Babergh and Mid Suffolk District Councils
Democratic Services

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Agenda item

The Chairman of the Council, Chairs of Committees and Sub-Committees and Portfolio Holders to answer any questions on any matters in relation to which the Council has powers or duties or which affect the District of which due notice has been given in accordance with Council Procedure Rule 13.

Minutes:

Councillor Matthissen to Councillor Morley, Leader of the Council

 

Noting that the Endeavour House lease has a break clause which can be triggered later this year, are you prepared to consider alternatives to Mid Suffolk District Council headquarters remaining in Ipswich until at least 2027?

 

Councillor Morley, Leader of the Council

 

I feel as though this is a question you have asked in different ways many times and has been answered before. But as you know this is a topic on which your group and the conservative group couldn’t agree when we were considering a coalition arrangement after the last elections. This isn’t an issue at the forefront of my mind at the moment. I do not have sleepless nights thinking about having our HQ at Endeavour House, not least of course because we haven’t really been based there for over the last 12 months. I do have sleepless nights about the pandemic, about the tragic loss of life, about the devastating direct and indirect impact Covid has had on so many of our residents lives, about what we are doing to support our residents and communities, about what more we could do, about the health and wellbeing of our communities and our businesses, and about the other really important issues facing our residents such as those raised in Councillor Otton’s question, and the wider safety of women on our streets and in society as a whole. But I respect your right Councillor Matthissen to ask this question and your wish to receive an answer. The break clause on the lease, if we were to exercise it, would need to be served by this time next year, March 2022. As things stand, I have no intention of asking Officers to exercise that break clause. As you know we have successfully negotiated revised lease terms that phase the contractual increase in service charge costs. We have successfully negotiated the relinquishing of the lease for the Councillor area on the second floor. This has been backdated to be with effect from November 2020 and we are reviewing the other areas that we occupy so that we can build on the societal changes that have come about because of the pandemic. This will mean that we only occupy what we need but also that we have spaces to come together, to collaborate, and to be creative rather than lots and lots of desks. We are reimagining the purpose of our office space. Ultimately though in answer to your question it would be wrong for me to ever rule out any options and so the answer to your question is yes but I personally will take significant persuasion to change my mind to move away from all of the benefits which drew us to move to Endeavour House together with our Clinical Commissioning Groups and the County Council in the first place. I should also add of course as a footnote to my answer that this is not a decision that Mid Suffolk can take alone as our staff, who are the ones that predominately occupy Endeavour House rather than us as Councillors, of course also work for and are employed by Babergh District Council and therefore any such decision would have to be made in conjunction with Babergh District Council and with our staff foremost in our mind.

 

Supplementary Question from Councillor Matthissen to Council Morley

 

What plans are there for more meeting places for Members and Officers out in the district?

Councillor Morley, Leader of the Council

I haven’t ruled out anything and I haven’t ruled in anything. At the moment we do not need meeting spaces out in our district, I am happy with the way things are progressing but of course I will keep an open mind on the matter.

Councillor Stringer to Councillor Brewster, Cabinet Member for Economic Growth

Given the agreed motion from Suffolk County Council to applaud the introduction of Freeport status to Gateway 14, clearly stating it will be a net carbon free development, can the portfolio holder confirm what will make Gateway 14 a carbon free development?

Councillor Brewster, Cabinet Member for Economic Growth

We are applauding the fact that the Freeport will be on Gateway 14 as well. The aspirations for the Freeport East bid are to create a green energy hub that will help deliver net-zero transport systems and complement sustainable developments across the Freeport East area. These aspirations align from our desire for Gateway 14 to deliver a high quality, viable and sustainable development, with low carbon impact. This ambition has been informed through our work with the Greater South East Energy Hub and BEIS on a zero carbon feasibility study for Gateway 14. We are now reviewing the options proposed in this report and possible funding routes in order to deliver on this aspiration.

Supplementary question from Councillor Stringer to Councillor Brewster

I do have to say there is a slight difference in language between stating something will be net carbon free, and that we aspire to doing it. If we are going to make this a carbon free development, why did we not seek to put this site forward as a site for a grid serve filling station when we had the opportunity 6 months ago?

Councillor Brewster, Cabinet Member for Economic Growth

I don’t know why we didn’t put it forward for the grid, I wasn’t actually aware of that. Yes, there is a difference between aspiration and actual. I believe we are in the early days of doing this, obviously there is a planning application which I dare say you have looked at. It’s a pre-app energy consultation but it deals with the sustainability statement. That has already started and that is part of the planning application. But we still need to ensure that, looking at the reports we’ve got, the best way to do it and there are some recommendations within those. So, we have got time at this moment and we wish to make it as zero carbon as we can and I think we will get that result.

Councillor Otton to Councillor Flatman, Cabinet Member for Communities

The impact of the pandemic on families, in particular on women, has been drastic. The rise in domestic violence has risen to a level never seen before. The issues of childcare and support were ignored by the Chancellor’s budget. What has the Council done over the past year to help women and parents with young children?

Councillor Flatman, Cabinet Member for Communities

I share your concerns about the impact the pandemic has had on women and also more broadly parents with young children. As I have said before I am immensely proud of the support that our Council has provided to our communities over the last year and thank you for the opportunity to describe some of that support, specifically in relation to women and parents.

Just over a year ago a multi-agency steering group, led by Suffolk County Council, was created to address violence against women, and girls, and men, and boys. This steering group has developed a strategy and action plan to address domestic abuse, sexual violence and sexual exploitation. As well as this strategy our communications teams have helped promote Sexual Abuse and Violence Awareness Week through our social media.

We have provided satellite accommodation for victims of domestic abuse and promoted both the Domestic Abuse Hotline and Domestic Abuse Outreach Service.

Our housing team prioritise those fleeing domestic abuse and work across agencies to support those that we house.

In a broader sense we have also helped address holiday hunger through work in partnership with Abbeycroft Leisure and projects delivered in Stowmarket and Eye.

Chill, Chat and Play is still being delivered in Stowmarket by Home Start (Mid and West Suffolk) and supports families experiencing a range of moderate and complex mental health needs. This will soon also be expanded to provision in Needham Market.

And in terms of wider financial support, we provide £3000 to Lighthouse Women’s Aid each year in Revenue Grant funding and we also gave them a Capital Grant of a further £3000 last year.

Home Start in Suffolk receive a revenue grant of £9000 and Home Start (Mid and West Suffolk) also receive £4000. And of course, you will be aware that we do also provide Citizens Advice with Revenue Grant Funding.

Because there has been so much going on I have only briefly touched upon the activity we have either delivered directly or influenced but will also send a briefing note to all Councillors after this meeting so that you can see more of the details behind some of the things I have mentioned.

Supplementary question from Councillor Otton

Just to say I am really pleased to hear the amount of work that has been going on and certainly from my point of view and I know the rest of the Council, we certainly thank all of them who have been doing that work. However, my question is of course that work cannot stop as there will be many staff and residents facing real problems in the coming months so what actions are in place to help women and parents to continue with a successful life and career?

Councillor Flatman, Cabinet Member for Communities

As we talked about at last Council a month ago, our plans are to rejuvenate the whole district and I’m sure that once I send you round this briefing note on everything that’s been going on you will be very pleased.

Councillor Mellen to Councillor Fleming, Cabinet Member for Environment

In the Council’s Carbon Reduction Management Plan, we say that:

Housing: We will review policy and regulation for energy conservation reduction and efficiency to understand how this can be standardised for the Councils’ new builds and retrofits by quarter 3, 2020/21.

And

Proposed Housing Strategy revised action: Prepare a broad specification for new build Council stock, to include consideration of passive technologies and measures to increase accessibility, by quarter 2 of 2020/21.

Have these targets been met? If not, when will they be?

Councillor Fleming, Cabinet Member for Environment

We are reviewing policy and regulation for energy conservation reduction and efficiency to understand how this can be standardised for the new builds and retrofits. Our surveyors have attended and completed a Level 5 Diploma in Retrofit Coordination and Risk Management delivered by the Retrofit Academy and domestic Retrofit by the BRE. These courses enable the evaluation of properties within our stock that are suitable for retrofit to be identified and planned by Officers as opposed to outsourcing and will reduce the time and delay along with saving on consultant’s costs.

In addition to the retrofit training we have

  • Embarked on a programme to collect up to date energy performance data for every home in our stock.
  • We are working with the Energy Saving Trust to deliver a programme of ‘Measures’ (Works) that are tailored to every Babergh and Mid Suffolk owned home across the districts.
  • The draft ‘Design Guide’ for new homes contains a section on Retrofit and we will be continually looking to review and change this document as the industry moves towards net zero carbon homes following PAS 2035 which is the retrofit standard.
  • Our programme of fitting energy efficient heating continues and consistently evolves as technology improves.
  • We have allocated a budget to energy measures for our homes targeting properties through the ‘Fabric First’ approach recommended by PAS 2035 with £1,000,000 set aside for insulating solid wall properties.
  • We are continually assessing the best approach to delivering these measures working with the Energy Saving Trust and we will be able to target homes and funding into the future. This is a new development that will become standard procedure in the coming years.

I will now move on to answering the second part of your question. Due to the impact of Covid this new specification piece of work was placed on hold as Officers were redeployed to other areas deemed higher priority. We will be taking up this work again as we emerge from the stricter lock down restrictions and return to some form of business as usual. A new target for this to be completed will be later in 2021-2022.

Supplementary Question from Councillor Mellen

Does Councillor Fleming agree that the progress generally on the carbon reduction management plan has been slow and can she also tell me when the next audit of the Council’s CO2 emissions will take place?

Councillor Fleming, Cabinet Member for Environment

I have to disagree that progress has been slow. I think that we have been progressing very quickly and I think that the steps we are taking are serious ones, they involve public money and I am amazed at how fast we are moving.

Assistant Director for Environment and Commercial Partnerships

The base line reviews are done on an annual basis and are normally undertaken around May each year so we will be moving onto that process shortly. As soon as possible, we will be publishing the findings from that review so everyone will be able to see the transfer from our emissions from 20/21 and our emissions from 19/20 previously.

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