To follow
Minutes:
5.1 Councillor Morley presented The Leader’s Announcements, which was tabled:
Joint Local Plan Consultation
The Leader welcomed the start of the consultation on the Joint Local Plan on Monday 22nd July. The consultation would close on 30th September and Members were asked to encourage all residents to respond.
Five-Year Housing Land Supply Consultation
Consultation of the MSDC Housing Land Supply Position Statement started 19th July. The Council was consulting on a MSDC figure of 5.61 years which includes a 20% buffer.
Active Schools Project
The Active Schools Project had been launched at Freeman Primary School in Stowupland and would be rolled out across a further 10 schools in Mid Suffolk over the next 3 years. This aimed to increase physical activity in Primary Schools and combat rising childhood obesity.
Summer Holiday Activities
Free swimming for all children (age 16 or under) between 25th July and 3rd September at Stowmarket Leisure Centre or Stradbroke Pool & Fitness Centre.
LGA Conference
The LGA Conference was attended by the Leader, Councillor Brewster and Councillor Field, as well as Arthur Charvonia, Kathy Nixon and Jonathan Stevenson (part-time). Headlines were sent to all Councillors daily, and a briefing note was sent out on their return, which included links to all the sessions.
Cabinet Member Portfolio Reports
Cabinet Members would be bringing forward quarterly reports to Council, with the first one this term, coming in September. We have been looking at the timing of these, so that they coincide with the publication of our Performance Monitoring reports
Elections Annual Canvass
The Elections Annual Canvas started on Friday 19th July. By Monday 22nd July the Council had received over 13,000 digital responses (15%).
Bin Rounds
Completion of the first week of changes to the bin rounds which affected c 70% of residents in Mid Suffolk. In general, this had been very successful with just over 200 missed bins in the first week, out of over 40k domestic bins. An extra crew had been made available over the 2 weeks in order to resolve any issues quickly.
High Street Funding
The Leader was very disappointed that nowhere in Suffolk had received any funding from the High Street Funding initiative. However, the leader restaded that the commitment to the recent Vision For Prosperity for Stowmarket, Eye and Needham Market.
5.2 Councillor Mansel enquire if all the the Portfolios Holders reports would be coming to the same Council meeting and Councillor Morley responded that the presentation of all the Portfolios Holders reports would be to the Council meeting in September along with the Performance reports.
5.3 Councillor Eburne ask if Members in the future could have the Leader’s report in advance and not as a tabled paper. She asked if Members would receive advice on how to use the figures provided for the Five-year Housing Land Supply.
5.4 Councillor Burn explained the figures would be used until the Consultation was completed and the certainty would depend on the responses. He would not as yet be able to provide a specific date when the 5.61 years would be certainty.
5.5 Councillor Otton stated the she did not entirely agree that the new bin collection routes had been successful, as Members had received complaints regarding waste collection in the District. She urged this to be looked at on a regular basis. Councillor Morley responded that this was looked at every day, but that some bins were missed due to the bin collection teams learning the new routes. Once bins had been reported as missed collections they would be collected within a few days. On a normal week only 50 bins a week were missed. The current collection rate was 75% out of 40,000 bins collected each week, which left around 200 missed bin collections. She thought this was still a success.
5.6 Councillor Stringer enquired how much the cost for the Northern Route Consultation was as the Council would be part of the funding for this project. Councillor Hicks responded that the consultation was funded by the Suffolk Public Sector Leaders fund.
Supporting documents: