding, officers are fully aware that, obviously, if we can't get it through TDC, we will be looked to parish councils to see whether they'll be able to do anything better, so I'm sure that is already on their radar. Thank you. That would, of course, be a bit of a challenge in Margate, as we don't currently have a town council. Hopefully we can put that right in due course. Councillor CUMMING. Thank you, Leader. And like others that spoke on this absolutely support this scheme coming in. I think it's a really good initiative, and I, along with many councillors, have enjoyed planting trees in our different park areas. It's been great. But I just wanted to have clarification and an understanding on how these sites were allocated and the decision was made, because reading through the reasons as to why we're bringing this in, obviously, we're in line with our net zero and to reduce our emissions. I was quite surprised to see that Birchington wasn't included within this, because both wards, as we know, are very highly polluted. They're one of the most polluted areas within the district. And also especially Birchton North has one of the lowest tree coverages in the district as well. So I was just wondering whether or not their why Birchton was potentially missed out at this opportunity. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you, Councillor CUMM. I understand your sense of loss with relation to the trees not being planted in Birchington. I think what you need to understand with it is these first six sites have been taken for this. It's something that we want to spread across Thanet. And as and when so, this first tranche, we want to see how much money we can get, where we get the money from to actually take these on. The officers have been out and had a look at the sites, and they've come up with this list, the first ones. You know, I would want to see this spread across Thanet as much as we can, and just so you're aware as well, as you will know, in Chris Park, where we have to take a lot of trees out for every tree that the Council has to take out on its own now, two will be planted. So I think that's an important part. That's part of our process of work. But what I'm happy to do is I'll be talking with the officers and to see whether once this is progress and see if we can find the odd space in Birchington for you. Thank you, Councillor Arbonne. And obviously, some of us noticed that there were no sites in Ramsgate on the list, but there has been a considerable amount of tree planting recently in Ramsgate. So perhaps we weren't feeling quite as neglected as birdington was, but I'm sure we can address that. I think Councillor Yates was keen to come in on this item. Yeah, it was just to talk about process with the Councillor Cupp's question and just give my input as well. So this actually was presented to the Climate Cabinet Advisory Group on Monday 19th February. So we've already had a brief discussion about this. Community engagement didn't come up then, so I take some responsibility for not being more proactive on that point. But I think this is for sites without funding. So the next step is funding and choosing the trees and probably working with the community. And I can give you, as we've already mentioned Margate, I can already say that we've already had discussions between the relevant officers and community groups who are active doing biodiversity schemes. So I know from experience that can happen and does happen, especially with our new brilliant officers in place. And I'd just like to thank our previous Climate Change Officer, Dr Hannah Scott for getting this report through and bringing it to the Climate Cargan then to Cabinet. So yeah, I hope that answers and gives a bit more information. Thanks. Any other comments, members? No, so it's been moved and seconded that Cabinet approved the council land in the following locations is used for many woodland tree planting schemes, subject to external funding being identified and secured. Dane Valley Road, Garlic Recreation Ground, Memorial Recreation Ground at Northdown Park, some Peaches Recreation Ground, Brackett's Beacon Road, and Tivoli Park. The members agree. Thank you. And we move on to item seven, which is the Tourism Scrutiny Review Report to be introduced by Councillor Duckworth. Thank you, Leader. I've read the Scrutiny Review Report that has been forwarded to Cabinet by the overview and scrutiny panel. The report looks at the impact of tourism on Thanet with the focus on additional costs that the council incurs when it comes to clearing up litter and attending to other antisocial incidents that the panel feels are caused by visitors coming to Thanet. The report further looks at traffic management issues, particularly in summer, and the operation of Airbnb as well. I feel that I should mention the positive contributions that tourism brings to our district, many local businesses benefit from the inflow of visitors to our area, and these businesses create employment for the local communities. Even though there are costs associated with some of the activities that come with the district hosting visitors, seems to me that overall the benefits outweigh the costs. I acknowledge the important role Scrutiny pays in pointing out issues that Cabinet should consider when making decisions and drafting policies. That is why I'd like us as Cabinet to take time to consider these findings and recommendations and get further officer advice on the budget implications for each of them in the context of our limited resources. I'm therefore recommending that Cabinet defers its response to the Scrutiny report findings and recommendations in order to get officer advice on the cost implications. A detailed response will be brought back to Cabinet before the end of the third quarter of this year. Thank you, Councillor DUCKER. And before we move on, there's obviously been a lot of excitement about the potential for a tourist tax. So, I think we've got a number of speakers who want to come in. So, I think before we go there, let's be clear that this Council has no powers to introduce a tourist tax. And the government said last year that it doesn't intend to give this Council any powers to introduce such a tax. So, the Atlantic District Council will not be introducing a tourist tax. There are variations of this through business improvement districts in places like Manchester. We don't have a business improvement district and in any event that is a process of consensus and fire agreement of businesses as to what they wish to do. On the principle of the business tax, the overnight visitors who come to our district, they are not a problem in terms of their contribution to our economy because by definition they're paying to stay overnight. The issue that we do have, I think, is with day trippers who come into the district, use the beach and don't necessarily spend any money in the economy. And we may have to meet costs as a result of their visit either because they leave litter on the beach or in some cases because they create a public order problem. So, there are issues here and there is scope to explore how we tackle it, but we will not be introducing a business tax. And even if we were to a business, a tourism tax, and if we were ever to go down that road, clearly we would consult businesses and get their opinion because I think they'll be considerable obstacles to do that. But we do not have the powers to do so. In terms of the report as a whole, I think it's a good report and a useful exercise from the scrutiny committee. And we'll hear from the chair of the scrutiny committee in a minute. But I will say it contains things that we're already doing. It contains recommendations to do things that we can't do. And obviously, it makes recommendations that would incur costs for the Council. We are at the beginning of a financial year, but our budget for this financial year is set. We will shortly, because it's in the nature of things, start to consider our budget for the next financial year. And to that extent, the report is timely, but it will be unrealistic to expect that we can find budgetary allocations to do some of the things that are in the report. So I think the sensible approach for Cabinet is to ask officers to go away and come back with a detailed response to the report, which we can then bring back to Cabinet and we can have another discussion about. So I just thought it was important to set that context before we start discussing something that we're not going to do and are not able to do. And I'll call Councillor Fellows as the chair of the scrutiny committee to speak first under 20. Leader, sorry, we've not seconded the motion. Sorry, did we have a second? Councillor Yates, thank you. Thank you, Leader. Once again, a great piece of work going from a cross-party scrutiny working group. I'll give thanks to the members of that group, Councillor Britchard who chaired it, Councillor Cupp, Councillor Patman and Councillor Austin, and the officers that attended to give evidence, and also Charles from Democratic Services, who output this lovely report together. So the report only focused on the negatives of tourism, and obviously we can talk about the positives for hours. The idea was to find ways that we could get over issues that affected residents and also the Council. And the report focused on five areas only, and I'm not going to give a full commentary on the whole thing, but just a few points that I want to make out. So obviously beach management, we had a full members brief in this week. Lisa Galinwood gave a very positive brief in that area. We just need to make sure that we have the coastal officers that were talked about in place, so that they can enforce the PSBO. Those coastal areas as well as educate visitors and tourists of the PSBO, and I think that's key. Public toilets, I know there's a program in place. If we could expedite that in some way in the important tourist areas, and I think we should. Also, I know I brought it up at the briefing. I would like to extend it open in hours, especially during evening events. I think we should look it out. I know Councilman is not keen, but I think it's something we should look at. Waste management, I think this works well on the whole, but resources are always governed by budgets. I know we have 120 K in the budget for coastal and beach clearances, but that's 17 miles of coastline. That's not an awful amount. So we should maybe look at schemes to reduce waste. Traffic management, I know it's been mentioned before on our Badger Councillor Kine, a number of occasions. We need more traffic wardens. This is an area we struggle to recruit, and maybe we should start looking to bring in outside agencies. This summer is going to be horrendous with only three wardens covering seven days a week. Also, the loss of income must be considerable over the last year. Financial management, as you said, has been some considerable interest this week. Both local and national coverage, but the BBC and Meridian tonight, I believe it was on both of those. And a number of newspapers, the Daily Mail, the Telegraph, the Express, and I know Council Davies has always wanted to be on page three. But it was also in the sun as well. All publicity is good publicity, of course. I don't think anybody's talking about setting up toll booths on the planet way to collect a tourist tax. I think that's maybe clumsy terminology. It's more about talking about the exponential growth of air B&Bs and what they contribute financially to the Council. A number of those are business registered for rates. So qualify for small business rate relief, hence contribute nothing to the Council. I wonder how many have Council race contracts for their rubbish as they're registered as businesses. That also joins up with the race management section. I think we need to raise some income from those businesses. We can't expect resident Council taxpayers to pay for those. A number of air B&Bs also let out long-term during the winter. Did they register for Council tax when they're not businesses? I think what was suggested was just a nominal fee for an overnight stay in an air B&B. I think that's all that's been suggested. Also on the financial management, I think southern water, we should be tackling them, taking them to task. I know this week they've contributed £5,000 to Botany Bay for their beach cleaning. Maybe they could contribute to all bays going forward. Obviously this review is obviously more competent in my other short report, but I'm sure we've already. I look forward to hearing more public cabinet comments. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Fellows. I think we'll move on rather than have an individual comment in response to that. Councillor Rogers. Thank you, Leader. I realise that thoughtless parking comes under enforcement, and I have mentioned this before, but I still think it would be a good idea to include the code of conduct leaflets that are handed out to people. Sorry, I'll do that again. I still think it would have been a good idea to include in the code of conduct leaflets that are handed out to people to park considerably when going to the beach. Councillor Albonne agreed cabinet on the 25th of March to take this on board and discuss this with officers. Has this been done? My second part of this is the Council considering installing temporary toilets for use day and evening for all large events such as firework, displays, etc. It will hopefully prevent some of the antisocial behaviours such as urinating in public. Thank you. Do you want to respond, Councillor? Yes, sorry, I was busy writing other stuff down there in relation to other comments. Can you just read what your first thing you said, Councillor Rogers? Councillor interjecting. About inconsiderate parking. Oh, okay, I mean, you agreed cabinet on the 25th of March to take this on board and discuss with officers. Has this been done? Yes, well, obviously, did inconsiderate parking is not part of my portfolio, don't deal with parking. But I raised it. It has been raised and I know the officers of Penny Barton, etc. have been looking at the issues, especially we're talking about Botany Bay and I mean, which is really poor. And unfortunately, as it's been, you know, we currently have not got the officers that we require. Although I have been told, just being passed a note that we've just employed two more and we have four more to come. And that have also been interviewed. So we're hopeful that the enforcement team will be up and running by it. Summer. My question was, couldn't it be included in the code of conduct leaflet just to ask people also to part more considerably? Well, I think the problem with that is, obviously, the people who don't care don't live in standard. Obviously, they're coming from outside, they're coming from all over, from Essex, wherever, and coming and they see things online where we can go. Oh, we'll Botany Bay looks nice, we're going to part there. And leaflets haven't seen it. They don't make a difference because they don't care. I mean, it's as simple as that. And there was one other thing you said, Councillor. Toilets? Toilets for events. If the people are putting an event on, then they provide the toilets, not us. So if their council run, we will be providing them. Will they be provided enough? Or will they be sort of later on as in firework displays, stuff that goes on? Well, if the firework displays was that put on by Brawlstairs Town Council and Ramsgate Town Council, or they're Ramsgate are not doing any issue. So if it's Brawlstairs Town Council, then they provide the toilets, if that's what they want. TDC doesn't have to do that for events that are not run by Atlantic District Council. It's same as any private events. Same as, like let's say, the food market, not market, but the up at Brawlstairs. They have to provide the toilets. You know, the same as the, obviously we have our own public toilet toilets open. Just to go back to what Council Fellow said about late night opening the toilets. As I said at the Council briefing, I have extreme concern for the safety of our staff. And that's a priority that we should all be concerned about. Because you know, as well as I do, that 10 o'clock, 11 o'clock, when people have had a few, they're not as nice as they normally are. And especially when they're trying to close up. And as I said to you the other night, previously we've had our staff assaulted both physically and verbally. And also the majority of our staff who carry out that task are female. And I have been extremely concerned about that and it's something I could not condone. Whether residents don't like it or not, I have to be, that is something that I need to ensure that they're safe. Okay, that's part of the ongoing challenge that we have around the public toilet estate. But we are making considerable improvements to them and that they are underway. So that's a positive on it. I understand that the people would like them open whenever they want to use them. But equally we do have to staff them and protect the people who are doing that job for us. Councillor BAFORD. Thank you, Leader. And for the detailed report, which provides plans that are sensible and desirable in proving services for our residents. They do appear, however, to be potentially resource heavy. And it seems unlikely that the projects will all be able to be put into place this year. How will the cabinet prioritise the required actions and decide which of the projects will have to wait? Thank you. Well, I think the answer to that is that we've already said we'll bring back the detailed report, which we'll look in detail at the proposals. And in terms of the ones that are going to cost money, whether what they might cost and whether that's affordable, and that can then be fed into the budget process. So we'll decide our priorities through a more detailed report. Unfortunately, the fact that this report came from scrutiny last week and has arrived at Cabinet nine days later isn't ideal and hasn't really allowed us the time to develop the answers or the officers the time to look in detail at the costings. But we will do that as part of next year's budget calculation. Thank you. Councillor DAVIS. Thank you, Chair. Councillor Fellow's has actually stated quite a few of the positive things that I wanted to say. And again, congratulations, let's say, to all those on that subcommittee because it is an excellent report. It does look at challenges rather than positives, but then it was an impact report on the impact of tourism. The press interest that's been mentioned and media interest is very important, actually. And I welcome it on the basis that we do have a challenge. However, often sound bites take off. And certainly I've been quoted quite heavily this week, but what I've not said is that we want to tax on tourism. What I'd prefer to hear it referred to is local revenue protection and the big issue, as I've mentioned before, and we won't get into the stats at this point, but is Airbnb, which given the figures from a couple of weeks ago, if you calculate our share of the preset, those that have converted from Council tax to business rates and then claim the business rate exemption that applies in this area, there's potentially 260,000 pounds of preset revenue being lost there. And that's just based on the immediately available figures in Ramsgate alone. So I want to make it quite clear that we're not trying to penalise anybody, and I understand that a tax on the individual, despite Venice, for instance, has just introduced a fellow euro visiting tax. And I know that Venice obviously doesn't come under legislation. Yeah, empire building there. It keeps raining. Yeah, yeah, yeah, much more rain, and actually we will resent that. But I think it's important that we look at protecting the revenues to provide excellent services for the tourists that we welcome. I am supporting various projects being developed at the moment, which hopefully will bring a large number of tourists and fat wallets to the island that will support our economy. So this is in no way prejudicial against tourism. This is a way of ensuring that the revenue that should already be there is there, because that's be quite clear. In addition to the loss of Council tax revenue, this has massive impacts on our temporary accommodation and our rental market, which is why we've got the pressures we've already discussed on a previous item. It's a cumulative, almost a spiral, into decay, where, you know, Ramsgate Harbour is often described as the jewel in the crown. And I know there's lovely parts of Thanik. We have a beautiful island. Let's maximise the benefits of altruism. But in order to do that, we need to be a destination. And one last thing, if I could please, things have changed. We talk about the house in days and wonderfully. We've got the numbers of visitors now back here. However, the dynamics and the logistics have changed. They used to arrive. But Margate still relies on its station and so on. Ramsgate's wealth historically sails through the piers. However, visitors to Thanik, particularly in the 70s and early 80s, would arrive en masse in coaches and so on. The transit system meant that you would then get hordes of people walking from the coach parks down to the seafront. And obviously, if you could get a business on that route, then you did very well. Society's changed. People travel in individual cars now and so on. Also, marketing sometimes has unintended consequences as we've seen at Botany Bay, where it's so beautiful. And it was this remote quiet beach that has now become the destination of choice. But we have to cater for the fact that we have a vast number of vehicles. And I think this is why we're seeing parking problems, but perhaps not fully understanding the problem. Society's changed and our provision has to change with it in order to manage it. And it's a massive challenge, I'm sure, with vehicle movements and so on. But thank you for your time. And as I say, it's very welcome. And I do believe we need to address the negatives as well as the positives in order to ensure the best outcome for our very welcome visitors. And for the record, it's about revenue protection, not taxing anyone. We are conservatives on this side of the party of low taxation. Thank you. Well, thank you, Councillor Davis. I mean, I have to say that I agree with you about the damage which is being done to our housing market by the growth of Airbnb's. And certainly the Labor Group on the Council has been keen to address that for some time, not always with cross-party support from what I can remember. I'm not quite able to marry that up with your earlier statement that there wasn't a need for the housing, but perhaps that isn't quite what you meant. I think in terms of the revenue that's produced from those properties, I mean, that would certainly, we would want to make sure that the appropriate revenue comes in. And whether that is through Council tax or whether it's through business rates, depending on what kind of arrangements they have and what services are being used. But certainly revenue protection is a goal of, sure, Mr Blundell over there will be more than happy to maximise the revenue that we get from that area. And that's part of the work that we'll be doing around our response to the report. Did anybody, Councillor Alton? Yeah, thank you. Yeah, I just wanted to come back to Councillor Davis, and I'm going to say something now, which I wouldn't normally say, but I do actually agree with you, Councillor Davis. Rhysas, I think as the leaders just said, Airbnb's are a problem, and they're a problem in our area, and the amount of properties that we've lost, forend, et cetera, does cause an issue. I think in relation to the Airbnb's, the government has got to step in. It's the government, you know, we're kind of floundering around it, but the government have got the power to step in and to ensure that Airbnb's pay something towards the local economy. And if that means it's to say whether it's a business rates, or be it a smaller one, or it's whatever. So, you know, I do totally agree with you on that. The only thing I'm disappointed at, Councillor Davis, as you didn't mention the report, thank you. We're in danger of having a debate in response to the 20.1 interventions, but Councillor wider wants to say something. And just in relation to the Airbnb and short-term rental point, I did write, I think about two and a half years ago to request a new planning class to be put in place for short-term rentals and Airbnb. And at that point, received no response from central government whatsoever. However, in the last couple of months, they are bringing in said planning class and also introducing a form of central registrar or legislation. We don't have any information in terms of how councils are to fund that, or how that is to be arranged or anything, really. But it's something that I'm requesting and then there's briefing on so that we're all aware of where we are and what we want to do to look at this issue because if we have the powers, I want to find a way to use them. Thank you, Councillor Whitehead. Let's hope that the government finds the time to tell us about those arrangements before it goes. Councillor Austin. Thank you, Leader. I'll just pause for laughter here. I have to say that it's been some years since a report that I contributed to has attracted national attention, but even in my professional days, I didn't reach the dizzy heights of the daily mail and the stuff. There's the first time for everything. I just wanted to make a few points about the report. The first one I think has been made already by Councillor Fellows and Davis, which is the point of this report was to look at the negative side. The first presentation we had, however, was about the positive benefits of tourism, just in case we didn't know about them. So we did take on board the fact that there are very, very many benefits to us from tourism. This was specifically the remit was to look at how we counted the negatives. The second thing to say is that all our information came from our own senior officers. Therefore, if there are errors in the report and there are things that we don't have the powers to do, et cetera, then we have misunderstood the information that those officers have given us. And we apologize sincerely. However, I would like to point out that some of the suggestions that we make are so tentative and suggestive that they can't really come out as recommendations, actively investigate opportunities to do eggs. For example, perhaps possibly, we run out of different ways of saying perhaps we might think of. We also recognize that many of the things that we are recommending would cost and that cost would have to be balanced up against the savings that would be made as a result. We recognize that the concerns here are not solely financial. We're interested in looking at the negative impacts of some of the things we mentioned on our resident population. So, Airbnb's have been highlighted and they're not going to affect on rents, but also things like waste management, for example, or antisocial behavior have severe knock on effects on our local residents. And we wanted to look at how those could be addressed. And the other thing I was going to say has gone completely out of my mind, just bear with me for one moment. Yes, I was going to say that some of the things that we recommended we recognize could not all be implemented. Some of them are in process of being implemented and we wanted to recognize that. Some of them are things that have been suggested, say from other councils and so on, that we thought Cabinet might want to have a look at. We're not suggesting that any of this would be quick, any of it would be easy. They are things that we would like to Cabinet to consider. And we very much welcome Councillor Duckworth's suggestion that Cabinet takes this away and has a look at it in more detail and gets reports from those officers who reported to us and see what they recommend. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Sewing. And you have had my assurance that Cabinet will look seriously at all the proposals in the report. That's our intention. It's just not been practical for us to do that in advance of a meeting a week after the scrutiny committee, which I'm sure you also understand. Anybody want to comment, Councillor Yates? Thank you, Leader. Yeah, just to start with, one of the items suggested in the report we've already made plans for. So under 3.5, financial management, levying additional council tax on second homes. So on the 11th of January this year, following the Royal Ascent of the Leveling Up and Regeneration Act of 2023, Cabinet formally approved the application of 100% council tax premium on properties that are unoccupied and furnished, otherwise called second homes. So that's applicable from 1st of April 2025. And the second 151 will correct me, but most coastal towns with high tourism are planning on implementing this premium. And I look over to him. Is that correct? I won't correct you, that is correct. It's about 80% of all authorities are planning to implement this, particularly coastal areas and areas with high levels of tourism. And just to give Councillor Davis a history lesson about Airbnb's, this was discussed on 14th of October 2021 in this Chamber, where there was a motion brought forward to discuss Airbnb's. Unfortunately, the Conservative Administration voted down the option to debate that. So we never even got to debate that because the Conservative Administration voted down that motion on that date. Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to call on Councillor CUP because he's still got to speak under 25 now. Thank you, Leader. I've got a five-page speech. Is that right? Actually, everything that's been said is everything that I was going to say. I would just conclude in saying that I was great to be a part of this. I think some really, really in-depth and great discussions happened. And I look forward to seeing how CUP and it implement what's been recommended. Thank you. Members, we've had quite a considerable discussion about this already in terms of the contributions from 2021. I think that this is a good collaborative process. I think that the work that the scrutiny panel have done should be commended, and we should be grateful that they've brought the report here. And I certainly see it as a positive exercise and has some ideas that we can take forward and respond to. So it's been moved and seconded that we note the report, I think, and bring back a further response for the decision before the end of the third quarter of this year. Members agree? Thank you. That concludes the business of the tonight's meeting. I declare the meeting closed at 8.20 and the live stream of the meeting will now end. Thank you very much for your attendance. Enjoy the rest of your evening. [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence]
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[silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] Thank you. Your leisure reinvestment 333 split is exactly as listed on the report there. It is a financial arrangement, so from a property perspective, it will be very difficult for me to comment at this point, but there's something certainly we can take away and answer at a later stage. Thank you. Members, in respect to the recommendation from over the scrutiny, clearly, Cabernet doesn't have the powers to impose that as a planning condition, full stop, actually, never mind at this meeting, but I don't actually believe that it's something that we can do as a council, but it's certainly something that we can discuss through the local plan process, the local plan cabinet advisory group, and that's how I would describe it. That's how I would intend to take that idea forward, Councillor ABLE. Yes, thank you, Leader. It's something that I've been banging on about for ages in all developments across that. Unfortunately, there's nothing in the planning regulations which says that they've got to put solar panels in. But I do think it's something that we should be looking at within our local plan and review, so it's certainly something I would fully support. Thank you, Chair. Councillor WAVE. Just to echo Councillor OWEN's point, I think it's something that would be well explored within local plan review, but it's something that we're also exploring within our own builds in the long term, so we will endeavour to do as much as possible. Thank you, so I think that it's not that we're not supportive of that as an idea, but we need to look into the practicalities of it and what we can actually be able to do within the planning system, but it's certainly not something that we can make a decision about. I'm sure Councillor Yates is listening in his role as the cabinet member of the portfolio for climate change. Yeah, I'll just comment on that. Yeah, it's definitely something, but as well as the local plan KAG, the climate KAG, next one on Monday. I'm sure when we discuss issues around solar panels, we can have that discussion as well, but the local plan KAG obviously deals specifically on that issue, but the climate KAG has always got views. Thank you. Thank you, members. So it's been moved and seconded to note the progress achieved in the outcome of the SPSF grant funding award and approve the use of the swimming pool support fund capital grant of 674,740 to fund the installation of solar photovoltaic installation and variable speed field transition pumps at runs gate or legislature centers that agree, members. Thank you. And we move on to item five, which is the purchase of section 106 affordable housing units. Councillor Whitehead. Thank you, Leader. As part of our accelerated housing delivery strategy, we have adopted a policy of purchasing viable section 106 properties that have been turned down by registered providers in order to ensure that we do not lose the affordable housing that should be the key foundation of any larger development. Tonight, we are discussing the purchase of section 106 properties at Nash Road Road Margate, officers having been contacted by Bellway, owner of the development, who are legally required to deliver 18% affordable housing on site, but have been unable to secure a registered provider. As per policy, 70% of the affordable delivery is required to be affordable rent, which allocates us 31 units. The remaining units will be delivered to shared ownership. We have offered on 31 new affordable rent homes, as they have been unable to secure an affordable housing provider to deliver these. We are facing many complex and interwoven issues when it comes to affordable housing, linked to planning, central plans for housing delivery, the reliability of external markets to deliver sustainable affordable housing and far more. To build on and respond to a Councillor contribution at Overview and scrutiny, we are hugely limited in terms of central planning requirements and legislation and the affordable housing delivery model that we are faced with, which does rely on the external market. As I think everyone in this chamber knows, I would be thrilled if councils were funded directly to produce the housing that we know that we need, as we have an excellent record of delivery and of multi-organisation working, and know exactly what is required within our housing list. But our current central delivery model delivers affordable housing via the private sector, and ensuring that we do not lose affordable housing is essential, especially for the 1,907 households on our housing register. At Overview and scrutiny, a concern was raised that our approach only benefits developers. In actuality, this strategy not only saves affordable housing that would be lost, but also allows for direct and forward planning and influence of our housing quality, energy rating via our specification design, but also specific planning to aid those on the housing list, who may require more specialised provision. Combining the knowledge contained in our housing list with long-term development plans for these sites via providers potentially allows for very specific provision, both in terms of mapping and providing specialist and accessible housing need, which is a continuing issue for us as a council. We build from a home-for-life perspective when we build directly as a council to try and ensure maximum accessibility within the design of housing units. But our ability to produce via direct central funding is limited, which means that even within Band-A, for highest medical need, residents may be waiting a considerable amount of time for a property that meets their specific needs. Our new acquisitions policy has already produced accessible housing, and the strategy allows us to work with existing applications and developers to produce the housing that we genuinely need for residents with specific need. We are ensuring that anything that we purchased meets strong environmental standards as well as undergoing rigorous financial testing to ensure viability. These homes are anticipated to be EPCB, and construction will start early next year. The capital cost for the 31 homes is $4.275 million, as well as $225,000 for associated costs, including stamp GT land tax. The published report includes a figure of 574,000 for associated costs due to central changes around stamp duty linked to the last budget. However, we have taken further tax advice following the publication of the report and the meeting of the overview and scrutiny committee on 16th April 2024, and we can confirm that the commercial rates of SDLT are required to be applied by central government where six or more dwellings are purchased in a single transaction. These rates are 0% on the first 150,000 pounds, 2% on the next 100,000 pounds, and 5% on the remainder. We are writing to central government to request a commercial exemption where purchases relate to affordable housing. Due to this change, the correct figure for associated costs will be 225,000, including 203,000 to 148 pounds stamp duty land tax. This reduction in costs improves an already viable scheme and reduces the year one revenue deficit from 47,960 pounds to 32,240 pounds, and the break even point from year 16 to year 12. The proposed purchase would generate a cash flow deficit in year one of 32,240 pounds with a break even point in year 12, with surpluses continually accumulating between year 12 and year 50. The project shows a surplus over a 30 to 50 year period, ensuring long-term viability. As the homes have been designated as affordable homes in the planning consent and section 106 agreement, they have been designed specifically for that purpose, and accordingly are considered appropriate for the housing revenue account, in line with the needs of households on the council's register or those living in temporary accommodation. Our largest proportional need is for one-bedroom homes, although this acquisition also provides for larger family homes. This acquisition delivers 12 one-bed units, 16 two-bed units, two three-bed units, and one four-bed unit. Both three and four-bed homes are a significant need for families on our register, and it is pleasing to see them within this mix. It is proposed that the new homes are let in accordance with the council's adopted allocations policy. These properties will be let at what I refer to as a genuinely affordable rent, which will not exceed local housing allowance, ensuring that these properties are genuinely financially accessible to residents on our housing list. This acquisition brings another 31 properties into the council portfolio, at a time of extraordinary housing need in Thanet. This is 31 new homes for 31 households, creating a virtuous circle in terms of both investment and social good, and evidence is clearly how creatively and competently we are managing the challenges that central housing and planning policies present us with. Cabinet has presented with two options. To approve the purchase of 31 affordable rent section 106 units and delegate authority to officers to conclude the due diligence and complete the purchase, or not to purchase the section 106 units, which would mean the developer would negotiate a commuted sum, losing the affordable housing units. Thank you. So just to be clear, Councillor, what we're proposing is the purchase of the 31 new affordable homes using the additional capital budget approved by Council, and the letting of these homes in accordance with the council's allocation policy. We are indeed. So you've moved that. Thank you. It is incredibly disappointing to me that we are in the process of trying to add to our stock of affordable homes, and the government has intervened to make it even more difficult, presumably inadvertently, because they haven't thought it through, but we'll certainly be taking that challenge up with government, and as you alluded to. So speaking under 20.1 Councillor Bainbridge. Thank you. Yes, welcome this buying of these affordable homes, and it's really great. It was obviously the shortage that we have. I was just asking how far we are with the purchase of the homes. I saw there's a figure here, 400. How many have we purchased so far? Are we buying more this year? I know it says by 2027. The other thing is, I missed what you were saying, is this in the budget already? I mean, have we got the money for this, or is this all being borrowed? And the other thing I saw on here as well is about some of the developers not being able to find somebody to take over the affordable homes. I'm just wondering if do the Council have the first option to actually be able to take on the Section 106 homes before it's actually sent out to people like all bit, or do they go that route first and try and get a social housing company first? So, in terms of the number that we've delivered, the initial aim was to deliver over 400 homes within Council tenancy by the end of this administration, or this year, four years. We've already hit the halfway mark, so I think we're at 204 with 155 of those from the new acquisition. The new acquisitions strategy. Yeah, and we're not quite a year yet, so it's good. So, it's going very, very well. Obviously, they all have different delivery dates, so we've already had the transfer of the first transference bitfire green, so residents are already moving into those properties. We've got different dates for each development, and I think Ashley has a breakdown that we can pass forward of who is completing and when they'll be released onto the list. In terms of us being able to make the first bid, the idea behind the strategy is to ensure that we don't lose properties, so we want to ensure that we're not removing properties that could be delivered by registered providers, but that what we're producing is in effect a surplus as in, so these are properties that would be lost if we didn't step in to take them over, because if organisations are capable of taking them on, we want to make sure that they are effectively adding to the amount of affordable housing available. So, at the moment, we're very much going with units that have not been successful in finding a registered provider, which is usually smaller blocks of units. I can't remember what the last question was. It's a mixture of HRA and borrowing, depending on how we're delivering it, so when we're delivering temporary housing, for instance, there's a slightly different borrowing mechanism, but again, I think Ashley has a report on how we break down each day, so I can send that over. Thank you. Thank you. Councillor BAYford. Thank you, Leader, and thank you, Councillor Whitehead, for the comprehensive report. I am supported for the purchase of 31 affordable homes, particularly the mix of unit sizes and the letting's plan for 50% of the homes to be offered to people from TA and the rest to those prioritises from the housing list. In cases such as this, where construction has not yet started, do we have a say in where these homes are situated on the site? And what do the cabinet and officers feel are the pros and cons of spreading them across the development rather than placing them together? Thank you. I think that's a really interesting and useful question. Part of sort of bringing this strategy to bear is the idea that it gives us greater control over the housing that is produced in FANET generally. We effectively have a steer in terms of what we want to be produced and how we want it to be produced. Obviously, we're limited in terms of what planning gives specific permissions for, but we also have ongoing dialogue with the developers about what we want from the houses and also location and what would work in terms of the cohort that we're thinking of. So, what would suit the particular residents that we are trying tells at that point? I'm happy to pass over to you. Actually, for greater detail. So, all the affordable housing is agreed at planning stage and the housing strategy officers actually feed into that. So, that's part of the housing strategy role, to feed in where they think it would work best. So, is that only involved in that? Yeah, absolutely. So, we have those discussions with the developer, the contractor, and that's agreed as part of the planning decision. And then it comes to us, obviously, and then they try and find a provider. Yes, so, on some of the developments, all the affordable housing is placed together. On others, I believe this one is spread, isn't it, across the slide? I'm just wondering what basis we prefer to spread them or put them together. I think people have different views on this. Yeah, I mean, the site's not huge, so it's not a managerial problem, to be honest. And the sites, the units that we get are determined by what they need to provide us. So, if they need to provide us a full bed and the full beds are sort of separate from the three beds, and that's how it would work, the sites aren't huge, so it's not a managerial problem at all. So, they're not on together? On this, they're not massively apart. I think there's a couple of different streets. Yeah, a couple of different roads. Did you want? That's what I mean. I'm not sure anyone wants me to go back. I think it's a really interesting area because it does allow us to properly get involved in the design, especially if we're in an early stage. So, I definitely think that's something that we can explore more within planning, so that we're thinking constantly about what might work for residents and what we want from a development. Yeah, thank you. OK, Councillor Davis. Thank you, Chair. A very welcome initiative because we have an extremely distorted housing market relative to local incomes due to a number of reasons. Not least, and I'll freely admit that we have some lunatic targets which were imposed on us by central government. There's not big about the bush. However, Councillor Whitehead, you said extraordinary housing need. And again, I don't want to be combated with you. I question that because the actual population of Thane has been pretty static for the last decade or so. Who are these houses for? The point that you said about owning suits and developers slightly misses the point. Are we being held to ransom because we need and I support the delivery of social housing and I think it's better managed by us than outsourced? However, this seems to me, there's a danger in this process that our desire for the social housing will allow overdevelopment on things that may, even though planning permission has been granted, but these have seen numbers of houses, you know, viability comes into it. And are we enabling overdevelopment and the loss of open space in our island if we're not careful? Should we perhaps be more selective about where these homes are being delivered and to ensure a brownfield first policy? Because a lot of what we're looking at here is on Greenfield. I'd also like to know, please. I mean, you've mentioned again that this Nash Road development will not start until next year, but there's a substantial number of houses already built along Nash Road. So we're clearly on the tail end of these developments. Out of the 204 that we're saying we've bought, and again, if the spades are not in the ground and we haven't parted with the money, maybe we haven't bought them, we've just made a commitment. How many people have we accommodated out of those 204, please? Right, there's a few points there. And to be clear, we do have a brownfield first policy. We always have had that. But what we're talking about here or what you're referencing is two separate processes. So the local plan process, which, to a large degree, is imposed by central government in terms of housing numbers. And in terms of the land that we have available to deliver those numbers, that isn't something that we can directly influence in terms of our affordable housing purchase. Central government will always require those numbers, and they will, in an ideal scenario, require 30% of those to be affordable. What we know happens is that developers can bring viability queries, and therefore the amount of affordable housing gets argued down. So the idea of being held to ransom, I'm not saying that I don't understand that because I do feel it quite acutely, but to be honest, we're held to ransom by central government rather than developers. This is the process that we've got, and the only alternative that we have here is to allow developers to pay money instead of giving us the housing that we actually need. So, in effect, if we didn't adopt this strategy and we didn't word this strategy, the housing that we desperately want to be produced by developments is the only housing that we'd lose. We often discuss the figures. I find it very strange that as we don't have a direct delivery system in terms of councils, because we know exactly what is needed. Developers can anticipate growth and produce external planning or external developments and proposals that can meet external growth and could then be considered on their merits. The system that we have at the moment that combines affordable housing with external development means that you're effectively, a lot of the time, producing housing that you know will not affect the housing list, but will be produced anyway. So, the aim of this acquisition strategy is to ensure that we do not lose any of the housing that is actually precious to us and that we actually want. As I mentioned to Councillor Vambridge, if there is another registered provider that can do that, then we want them to go ahead and do that because it's simply that we don't want to lose what's available. We want to try and create excess rather than keep ascending level. But many of the issues that you're describing are linked to central planning legislation and the housing targets that we're faced with because, bluntly, if we had the brownfield, it wouldn't have been placed on agricultural land in the local plan. It just wouldn't. I'm not sure if I've answered every question. Oh, you had so how many? I know who's involved. Oh, yeah, no, it's definitely local people. It's only for people on a housing register, so they have to demonstrate a local link. So, we've actually completed on 23 units, so 23 households have moved into the units at Westwood Cross. Phase two is due to complete end of May, I think. 21 or 22, something like that. I can circulate. I have a chart with – I have a – we're actually going to do a members briefing on development and have a table with all the sites, with all proposed development, completion start on sites and completion dates, so I can circulate that. That'd be really useful, thanks actually. Thank you. I think from my point of view, it'd be extraordinary if we'd managed to deliver hundreds of new homes since taking control of the Council last May. I think we're making very good progress, but it takes time to acquire these properties and they're our new build properties in the main. So, the numbers that we've got through at the moment are a good start, and I think for the people who are desperate to be housed, we know that they exist because they're on our housing waiting list. There are also our residents who are in temporary accommodation, many of them placed outside the district because we don't have temporary accommodation to put them in the district. So, I don't think there's any question about the housing need in front of it. That's the housing need that we're trying to meet. The market need is a different subject and a subject perhaps for the local plan discussion and not for this item. Councillor Wyatt? Yeah, just to come back on that, because I completely lost that question within it. It's not, as Councillor Everett describes, what we're offering and seeing is an issue of availability and affordability simultaneously. So, what's being produced often isn't something that's affordable for residents, and what we're seeing, especially within the private sector, as we still have section 21, and we have simultaneously both regeneration and gentrification happening at the same time, you have the added pressure of short-term rentals, Airbnb, property as investment, and so although there may be the properties there, they're not available for the residents that have the greatest need. So, it's very much about making sure that we are providing for those who otherwise would be displaced within this process. Sorry. Any other comments, members? So, it's been moved and seconded for the purchase of 31 new affordable homes using the additional capital budget approved by Council. It's meeting on the 12th of October 2023, and the letting of these homes in accordance with the Council's allocations policy and an affordable rent and the Council's tenancy strategy, is that agreed, members? Thank you. We move on to item six, which is the Mini Woodland tree plantings game. As for me. Sorry, Councilor, I was just waiting up for it. I was just waiting up for it. You know, wait for your people to wake up. Right. This report before cabinet proposes locations for Mini Woodlands around the district following an independent assessment. The Tenet District Council has agreed a carbon reduction plan which lays out the steps the Council will take to reach net zero by 2030. Any emissions the Council is still producing in 2030 will need to be absorbed by carbon, I can't say this, sequestration projects such as Mini Woodland creation to reach net zero. The Council has investigated what land it owns that can be used for Mini Woodland creation to absorb these leftover emissions. A total of six sites has been identified as suitable locations for the Mini Woodland tree plantings scheme. The total size of the land to be used is four hectares spread across the six locations. There are funding opportunities available to the Council for progressing Mini Woodlands, but they often have short turnaround times to submit an application. In order to make these applications, the Council needs to have confirmed the land being allocated for these projects. The proposed Mini Woodland sites are as follows. Dane Valley Road, Garland Recreation Ground, Memorial Recreation Ground Broadstairs, Northdown Park, St Peter's Recreation Ground and Tivoli Park. I will go through these separately. Site I, Dane Valley Road, this comprises two areas of plantable space. The proposed planting locations, total of 1.2 hectares, it is currently a grassland buffer between agricultural and residential land. Site II is Garland's site. The Garland site is situated at the eastern corner of Garland's recreation ground, proposed planting totals 0.5 hectares. It is currently open grassland, neighbouring several football pitches and lends itself well to community engagement for planting. Site III, Memorial Recreation Ground Broadstairs, this site has the potential to host three small Mini Woodland planted areas, total in 0.4 hectares. It is situated in a high density residential area. Site IV, Northdown Park, Northdown Park could host 0.84 hectares of Mini Woodland across two planting areas. It is open space bordered by tree cover and interspersed with mature tree specimens. Site V, St Peter's Recreation Ground, planting at St Peter's Recreation Ground could cover 0.6 hectares. The land is currently open green space bordered by existing tree cover. The larger compartment falls between private gardens and an existing row of trees. Site VI, Tivoli Park, this site is currently open green space. Mini Woodland created here is designed to enhance the existing woodland on each side of the existing service access. In total it will create 0.5 hectares of Mini Woodland. I therefore recommend that cabinet approve the council land in the previous locations, as I have just said, is used for Mini Woodland tree planting schemes subject to external funding being identified and secured. Thank you, Councillor interjecting. Do you have a seconder? Councillor KAIN. And speaking under 20.1, Councillor MASSIFACE, please. Thank you, Leader. Obviously, more than welcome to hear that trees are being planted, but I have got three points to raise. Firstly, St Peter's Recreation Ground is not in St Peter's Ward, as the report indicates, actually, Beacon Road Ward, which is why I am sitting here. The site, the first site chosen, the larger site used to be allotments and then a few years ago, a long stand of trees was planted there sadly were vandalised and didn't survive. The long stand, which is actually between where you're going to put them and the path to the back gardens, a very large mature tree came down one night and turned out to be completely ruthless. Literally, it came down. Fortunately, it didn't do any damage. The others, I believe, have since been checked for stability. It mentions consultation with the rugby club, who do use part of the park, but I would request that consultation takes place with other users of the park, not just the rugby club. I would suggest consultation with the Pavilion Youth and Community Cafe, who use the part regularly for holiday clubs. The tennis club may have their own views, and I also think residents and other park users should have a chance to have their say on this matter. My final point is about maintenance. Bose Terzans and Peterstown Council planted a mini woodland on west of a garden screen and signed a contract with Thunder Urban Forest. Some of those trees were vandalised and had to be replaced, and I understand that the contract with Thunder Urban Forest expires next year. I would like to request that a long-term maintenance contract scheme is put in place and also crucially, protection from mowing of the grass and from streaming, be included, because the tree has planted another council, and Kitty's Green and Reading Street was badly damaged by council workers who were streaming the grass there. My final point to ask is the watering, obviously, in the first five years is crucial, and I'm just wondering what plans there are in place to get a bowser, because it will require a bowser to water. Some of the trees planted by the town council, they were asking residents to have buckets of water out there. You can't expect people to do that with three mini woodlands. So if you could tell me how this maintenance contract will be described, because it talks about up to 30 years, and also where the watering is going to be from, because there's no water supply actually close by there. Thank you, that's... Thank you, Councillor MASSIFICE. Councillor ABUN. Yes, thank you. Put the park in the right ward, please. This is the second time we've had something that was apparently given to some Peters, that actually belonged to Beacon Road Ward. Yes, you've just said that's why it's now Councillor. So I did get it the first time. Yes, all I can do is apologise on that, and I will ensure that that doesn't happen again. I'm more than happy for others to, within that area, within the St Peter's wreck, to be talked to, consulted, and I hope that they will accept that this is something good, not meant to be anything bad. And TDC will water, and we will ensure within the plan that that is undertaken. Okay. Councillor interjecting. No. [LAUGHTER] He said no. Well, as you're such a real visitor to Cabinet, Councillor MASSIFICE, I'll let you come back on this occasion, but it is important that we don't have a dialogue here because there's a lot of speakers, and it will extend the meeting. But if you can be succinct, please. I'll be very sick. Sorry, I was only joking really, but... I wasn't implying that people think it was a bad idea, quite the opposite, but I think if you are planning to do something in the public park, I think those people who use the park have the right to have the say on the matter rather than just find that something is being implemented without them being notified. That's the only point I wanted to... Yeah, well, I think when these works take place, wall counsellors will be notified, and also it will be published that these are getting planted. The same way as we do when we've got trees that need to be removed because they're either dead, dying or dangerous for one reason or another, that wall counsellors are notified and let them know that. But yes, certainly. Thank you, Councillor Austin. Thank you, Leader. I have a feeling that maybe Councillor Yates was wanting to come in. Oh, all right. Okay. I would like to echo what Councillor Mutterface said. In fact, she's taken some of the words out of my mouth about ensuring maintenance, watering, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And also the element of community engagement, which was actually in Councillor Albans' report with regard to one of the sites. It feels to me that it's extremely important that local communities are involved in discussions about this, that they feel a sense of ownership. Certainly with the tree planting schemes that we've been involved in in the past, where we've actually gone out ourselves, various of us were Councillors to plant trees along with local residents, and those trees are well looked after and are much loved. Indeed, the park where I know Councillor Whitehead and her son planted trees is one very close to me, where I walk regularly, and the trees are beautiful, they've grown really well, and they've been very, very well looked after both by our own staff and by local residents. So I do think that's a principle that we should adhere to as much as we can. And my other question, I think, follows on, actually, from the community angle. And it's about to what extent we expect to be working on the finance side with our town and parish councils and our community groups to bring in funding, because although there is funding available to us as a district council, we know that regular intervals schemes come up, which are not accessible to us, but would be accessible to smaller councils or local voluntary groups. And it feels to me like there are lots of opportunities there to engage our local groups and also perhaps to work with them to bring in additional funds for this excellent scheme, which I'm thoroughly in favour of and congratulate everybody who's been involved. Thank you. Yeah, thank you, Councillor Austin. I've already mentioned the community engagement, and I'm quite sure that that will take place. As for funding, officers are fully aware that, obviously, if we can't get it through TDC, we will be looked to parish councils to see whether they'll be able to do anything better, so I'm sure that is already on their radar. Thank you. That would, of course, be a bit of a challenge in Margate, as we don't currently have a town council. Hopefully we can put that right in due course. Councillor CUMMING. Thank you, Leader. And like others that spoke on this absolutely support this scheme coming in. I think it's a really good initiative, and I, along with many councillors, have enjoyed planting trees in our different park areas. It's been great. But I just wanted to have clarification and an understanding on how these sites were allocated and the decision was made, because reading through the reasons as to why we're bringing this in, obviously, we're in line with our net zero and to reduce our emissions. I was quite surprised to see that Birchington wasn't included within this, because both wards, as we know, are very highly polluted. They're one of the most polluted areas within the district. And also especially Birchton North has one of the lowest tree coverages in the district as well. So I was just wondering whether or not their why Birchton was potentially missed out at this opportunity. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you, Councillor CUMM. I understand your sense of loss with relation to the trees not being planted in Birchington. I think what you need to understand with it is these first six sites have been taken for this. It's something that we want to spread across Thanet. And as and when so, this first tranche, we want to see how much money we can get, where we get the money from to actually take these on. The officers have been out and had a look at the sites, and they've come up with this list, the first ones. You know, I would want to see this spread across Thanet as much as we can, and just so you're aware as well, as you will know, in Chris Park, where we have to take a lot of trees out for every tree that the Council has to take out on its own now, two will be planted. So I think that's an important part. That's part of our process of work. But what I'm happy to do is I'll be talking with the officers and to see whether once this is progress and see if we can find the odd space in Birchington for you. Thank you, Councillor Arbonne. And obviously, some of us noticed that there were no sites in Ramsgate on the list, but there has been a considerable amount of tree planting recently in Ramsgate. So perhaps we weren't feeling quite as neglected as birdington was, but I'm sure we can address that. I think Councillor Yates was keen to come in on this item. Yeah, it was just to talk about process with the Councillor Cupp's question and just give my input as well. So this actually was presented to the Climate Cabinet Advisory Group on Monday 19th February. So we've already had a brief discussion about this. Community engagement didn't come up then, so I take some responsibility for not being more proactive on that point. But I think this is for sites without funding. So the next step is funding and choosing the trees and probably working with the community. And I can give you, as we've already mentioned Margate, I can already say that we've already had discussions between the relevant officers and community groups who are active doing biodiversity schemes. So I know from experience that can happen and does happen, especially with our new brilliant officers in place. And I'd just like to thank our previous Climate Change Officer, Dr Hannah Scott for getting this report through and bringing it to the Climate Cargan then to Cabinet. So yeah, I hope that answers and gives a bit more information. Thanks. Any other comments, members? No, so it's been moved and seconded that Cabinet approved the council land in the following locations is used for many woodland tree planting schemes, subject to external funding being identified and secured. Dane Valley Road, Garlic Recreation Ground, Memorial Recreation Ground at Northdown Park, some Peaches Recreation Ground, Brackett's Beacon Road, and Tivoli Park. The members agree. Thank you. And we move on to item seven, which is the Tourism Scrutiny Review Report to be introduced by Councillor Duckworth. Thank you, Leader. I've read the Scrutiny Review Report that has been forwarded to Cabinet by the overview and scrutiny panel. The report looks at the impact of tourism on Thanet with the focus on additional costs that the council incurs when it comes to clearing up litter and attending to other antisocial incidents that the panel feels are caused by visitors coming to Thanet. The report further looks at traffic management issues, particularly in summer, and the operation of Airbnb as well. I feel that I should mention the positive contributions that tourism brings to our district, many local businesses benefit from the inflow of visitors to our area, and these businesses create employment for the local communities. Even though there are costs associated with some of the activities that come with the district hosting visitors, seems to me that overall the benefits outweigh the costs. I acknowledge the important role Scrutiny pays in pointing out issues that Cabinet should consider when making decisions and drafting policies. That is why I'd like us as Cabinet to take time to consider these findings and recommendations and get further officer advice on the budget implications for each of them in the context of our limited resources. I'm therefore recommending that Cabinet defers its response to the Scrutiny report findings and recommendations in order to get officer advice on the cost implications. A detailed response will be brought back to Cabinet before the end of the third quarter of this year. Thank you, Councillor DUCKER. And before we move on, there's obviously been a lot of excitement about the potential for a tourist tax. So, I think we've got a number of speakers who want to come in. So, I think before we go there, let's be clear that this Council has no powers to introduce a tourist tax. And the government said last year that it doesn't intend to give this Council any powers to introduce such a tax. So, the Atlantic District Council will not be introducing a tourist tax. There are variations of this through business improvement districts in places like Manchester. We don't have a business improvement district and in any event that is a process of consensus and fire agreement of businesses as to what they wish to do. On the principle of the business tax, the overnight visitors who come to our district, they are not a problem in terms of their contribution to our economy because by definition they're paying to stay overnight. The issue that we do have, I think, is with day trippers who come into the district, use the beach and don't necessarily spend any money in the economy. And we may have to meet costs as a result of their visit either because they leave litter on the beach or in some cases because they create a public order problem. So, there are issues here and there is scope to explore how we tackle it, but we will not be introducing a business tax. And even if we were to a business, a tourism tax, and if we were ever to go down that road, clearly we would consult businesses and get their opinion because I think they'll be considerable obstacles to do that. But we do not have the powers to do so. In terms of the report as a whole, I think it's a good report and a useful exercise from the scrutiny committee. And we'll hear from the chair of the scrutiny committee in a minute. But I will say it contains things that we're already doing. It contains recommendations to do things that we can't do. And obviously, it makes recommendations that would incur costs for the Council. We are at the beginning of a financial year, but our budget for this financial year is set. We will shortly, because it's in the nature of things, start to consider our budget for the next financial year. And to that extent, the report is timely, but it will be unrealistic to expect that we can find budgetary allocations to do some of the things that are in the report. So I think the sensible approach for Cabinet is to ask officers to go away and come back with a detailed response to the report, which we can then bring back to Cabinet and we can have another discussion about. So I just thought it was important to set that context before we start discussing something that we're not going to do and are not able to do. And I'll call Councillor Fellows as the chair of the scrutiny committee to speak first under 20. Leader, sorry, we've not seconded the motion. Sorry, did we have a second? Councillor Yates, thank you. Thank you, Leader. Once again, a great piece of work going from a cross-party scrutiny working group. I'll give thanks to the members of that group, Councillor Britchard who chaired it, Councillor Cupp, Councillor Patman and Councillor Austin, and the officers that attended to give evidence, and also Charles from Democratic Services, who output this lovely report together. So the report only focused on the negatives of tourism, and obviously we can talk about the positives for hours. The idea was to find ways that we could get over issues that affected residents and also the Council. And the report focused on five areas only, and I'm not going to give a full commentary on the whole thing, but just a few points that I want to make out. So obviously beach management, we had a full members brief in this week. Lisa Galinwood gave a very positive brief in that area. We just need to make sure that we have the coastal officers that were talked about in place, so that they can enforce the PSBO. Those coastal areas as well as educate visitors and tourists of the PSBO, and I think that's key. Public toilets, I know there's a program in place. If we could expedite that in some way in the important tourist areas, and I think we should. Also, I know I brought it up at the briefing. I would like to extend it open in hours, especially during evening events. I think we should look it out. I know Councilman is not keen, but I think it's something we should look at. Waste management, I think this works well on the whole, but resources are always governed by budgets. I know we have 120 K in the budget for coastal and beach clearances, but that's 17 miles of coastline. That's not an awful amount. So we should maybe look at schemes to reduce waste. Traffic management, I know it's been mentioned before on our Badger Councillor Kine, a number of occasions. We need more traffic wardens. This is an area we struggle to recruit, and maybe we should start looking to bring in outside agencies. This summer is going to be horrendous with only three wardens covering seven days a week. Also, the loss of income must be considerable over the last year. Financial management, as you said, has been some considerable interest this week. Both local and national coverage, but the BBC and Meridian tonight, I believe it was on both of those. And a number of newspapers, the Daily Mail, the Telegraph, the Express, and I know Council Davies has always wanted to be on page three. But it was also in the sun as well. All publicity is good publicity, of course. I don't think anybody's talking about setting up toll booths on the planet way to collect a tourist tax. I think that's maybe clumsy terminology. It's more about talking about the exponential growth of air B&Bs and what they contribute financially to the Council. A number of those are business registered for rates. So qualify for small business rate relief, hence contribute nothing to the Council. I wonder how many have Council race contracts for their rubbish as they're registered as businesses. That also joins up with the race management section. I think we need to raise some income from those businesses. We can't expect resident Council taxpayers to pay for those. A number of air B&Bs also let out long-term during the winter. Did they register for Council tax when they're not businesses? I think what was suggested was just a nominal fee for an overnight stay in an air B&B. I think that's all that's been suggested. Also on the financial management, I think southern water, we should be tackling them, taking them to task. I know this week they've contributed £5,000 to Botany Bay for their beach cleaning. Maybe they could contribute to all bays going forward. Obviously this review is obviously more competent in my other short report, but I'm sure we've already. I look forward to hearing more public cabinet comments. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Fellows. I think we'll move on rather than have an individual comment in response to that. Councillor Rogers. Thank you, Leader. I realise that thoughtless parking comes under enforcement, and I have mentioned this before, but I still think it would be a good idea to include the code of conduct leaflets that are handed out to people. Sorry, I'll do that again. I still think it would have been a good idea to include in the code of conduct leaflets that are handed out to people to park considerably when going to the beach. Councillor Albonne agreed cabinet on the 25th of March to take this on board and discuss this with officers. Has this been done? My second part of this is the Council considering installing temporary toilets for use day and evening for all large events such as firework, displays, etc. It will hopefully prevent some of the antisocial behaviours such as urinating in public. Thank you. Do you want to respond, Councillor? Yes, sorry, I was busy writing other stuff down there in relation to other comments. Can you just read what your first thing you said, Councillor Rogers? Councillor interjecting. About inconsiderate parking. Oh, okay, I mean, you agreed cabinet on the 25th of March to take this on board and discuss with officers. Has this been done? Yes, well, obviously, did inconsiderate parking is not part of my portfolio, don't deal with parking. But I raised it. It has been raised and I know the officers of Penny Barton, etc. have been looking at the issues, especially we're talking about Botany Bay and I mean, which is really poor. And unfortunately, as it's been, you know, we currently have not got the officers that we require. Although I have been told, just being passed a note that we've just employed two more and we have four more to come. And that have also been interviewed. So we're hopeful that the enforcement team will be up and running by it. Summer. My question was, couldn't it be included in the code of conduct leaflet just to ask people also to part more considerably? Well, I think the problem with that is, obviously, the people who don't care don't live in standard. Obviously, they're coming from outside, they're coming from all over, from Essex, wherever, and coming and they see things online where we can go. Oh, we'll Botany Bay looks nice, we're going to part there. And leaflets haven't seen it. They don't make a difference because they don't care. I mean, it's as simple as that. And there was one other thing you said, Councillor. Toilets? Toilets for events. If the people are putting an event on, then they provide the toilets, not us. So if their council run, we will be providing them. Will they be provided enough? Or will they be sort of later on as in firework displays, stuff that goes on? Well, if the firework displays was that put on by Brawlstairs Town Council and Ramsgate Town Council, or they're Ramsgate are not doing any issue. So if it's Brawlstairs Town Council, then they provide the toilets, if that's what they want. TDC doesn't have to do that for events that are not run by Atlantic District Council. It's same as any private events. Same as, like let's say, the food market, not market, but the up at Brawlstairs. They have to provide the toilets. You know, the same as the, obviously we have our own public toilet toilets open. Just to go back to what Council Fellow said about late night opening the toilets. As I said at the Council briefing, I have extreme concern for the safety of our staff. And that's a priority that we should all be concerned about. Because you know, as well as I do, that 10 o'clock, 11 o'clock, when people have had a few, they're not as nice as they normally are. And especially when they're trying to close up. And as I said to you the other night, previously we've had our staff assaulted both physically and verbally. And also the majority of our staff who carry out that task are female. And I have been extremely concerned about that and it's something I could not condone. Whether residents don't like it or not, I have to be, that is something that I need to ensure that they're safe. Okay, that's part of the ongoing challenge that we have around the public toilet estate. But we are making considerable improvements to them and that they are underway. So that's a positive on it. I understand that the people would like them open whenever they want to use them. But equally we do have to staff them and protect the people who are doing that job for us. Councillor BAFORD. Thank you, Leader. And for the detailed report, which provides plans that are sensible and desirable in proving services for our residents. They do appear, however, to be potentially resource heavy. And it seems unlikely that the projects will all be able to be put into place this year. How will the cabinet prioritise the required actions and decide which of the projects will have to wait? Thank you. Well, I think the answer to that is that we've already said we'll bring back the detailed report, which we'll look in detail at the proposals. And in terms of the ones that are going to cost money, whether what they might cost and whether that's affordable, and that can then be fed into the budget process. So we'll decide our priorities through a more detailed report. Unfortunately, the fact that this report came from scrutiny last week and has arrived at Cabinet nine days later isn't ideal and hasn't really allowed us the time to develop the answers or the officers the time to look in detail at the costings. But we will do that as part of next year's budget calculation. Thank you. Councillor DAVIS. Thank you, Chair. Councillor Fellow's has actually stated quite a few of the positive things that I wanted to say. And again, congratulations, let's say, to all those on that subcommittee because it is an excellent report. It does look at challenges rather than positives, but then it was an impact report on the impact of tourism. The press interest that's been mentioned and media interest is very important, actually. And I welcome it on the basis that we do have a challenge. However, often sound bites take off. And certainly I've been quoted quite heavily this week, but what I've not said is that we want to tax on tourism. What I'd prefer to hear it referred to is local revenue protection and the big issue, as I've mentioned before, and we won't get into the stats at this point, but is Airbnb, which given the figures from a couple of weeks ago, if you calculate our share of the preset, those that have converted from Council tax to business rates and then claim the business rate exemption that applies in this area, there's potentially 260,000 pounds of preset revenue being lost there. And that's just based on the immediately available figures in Ramsgate alone. So I want to make it quite clear that we're not trying to penalise anybody, and I understand that a tax on the individual, despite Venice, for instance, has just introduced a fellow euro visiting tax. And I know that Venice obviously doesn't come under legislation. Yeah, empire building there. It keeps raining. Yeah, yeah, yeah, much more rain, and actually we will resent that. But I think it's important that we look at protecting the revenues to provide excellent services for the tourists that we welcome. I am supporting various projects being developed at the moment, which hopefully will bring a large number of tourists and fat wallets to the island that will support our economy. So this is in no way prejudicial against tourism. This is a way of ensuring that the revenue that should already be there is there, because that's be quite clear. In addition to the loss of Council tax revenue, this has massive impacts on our temporary accommodation and our rental market, which is why we've got the pressures we've already discussed on a previous item. It's a cumulative, almost a spiral, into decay, where, you know, Ramsgate Harbour is often described as the jewel in the crown. And I know there's lovely parts of Thanik. We have a beautiful island. Let's maximise the benefits of altruism. But in order to do that, we need to be a destination. And one last thing, if I could please, things have changed. We talk about the house in days and wonderfully. We've got the numbers of visitors now back here. However, the dynamics and the logistics have changed. They used to arrive. But Margate still relies on its station and so on. Ramsgate's wealth historically sails through the piers. However, visitors to Thanik, particularly in the 70s and early 80s, would arrive en masse in coaches and so on. The transit system meant that you would then get hordes of people walking from the coach parks down to the seafront. And obviously, if you could get a business on that route, then you did very well. Society's changed. People travel in individual cars now and so on. Also, marketing sometimes has unintended consequences as we've seen at Botany Bay, where it's so beautiful. And it was this remote quiet beach that has now become the destination of choice. But we have to cater for the fact that we have a vast number of vehicles. And I think this is why we're seeing parking problems, but perhaps not fully understanding the problem. Society's changed and our provision has to change with it in order to manage it. And it's a massive challenge, I'm sure, with vehicle movements and so on. But thank you for your time. And as I say, it's very welcome. And I do believe we need to address the negatives as well as the positives in order to ensure the best outcome for our very welcome visitors. And for the record, it's about revenue protection, not taxing anyone. We are conservatives on this side of the party of low taxation. Thank you. Well, thank you, Councillor Davis. I mean, I have to say that I agree with you about the damage which is being done to our housing market by the growth of Airbnb's. And certainly the Labor Group on the Council has been keen to address that for some time, not always with cross-party support from what I can remember. I'm not quite able to marry that up with your earlier statement that there wasn't a need for the housing, but perhaps that isn't quite what you meant. I think in terms of the revenue that's produced from those properties, I mean, that would certainly, we would want to make sure that the appropriate revenue comes in. And whether that is through Council tax or whether it's through business rates, depending on what kind of arrangements they have and what services are being used. But certainly revenue protection is a goal of, sure, Mr Blundell over there will be more than happy to maximise the revenue that we get from that area. And that's part of the work that we'll be doing around our response to the report. Did anybody, Councillor Alton? Yeah, thank you. Yeah, I just wanted to come back to Councillor Davis, and I'm going to say something now, which I wouldn't normally say, but I do actually agree with you, Councillor Davis. Rhysas, I think as the leaders just said, Airbnb's are a problem, and they're a problem in our area, and the amount of properties that we've lost, forend, et cetera, does cause an issue. I think in relation to the Airbnb's, the government has got to step in. It's the government, you know, we're kind of floundering around it, but the government have got the power to step in and to ensure that Airbnb's pay something towards the local economy. And if that means it's to say whether it's a business rates, or be it a smaller one, or it's whatever. So, you know, I do totally agree with you on that. The only thing I'm disappointed at, Councillor Davis, as you didn't mention the report, thank you. We're in danger of having a debate in response to the 20.1 interventions, but Councillor wider wants to say something. And just in relation to the Airbnb and short-term rental point, I did write, I think about two and a half years ago to request a new planning class to be put in place for short-term rentals and Airbnb. And at that point, received no response from central government whatsoever. However, in the last couple of months, they are bringing in said planning class and also introducing a form of central registrar or legislation. We don't have any information in terms of how councils are to fund that, or how that is to be arranged or anything, really. But it's something that I'm requesting and then there's briefing on so that we're all aware of where we are and what we want to do to look at this issue because if we have the powers, I want to find a way to use them. Thank you, Councillor Whitehead. Let's hope that the government finds the time to tell us about those arrangements before it goes. Councillor Austin. Thank you, Leader. I'll just pause for laughter here. I have to say that it's been some years since a report that I contributed to has attracted national attention, but even in my professional days, I didn't reach the dizzy heights of the daily mail and the stuff. There's the first time for everything. I just wanted to make a few points about the report. The first one I think has been made already by Councillor Fellows and Davis, which is the point of this report was to look at the negative side. The first presentation we had, however, was about the positive benefits of tourism, just in case we didn't know about them. So we did take on board the fact that there are very, very many benefits to us from tourism. This was specifically the remit was to look at how we counted the negatives. The second thing to say is that all our information came from our own senior officers. Therefore, if there are errors in the report and there are things that we don't have the powers to do, et cetera, then we have misunderstood the information that those officers have given us. And we apologize sincerely. However, I would like to point out that some of the suggestions that we make are so tentative and suggestive that they can't really come out as recommendations, actively investigate opportunities to do eggs. For example, perhaps possibly, we run out of different ways of saying perhaps we might think of. We also recognize that many of the things that we are recommending would cost and that cost would have to be balanced up against the savings that would be made as a result. We recognize that the concerns here are not solely financial. We're interested in looking at the negative impacts of some of the things we mentioned on our resident population. So, Airbnb's have been highlighted and they're not going to affect on rents, but also things like waste management, for example, or antisocial behavior have severe knock on effects on our local residents. And we wanted to look at how those could be addressed. And the other thing I was going to say has gone completely out of my mind, just bear with me for one moment. Yes, I was going to say that some of the things that we recommended we recognize could not all be implemented. Some of them are in process of being implemented and we wanted to recognize that. Some of them are things that have been suggested, say from other councils and so on, that we thought Cabinet might want to have a look at. We're not suggesting that any of this would be quick, any of it would be easy. They are things that we would like to Cabinet to consider. And we very much welcome Councillor Duckworth's suggestion that Cabinet takes this away and has a look at it in more detail and gets reports from those officers who reported to us and see what they recommend. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Sewing. And you have had my assurance that Cabinet will look seriously at all the proposals in the report. That's our intention. It's just not been practical for us to do that in advance of a meeting a week after the scrutiny committee, which I'm sure you also understand. Anybody want to comment, Councillor Yates? Thank you, Leader. Yeah, just to start with, one of the items suggested in the report we've already made plans for. So under 3.5, financial management, levying additional council tax on second homes. So on the 11th of January this year, following the Royal Ascent of the Leveling Up and Regeneration Act of 2023, Cabinet formally approved the application of 100% council tax premium on properties that are unoccupied and furnished, otherwise called second homes. So that's applicable from 1st of April 2025. And the second 151 will correct me, but most coastal towns with high tourism are planning on implementing this premium. And I look over to him. Is that correct? I won't correct you, that is correct. It's about 80% of all authorities are planning to implement this, particularly coastal areas and areas with high levels of tourism. And just to give Councillor Davis a history lesson about Airbnb's, this was discussed on 14th of October 2021 in this Chamber, where there was a motion brought forward to discuss Airbnb's. Unfortunately, the Conservative Administration voted down the option to debate that. So we never even got to debate that because the Conservative Administration voted down that motion on that date. Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to call on Councillor CUP because he's still got to speak under 25 now. Thank you, Leader. I've got a five-page speech. Is that right? Actually, everything that's been said is everything that I was going to say. I would just conclude in saying that I was great to be a part of this. I think some really, really in-depth and great discussions happened. And I look forward to seeing how CUP and it implement what's been recommended. Thank you. Members, we've had quite a considerable discussion about this already in terms of the contributions from 2021. I think that this is a good collaborative process. I think that the work that the scrutiny panel have done should be commended, and we should be grateful that they've brought the report here. And I certainly see it as a positive exercise and has some ideas that we can take forward and respond to. So it's been moved and seconded that we note the report, I think, and bring back a further response for the decision before the end of the third quarter of this year. Members agree? Thank you. That concludes the business of the tonight's meeting. I declare the meeting closed at 8.20 and the live stream of the meeting will now end. Thank you very much for your attendance. Enjoy the rest of your evening. [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence]
Summary
The council meeting focused on addressing various community and administrative concerns, including financial arrangements, local planning issues, and environmental initiatives. Key decisions were made regarding leisure reinvestment, solar panel installations, affordable housing purchases, and the creation of mini woodlands.
Leisure Reinvestment 333 Split: The council discussed a financial arrangement concerning leisure reinvestment. The specifics of the property implications were deferred for later clarification. This decision indicates a cautious approach to financial commitments, ensuring all implications are thoroughly understood before proceeding.
Solar Photovoltaic Installation: Approval was granted for using a capital grant to fund solar installations and variable speed field transition pumps at local leisure centers. This decision aligns with the council's environmental goals but required careful consideration of the financial viability and practical implementation within the planning system.
Purchase of Section 106 Affordable Housing Units: The council decided to purchase 31 affordable housing units to prevent potential loss due to the inability of developers to find a registered provider. This decision underscores the council's commitment to increasing affordable housing stock amidst high demand, though it involves significant financial outlay and long-term planning.
Mini Woodland Tree Planting Scheme: Locations for mini woodlands were approved, subject to securing external funding. This initiative aims to enhance local biodiversity and contribute to carbon sequestration efforts, reflecting the council's proactive stance on environmental issues.
An interesting point in the meeting was the extensive discussion on the impact of tourism, particularly the challenges and negative aspects, which led to a deferred detailed report for further analysis. This highlights the council's intent to balance tourism benefits with community impacts. The council meeting focused on addressing local issues such as leisure reinvestment, planning conditions, affordable housing, and environmental initiatives. Discussions also included the scrutiny of tourism impacts and potential measures to mitigate negative effects.
Leisure Reinvestment 333 Split: The council discussed a financial arrangement concerning leisure reinvestment but deferred commenting on property implications until more information was available. This decision leaves room for future discussions and clarifications on how the reinvestment will impact local leisure facilities and property management.
Planning Conditions and Local Plan Process: The council addressed the inability to impose planning conditions suggested by the scrutiny committee, such as mandatory solar panels. The decision was to further discuss these ideas through the local plan process, indicating a move towards more sustainable building practices in future developments but no immediate action.
Purchase of Section 106 Affordable Housing Units: The council approved the purchase of 31 affordable housing units to prevent the loss of these units to the private sector. This decision aims to address the local housing shortage and ensure that housing remains affordable for residents. The financial implications and the strategic approach to housing were thoroughly discussed, highlighting the council's commitment to maintaining affordable housing stock.
Mini Woodland Tree Planting Scheme: The council approved locations for mini woodland creation, subject to securing external funding. This environmental initiative aims to enhance local biodiversity and contribute to carbon sequestration efforts. The decision underscores the council's commitment to environmental sustainability and community involvement in green projects.
Tourism Scrutiny Review Report: The council decided to defer responding to the findings and recommendations of the tourism scrutiny review report to further assess budget implications. The report highlighted the costs associated with tourism, including waste management and public safety, and proposed exploring potential revenue sources like a tourist tax. This decision indicates a cautious approach to implementing new policies that could impact the local economy and tourism industry.
Interestingly, the meeting included robust discussions on the impact of tourism, reflecting a balance between recognizing its economic benefits and addressing associated costs and challenges. The council's decisions demonstrated a focus on long-term planning and sustainability in various sectors.
Documents
- Cabinet Cover Report - Google Docs
- Annex 1 - Tourism Working Party Report - Google Docs
- Cabinet Report - Mini-woodlands - Google Docs
- DoI advice
- Minutes 14032024 Cabinet
- Annex 1 - Final net zero strategy - digital
- Annex 2 - Carbon Reduction Plan-TDC-14.07.22-FINAL
- Cabinet report 25_4_24 - Purchase of 31 Affordable Homes at Nash Road Margate - Google Docs
- Public reports pack 25th-Apr-2024 19.00 Cabinet reports pack
- Printed minutes 25th-Apr-2024 19.00 Cabinet minutes
- Cabinet Report for Sport England Swimming Pool Support Fund SPSF - Google Docs
- Agenda frontsheet 25th-Apr-2024 19.00 Cabinet agenda