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 12.
Minutes:
51.1 The following questions were received in accordance with Council procedure rule 12: -
Question 1:
Councillor Penny Otton to Councillor Nick Gowrley Leader of Mid Suffolk District Council
In its briefing paper “The future relationship between the UK and the European Union” the LGA has highlighted areas of concern for local government, stating “the onus will be on councils and their partners to provide evidence on the likely impact locally on any Brexit decision, whatever it may be”. What have the Suffolk and even regional public sector leaders and partners been doing to prepare for any forthcoming scenario?
Answer:
As Councillor Otton may be aware the LGA are running a series of workshops across the country to enable Councils to provide such evidence to the LGA. The East of England LGA are also regularly publishing briefing notes as to the potential implications of Brexit. In addition, the Suffolk Public Sector Leaders have made Brexit a standing item on our agendas, and senior officers across Suffolk are working together to carefully consider the potential impacts for Suffolk and the public sector. More locally, as part of our corporate risk management, our officers have similarly begun to consider the more local implications for Mid Suffolk and Babergh. As you will appreciate however there is significant uncertainty at the national level at present regarding Brexit and so it is not possible to implement any definitive plans at this stage.
Supplementary Question
Thank you. I’m obviously pleased that the public sector leaders do have Brexit as a standing item but I’m afraid Cllr Gowrley I am disappointed with your answer because we would like to have had a few more details. Obviously as you have said this is not the time for implementation, but I felt, and I was hoping that you would be able to tell us what the main areas of concern are and what these plans involve in particular on the impact to the local economy.
Answer
I do take the point but it is really difficult to plan for something when you don’t know what you’re planning for and until we get some idea from national leaders it is almost impossible to answer that question other than trying to be aware of it and if anything comes out we try to think about it and what the implications might be and as soon as anything definitive is known we will come back to council and we will tell them what we will be doing to address this.
Question 2:
Councillor John Matthissen to Councillor Derrick Haley Chair of Mid Suffolk District Council
Will you arrange the issue within a week of each Council, to Members and Officers (not public), draft action minutes with a column showing responsibility for actions, supplementary answers and similar follow through?
Answer:
Thank you, Councillor Matthissen, for your suggestion. I have been advised by the Monitoring Officer that the Governance Team are working on improving the turnaround time for the production of minutes so that ultimately full draft minutes will be published within five working days of the Council meeting. However, in the interim an ‘actions list’ will be published within five working days detailing the resolutions made by the Council and any commitment to respond outside the meeting to supplementary questions.
Question 3:
Councillor John Matthissen to Councillor John Whitehead Cabinet Member for Finance
At the Council meeting setting the budget, 22/2/18, it was minuted:
“127.5 Councillor Whitehead also advised Council that following a meeting with the Green Party their various suggestions were discussed with the Conservative Group and he was pleased to say that they had been incorporated into the 18/19 budget initiatives to increase the uptake of disability grants, action on stalled planning sites and the tree at birth concept as these have cross party consensus.”
And the budget included: “Occupational Health support for Disabled Facilities Grants £37,000”
Please can you detail the implementation and benefits of this spending proposal?
Answer:
BDC/MSDC are in partnership with Orbit Home Improvement Agency to deliver Disabled Facilities Grants. We continue to work with Orbit HIA to improve the service and ensure our residents receive adaptations in a timely way. At the same time, we are also reviewing this area of work in order to develop not only an enhanced DFG service but also how the budget could be used to assist even more residents where adaptation is not possible. Suffolk County Council are responsible for the Occupational Therapist function and we are engaging with them during the review. This will ensure that we utilise the budget members have allocated to this important area of work. We expect to provide an update to members within the next three months.
Question 4:
Councillor Rachel Eburne to Councillor Glen Horn Cabinet Member for Planning
Since reporting the establishment of a 6.5 year housing land supply for Mid Suffolk District on 11th July 2018, how many planning applications have been reviewed, how many are still to be reviewed and by when?
Answer:
All planning applications ‘in the system’ have been reviewed following the change in circumstances following publication of the Annual Monitoring Report and 5 Year Housing Land Supply statement. In more specific terms, 6 applications that had previously been to committee, but hadn’t had their decision issued prior to the change in circumstances, have been reviewed. One of those applications - in Union Road, Stowmarket - has now been issued following legal advice. Others will either be determined, returned to committee, amended or withdrawn depending on their individual circumstances. As with all planning applications a range of issues can arise during consideration and if you have queries about any specific application then can I suggest that we deal with those directly with Officers outside the meeting?
Supplementary Question
How many houses in those applications that are still to be reviewed, how many actual houses are there Is it just one house per application or is it 100, 200 houses. So if I could know how many houses are in those remaining 5 applications being reviewed.
Answer
One of the five applications has been withdrawn but the other four will be returned to committee in due course. There are 169 dwellings included in those 4 applications.
Question 5:
Councillor Keith Welham to Councillor Julie Flatman Cabinet Member for Communities
There is a clear correlation between health and wellbeing and taking part in sport and leisure activity. Compared with previous generations, fewer and fewer people take part in regular physical exercise. Will the Cabinet member confirm that the Council has a role to play and will she please give details of what is being done to encourage and enable more people in rural areas to take part?
I asked at the Council meeting in July what was being done to build a legacy upon the visit of the Women’s Tour of Britain Cycle Race. I have not received a response, nor to my suggestion that the Council should, with partners, arrange local events.
Answer:
The Council clearly has a role to play in helping people support their own health and wellbeing, and in helping to stimulate and encourage increased levels of physical activity. I refer you to the Councils Leisure, Sport and Physical Activity Strategy which was adopted in November last year. If you would like to discuss any parts of this strategy in more detail then perhaps we can do so outside of the meeting?
In relation to the second part of your question, I did provide a response to you and would draw your attention to my email to all Councillors of 15th August, which I re-circulated on Monday this week.
Supplementary Question
We have sight of what we might be doing but unless someone takes the lead and there is good publicity nobody knows what we’re doing or not doing or could do. When it was the Women on Wheels event in Debenham. What publicity has there been, has it already taken place, we don’t know. How can members get involved in the new active schools programme to encourage our schools to take part. Which villages are involved in the fit villages project. How do we promote them? Did we have a programme of walks in Mid Suffolk this year? I led walks last year in Stowupland but there was no follow up this year to my request or my offer to do so again. Mid Suffolk District Council really does need to be more involved in events for people of all ages and all abilities. So will the cabinet member look into ways of taking a lead and promoting events more widely?
Answer:
Yes and I’ll gladly have a meeting with Councillor Welham. The Women on Wheels was cancelled actually at Debenham, there was not enough take up for it although it was laid on and also running in connection with the Debenham Leisure Centre. We are trying to run these projects along with other people with other partners and if I was Tinkerbell and I had a magic wand I’d give as much money as I could to everybody. We are picking up on the major projects, as you can see in the report I sent you. But we can have a 1 to 1 and if you’ve got some wonderful ideas I’m sure we could work together on that.
Question 6:
Councillor Keith Welham to Councillor Gowrley Leader of the Council
At a recent meeting of Creeting St Peter Parish Council, concern was expressed concerning the communications in respect of Electoral Registration. The Council asked: Why were two separate letters sent to households and what was the additional cost to the taxpayer? I would also like to know if this duplication of effort was more widespread than the parish of Creeting St Peter?
Answer:
In the absence of more detail I have assumed that the letters that you have referred to are the Household Enquiry Forms which have been sent out during the Annual Canvass of Electors. The Electoral Registration Officer is required by law to send a form to every household in the district to gather information about residents who should be registered to vote. This equates to around 43,000 forms at a cost of approximately £17,300. A second form must be sent to any household where no response to the first form has been received. If there is no response to this second form, a third form must be sent and a personal visit to the property must be undertaken. Happily, after much lobbying by Electoral Registration Officers and their teams, the Cabinet Office is now looking to reform the annual canvass process; making it more efficient and cost effective.
Supplementary Question
My understanding from the chair and the clerk of Creeting St Peter Parish Council is that everyone they spoke to in the village had received 2 letters. I know some of them immediately after receiving the first letter responded on line but they subsequently got the follow up letter. I just wondered if there’s a glitch in the system. Well they wondered if there was a glitch in the system and I said I would put this to council and they also asked how much it cost them.
Response Corporate Manager Democratic Services:
I am not aware of any glitch in the system, unfortunately though, there is a cut off date, from when the second letters are prepared and to when they are sent, therefore anybody responding within that time will still get a second letter.
Question 7
Councillor John Matthissen to Councillor Gerard Brewster Cabinet Member for Economy
Are there plans to publish a summary of the public opinions expressed at the open day June 16th in relation to the Stowmarket Vision for Prosperity?
Answer:
MSDC published an ‘All Issues Response’ document following the open day events. It has been a little overlooked but has been available for some time in PDF format on the website (linked here https://www.midsuffolk.gov.uk/assets/Economic-Development/VFPStowmarket-All-Issues-Response-print.pdf)
This is a detailed document, with information and commentary about every point made through the drop-in consultation, emails, letters and social media. It is drafted in an accessible style of writing, addresses the topics in order and uses visuals. Many people did not respond directly to the questions in the display material, instead choosing to make more generalised comments on post-it notes. Because of this, the analysis does not always directly follow the format used in the displays.
Question 8
Councillor John Matthissen to Councillor Gerard Brewster Cabinet Member for Economy
Has the ‘Stowmarket Vision for Prosperity’ been assessed for its contribution to reducing the town’s CO2 emissions and thus combatting climate change?
Answer:
This stage of the VFP does not have any proposals – it is a round-up of existing planned projects and as such there is no impact to directly assess. Each component project may have to undergo testing through its own route to delivery, but the VFP Action Plan itself is simply a signposting document and as such will have no impact on CO2.
However, the next stages of VFP will suggest building works and other interventions that will have an impact, and despite them being high-level ideas, there will be the opportunity to make an assessment of environmental impact. However, we will not focus solely on CO2 indicator, but on a range of indicators used in the EIA Screening.
The VFP All-Issues Response makes numerous references to improving local environments such as the River Gipping corridor, and also to broader environmental improvements such as making an attractive and sustainable town centre that reduces the need to travel elsewhere. Indeed, the VFP project is about improving all aspects of society: the social, economic and environmental quality of life for residents in Stowmarket and its catchment area.