Transcript

Can I just remind Councillors that they should be seated in seats allocated to them for voting purposes and can also remind Councillors to turn their microphones on while speaking and to turn them off again once finished, otherwise you will not be heard on the broadcast. So any official apologies for absence? No. Declarations of interest, agenda item 1. Councillors need to declare their interest in the items on the agenda. Can I remind Councillors that you should declare the type of interest you have? The agenda item in reference in question, the reason why you have an interest. So Councillor Benson first. In the latest report as a trustee of the shelter. Thank you. Councillor Webb. Thank you, Mayor. Can I express an interest in item number 6? Councillors interjecting. Councillors interjecting. Councillors interjecting. Councillors interjecting. Councillors interjecting. Councillors interjecting. Councillors interjecting. Councillors interjecting. Councillors interjecting. Can I just clarify that? Councillors interjecting. Councillors interjecting. Councillors interjecting. Councillors interjecting. Councillors interjecting. Councillors interjecting. Councillors interjecting. Councillors interjecting. Thank you. In that case, is there anyone else? No. Moving on. Okay. Agenda item 2, minutes to the last meeting held on the 29th of November, November 2023 and the 11th of January 2024. Councillors to agree the minutes of the meeting held on November the 23rd as a true and correct record agreed. Anyone disagree? No. Councillors to agree the minutes of the meeting held on the 11th of January as a true and correct record agreed. Thank you. Announcements. I just have one. It's a little bit of a personal one. Just to let you know that finally we have a date for the Mero Bowl which is going to be on the 26th of April which is Friday. They try and get Saturday but it's a Friday I'm afraid and it's going to be at the Spanish Hall in the Winter Gardens. It promises to be a very glamorous affair Councillor Hoyle has anything to do with it anyway that's for sure. So there'll be more details hopefully with you next week. It would be great to see as many of you there as possible because as you know it's all for charity. Thank you. Agenda item 4 is public representation. We have a Mr Tim Allen to address the council. Mr Allen, you'll have up to five minutes to speak and you will receive a warning light at four minutes. Thank you. Thank you Mayor and Councillors. I'm here to talk to you about the LGBTQ+ initiative which has been developed over the last year. At the heart of it are the words and very important words be who you want to be. I'm privileged. I'm lucky because I'm here. I'm allowed to have a voice in this town. I interfere with quite a lot of things I think but I am lucky that you allowed me to come. The initiative itself needs everyone's support, everyone's support and I know that within this building and in this council you have given it greatly. There is a large LGBT community out there. Some of them or many of them even struggle. They struggle with housing. They struggle with themselves and identity. They struggle with some homophobia within town and we have to make this get better but we have quite a good start in some ways because we have the initiative. We have a very good consultation that's gone out with 269 people who've responded and they've made it very clear what their priorities are and their priorities number one are they want to feel safe in this town and there are people out there who don't. There are young people out there who don't and they don't in Claremont and that's the number one thing that we have got to drive through with this action plan. We don't get that bit right and developed. I'm not using the word improve but developed. It's not going to have the confidence of people. So yourselves and the police have to sit down and I know that everyone is willing to do this to make adjustments to the way things work. The health of people in this town and in the LGBT community is not perhaps fantastic and there is a lot of work that has been done through public health, through an ASONS but we need to develop ways of finding out where the gaps are so anything that has been missed is improved. We also need to look at the art history and culture of the author that Blackpool makes. It's amazing how much is going on in Blackpool. We have already been around just about everyone in Blackpool that gives something to the arts and culture and heritage and they are all on board with this and so that is something which I think will get developed naturally over time. There is more that we should be doing here. For example, we have Gay History Month coming up. There is very, very little thing going on. We should be celebrating World AIDS Day later on in the different ways and so you can see there are ways to develop this. They are small ways but they are significant. We need to make certain that the community is recognised in Blackpool and that means that they feel proud to be part of Blackpool. That means the actual public realm side of things needs to be developed and my goodness in some places it does need to be developed but again a lot is being done. There is so much regeneration going on that we should be really pleased with the progress but the money involved to get things good in Claremont is vast but it has to be done. There has to also be initial signals that there is good recognition by this body for the LGBT community and I am delighted that is happening. I have been involved in this stuff for 10 years. The council gave me great support when I was running Pride in 2013 and they have continued to do so. This initiative started a year and a half ago with the leader who gave great support to all this and now we are in a situation where in the next few weeks there will be an improvement in the public realm in what you can see on the streets and the message to the gay community is going to be this is serious because it has to be serious and the action plan has to be delivered. That is quite a challenge for everyone. There is a launch for all this event next Thursday I think you already know and I hope you all come. We want the library at lunchtime where there are a lot of young people who are performing and one in the evening which is more for adults so thank you for listening to me. Thank you. Thank you Mr Allen for your address to council. Firstly I would like to personally thank you for all the hard work, passion, support and energy you have contributed to driving forward the be who you want to be a gender and a subsequent action plan. In a number of the things I am going to say I am sure I will let go many of the sentiments that you have shared. We have for a long time wanted to have a focus on the area sitting on the south western part of the Claremont ward where we know there is a long established LGBTQ+ community and a business community making a huge cultural and economic contribution to the town. Discussions as you said had started before COVID in relation to moving the project forward. However understandably progress was halted and then picked up last year when the leads are attended a number of no sure business groups meet as you chair. The be who you want to be a gender is not only important to us in the development of the area which links in with the town centre strategy at the Claremont master plan and the cultural hub but also in relation to supporting equality inclusion and celebrating diversity in our town which is central to the council plan. This work will not only catalyse the regeneration of the area but will also build an inclusive culture across the platform. The response to the consultation has been amazing and I want to thank all those residents, businesses, visitors, young people and stakeholder groups that have taken the time to share their thoughts and feelings in relation to the future of this area. We have had nearly 300 responses to the questionnaire which included over 3,000 comments and in addition workshops were held related to health and wellbeing, young people, safety and security and arts and culture which you have mentioned and that has enabled us to put together the be who you want to be action plan which is ambitious and aspirational and sets out an agenda aimed at a vision, a vibrancy, investment, sense of place, diversity, safety and security and equality environment. I'm really looking forward to continuing to be part of driving this fabulous initiative forward together with the community. I know with the support, commitment, passion and enthusiasm of the community, the be who you want to be area will be a huge success. Once again, thank you Tim to take the time to share with us your support for the area. Thank you, thank you. Thank you Councillor Farrow. So moving on we have agenda item 5 which executive reports, so just a reminder, there's three minutes for each executive and member to present the report, three minutes per question or comment from any Councillor on anything within the portfolio and no limit to the number of times unless a Councillor can ask a question. So over to you, leader of the Councillor, Councillor Williams. Thank you, ma'am. Yes, happy to present my report and to answer any questions. Thank you. It's easy. Okay, so we'll do what we've done before and we'll go through it theme by theme. So we've got theme one which is devolution. Do we have any questions? Councillor Gallo. Thank you, ma'am. I notice the leader's chosen, obviously, devolution has a first theme and tourism as a second. I think in my 13 years of being a Councillor, all those 13 years have been a Councillor there. This is the first time I can remember the no financial update in the presentation by a leader of this Council to this Chamber. So we will answer or ask what we can with the choices that are in front of us. As regards devolution, ma'am, I know the progress that has been made and we have a full Council, a special full Council lined up. My concern around this topic, and I expressed this in an email to the leader which he never replied to during the time that the consultation was on there, was that the lack of communication with the public, especially those others in Blackpool who don't have access to the internet, be that they can't afford the data to reach it or they don't have the skills to use it. How did we reach those people? We only had one public meeting in Blackpool that was at night. It was in the central library. How would any of the elderly be able to get there? A lot of elderly people don't like coming into Blackpool at night time. It just felt, as our gentleman rightly said, Mr Wright, in an inclusive town, this did not feel like a tool inclusive, it felt actually quite exclusive. So what I would like to know from the leader, what can we do to rectify it, bearing in mind, when I contacted you at the time, we still had a week to try and fix something. Obviously, that was passed. What can we do now to reach out to the digitally excluded, as well as actually probably a good percentage of those who have access to the internet and may not have been aware? Thank you, ma'am. Thank you, Councillor Gallily. Any further questions on theme one? No, in that case, we'll just move to theme two and the last the leader to answer at the end for all the questions. So theme two is tourism. Does anyone have any questions there? Councillor Gally again. Thank you, Mayor. In the previous fall council, I highlighted a number of empty properties in a row that sit opposite the Metro pop. One of those properties is subsequently announced that it was going to be on sale because the council owned it and the leader at the time said it was really difficult to deal with these issues because we don't own them, actually we did own one. But there is yet another black empty building on the promenade, the Sam's menu. Now, at a certain time a few years ago, the council made the loan provision that there are around 10 million to cool sale. What I would like to know is bearing in mind that hotel hasn't opened when it will open and our interest payments being made back on that loan that we put the provision for at the time. So if the leader could answer that, we will be hugely grateful. Thank you, Councillor Gally. Any further questions on theme two of the leader's report? Nope. In that case, I'll just pass over to you, Leader, and before we go on to questions or comments for the question. I apologise I had replied, I discussed it with officers as to what we could do anything differently or how, I mean, in the overall, we did actually have another consultation, we had a business meeting and with the forms and all of that was there to discuss. I think it's really difficult in this current age. I understand that some people have not have access to it. But again, across the county, there have been a number of engagement results. I think I don't know the breakdown of the black court, but I do know that we were well represented in the overall return. The target number was 1000 responses and it was not far off 2000. So almost double the target and most of it has been over 50% has been positive. It is the old, it's a difficult issue in trying to allow that and understand it's really important. But we had a public event, two public events and had access to social media and I think a lot of people will have been able to access that, which is verified by the figures. In relation to the, you've got me confused actually when you were talking about the Metapol, but in relation to the sands venue, obviously there is a dispute, there is a legal dispute between the owner and his contractors, we aren't involved in that and I can't comment any further on that. I don't have the information and even if I did, I can't explain. But it is frustrating the delay, absolutely. But that is outside of our control in that regard. So I can't give you an answer as to when it will open. Oh, yeah. Councillor Gattley, sorry. Thank you. There was a final part to that question for the Leader, which was our interest payments being repaid on loan provision. That is all ongoing. Obviously the amount that you've mentioned us are secured, those negotiations are ongoing and ultimately when it's all of the situation has been resolved and then we can make that information all available. But we have taken all the necessary steps to ensure to protect that investment. Thank you, Leader. In that case, we'll move on to general questions of comments on the Leader's portfolio. Councillor Mitchell. I've asked twice in full Council for the Labor Leader to assess cuts toward budgets, whilst there are pressures on overall budgets to ensure this Council can properly deliver basic services for taxpayers. I was widely mocked by Labor Councillors inside the Town Hall and out of it. Councillor Burdess tried to state she didn't support my point. The Leader twice shot me down and Councillor Flanagan created this lovely Facebook post on the topic. For those of the back that can't read it, it says bang head here. In the caption of the post, it states that the policy was rightly not supported and went so far as to describe my contribution as ill thought out and weak. Thank you, Councillor Flanagan, for your kind words. You will appreciate my shock mayor when I recently learned that ward budgets for the upcoming year are actually being cut. In light of this, would you say this policy is ill thought out and weak as Councillor Flanagan so strongly believes? Or would the Leader care to admit that maybe I was right? I'll leave this on the table if you're on the way out to bang your head on. Thank you, Councillor Mitchell. Councillor Schulman. Thank you, Mayor. You'll have to forgive me on that to have a Ronnie Corbett moment. It's the bit where he sits in the chair, starts to tell you a story, takes you all over the place and finally you do get to the destination. I will get to the destination. I have decided, Leader, to bring this to yourself or your portfolio or though there are themes in what I'm about to relate, that possibly will be relevant to Councillor Farrell and to Councillor Burdess. So please do bear with me. There will be an end into this. So in December at home, we heard the pita pita pita pita pita tiny feet. Not however those you're expecting, Councillor Webb, ours had four feet, tail, furry bodies, and a pre-delectioned cheese. We're naturally horrified to find a man trade bus station and try to contact the Council Pass Control Department by advice and assistance and divesting of us of our unwanted visitors. However, despite my existence, the phone lines just rang and rang. I sent an email to an email box that was no longer in use. Email the new email address and my calls and emails continue to go unanswered and now six weeks later waiting for any sort of response. My distress, however, paled into insignificance when I experienced a southern and huge surge in residence inquiries, residents whose attempts to contact the department have parallels with my own experience. But as with everything, it was already a leveller and that leveller made my mouse investigation paled into insignificance as they had been invested with what I can only describe as a plague of rats as almost biblical proportion and what has that got to do with planning when they are? Well, some years ago, prior to my being here, there was a contentious planning application for the use of the land on war and dry for residential development and despite numerous objections, including our own objections, planning was allowed and the development has become what is now known as Woodlock Chase from war and dry. Issues with the construction and the management of development has caused some misery to the householders and the near residents of the property, the latest has been the rat issue. Residents, councillors and RNP have all highlighted several issues with the developer who was consistently pre-barricated or refused to engage with us in any meaningful way. This has been the case with the rat issue, which is a serious series for me to help this year. And a standard following search of legal table developers have now agreed to meet with the residents in our environmental protection scene later this week. I understand also that rent kill finally is used to commence work on the development of Thursday and that they are going to be retained by the developers on a more ongoing basis. However, it should not take the council to go to the expense of the legal process because of the developers who have refused to engage despite the pleas from councillors, council officers and residents. The contempt and disregard that the developers appear to have shown for the people of this town and our council officer has been evident from the outset of their contentious application to develop that land and it continues. One might have hoped they would have wanted to engage in positive relationship with your authority and the residents with the view to secure them. Councillors say your time is up now. So the objections to the development were well bounded and all our concerns based on our historical knowledge of the lands and its unsuitability for development rather than theoretical rhetoric and an ability to throw huge amounts of cash to support appeal through the funding inspector coming to pass. I sincerely hope on this basis that this council will ensure that we mount a robust and defensive response to prevent this developer mounting any further of what I continue to be land grabs in our town and not set another thought on so much of the blade of grabs. And finally, can we be assured, Leader, that the conditions agreed between the developer and council to mitigate concerns over the development and demonstrate social value and investment having been discharged. Thank you everybody. Councillor Sloemann, Councillor Benson. Sorry, do you hear me? I don't want to labour the point about world budget. What one of my meetings I have is a youth anti-social partnership meeting which sits monthly and I just want to thank my colleagues from Brunswick, Councillor Thomas, Councillor Marshall for their hard work. One of their initiatives was to complete a rubbish atmosphere. Some of the partners which are not the council, the police have about to come out and thank the Councillors and the council for the work that they've been doing. There's a better feel about the area, the back alleys are clean, residents are now have applied out of their area in their community. I can't think a better way of spending their world budget. Thank you, Councillor Benson. Councillor Flanagan. Thank you, thank you, Mayor. Firstly, thank you very much, Councillor MURPHY, contribution. I think the people in the Chamber here will know and members of the public will be aware that the term 'banging your head here' is borne out largely of a frustration. My frustration on that particular now and continues to be that certain members of the opposition appear to use to concentrate on this subject unnecessarily. I say that because my frustration is in Greenland's, my own ward, our budget is used widely, along with Councillor Jones, we've supported so many community initiatives. These are funds that are available because of the annihilation of the council budget that has prevented us from taking action and supporting our community groups in the way that we would hope to. My second frustration is for the people of Highfield because if my colleague opposite cannot find any good causes to contribute to within his own ward, then I'm sure my hardworking colleague on this side of the bench would be able to help him find some well deserving initiatives that would greatly appreciate from those funds. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Councillor interjecting. Councillor Gally. Thank you, Mayor. As I mentioned earlier, I was denied the opportunity to talk to the Leader about our financial update as it was missing from her report, so I would use general questions to pick up a little bit of what I can from the issue. I am concerned, Mayor, around our level of short-term borrowings. There's some of the highest in England. They currently stand at 200 million. There is signs from the Bank of England that interest rates will not be going down. To give you a little sort of placemap, Mayor, of where our short-term borrowings currently stand, the City of Manchester Council, for example, their short-term borrowings, are 119 million. But there are other councils that are worse than ours. Their short-term borrowings at Birmingham, for example, are 299 million. Croid and council, their short-term borrowings are 300 million. What we'll also know about, what do those councils have in common is, they've all had to declare Section 114 notices. My concern, Mayor, is how much are we paying in interest on those short-term borrowings? When are those loans going to have to be repaid? It's really interesting because I can't see a point, I cannot find a debt management plan. All of those things have been asked for in the public interest reports of those other councils that are suffered with. Therefore, I would really be keen to know when we're going to pay those loans back, but crucially how much a year we're paying in interest on them. Thank you, Councillor Galley. Councillor Baker. Thank you, Mayor. My question was about tourists, and I think it's obvious to all of us these days, that most of the people who come to the town are coming by vehicle these days, not staying like they used to do, which puts a big on us on car parks, and we don't seem to have enough car parks at all. My question really is, because we haven't got enough car parks, people are getting fined for parking in the wrong places, and there's even people going down the wrong streets, as we know, we've just set up a zone just around this town hall. But how much money actually comes to the Council from parking fines and other motorist offences? Okay, I'm going to draw too close there. So over to you to answer those lovely questions later. So, Councillor Mitchell, I don't think you were surprised that, no, I don't think you were right. I got what everybody else has said, and reiterate that offer of advice and support from Councillor Hunter, or indeed from any member on this side as to how you might engage with your community. We agreed with a small reduction really in line, I think, in terms of the general theme of the budget, which is doing more with less, and that is what we will do on this side of the House, with the Chamber. Councillor Sloemann, and I think the first thing is, I did know about this, and I think the move really quickly didn't let you know enforcement to deal with the issue once they knew to resolve that. Warren Driver, I think I was actually the Chair of Planning at that time, we refused it, and it was a planning inspector who granted that commission with all of those issues that were raised publicly, and I think actually the leasing was in here. There was that many members of the ward, and other, you know, just concerned about the development. So, yeah, we will, I mean, I'll follow with, you know, in terms of planning, but I'm sure that they will, you know, be looking to enforce the conditions. But again, you know, this kind of situation in terms of how developers are essentially not able to do as they wish, but that is in terms, that is in the hands of the government to strengthen that. You know, we've had lots of issues over the years in terms of developments being allowed to go ahead, because the government allowed, you know, brought in to argue the sustainability. So, you know, it's something that, you know, locally we've tried to do what we can within our powers, but really this is a question for government to resolve. So, Gally, Duke, the reason why, because at the last meeting there wasn't enough in my report, and given that, you know, they, with scrutiny, the leadership board, we've got in less than four weeks, we've got a form meeting on the budget, no council releases more financial information on makes that available in public, and in terms of, I can get you the figures from, but, you know, this council approves treasury management four times a year, everyone, I'm sure you read that report, all the information that you will require about short-term borrowing and the steps that we take is within that. As a baker, we have a car park plan, this isn't actually my thing, car parks, what we do have a car park plan for across the town, I'm not sure if you've seen it, but there's a really, really large car park being built by the new central development. People get fined, more often than not, because they choose to park where they want. We've had this when we was at an event at the tower, we said, you're going to get fined, how much is it, I'll leave it here. And we have this with the air show, a lot of the events, people want to park near where they are, they have options, so it isn't the case, it isn't always the case, the platform has been very busy indeed, I'm proud to say, but it isn't always the case that they can't go and park somewhere illegally and pay a car park, they choose to park and pay the fine. I don't know how much, I think Councillor SMITH may well know that, but you can come to that in your updates, who else was there, which one other one? Is that it? Oh, Councillor Benson, yes, thank you, and Councillor Flanagan, yeah, Ward Budgets are, and I've said the same thing again, I'll be frustrating you, Councillor Flanagan, but I've said before, but no, Ward Budgets are important, they're important for us as community activists, and that's what we are, and we should be engaging with our communities and understanding where that money is spent best. They may be small amounts of money, but are incredibly significant to those small groups, and not able to apply for funds or have access by other means. So again, reiterate, you know, have a word, we'll give you some tips if you like, Councillor Mitchell. Thank you. Thank you, Leader. So moving on to the deput leader of the Councillor, and cabinet member for, oh, sorry, I didn't see that, yeah, okay. Councillor Galley first, then Councillor Mutchill. Just very briefly, if I can confirm that the leader doesn't actually know the answer to the question of how much interest we're paying, one of our biggest areas at the moment of risk, 200 million, if you could provide the answer to us, at least in writing, we would appreciate it. Thank you, Councillor Galley. Councillor Mitchell. Thank you. I'm clearly banging my head against a brick wall, but Labor Councillors seem completely confused by my point. It has nothing to do with whether there are good projects to fund, and I'm sure there are a lot out there, and the much used comeback is wearing thin. As mentioned by Councillor Benson, these budgets are being used to keep the streets clean. A basic service which should be provided by the Labor Council anyway, and is clearly not being. If they're so important, Councillor Flanagan, Councillor Benson, Councillor Williams, where is your disgust at your own budget for them being cut? Point of order, Chair. Oh, Councillor Bux. Yeah, I'm confused. My point of order, Mayor, is that the rules of common rules of debate are being broken, in that after a right of reply, the debate ends, you don't start a new debate after the right of reply, the original mover of the report. Mayor, perhaps I can advise on that, if you can bear with me on one second. Within the exact member reports, after a question is being asked, where is their point of order, there was a right of reply allowed from the person that's asked the question. That's when the new rules that agree by Council, the further questions that have been asked by the Conservative members are permitted. Thank you for that clarification, Mr Towers. I wasn't aware of that. I was following the normal, I'm sorry. I normally work on the standard rules of debate, but that's fine, but I assume that those rules, which clearly I haven't read as I believed in the normal rule of debate, will allow for a further right to reply to any cabinet member should these things happen. In terms of the contributions, yep, that's fine. We can battle about all day about how much is owed or what. I'll come back to you a regional point, Councillor Galley, where 156 in this list of contributions, Councillor BROOKS, I'm going to have to interrupt you there, because they did have a right to reply with the right there, but you weren't an original speaker, unfortunately. We had finished general questions. I'm going to allow you this one, but I won't allow you another one. I mean, I promise not to take the time of two quick paragraphs. Councillor interjecting. I agree to withdraw, Matt, for the interest of progress. Thank you, Councillor BROOKS. Okay, well, in that case, I'm going to go to the leader now, and then we're going to go to the deputy leader's report. Leader, over to you. Oh, I saw that one tonight. Yeah, I'll confirm in writing. I think it is another. Councillor, make sure you're missing the point entirely. This is about you knowing your area that you were represented by your residents to understand those local issues. You can shake your head, but that is the whole point of ward budgets. I think that was it, wasn't it? Councillors interjecting. Members, the Mayor has just asked me just to clarify the exact procedure. Also, it's procedure really 11.6 of the standing orders relating to Council meetings, and it wants a question, comment has been answered. There may be a follow-up questions, comments, but the Mayor may limit this if it is considered to be a hindering, wider debate. So again, just to remind everybody, the idea with the new format for the themed approach to exact member reports was that obviously there wouldn't be time limits on the amount of speeches that could be held around a particular theme. But the Mayor would in her wisdom be able to curtail the debate, which it felt that it was straying away from proper assumptions being made and considered for follow-up questions or for misses. But again, it could be managed properly. Okay, moving on. Deputy Leader of the Council, Cabinet Member for Partnerships and Performance. Councillor Ivin Taylor. Hello, Mayor. Before dealing with any particular questions at all points that people might like to make, I would just like to refer to the theme of the private rent sector and the things that are happening to deal with that issue. Because in my long years on the Council, I don't remember time when this Council has been so active in dealing with what has always been a significant issue within this borough. And I say that, and that includes my previous leaders' Council as well. And I'd just like to mention one or two things that are happening in that area. First of all, as members will know, we are a pilot for the decent home standards in the private sector, something that we've fought to get. And if progression was done just for 12 months now, the result, perhaps not surprisingly, is that about half of the properties that have been examined do not reach the standard of these records is normal or required in the social housing sector. And some of them, though, don't even reach the standard that normally applies to the legislation before this came out. So that's a real challenge. But we are the pilot that's doing the work to determine that. And it will, of course, be followed up. We're now introducing selective licensing in eight of the inner wards. And that's good. And that will require landlords or anybody else with private rent accommodation to register and to comply with whatever is necessary to keep them up to standard. There we are going to get some sum. I forget just what it is. I always get mixed up what's confidential and what isn't. But that's really good investment. And obviously that will be used either to improve the properties where landlords are not playing the game and are not doing it. We will intervene and do it. Or, if they're not suitable in any case, in an area, demolition is very much on the cards. And we will do that, too. So we're dealing with here with something that has always been around. And I'm so glad. And so thankful for all the officers concerned. We know that it's a secret. No, the OBE isn't a secret, does it? No. So Anthony, of course, has got the OBE. And a lot of that is in recognition of the important work that he's been doing as well as the rest of the team in this direction. So these are challenging and exciting times. Sorry, Councillor Taylor. I'm going to have to stop you there. You've gone right. Okay. I know there are problems. You're all doing very well and I hope you'll be all being involved in it. Thank you, Councillor Taylor. Okay, so we just have the one theme. Does anyone have any questions of improving housing quality, Councillor Mitchell? Thank you. The introduction of civil penalties through the Housing and Planning Act 2016 allows local authorities to issue penalties of up to 30,000 pounds on failing landlords. This should be a huge benefit to Council such as Blackboard that face the greatest challenges with funding housing enforcement, but often have the greatest deprivation and porous housing stock. Surprisingly, a freedom of information request in 2021 shows that Blackboard Council had not used these powers since their introduction. I've tried to request the information from officers from 2021 onwards, and I've been passed from pillar to post without any answer. I suspect this is because there's still been zero use. A third of the properties in inner Blackboard are deemed non-decent by current standards, and although this Council is talking tough on sorting the problem out and tackling rogue landlords, when they've been given the tools to tackle them, they've not used them. Approximately 80 per cent of those in these properties in inner wards are vulnerable or receiving some kind of benefit. Why are we letting these residents down? Thank you, Councillor Mitchell. Any further questions? Councillor Brookes. Thank you, Mayor. Just a touch on one or two things that Councillor Taylor talked about there. In the report, the fact that we've managed to look at 300 houses, since this pilot started, 50 per cent of those properties, 150 properties would be low, the acceptable standard, and had category one hazards in, which we should enforce against and will enforce against. The reason this enforcement didn't happen in the past was because we didn't have the enforcement officers on the ground to do it. It's as simple as that in the selective licence in areas. Fortunately, with the help of central government, we're in a pilot to try and rectify this situation, and we've received a good sum of money to increase the number of enforcement officers who have been able to go and do that and will continue to do that, along with me it remains so. But let's just understand what we're talking about. These properties below the standard, 50 per cent, most of them, well probably all of them, wouldn't meet the standards for social housing conditions. Social housing, the rented sector, is far more regulated. We need more social housing in Blackville. We've currently got about 9 or 10 per cent. Our entire housing stock is social housing against a regional average of between 17 and 20 per cent. So we need to move towards that. Not only because it will give more people a chance of a secure tenancy, rather than a six month tenancy, but it will also drive up standards across the piece. Just to take up what Councillor Mitchell just raised, don't often agree with you, Councillor. But on this occasion, you're right. Civil penalties is a better route to go down for enforcing against these landlords that aren't delivering the goods on decent standards. Where you're incorrect, though, Councillor Mitchell, because it was on my portfolio, was that we have used civil penalties. We haven't done it already. At the end of the motion, we'll be there if you go about long enough, because when I was housing portfolio, I moved us from the old, we'll go to the magistrate's court and see if we can get a final 150 quid to civil penalties, because you're right. You can take somebody for up to £30,000 if they are a rogue landlord. Difficulty with that, and it is a serious difficulty. You then get involved in the law. At the time, we move to the civil penalties. We haven't got the capacity of enforcement officers or legal advice to defend against them, which is why we had to move back. But yes, I agree with him. We should go down the civil penalty route. Thank you, Councillor Brix. Any further questions on the theme? No, in that case, we'll just move to general questions and comments on the portfolio. Councillor SLUMMING. Thank you, Mayor. It's a general question, Councillor Taylor, regarding procurement and contracts, which understands in your portfolio. I was quite a gassed just before Christmas to have been quoted as some short of £2,000 to pay for Christmas tree for the ward. We'd already had a Christmas tree that had failed and had died, and we had to replace it. On top of the almost £2,000 for the tree, I was quoted £800 to go and get a hold of for the tree. I was quoted £250 for the tree to be cut down. So approaching the Chinese age, I thought, what a lucrative business this is, because for £1,050, I can go down to being cute. I can get myself a saw, I can get myself a wheelbarrow and a spade, and I was happily chopped, and happily dig for £1,050. However, all the other ends well, I managed to secure a tree for £200. It was a cut tree. People might argue that's not sustainable. My cut tree is now helping to make some dunes, I believe, down in same town. Also, we were able to light the Christmas tree off and use that as a community event, which raised over £1,000 for our policy care services. In that regard, all the ends well. But if it's not due for imminent contractual review, could you please make sure that before next Christmas, that contract, with whoever it is for the supply and planting of trees, is revisited, because I could not justify, again, without getting to the bump-right of ward budgets, justify £2,000 for a Christmas tree. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Councillor Lomond. Any further questions or comments? No. In that case, over to you, then, Councillor Taylor. Regarding the points that Councillor Mitchell makes, when said, I think, why aren't you, as a Labor Councillor, doing something about the problems in the private rent sector, all I can say is, you must be joking. I've just listed the things that we are doing effectively, and there is nowhere in the country that has these kinds of problems. And some places do, there's as active as we are on this issue, because it's so important towards our people. And that's why we're doing it. Well, you've got to the Christmas trees. I mean, there's more than just the Christmas tree involved in the pricing of it, though, isn't there? So, but, yeah, you're right, okay. Well, I shall look into that and make sure that if we are over paying for what we're getting, we'll do something about it. Thank you, Councillor Taylor. So, moving on, we now have the Cabinet Member for Climate Change. Councillor Jean Hugo. Thank you, Mayor. I'm just going to refer to the weather, and I think you'll all agree that lately the weather in January has been dreadful. Not just wind and rain like today, but we've had three named storms, Henk, Aisha and Jocelyn. And yet, I'm extremely pleased to report that we haven't had any reports of significant flooding, unlike some of the parts of the country and the northwest. In fact, we haven't had any affected homes since 2020, and that was in Queen Victoria Road area, and before that, Henk's home in 2017. We work extremely hard as a Council to ensure we are flood-resilient. We work closely with our partners from United Utilities, the Environment Agency, our Highways Department, and our other counterparts from Lancaster County Council, and Blackbun with Darwin to protect our residents against flooding. We've been very successful in securing funding to mitigate flood risk and guard against climate change across all our direct threats. For example, our parks team have access quick wind funding to carry out sustainable drainage schemes at Stanley Park and Fishers Field. These projects have been recognised as best practice by other authorities, as some think our neighbours plan to replicate, so they too can put in extra measures to protect against flooding. In addition to this, our coastal protection assets are second to none. We have not had any breaches despite the recent storms, and we continue to hold the line. This is all great news, but we're not resting on our laurels. The Environment Agency and Defra are continuing to support Blackbun and have allocated 130 million for further coastal protection projects as outlined in my report, and I'd like to thank all the officers for their ongoing commitment and dedication and efforts to ensure we keep Blackbun protected. Thank you. Thank you, Council Hugo. So we have theme one, which is climate adaptation and coastal protection. No. Theme two, the Green Environment. No. Theme three, play parks, area improvements. Councillor Gally. Thank you, Mayor. Just before I comment on play parks, I echo every one of your great words, Councillor Hugo, about the work that the team have done, and yourself as well. I know you've been at all of those meetings, both here in Blackpool and around Langshua and Ferva are here, so thank you for that. Anyone who's been on the end of the floor never forgets it, or the smell. Play parks. There is a concern, Mayor, that the parks team are going to change the way that friends groups work with them in terms of the contribution of VAT on play equipment. That means if a friends group is raising X amount for a swing, in the past, the relationship has always been there that the friends, sorry, the friends group will pay for the non-VAT money, and the parks team will cover the 20%. There is now talk that that arrangement is going to start, and the friends groups will be paying all of it, including that extra 20%. Bear in your mind, all of us as Councillors at different points of how fun play equipment with our board budgets, that means we're taking less out of our board budgets, sorry, more out of our board budgets, to pay that cost, which seems bonkers. So I don't know if you're aware, this may be something that's been done without necessarily involving you, so if that's something you could take up with the team, I suspect there will be consequences to that. Obviously, apart from the initial 20%, my biggest fear, actually isn't a mathematical one, my biggest fear, Mayor, is that friends groups will actually say, Why do we even need to tell the parks team about what we're going to install? The biggest rain on them in the past was the fact that they needed that 20%, and it kept everybody in line. So if you can take that up with the team, that would be great. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Galley, and Councillor Nelson. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I think it's great that so many more parks are being improved at the moment and having renovations. It's absolutely fantastic, but it would be great if we can also keep up with the maintenance once these parks are set out. I know it can take a while if some of the equipment breaks, because they have to order it in, so it can take a while, but there are some things like block craving and flagstones that have seen buried off on parks for over two years now, and you think it's just a couple of flagstones, it just needs to be replaced. You know, it could eat someone, could easily trip on it, particularly in these winds when the barriers are blowing all over the place. So if once we have these new facilities, if we can just make sure that the maintenance is done, you know, in a timely manner. Thank you. Thank you. Any further questions on plate areas? No, in that case we're just going to go into general comments and questions if that's okay, Councillor Hugo. Anything? No? I got away with that rather lightly, I think. Over to you. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Councillor Galley, thank you for bringing that to my attention. I'm totally unaware of that arrangement, so I shall certainly look into that and I completely understand the point that you're putting across there, so I'll find out more and get back to you on that. And Councillor Ellison, yes, there's nothing more frustrating is the way you know you've got a nice facility and it can't be used because there's a problem and when that drags on and on, it's not great for anybody. I'm aware that the parks have got their own development plans and I'll make sure that any new work maintenance is built into that, and I think if anybody's got concerns of things dragging on for longer than feel is appropriate, if you let me know or the officers know and we'll see if we can expediate those issues. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Hugo. So on to the cabinet member for Children's Services, Councillor Jim Hobson. Thank you, Mayor. Happy to present my report and take any questions. Thank you. Thank you. So on to theme one, the family safeguarding model. No. Theme two, demand management. No. Theme three, better start extension. No. Feels oh, I should ask you something. So, Councillor, general questions or comments. Councillor Mitchell, Councillor Carl Mitchell. Thank you, Mayor. We're all aware of officers' efforts to reduce our reliance on expensive residential placements by supporting families to stay together. Although its early role out, the numbers have reduced, but somehow we've still overspent 6 million, even though the children's budgie was increased by 4 million this year. Scary to think, costs are going up faster than we can reduce the numbers. As an exposter carer, I was thrilled to sit on children and young people screw to me. I believe that when I attended screw to meetings, I would have the opportunity to assist in reversing this trend of exponential increasing costs. However, the massive amounts of suspended dots seem to get really discussed. Scrutiny doesn't seem to me to tackle the real issues. Scrutiny should be about collective problem solving. Instead, officers tell us about what the problems are and answer their own questions. Last year, I went to one meeting, about a pre meeting, about another meeting, because I actually arrived at a screw to me committee. If you take into account screwing your leadership, which is another meeting about meetings, to what ends, we don't like to believe we're making a difference, but when I spoke last year with officers about providing our own children's own, I was shut down and told it wasn't really a good idea. Apparently, this was due to historically poor inspections and the possibility of they've been left empty. What I might not be used when the costs are so substantially less. I've aware it's now been looked in tough, which is great, but why didn't this decision come from Scrutiny, and why didn't it happen years ago? We pay officers hundreds of thousands of pounds to look after our services, and as councilors, we should be making sure we get value for money for the taxpayer. The single biggest issue first in Blackpool right now is around 90% of our costs spending is going on social care, which is bought from 60% just a few years ago. All the talent and experience in this room, we should be able to expedite the solution. However, or sorry, whoever government is in this time will not be turning on the taps to make this level of spending it's up to us to fix it. I would never want to see us turning our back on any child that needs our help. We should be careful of providing better care for our children without overexposing ourselves to what is clearly a broken market. We could be providing well-paid jobs within Blackpool and still spend less than we do now, but while we pour millions into this private residential Black girl, everyone loses. All the services get squeezed and our hard-working families have got another full council tax rise to cook on top of one of the highest council tax burdens in the country. Thank you, Councillor Metro. Any further questions or comments on the portfolio? Councillor Williams. The Blackpool market, this is national. The amount that has been in the media and the government has ignored an in-depth report, the recommendations are there, the steps to take to reform this because it's a national scandal, the cost of residential children placement. In terms of looking at, well, I'll leave that point to overstepping the mark because it really makes me cross. Do you not think there are any consequences that your government could be held responsible for? This is national policy and they've got the answers, they ask for it, they've got a report and they've ignored it and our children continue to suffer. At the same time, this council has committed time and time again to prioritise the children. So this isn't a Blackpool, just a sole Blackpool issue and we've held our nerve and continue to fund whether the local authorities haven't and we've protected our children and there's other authorities that haven't invested, didn't hold their nerve and now have it, unfortunately, sadly, I'll pay the price because it's going to cost them even more because the government hasn't done anything to fix the problem, which I'd say is a national scandal. Thank you. Okay, Councillor Williams, any further speakers before I hand over to Councillor Hopson? No? Over to you, Councillor Loughton. Thank you, Mayor. Councillor Mitchell, thank you for the question. I actually take your point on quite a few points that you raised within what you have said there. Towards then the last year, I attended a National Social Care Conference and I met quite a few counterparts from both Labor and Conservative and I was yet didn't leave any of them who weren't significantly overspending on children's services and as Councillor Williams pointed out, this has a national problem, the government can fix this, they can stop the absolutely immoral charges that these private providers are making. Would you go to your point around scrutiny? I'm sorry that your scrutiny experience hasn't been what you hope for. I really value scrutiny. I do see scrutiny as that critical friend and a quite welcome. I want challenge from scrutiny. So, I mean, as you know, we do have a meeting in the very imminent future to look at some of the points that you raised. So, I'm sure we can put a bit more meat on the bones in that meeting. So, thank you, Councillor Mitchell. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Councillor Hobson. So, we're now on to the Cabinet Member for Leveling Up People, Councillor Joel Farrell. Thanks, Liz. So, before I present my report, I just want to be like, you know, about Black Hill Caring Service and it's won two National Awards, the Food for Life Bronze Award and the Pro-Veged School Plates Award. The Food for Life Award shows that the school food provided by our catering service is healthy and used as seasonal ingredients. People's impairments are also involved in planning any improvements to school menus and the lunchtime experience. Every food pool is also given the opportunity to visit a local farm and take part in cooking and food growing activities. The catering service is also leading the way in the region as one of the of two councils in the Northwest to win the Pro-Veged School Plates Award, which recognise this healthy and climate friendly school menus across the UK. Black Hill is one of only nine councils nationally to win this award. The dishes served to our children are nutritionally balanced and tasty, encouraging children to try and not for more sustainable choices at lunchtime. Lunches can include sweet potato and chickpea curry with whole grain rice and arm bread, sweet and sour veggie noodles and the plant power for heat to wrap with savoury vegetable rice. I fancy going back to school for lunch. Definitely better than when I was there. These awards will help to continue to open up conversations around the importance of making healthier food choices and also educating our children about the impact their food can have on the environment as well as their mental and physical well-being. Our catering service is growing from stem to stem and these awards are another example of how the team worked tirelessly to improve the service so I just want to say well done to Derek and all of the team. That happens to present my report, take any questions, thanks Mayor. Thank you Councillor Farrell and please pass my best wishes on to Derek and the team. I had these guys before you took over and it's such fantastic team as the kit and team but they'll be dead proud. Yeah another award for them fantastic. Okay so we've got theme one tackling tobacco addiction and a smoke-free generation. Any questions? No? Theme two, capital investment in community sport and leisure facilities. Councillor Kelly. Thank you Mayor. Excellent work, Councillor Farrell, and the U.M. Yes he's, sorry I'm full of coal so my brain isn't quiet. So I just had that vote now. Apologies, apologies. Yeah excellent work on that but crucially actually what I liked about it was the recognition that it's the community sport facilities and leisure facilities actually matter and why do they matter because all the things that we do when we're five years old and we're out there playing and all those social relationships are forged often in informal spaces where people play. My worry is and I'm not going to be too harsh on you because I don't want to sort of reward you with someone's type of horrible questioning around this when you put it in but my question is more around okay whilst this is going on great but what about all the spaces where this isn't going on and in that pool so our vision is on this side has always been that we want to create a green space for we're in 15 minutes where every child lives in walking distance and so if we take the town centre and bearing in mind your portfolio is levelling up that's really important so a child at the moment they want to play football in the town centre then they have to play on a car park and there is no green space where you can put your coats down and play football there isn't certainly no green space where there are football posts and why does that matter in terms of levelling up agenda because that starts to shape where people live. Currently if you have a child and you would want to then move to the suburbs rather than stay in the town centre and obviously Blackpool's aspiration is to bring people into the town centre to work it should equally be that they want to live here and for that to happen kids need somewhere to play and yet whenever we talk to grow from prosperity about it they say well we're going to put a bit of green space in and we might put a tree on it or we might put a little flower bed on it but they ain't going to ever put any goalposts on it and so we need to challenge back and say actually that's not good enough we need green spaces in our town centre when we're doing the capital projects that actually will allow some space for kids to play on. Thank you Councillor Gally. Any further questions or comments? Oh Councillor Hugo. Thank you Mayor. Yeah I've got a couple of things on the pro vegetables really and so yeah thank you for the contribution there to the the climate emergency much appreciated and the great work that's going on there. Secondly if I may the green space I think holds a little bit with my portfolio so I just wanted to take the opportunity to say that young people in the town centre take your point and we absolutely do need more green spaces completely across Blackpool everywhere but with your 15 minute walking point most young people in the town centre can get to Stanley Park just about on 15 minutes I know certainly in in Talbot Ward Street like we can do that and on the opposite end if the tides not in there's a great football pitch right on our our doorstep and also in our ward we've used our ward budgets to make some brilliant green space in our back alleyways. Thank you. Thank you Councillor Hugo. Any further questions or comments? No. Oh. There's no also the the mugger in the Talbot in Brunswick area which does have green space in it where you could do a miniature football pitch if that's what you really want but there's a lot of other things you can exercise yourself on and that's easier to say 5 to 10 so I take you forward and we'll be more for the rest of that so you'll be able to walk away. Thank you. Thank you going for my honbries. Okay in that case all which of you, Councillor Farryl? Thank you Mayor. How did you go? So what I was going to say so 15 minutes walk on the town centre we've got Stanley Park and we've got the sports centre as well and we were also coming on but we're working on the Red Bull sports village as well so that's about to happen for our young children down there and they've also got Red Bull Park and your point Councillor humbries about Brunswick that is going to be upgraded as well that mugger and the new utility for the boys and girls are going to run that as well so but I do tell you everybody quite I always said we need more space in the town centre and a lot more please. Thank you. Thank you Councillor Farryl. So moving on we've got cabinet member for levelling up please. No I'm good to move on now sorry. A cabinet member for levelling up please. Councillor Mark Smith that was general questions Councillor Baker we've already done that. Yeah for either thank you Mayor. I just want to present my report to Councillors even. There's a lot of detail of the projects we've achieved over the last few years and going forward this year you can see some of the projects we've been working on over the years actually open. We're looking at the new car park we talked about car parks along with the 1406 car park and spaces we're looking at the iMac cinema opening with included with the executors there's nine screens there including the iMacs. Also we've got the tram line going up the target road with interchange with the new holiday in and the new marker here white Italian diner. Since 2011 when I got elected I've seen a lot of change across Blackpool. One being the new council offices and the new Sainsbury's building on Talbot Road which replaced the down buildings and buildings there. Also we've seen we have 7.8 million regarding the credit card spending from the left which improved the roads pathways and many of the shop fronts on Talbot Road, Dean's Gate, Edwards Street, Tophan Street. So there's a lot of regeneration work over the years that's already happened but always looking to go more in the future. Also 11.0 is not just about big buildings about improving the roads and access across the town. Over the number of years we've invested lots of money from government support grants to improve repair all our bridges across the town which makes it easy and access across the town better for everybody which easily makes it easier for people to get employment jobs get to work better and quicker for their employment but was that maybe important to the council season there. Thank you Councillor Smith. So theme one regeneration projects before turns out the jobs. Yes anyone? No? Okay. Theme two, good afternoon prosperity, 2023 achievements and projects underway. No? There's quite a few there. Sorry. And then we just have a bit at the end on selective licensing. So I'm going to open it up to general questions and comments. So I'll take you first Councillor Baker since I never took you last time so. Thank you Mayor. My question basically was could I get an answer that I posed to Councillor Williams before and about the revenue that comes in from fines. Thank you. Hey Councillor Baker. Thank you. Did you say Councillor Nelson? Yes. Thank you Madam Mayor. It's regarding the reimagined buses. When the reimagined buses, bus routes, blackboard transport. Yep. So before Christmas when it came out that the bus services were changing or reimagined as they branded it, they did put some fantastic advertising out that looked really snazzy and said there was going to be AMB services that type of thing but it was very difficult to actually find out the route changes and the timings until the 7th of January when the bus service started and that's when the problem started. I've had lots of complaints from residents. It doesn't feel like reimagined buses. It's just bus cuts really. Services that used to be four times an hour and now twice an hour and not even going anywhere near where they used to and the number of residents that have complained is quite high including myself because I don't drive and I take buses and I think in this day and age when we're trying to encourage people to use public transport, we should be improving it and not cutting it. So it's been quite a disappointment and I'm hoping that there will be some more consultation and feedback from the transport users that we can look at to see which services have worked and which haven't if that's possible. Thank you. Thank you Councillor Slumman. Oh, we've got a few here. Councillor Slumman first. Thank you, Max. To follow on pretty much from what Councillors has just discussed about buses and there they are banging on about there being no direct bus routes to the hospital. There are direct bus routes to the hospital and some of them doing to sec. However, there was still no direct bus routes to the six wards north of this town. They've been, you know, with me, obviously Norbrek, Walbrek, Bispon, Inksop, Ankerzone and Norbrek, largely residential areas. I've had a lot of people complain. One gentleman said to me at moment, it feels like we're living in a town with two halves where there's a focus on regeneration and the town centre and it's at the cost of maintenance and development to the residential areas and lots of people are saying that to me. Although that's unpalatable, they accept the regeneration beforehand. We've also got to consider, in terms of the buses, and say Blackfield Victoria is one of the largest employers in this town and the town is largely certainly Northern and occupied by families, young children and a significant amount of elderly residents who are more likely at some point to need to use the hospital or to attend a better place of work. The residents are largely economically active, contributing to the town's economy or retired having made a lifetime contribution to the economy of the town. So they're badly right to expect that further. I've got residents and I've got colleagues at the hospital who'd happily use public transport to get to and from work if it didn't involve multiple changes of course, particularly at shift times and visiting times which often join periods of darkness and I'd also point out that one of the connecting services for the North of the town seats is operation at 7pm, right in the middle of visiting and certainly before people were able to get home from work. Ignoring transport needs of those residents actually forces us, actually means we are, as Councillor Ellison said, forcing more cars onto the road which is totally at odds with our mission to reduce car usage and it also raised once again something that went ignored in your previous written reply to me that I did raise, that it's an unfair situation whereby residents are having to use split routes to the hospital and having to pay £2 for each leg of their journey as opposed to those fortunate living on the direct route who are only having to pay two and yes, they could get a data kit but it still places them at a financial detriment. So I would urge consideration to be given to the points raised and looking to provision of a dedicated hospital ticket maybe that could be capped at £2 but residents and staff alike purchased to complete all legs of their journey to the hospital just to mitigate that financial burden a little bit please. Thank you. Okay so we have Councillor Diane Mitchell and then it's Councillor Wilshaw. Thank you Mayor. There are some major plans coming together in the town centre which is great to see. However, having seen a recent survey that was carried out asking local people which area of Blackhall was most in need of investment and the almost unanimous response being Bond Street and Waterloo Road. I feel it is only right that I ask again what the council is planning to do about this area. Councillor Taylor mentioned lots of investment, the main trigger but is any of that planned for Bond Street. I still haven't been included in any meetings to discuss regeneration, this would be really interesting. The Hartz Building is a complete eyesore and doesn't inspire local investment in new business, old business, tourism in the area is suffering, the hotels, the guest houses, they need to have people that want to come to that area. I support the Council with regards to the heritage protection status but working with the owner quickly is imperative before what remains collapses. So I ask again what if any are the council's plans for this area. Thank you. Thank you Councillor Mitchell. Councillor Wilshaw. For our future business rate returns, what happens to business rate income is fully retained by the government in the future. Thank you. Thank you. Then we've got Councillor Baker and then Councillor Galley and I'm going to draw it to close there. Thank you, Mayor. I just want to reiterate something that I've said in this chamber before and I've written to Blackhall Transport several times about there's not one boss that goes across Martin Moss. I think it's a poor set of affairs when the last part of the town doesn't even have one boss at all at any time of the day and as people have to travel or walk, taking their children to school opposite sides of them, the Moss really opposite ends of Michelin Road, passing each other on the way. Old people and somewhere having to walk 1.9 miles to get to the nearest bus stop. So I think that's a poor set of affairs and I'd like to see some improvement in that, please. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Baker. Councillor Galley. Thank you, Mayor. It's a follow-up on a question that I asked at last fall council for you, Councillor Smith, which you get provided me with a written response for. I'm conscious as a member of the public in and the press who didn't receive the written response. So I will paraphrase that slightly, Mayor, but the response or the question I asked at the time was about the overcast -- sorry, the delays on the project, the Tolbert Gateway Mark II project, which is the hotel and the tram extension, and therefore what was the subsequent costs and who was paying for them? Great question. And crucially, it needs to be asked as in terms of our role as elected members in our ability to make sure the council spends its money wisely. The response I got from the members of the public and those that are watching and the press was that the original budget was $34.6 million and that there is a dispute over this and as a result of that, this item is now an exempt item and for anyone who has been on scrutiny, will you be familiar with this answer? This is therefore commercially sensitive, which we fully understand if there is a dispute ongoing. The question therefore, though, Councillor SMITH, is that can we have some undertaking from yourself that when that dispute has been settled that you will commit to being completely transparent with the chamber and subsequently provide us with a new written answer that actually tells us what the overspend is and who has paid for it. Thank you, Councillor Gally. Over to you, Councillor Williams. Oh, sorry, yeah, but I did say I was drawn to her cause, sorry, you have asked me for a break. Okay, Councillor SMITH, I can see a theme here and the theme here is buses. Thank you, Mayor, thank you, and the questions, I don't know, we get as many questions, I don't know, we're not paying for it, you know, so, and I think most of regard is the buses, so can I take all three buses as one item? I got down here. Sorry? Okay, I'm going to take all three buses because the buses are actually run by BTS, which is an absolute company from the Council, so I don't have no input to the buses itself because I don't down the bus time tables, all of those, we had 506,000 pounds for B-sit plus to improve and add bus routes and timings to the network, so I'm glad this has been recorded because there's lots of detailed questions in there, so what I'm going to ask is, all those questions be raised and passed on to the Chair of BTS, so they can actually get back to us the proper detailed response to your questions, because I can't answer all those questions you tonight, but I think it's the responsibility of BTS to respond. Can we do that, please? Thank you. So with parking, okay, parking, I did get the figures here, so I'll scrub it on a bit of paper somewhere, which now I can't find on the bottom, yeah. Right, fines across Blackville last year, we received 964,000 pounds in parking fines. Compared to other local authorities, I mean, Blackville remembers the business tourism town in the country with 20 million visitors, compared to Bolton, which is 1.2 million, and Burnley, which is 1.1 million, which is a shadow of another seaside resort down in the South of the country called Brighton, which was 11.2 million, so I think our parking fines are not as high as other parts of the country, so but we do sort of, people, the reason why, the reason we get fines, because they part their car legally out, and we aligns in places where it causes hazards to people who get across the town or get in the way of parking, or not, or overstay, it may be in the car parking, which is a stops over people using that car park, but there are more money raised from car parking, goes back in to maintain the roads and network we've got, so when it's raised, it's reinvested in the town. Councillor Aye, Mitchell. Yes, I echo your concerns and frustration with the, that was down in Bunch Street and Waterloo Road. Yes, and the old Hart's Building, which was a lovely place many years ago, and I actually went in there many people before it was trading, and I think I've bought some, probably, some dequismus decorations years ago from the store, and I have seen in the past that there's been an ambitions plan to renovate that property, and I think that's been kept into planning before, so, but we are working, we want to sort of transform the whole town and improve the whole town, but fortunately some funding bids only restrict us to the town centre, so what we, where we can get investment of funding, we will spread it across the knee of the town where it needed the most, but yes, I, I've been done in, and I can see it does, it has, there's been some investment needed in that area, so we'll do work and with our funding and investment we can do to improve the area down there for you. EZ. Yes, I think this question got asked at the meetings last week regarding the funding, when we do investments on the EZ, we've money is borrowed to do, we're building the new sort of access road through and the investment into generating the 5,000 jobs over the 25 year cycle, so far it's been going eight years, enterprise zone, and we've generated over, there's been an increase of over two and a half thousand jobs in that area, so more than halfway through the target 25 year plan, looking to build the new access road to go across there, which is going to, we've got seven and a half million from Townsdale to aid that development, that releases a 10.5 heck to the land, it gives the opportunity to develop that site, so, but the borrowing is based on the future, we borrow money based on improving the area, based on the long term business rate generating the future, so we borrow money, there's payback, when the development happens then we receive the money from the business rate, after 25 years I couldn't tell you, I don't know what happens at that point in time, hopefully all borrowing will be paid off and it'd be self-sufficient, but the borrowing mechanism is funded by in future business rates that's raised from there. Paul Garley, your question, thank you. Yes, we did get a response, you know, we are working with the developer on that site and some issues need to be resolved, but once everything's finished and issues have been resolved, I will come back to four counts and let you know. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Smith. All right, as soon as we've still got four reports and some emotions to go, I've had an appeal for a quick break, you're only going to have to wait now, Councillor Benson. Yeah, so can I suggest if anyone does need a comfort break, they go now, we'll be back here at 25 to 8, thank you. Okay, sorry to keep you hanging there, Councillor Benson, but now I want to hear your report. Can you remember for young people and aspiration? Thank you, Mayor. I just just want to put a little bit more information into some of the themes and what have you. So, sounds short. Yes, just sounds short of Academy. I've no formal update, unfortunately, but we are still working, the Department of Education is still working with the Bright Futures Trust to broker and move to another Multimedia Academy Trust, but that may take some time. So, if I do get any information, I will obviously feel a Councillor. We are very concerned still about the number of exclusions of the young people attending with unmet need. There's a high number of pupils at South Shore with special needs and educational disabilities, and as an authority, we are supporting the school with educational health care, plan reviews, where necessary to support with school moves or review of practice. If a parent has requested a move, this will be processed through the usual route with an educational care plan review and consultation about a new school move. We're still holding meetings with our head of schools and the Chair of Governors and the Trust's lead to school improvement to these pupils that are affected. An educational psychologist is working closely with our special educational needs co-orders in the school. I just want to give members a little bit more information about Langdale and some Councillors that might need that information. So, just for information purposes, Langdale was a free school, three building on Warbreak Drive, and that was shut at the end of summer term 2023. That wasn't our decision. The decision was made by the Department of Education. The schools suffered from relative low numbers on roll, and there was no capacity to then the school site. All pupils have now been accommodated in the local primary schools and have settled well in their new schools. So, it's a three. There's three buildings on that site. We'll be leasing one of the buildings, and that'll be used for specialist send provision. We can extend the provision offered, which will keep more children in Blackpool and reduce those out of Burra costs. Although these are early tentative arrangements for the building, that we will be leasing will be for education other than at school. Small groups provision. Our special educational needs and disability information and advocacy service will be held there. We may be doing speech and language support, send assessments. That's not an exhaustive list, but you get the general theme. The other building will be leased from the education of the Department of Education by an alternative provider for children with educational health and social care plans, who may struggle in a mainstream setting. That further again reduces those out of Burra costs. We're still in the early stages of the third building, but we'll be looking at a range of creative options, which will benefit the community. Very much building on the family hub model, but for send. Oh, I've got something really good. Okay, listen, I'm going to allow it a bit, but it'd be really good. Well, it's not. I just wanted to, because we do hear a lot about the platform and the work that, and I know it has come to Council, but I just wanted to read, and I find it, a little case study about some of the work that they're doing there, and this one is particularly around one of our care levers. So the success of functional skills education at the platform has had a huge impact on the lives of our care leaves, and we know how vulnerable those young people are and those opportunities that they need. So functional skills at the platform remove barriers for one particular young mom. These include, he's been excluded from mainstream education as having autism spectrum disorder. Black Pilgrim File College provided tailored support with a designated tutor, allowing him to succeed and achieve his own pace. This gave him confidence to go on to successfully complete the Princess Trust team course, and he was able to complete a level one qualification. He's since applied for work experience at the recycling centre, and also has applied for a part-time job at Martin Mircaravan Park. He's now able to successfully create his own CVs, including qualifications and work experience he has subsequently gained. His current aim is to complete his functional skills to a level two, so he can apply for an apprenticeship. Through the support of the platform and working in direct conjunction with the college, he's taking the opportunity to improve his employability, goals and skills. That's just a small snapshot of some of the work that they're doing there with some of our young people. Thank you very much. Happy to take questions. Thank you very much, Councillor Benson, and can I just echo that the platform is a great resource for the young people of our town. My 20-year-old has had to access it recently, and they've been nothing less than fantastic with her, so yeah, I definitely echo that. So we're going to take it theme by theme again, so we've got Schools Update, Councillor Michel Scott. Thank you, Mayor. Councillor Benson, I'm sure it won't surprise you that I'm standing up on this item. Obviously, Councillor Danny Scott and I were involved when Landaar School closed, and supported families to find alternative schools at very short notice, supported by offices. I was a bit disappointed, I have to say, but the first I knew about this as the Ward Council was a report that was out in the public domain, but there we are. But I wonder if there's been enough thought gone into how these buildings will be used. They're not bespoke school premises. They're in terraced houses, as they were, split across a busy road, on a crossroads, which is an accident black spot, mainly because of the school provision there previously, and we weren't without issues which impacted on the community. So to hear now that those buildings are both going to be put into use again, don't have any issue with the provision of send, obviously, but I question whether those are appropriate buildings for that provision. Residents have got use now to having six months without the regular offset of the traffic and so on. There are issues with parking, there are no off-street parking facilities, and when you add into that community family hub, I really don't know where all those people are going to park, where they're going to drop children off, drop people off. It's not really a very ideal location for the reasons that I've mentioned, and I wonder when consultation with the public is going to start on this, and indeed consultation with us is Ward Councillors too. Thank you, ma'am.

Thank you, ma'am. I'd like to really commend Councillor Benson and the relevant officers to committing to an increase in send provision in that area that it was the Langdale school, for our truly, truly most vulnerable. As a blackboard teacher myself, I've seen the impact of the national squeeze on send-specific specialists funding to increase this really is such a triumph and such a rarity, so thank you. >> Thank you, Councillor Thomas. Councillor Kupa, I'm going to make sure I get it right now. No, mine isn't a question really, it's more of a comment. I thought because I represent Ankersoe, all the questions for the council seem to sometimes come to me for some reason that I put a answer for everything. However, I had a phone call this morning which I just wanted to bring up early, and it was about, it was apparent from out of the Blackpool area who was looking to actually uproot a family and move here because of the reputation of our special schools and the provision that, and obviously the off-stead results that they get, and I just wanted to just to say, this isn't the first phone call I've had, to just commend how well the special schools both perform and indeed prepare their young people for the future, and it just shows that people are prepared to try to move into our area purely because of the provision that they have, and I just wanted to, Councillor Benson, to have that, thank you. Thank you, Councillor Kupa. Any further questions on theme one? No? Moving on then to theme two, the big education conversation. Any questions there? No? Theme three, adult education, the platform. No? Okay, I'll just allow you to answer these ones before we move on to general questions and comments. Yeah, Langdale, Councillor Scott, I'm not quite sure how to answer really because there's no change in usage, it's still going to be a school. I mean, it is good news, you know, we've got so many children going out of the boat and we've been given this provision that is now going to educate some of our most vulnerable, and I'm quite willing if you want us to settle the meeting, and I'm not even sure that we have to consultate with the residents because there's no change of usage, it has been a skill, but I'm quite willing to, you know, if you want me to get together with you and our head of skills and our head of sending, I mean, that list I've given is, you know, it's not exhaustive, there may be more, there may be less, but it is, you know, I see that as absolutely excellent news for our special school site, you know, and as those issues occur, I'm sure that, you know, you're being touched with the department or myself and we can, you know, try and alleviate residents' fears, but I just see this is a good news story, but, you know, you're the local Councillor and you will get the complaint, so this is only right that you raise them at this moment. Councillor Thomas, thank you, yes, thank you for those comments. I think that some of the themes in my report just shows our commitment and focus to the children and young people with families, with special education and disabilities in Blackpool, so all these facilities will ensure that they live happy and healthy lives in Blackpool with their family and friends in their hometown. So all these initiatives and developments will have better outcomes for children and families and making sure that send is everybody's business and send, you know, is in the community. Councillor Cooper, thank you. You're not on, you're on your own with that, because I'm called Benson, I get lots of calls from people out of town. When they go on the internet, I usually get them all about bins overflowing and what have you, so I feel your pain. Yeah, thank you very much. Our special skills are absolutely outstanding. I think they're all outstanding and yes, people have tried to move to Blackpool, that post-code lottery for that, you know, but I believe that those schools should be for Blackpool children where possible, but yeah, we're extremely proud of them and extending those provisions by the month. Thank you very much. Okay, so on to general questions. Yeah. Thank you, Mayor. Councillor Benson and Councillor Thomas, I'd like to just clarify, I was not questioning the provision of send at all. I know as much as any of us in this room, how much we need that provision and how valuable it is to our children. What I was questioning was the appropriateness of that location and the also putting in a community hub in a very densely populated residential area, which already has issues with parking and has previously had other issues when those two nteries houses were used to provide schooling. That was my point, thank you. Thank you, Mayor, but I do welcome the opportunity that you've offered, thank you. Any general questions or comments on the portfolio? Councillor Schlumman. Thank you, Mayor. Another good depth to use story. I'm not at the back of early this time. And delighting once again to advise that Norberg Academy Choir has once again reached the prestigious finals of the Bernard Olsen actual choir competition, which is going to be held in Birmingham on March the 5th. It's a really positive story for Blackpool as well as the school, because we're a town that's often highlighted for failure yet and underachievement. Their achievement to reach the finals of this competition is even more remarkable because they have been competing with all the schools, including those from the private education sector and the cathedral schools. The choir has practiced religiously for going their break times and after school, demonstrating the commitment of both the children and staff to ensure an enriching program of extra curricular activity. And I'm sure Councillor Benson, and indeed every member of this chamber, would like to thank the staff and children for their efforts and wish them well in this competition. Of equal, in fact, of more importance, we acknowledge that every day the child's education can be precious, and we will all do what we can to ensure not today's wasted or denied to our children. Sadly, however, the 600 children at the Academy have a day's education snatched from them in the name of democracy, as the school has to close to enables to go to the polls. I've been engaging constructively with the chief executive in offices, and I believe we may have found some alternative sites to use as polling stations, but use of these sites may have some financial implications for the authority. I'd ask Councillor Benson, if you assure me that you'll support me in ensuring that any financial implications do not become barriers to using alternative sites because we cannot put a price on the loss of a single day's education. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Sloem, and any further questions or comments on the portfolio? No? In that case, to you, Councillor Benson. Yeah, Councillor Scott, perhaps I must have understood your question. I do take your concerns on board, but I'm just, I think we need to sit down and talk with the offices and what are you about your concerns and how we can alleviate that. You know, it is a good thing, but yeah, I can appreciate where you're coming from, extra traffic, and what have you, and things like that, and when I probably put wrong spin on it and said it was a family hold, but that's what we kind of like a dropping session with people having activities there, one-to-one sessions and what have you. So yeah, that's kind of like going to be the model. It's not going to be an official hope, but it's going to be a hope to send an appropriate primary, fantastic news, absolutely fantastic. Those extra, I'm going to struggle. Curricular activities are so important, especially music for our young people, aren't they? What was it? Polling station. Great, Bob. I think I'm going to have to swear this and pat it over to our returning officer who sat there, and I don't know if you can answer that because I don't know if I can. It's a returning officer. It is. I mean, that's why we're looking at it in some detail, so we can look at whether we're able to charge any of the costs to making alternative properties usable to the relevant funding mechanisms that we get in different elections. So we have a funding mechanism for the PCC elections, one for general elections, the local election we have to pay for ourselves, so that's why we go through those arguments with you and see if we can find a way. Maybe wood budgets could come into play out on it. I swear that. Take controversial with. Okay, in that case, on to cabinet member for adult social care, Councillor Neil Brooks. Thank you, Mayor. Happy to move the report as presented. Thank you. So theme one, adult social care, health and community services. No. Theme two, the community team. No. Theme three, the right line. Councillor Slalman. It's just a quickie, and I won't bore you with this, by the lines, braid. I work at Blackpool Victoria Hospital, as most of you will be bored of hearing by now. We do get a lot of people that pass away at the hospital, and we do get a lot of lost property, and included in that are a lot of the by-the-line tags, and try as we might. We cannot get these collected by whoever needs to collect them to keep the costs down so that it can be reused. I just wanted to black that up for you. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Slalman. In that case, just on to general questions and comments from the portfolio, Councillor Cooper. It's simply a term I'd never ever come across before, and I didn't, and what it was, was that, in our private, supported living, tendencies. If there isn't a room that is not occupied, that there is actually a levy that comes with that. Now, I've never heard of that. In other areas, it's classified as a void tenancy, and I almost thought, sort of, probably naively, that this would be quite a minimal cost. Now, nobody, I'm not suggesting for one minute that people should be forced into living together, if indeed, that they don't choose to, they are not compatible. However, in some properties, if there isn't a vacancy in that property, if we said to say, perhaps, a property shared by three people, if there is an empty room, it comes at a cost. Now, I thought naively, probably, that cost would be quite low, but it isn't, per day, per week, per month. Now, that I'd certainly heard of that from other authorities. I have no way of knowing whether black pool is in a similar situation, and indeed, our tendencies may all be full. We may be running at capacity. Again, I have no way of knowing that, but it was simply to know, is that possibly the case with ourselves, if we have an empty room in one of our private providers? Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Cooper. Any further questions or comments on this portfolio? No? In that case, over to you, Councillor Bux. Thank you, Mayor. First of all, Councillor Sloemann. I agree. I'm always banging on about recycling, not to buy lines, but other equipment that is no longer used from that service. I'll pursue it and find out what's going on and send somebody around for it. The other stuff is, in terms of support of living, basically, I haven't got a claim. I don't know. I will give an assurance that the officers will provide it all with a written answer on that. Thank you, Councillor Bux. So, on to the Cabinet Member for Community Safety Street, seeing our neighbourhood's Councillor for this. Thank you, Mayor. Taking it that members have had a sufficient time to read the report, but I would like to add some details to in order to give a wider explanation and some clarity. So, taking each theme in turn, under the Serious Violence Duty, under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, there is a new Serious Violence Duty placed on health, probation, police, local authorities and other agencies. To understand the picture in Blackpool, a Serious Violence Needs Assessment has been conducted and categorised the pattern of violent crime recorded in the area so that we can provide a problem profile and a long-term strategy for violence reduction. There are nine crime types for serious violence, which are homicide, knife crime, gun crime, assault resulting in injury, rape, robbery, aggravated burglary, domestic abuse and violence, and child exploitation. With the underpinning principle being that all violence is preventable, Blackpool is adopting the Lancashire Serious Violence Strategy, which will mean adopting a public health approach to prevent and reduce violence with a focus on prevention and early intervention. We are currently finalising Blackpool Serious Violence Action Plan in an effort to implement this public health approach. Here, practice informs evidence and evidence informs practice. Within the Serious Violence Action Plan, there are four thematics and examples of which could be under prevention of serious violence within the nighttime economy, establishing a safe centre to protect vulnerable rebels, assess their needs and ensure their safety and well-being. Specialists, domestic violence and rape courts, which will seek to achieve more successful prosecutions. Under enforcement, using combinations of civil tools and powers at their disposal to affect falling rates of anti-social behaviour, using enforcement teams containing representatives from all partner agencies, we have encouraging evidence that this approach has driven down the rates of ASB to be the lowest they have been in a long time and showing a continued trajectory depth of downward trouble. By adopting a more holistic approach, it allows the meaningful work to be done through which positive change can happen. Under cultural transformation and workforce development, we will push to review education through the PSHCE curriculum to ensure that awareness of domestic abuse and sexual violence forms parts of all young adults learning. Embedding green dot principles and implementing them into working practices such that it's given that interpersonal violence will not be tolerated and everyone is prepared to play their part to prevent it. We will collect and review data and conduct learning reviews with increased regularity. It's a live document which can respond to changing needs in real times. So I thank everybody who is contributed to the action plan for pulling together this mammoth piece of work. I do so because the Work Black Cool Council is being held as best practice across the country for effective sharing of information and collaborative working. Some have received several accolades for our work. The cost of serious violence across Lancashire is significant. So this is a really important new area to focus on, not only to ensure that we have less victim but also to reduce the cost to statutory partners. Councillor Baddeus, my friend, I have to stop you there. Sorry about that. Okay, so I will take questions. Yeah, thank you. Okay, so theme one which is the serious violence duty, sorry, long teeth then. Anyone have any questions at all, or I think you've covered it quite well there, anyone at all? No? Theme two, trade and standards, legal selling of veeps to one of their children. Sorry, Councillor MURPHY. Thank you, Mary. What a shocking statistic that is 100% of tested premises failing the underage sales test. What we don't know is how many of the providers or the retailers of these products that relates to what proportion of those retailers that you answer to. But while that is telling us something needs to be done because they know it's illegal, they're disregarding the fact that it's illegal. This 100% of those premises tested are doing it. I would place a fair bet that a lot more of them are as well. So I would like to see that the Council will be taking proactive measures to tackle this and make examples of those who are blatantly disregarding the law and putting our young people at risk. Thank you, Councillor Scott. Any further questions or comments on theme two? No, in that case any general questions or comments on the portfolio? Councillor MASH. Thank you, Mary. I have two points of interest I'd like to raise. The first one being around street lighting and a lack of it within the town centre. I've been contacted by a number of prominent local businesses who are reporting ongoing levels of anti-social behaviour in and around Clifton Street and Market Street. Business owners are worried that inadequate street lighting is contributing to the number of rough sleepers are using shop doorways as a place to congregate sleep and in some instances use a public toilet. Indeed, the email I received was reporting employers are arriving for work in the early hours of the morning often to have to clean up other people's pieces. Then there is the issue around safety and the public's perception that lowly or poorly lit areas are a magnet for those with criminal intentions. Basically we are creating no-go zones within the town centre when we should as a council should be doing everything in our powers to increase football for residents and businesses alike. Can the cabinet member comment on the lack of street lighting within the town centre and in order to support local businesses can we request the full review of the street lighting going forward? This leads me onto my second subject which is CCTV. At the cost of £2 million residents were promised a state-of-the-art CCTV installation across the resort with the control centre costing around £345,000. Given what appears to be ongoing issues whereby commercial shop windows are being smashed on a somewhat regular basis i.e. Sainsbury's the former debonam site savers are more recently the hive. Can the cabinet member confirm that the state-of-the-art CCTV is being used effectively when trying to catch the perpetrators of this type of crime? Now I'm not questioning the clarity of the images caught by the new system as along with council of rocks many couple of years ago we had the fortunate pleasure of seeing these images and indeed they are a vast improvement over the previous system. However this type of crime causes a huge inconvenience and often cost to the business owner when seeking repairs and replacement of that glass which is often bespoke and tied up in insurance claims. If it is not the acting if the CCTV is not acting as its terror and it does not appear to be identifying the perpetrators the question I asked with the cabinet member is what is its purpose and was it worth £2 million? Thank you very much. Thank you councillor Walsh any further general questions or comments? Councillor. Councillor Scott. Thank you Mayor Mine will be very quick I just want to follow on from Councillor Walsh who's point about CCTV the police seem increasingly to be reluctant to charge people if they don't have CCTV evidence and particularly in some of our green spaces and those types of areas so we need to make even better use of the CCTV system that we have and extend it throughout the town it's not being used to its full extent in the town centre as we know and it's needed in other areas of the town to protect our residents. Thank you Mayor. Thank you Councillor Scott. Councillor Walsh can you turn your microphone off please. Thank you Councillor Williams. Yes it was just a point as Councillor Scott has just said crime this is an issue for the police how they use the CCTV evidence so I think the question whether it's worth £2 million if you're referring back to in terms of reduction and investigation of crime that needs to be levelled at how the police have used that CCTV evidence they arrest and charge people for crimes not the council. Thank you Councillor Williams. Okay over to you Councillor Bredes. Okay so Councillor Scott I can't give you the exact numbers in terms of the extent of illegal sales of Bates in terms of the operators but what I can tell you is something about the priorities of our trading standards team and they're in dealing with retailers with illicit cigarettes and bait and the premises they operate from. Our strategy has been to investigate and prosecute every successful seizure in the past. This proved to be resource intensive making the cost of bringing the actions far outweigh the penalties handed out by the court taking the enforcement of team away from the critical function of visits. Now by adopting a visit-based strategy and visiting multiple premises every week we are finding illicit products on 62% of enforcement visits our top priority is removing illicit product from the market. We believe that in adopting such a strategy that more frequent visits to problematic premises is benefiting local communities in multiple ways including removing more illicit product from the market and thereby making it harder to access more disruption to illicit trade makes it more difficult for criminals to operate. Better use of officer time improving service efficiency our officers are becoming more skilled in finding increasingly complex and sophisticated concealment and operators of the illicit retail premises are being it hit harder in the pocket through removal of stock and discovery of expensive concealment than they would be through any fine imposed by the court. What this also means is that we can prioritize the worst premises and individuals and focus investigations and prosecution in the worst cases which is more likely to be successful. We are also able to enforce the provisions of the proceeds of crime act against the landlords of problematic premises should they fail to take action to prevent their premises from being used for criminal purposes. So I hope that answers some of you question it is a large problem but I can if as you've asked see if we can get the exact numbers for the extent across the town so I take your point on board. Again Councillor I can't I know that there are plans to develop the street lighting right across the town and upgrade it and certainly in the near-rest future we are looking at the be who you want to be so we will see almost immediate changes there. There are no no-go areas in the town centre so as far as I'm aware that where there are kind of where it is has been shown to be an issue then these will be addressed in reply to your point about some rough sleepers in town. I would like to advise you that as of this morning that we are taking legal action there that the injunction will be handed on that particular couple so we are enforcing there and we do enforce where there are problematic rough sleepers they are a couple who are not engaging they are intentionally homeless they have been offered support and they have refused to engage so there will be litigation against them. As you've said you've seen the CCTV command centre and it's not about the quality of the picture I can't comment as to the criminality as to how the police use that information I do know that that system speaks directly to Hutton so I just can't comment as to how they use that evidence and again Councillor Scott is the same I can't comment as to how the police use the CCTV evidence but what I do know is that we've got a very good system and it is being expanded so it does keep the and also it's not just about the crime in the area the CCTV is the use of the CCTV system is far, far wider than any of you have mentioned in this case and it is certainly more than paper purpose so I actually disagree with you saying that you question whether it's serving its purpose because I have the one I'm very happy that it's there thank you Mayor thank you Councillor but this so moving on we've got oh Councillor sorry Councillor Scott thank you Mayor Councillor Bades thank you for your response to my question um unfortunately it didn't really answer it because I was asking about underage sales of fapes and your question I think referred to illegal sales of tobacco so that was my understanding but if you could get the figures for us with regard to how many premises have been tested and what proportion of those have been found to be acting illegally thank you thank you Councillor Scott Councillor Walsh yes thanks a little bit rich or a little bit poor to say that there is no responsibility for the Council it was the Labor Group that championed this state of the Art 2 million pound CCTV Councillor Brooks championed it when he was bought folio called it um so much so that the office has to be a two-way street where you connect with the local services emergency services look at Sainsbury's Sainsbury's are changing their working habits now they're actually making amendments to the actual building so people can't smash bottom windows to say that the Council is shirked of all responsibility I'm sorry but uh it doesn't sit well with me thank you Councillor Williams I don't know I think you maybe need to just replay and listen to what I actually said I didn't say that well I'm up now on to I didn't say that I said it's up to the police to arrest people and for crimes that's what I said okay I wonder if you should declare an interest and because I work for Sainsbury's I'm not sure um I do know actually what's happening with the windows but I'm not going to go into it here okay so Councillor Pointe it's combined fire authority representatives I believe it's you Councillor Bacon's presenting this time yeah thank you Mayor I've always known that you know the fire brigade or the fire services puts out fires and remove children's heads from railings sometimes and you know go to motor accidents and get people out of wreckages when I came into this position with the Lancashire combined fire authority I didn't really know the extents of what they do and it's opened my eyes a lot you know um the wide rating activities I mean the prince's trust that they're involved to a heavy degree with that I didn't realize that you know helping young adults in the development of the new skills and and I such giving them a lot more confidence for adult life the international support and rescue team we've sent people out to Morocco recently to the earthquake there and also to the Turkish terrorist attacks for which by the way they want a BBC award for bravery however getting back to the fire side of it we've had no major incidents in Blackpool in the last quarter of 2023 apart from this big fire at the top of the tower however we did end up sending out six fire engines a rope rescue team a drone team that a police air service helicopter with thermal imaging which all costs a lot of money of course for no real reason it's a shame really but anyway I'm happy to present the the Lancashire combined fire authority report for quarter for 2003 23 sorry thank you counselor baker I'm just really glad that the tower was not on fire um counselor jackson do you have anything to add counselor Hugo no so what I'm going to do is I'm going to just go through page by page it's just to see if members have any questions or comments okay so we've got page 43 counselor Benson thank you i'd just like to echo counselor baker's comments about the princess trust so it is a report about fire but some of the excellent work that the princess trust and particular some of the work that they are doing in Blackpool I'm sure yourself and the deputy mayor have been to some of those inspirational award cylinders and if you ever get a chance please go some of these are our most vulnerable young residents that that are possibly on the edge of criminality they gain confidence they work towards employment organized programs of community activities yesterday I was walking up corn street yes walking and I saw the guys out there doing some work in the community garden I've got quite family with the guy that runs the princess trust so we come over and have a look what we're doing and we're an absolute credit to our town thank you thank you counselor Benson I've not had the pleasure yet myself counselor hoyle has on my behalf and I'm usually working at scenes please when they do them so so yeah any more questions on page 43 page 44 page 45 page 46 page 47 um page 48 come on guys let me down here 48 no 49 or any general questions or comments no in that case I don't know if you would like to respond to counselor Benson counselor beaker yeah thank you counselor Benson I'll pass your good wishes and thanks onto the authority thank you so it's only agenda I am six whoa council cap tax reduction scheme over to you counselor final thank you mayor I formally move the recommendations 2.1 to note the impact of the scheme today has set out in paragraph 6.7 and 6.8 2.2 to agree the council tax reduction scheme 2024 to 2025 has set out in appendix 6c to agree reduction applied to working age payments remains the same as the 23 24 screen scheme agreed by council on the 1st of February 2023 and that the main elements a method of calculating the awards will be the same and 2.4 to agree to continue to operate a discretionary discount policy to be awarded in cases of exceptional hardship set out in appendix 6a and the reasons for recommendation are to assure a local council tax reduction schemes approved by the 11th of March 2024 and in place by the 1st of April 2024 avoiding the financial risk associated with the government in post default scheme I'd move and reserve the right to speak thank you councillor Fowler do you believe it's you second then councillor Williams yes is second and reserve the right to thank you any other councillors to speak councillor galley thank you mayor yes we've obviously always supported this scheme over the years and I wanted to draw members if I can uh mayor their attention to the 13.56 addition that we added um it was councillor blackburn when he was councillor and the leader at the time standing here about seven or so years ago explain why that um addition was added and it was really important at the time to roll a count and to define those who can't pay from those that won't pay um blackpool council's tax is high far too high some may say um it certainly is though something of a concern for me around that figure at the moment because the when we look back and I went back on the webcast as just uh simons words at the time and why he was introducing it there um and the spirit that sat within it and I think it roughly sorts of sits around this on page 53 the the table about who we're paying now and that it's gone down to roughly a pre covid type level what whilst that's gone to that level obviously as we know everybody else is living expenses the cost of living has gone up and my worry about where we use percentages is that whilst it's great that we do sometimes we don't actually see the real data and what we have applied I don't believe is that actually we've now got seven or eight years worth of accounts for tax increases on top of that 13.56 which therefore means that 13.56 figure is actually slightly greater than when it was introduced back here in 2017 2018 time so whilst we absolutely will support it for the reasons you said the deadlines on this are too tight not to I think as we look for this time next year that's something that we need to consider and perhaps a little bit of a piece of work to make sure that that 13.56 is still doing the same thing that it was intended to do back when Simon introduced it seven or eight years ago thank you Councillor Galley any further speakers on this no in that case over to you Councillor Frall from right to the blind thanks thanks for your comments Councillor Galley please to know that you will support this motion and obviously we will look to those speakers next year okay in that case can I ask if all work goes to that agree show of hands any of the disagree any abstentions no in that case carried thank you agenda item seven but you've adjusted service annual plan 23-24 Councillor Benson thank you ma'am happy to approve as one of the key partners the youth justice on your plan 23-24 with effect from the december 24 reserve the likes of this one thank you ma'am thank you Councillor Benson is that you okay any other Councillors to speak no so no right to reply so straight to the vote all those in agreement anyone that disagrees no I think that was unanimous thank you very much and now we have the very important council's policy in respect of maternity paternity and adoption pay Councillor Williams thank you yes absolutely delighted that we're bringing this and the happy youth which is now peace seems to have broken out across the chamber momentarily hope that that you know it obviously will continue for this very welcome report so yes moving in recommendation 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 and at 2.5 the recommendation is in relation to the appointment of Councillor Matthew Thomas for the role of replacement chair of thank you Councillor Williams Councillor Taylor your second in this I believe yeah any other Councillors to speak no fantastic well in that case I want to move on the motion those are in agreement another unanimous one thank you so agenda nine standards independent persons Councillor Williams yes thank you Mayor yes happy to move the recommendation this is the independent persons is that kind of yeah it is the same people who have done continue to do a really good job so happy to move that motion thank you thank you Councillor Williams and Councillor Taylor yes seconded any other Councillors to speak no in that case vote on the motion those that agree vote house again thank you so last item Mayor elect and date of special council meeting so that's back over to you Councillor Williams yes I'm very happy to move this I believe that the mayor elect at least we won't have the issues of what the mayor is going to call themselves maybe not so yeah I'm obviously happy to move that recommendation and congratulations again you never know I might set a trend here you know just mayor that's that easy Councillor golly thank you mayor and yeah absolutely delighted to second motion Councillor hunters I don't think there's not a member in this chamber that's got a bad word to say about him he's wonderful certainly not on this side anyway Councillor Hunter yeah Councillor Hunter is going to be a wonderful mayor I'm sure almost as good to the high standards that you set yourself Mayor and I know equally amaree is going to be a wonderful mayor s as well and I really look forward to uh to enjoy your mayor of ship and so forth so yeah absolutely delighted to second and go off to the group uh yeah okay sorry you distracted me there okay any other Councillors to speak Councillor Hunter yes um I'll be very brief mayor um the leader of the council did say make it brief because the speeches do come later on that we're going to say thank you to the leader for opposing me thank you for Councillor to Councillor golly for his very very kind words yes I am looking forward to the coming year uh with humility and pride but mainly humility to do my best to serve the people of Blackpool in that particular role I promise this this this agenda that I will do everything I possibly can to give honor and dignity to the role and mayor of Blackpool and finally I'd just like to say thank you to Councilor Critially who has kindly agreed to be the deputy mayor for the coming year so thank you to everyone thank you thank you very much Councillor Hana I have to say I'm a little bit jealous because you've got a lot more of a run in than I had and it's been Councillor Hoyle as well he just became a Councillor and at that very night I said would you like to be deputy mayor poor man um so just to make sure though that we're agreeing here to agree that Councillor Peter Hunter is invited to offer himself for election as mayor at the annual meeting on the 15th of May 2024 and also to agree that the special council meeting takes place on Wednesday the 13th of March 2024 at 6 p.m. Do we all agree to that? That's a fool house thank you very much for attending tonight be careful on your way home it's still very windy out there thank you. Please don't stop me. you [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO]