Agenda and draft minutes

Apologies for absence were submitted on behalf of Councillors; Barham, Ben Moussa, Burrell, Butterfill, Currans, Cutler, Garden and Storey.

To receive declarations of interest from Members including the terms(s) of the Grant of Dispensation (if any) by the Audit Board or Chief Officer and Director of Corporate Services.

                                    RESOLVED:

That the minutes of the meeting held on 15 November 2022 be confirmed as accurate.

The Chairman confirmed that there were no urgent items for the Committee to consider.

There were no references from other Committees for Members to consider.

The Chairman welcomed Members to the meeting and noted the presence of the Director of Housing & Public Protection, and the Head of Planning Services to respond to her draw-down request [Item 8 refers].

She had no specific matters to update the Committee on with regard to its current Work Plan or proposals for future agenda items.

To consider any issues arising from the Forward Plan for the period 13 January to 31 May 2023.

RESOLVED:

That the contents of the Regulation 9 Notice [Forward Plan] for the period 13 January to 31 May 2023 be noted.

To consider the Council’s policy as set out in the report and Appendices submitted to Cabinet in May 2022.

The Chairman informed Members that she had drawn-down the Cabinet report and Appendices of 26 May 2022 [Item 8 in the agenda], which had set out the Council’s proposals for the use of CIL funding available to support the delivery of non-strategic infrastructure within the unparished areas of the Borough to support growth from new development, to ensure that Members were aware of how the governance and allocation of the unparished CIL funding process worked.

In particular, the Chairman sought a better understanding of the consultation process to award CIL funding, so that she and other Ward Members could be best placed to advise their residents. She noted that since 2014 to the end of the 2021/2022 financial year, the CIL funding pot for unparished areas had accrued to some £2.53M. This was a significant amount of money which, in her view, demanded as transparent and straightforward an allocation process as possible, to enable Ward Members to explain that process to their residents. She referred Members to para 5.1 of the report [agenda page 15 refers], which stated in part that:

‘CIL Regulations require that the Council engages with local communities in the unparished areas of the Borough to ensure that projects funded by CIL address local neighbourhood priorities as well as meeting the additional demands generated by development in the area’.

She then invited the Head of Planning Services to detail the stages of the Council’s engagement process with local communities in the unparished areas of the Borough together with details of any CIL funding disbursed for local neighbourhood projects to date.

The Head of Planning Services advised Members that the Council’s CIL Charging Scheme had come into effect on 1 April 2014 with 15% of CIL monies collected in the unparished areas retained by the Council, as set out in detail in paras 4.1-4.6 of the Cabinet report. Paras 5.1 and 5.2 and Appendix B to the Cabinet report set out the governance principles for the management and decision making of the allocation of the CIL funding retained by the Council for the unparished areas.

The CIL funding pot for use in the unparished areas of the Borough [£2.53M as at 31 March 2022], had been primarily accrued in the past 3 (three) years from the major residential developments in the town centre and the commercial development of the Littlebrook Power Station. Those major projects were coming to an end and therefore the unparished CIL collected may slow in future subject to development identified in the Local Plan coming forward in the Town Centre. The Council had to be mindful that the impacts from growth were not necessarily restricted to the ward where the development is located that CIL is collected from. The governance arrangements for the unparished CIL therefore proposes that these apply to the broad areas of the Borough’s unparished areas as opposed to individual wards [report para 4.4 to 4.6 refers].

Regarding the consultation process with the local community (including Ward Councillors) for CIL  ...  view the full minutes text for item 29.

The report from the Committee Coordinator attached a draft Work Plan [Appendix A to the report], which detailed the Committee’s traditional annual areas of scrutiny for the ensuing 2023-24 municipal cycle together with timings.

Members were reminded that additional items could be drawn-down for scrutiny by all Groups represented on the Committee on an ad-hoc basis, as set out in the Committee’s Protocol.

                    RESOLVED:

1.     That the draft Committee Work Plan for the ensuing 2023-24 municipal cycle [Appendix A to the report] be noted;

2.     That the Plan be reviewed at subsequent meetings of the Committee in the ensuing 2023-24 municipal cycle to add new topics or defer/delete existing topics as appropriate.

A.O.B.

The Vice-Chairman noted that the meeting was the last in the current municipal cycle prior to the local elections in May and wished all Members present the best of luck if standing for re-election.

The Chairman added her own best wishes to Members and confirmed her intention to stand for re-election in May.  She had enjoyed her term as Chairman of the Committee and thanked Members of all Groups for their positive contributions to the debates, and the Committee Coordinator for guiding her through the Chairmanship process.