In addition to any announcements made at the meeting, please see Paper BC/23/19 attached, detailing events attended by the Chairman and Vice-Chairman.
Minutes:
51.1 The Chair referred Councillors to Paper BC/23/19 for noting.
51.2 The Chair expressed her disappointment at the lack of attendance from fellow Babergh Councillors at the Charity Funding Fair in Sudbury on the 6th October, and gave special thanks and well wishes to Ifty Ali, the Interim Monitoring Officer, on behalf of Babergh Council for all his work and support ahead of his upcoming retirement.
51.3 The Chair invited the Acting Leader of the Council to make his announcements.
51.4 Councillor Ward made the following announcement:
“The weekend’s floods hit a number of our communities badly, and it has been a deeply distressing time for many residents and businesses, who have seen property damaged and lives disrupted. A clean-up is now well under way, and I know we will all continue to do what we can to support residents, businesses, and communities during this recovery period.
Additional council staff have been deployed in the worst affected areas to assist with the clean-up – areas like Hadleigh, Long Melford and parts of the Dedham Vale. I spoke to one of our public realm team just outside Hadleigh on Saturday morning while visiting my parishes along the Brett and Stour. I want to say a huge thank you to everyone who was there for our communities at the weekend:
· To our emergency services.
· To the council staff who have worked tirelessly.
· To our town and parish councils, who did such a great job.
· To the local volunteers who helped their neighbours, family and friends.
· And to you, our councillors – I know many of you have been doing outstanding work, identifying issues in your communities during the most critical times and taking action. I do want to make a special mention for Cllrs Malvisi and Nunn who, along with others, were very active in Long Melford on Friday night when Chad Brook burst its banks and flooded several premises. You really made a difference, so thank you both.
It was a difficult weekend, there is still a lot of clean-up work to do, but we should recognise this fantastic show of community spirit.
Along with the Chairman and Councillors Carter and Reece, I was invited to attend the official opening of the new Hastoe Housing development in Stoke-by-Nayland on 29th September. This development of 8 homes on land that was part of the former middle school site has been named in honour of Margaret Underwood who lived her whole life in the village and dedicated her 50-year career to educating children in and around Stoke by Nayland.
The houses have been built to Hastoe’s New-Build Standard and we could all see that this has delivered high quality and energy efficient homes for those with connections to the village.
The Befriending Scheme is a charity based in Sudbury that supports people with learning disabilities and mild mental health conditions. It provides friendship and learning opportunities and runs a community farm called the Red Rose Community Farm, that moved earlier this year from Assington to a new, bigger site in Lindsey Tye. Babergh provided £100k of CIL, approved by Cabinet last November, to help with this and I was delighted to be invited to their open afternoon on 30th September. They have achieved a huge amount in less than a year to get the farm up and running with workshops, a café, polytunnels and accommodation for a range of animals.
I would like to remind everyone that there is still time for people to have their say on the council’s future direction and priorities. We have outlined the administration’s draft priorities, but we made a commitment to getting feedback from the community – are these priorities right, what else could we do, what have we missed? The survey will be live until the 15th November, and details can be found on our website. I’d encourage all councillors to share this with their networks. Posters and postcards have also been created which you can share in your communities.
We’re pleased to have partnered with Groundwork East to deliver free and impartial expert advice to help businesses and organisations save energy, reduce their emissions, and establish tailored decarbonisation plans. This new Net Zero Business Advice Service will provide free support to help businesses, the voluntary sector and other organisations understand their greenhouse gas emissions, set a plan to reduce these and access grant funding to implement carbon reduction actions.
More information about the Net Zero Business Advisor can be found on our website.
Finally, we have also joined forces with Suffolk’s other district and borough councils to deliver a ground-breaking project to improve life for landlords and tenants in the private rented sector.
‘Safe Suffolk Renters’ is designed to create a better understanding of the pressures and problems in the sector, and to improve standards – particularly in the worst private rented homes in the area. To achieve this, the project team will consult widely with tenants, landlords and stakeholders in the county. A conference taking place at the University of Suffolk in Ipswich on 3rd November is free for any landlord to attend. Details are also available on our website. Similar conferences for tenants and stakeholders will follow.”
Supporting documents: