The Publishable Officer Decisions meeting of Hounslow Council on 10 April 2025, was scheduled to address financial and planning matters. These included inflation release requests for the 2024/25 budget, an update to the Local Development Scheme, and a realignment of budgets for the Cycleway 9 project.

Inflation Release Requests 2024/25

The Executive Director of Finance and Resources was asked to approve the allocation of £15,491,837 from the corporate inflation provision for 2024/25 to various service budgets. These requests were agreed at the Inflation Review Panel held on 27 November 2024.

The specific allocations included:

• £4,835,656 for the Local Government Pay Award
• £100,000 for Members Allowances
• £4,793 for the Environment Agency Levy
• £29,597 for Coroners and Mortuary Services
• £830,755 for Waste Disposal Levy (Pay As You Throw Element 2024/25)
• £226,425 for SEN Transport¹
• £908,044 for Waste and Recycling Collection Services (Lampton Recycle 360)
• £34,386 for Children’s Direct Payments
• £1,182,243 for Externally Provided Residential and Semi-Independent Children’s Placements and Independent Fostering Agencies
• £110,066 for Foster Carer Allowances
• £6,071,856 for Adult Social Care
• £450,217 for Corporate Services Contract
• £202,873 for Parks and Open Spaces Maintenance Contract (Lampton Greenspace 360)
• £53,758 for Building Cleaning Service (Coalo)
• £444,806 for Temporary Accommodation
• £6,362 for Highways PFI Contractor Payments

The report noted that higher inflation since late 2021 has significantly impacted the council’s budgets and costs. The Budget 2024/25 report to Cabinet in February 2024 delegated the allocation of inflation to service budgets within the revenue budget for 2024/25 to the Executive Director of Finance and Resources.

The report stated that the releases from the corporate inflation provision would aid effective budget management, having been appropriately scrutinised and challenged by a panel of senior officers.

Local Development Scheme Update

The Executive Director for Finance and Resources was asked to approve the publication of the updated Local Development Scheme (LDS), effective from 6 March 2025. The LDS sets out the timetable for the council’s Local Development Plan, including the emerging Hounslow Local Plan 2020-2041, and the West London Waste Plan (WLWP).

The update was required to revise the timetables in the LDS and to include minor wording updates for consistency and clarification. The report mentioned a newsletter from Joanna Averley, Chief Planner at the Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government (MHCLG), which stated that the Deputy Prime Minister had asked all Local Planning Authorities (LPAs) to produce an updated LDS within 12 weeks of the publication of the NPPF², i.e. by no later than 6 March 2025.

The updated LDS was scheduled to include clear, realistic, and specific dates for consultation and submission of the Local Plan, and a copy was to be sent to MHCLG once updated.

The revised timetable in the LDS targets submission of the emerging Local Plan in June 2025, with examination in Autumn 2025 and adoption of the Local Plan in Summer 2026. The updates to the WLWP timetable are relatively minor with submission date being amended from “December 2026 - August 2027” to a more specific date of December 2026, and the adoption date of the Plan revised from Winter 2027 to February 2028.

The report stated that should the council not produce and publish an updated LDS by 6 March 2025, this would demonstrate non-compliance with the government’s requirements set out in the Chief Planner’s Letter of 13 December 2024, and could result in potential Government intervention in the council’s plan making.

Realignment of Budgets for Cycleway 9 Project – Phases 3C & 3D

The Acting Director of Environmental Services sought approval to increase the scheme budgets for Phases 3C and 3D of the Cycleway 9 project to reflect the actual outturn costs of each of these schemes. Transport for London (TfL) has agreed to provide additional grant funding to reflect the higher outturn costs.

The specific recommendations were:

• To increase the budget for Phase 3C of the Cycleway 9 project by £264,597 to £1,950,077 to reflect the outturn costs of the scheme with the increased budget to be funded by additional TfL funding. Phase 3C runs along Kew Bridge Road from Kew Bridge to Watermans Park.
• To increase the budget for Phase 3D of the Cycleway 9 project by £387,320 to £3,856,886 to reflect the construction outturn costs of the scheme with the increased budget to be funded by additional TfL funding. Phase 3D runs along Brentford High Street from Watermans Park to Alexandra Road.

Since 2021/22, four phases of the cycleway have commenced, with three phases fully completed and one phase (3D) currently being audited for stage 3 road safety audit.

The report stated that the project had an increase in outturn cost due to various utility diversions and design changes, and that the LBH management fee is 10% of construction cost as approved via the S278 agreement with TfL.