206 BC/19/33 ANNOUNCEMENTS FROM THE CHAIRMAN AND LEADER PDF 18 KB
In addition to any announcements made at the meeting, please see Paper BC/19/33 attached, detailing events attended by the Chairman and Vice-Chairman.
Minutes:
206.1 Councillor Grandon, Chair of Babergh District Council, referred to Paper BC/19/33, which was for noting.
206.2 She invited Councillor Ward, the Leader to make his announcements.
206.3 Councillor Ward made the following announcements:
INR & Sudbury Bypass
Following recent commentary in the media, he had decided to clarify a couple of things regarding bypasses.
Firstly, although the business case for the Sudbury Bypass was not at present sound, due to new ways of calculating the costs and benefits, Babergh was still supportive of the project. He hoped, it would be revived in the future, which was why it remained one of the goals in the new Corporate Plan.
Conversely, whilst the business case for the INR was very strong, he regrettably accepted that it would be impossible to deliver the significant additional housing needed to pay for the road. Mid and East Suffolk were already committed to meeting the government’s current housing targets in their new local plans and were unable to add any more. SCC’s Cabinet had now formally brought the project to an end. However, as he had said in the press, this was a setback for Ipswich and the whole county and he was sure it would have to be revisited at some point in the future, hopefully sooner rather than later.
Sudbury Vision Event
Last month’s ‘What Next for Sudbury?’ exhibition and consultation event was very well attended, and they had 569 completed questionnaires.
There had been feedback received and that was being worked through and would be discussed with interested parties and partners first before sharing anything more widely.
Equality & Diversity Training
The Leader provided another plea to sign up to the mandatory equality and diversity training. Just under half of Members from BMSDC have attended so far and all Members need to do this.