Agenda and minutes

Prayer was offered by Reverend Pollard.

Apologies for absence were submitted on behalf of Councillor Bessant, Cartwright, Smith, Taylor and Wright.

To confirm the minutes of the meetings held on 21 March and 16 May 2017.

It was moved by Councillor Crooks, seconded by Councillor Nichols and

RESOLVED – the minutes of the meetings held on 21 March and 16 May 2017 be approved and signed by the Mayor.

No interests were declared at this stage.

To receive such communications as the Mayor may decide to lay before the Council.

There will be a formal presentation of a tapestry from the Magistrates to the Council.

The Mayor referred to recent events that he had attended and the achievement of Fairtrade Borough status again.

Mrs Anderson, Deputy Chairman of the Leicestershire & Rutland Magistrates, presented a tapestry to the Council. The tapestry commemorated the opening of the new courthouse in Hinckley in 2000 and every serving magistrate at that time had contributed to the stitching of it. The tapestry hung in the main entrance of the courthouse until its closure in 2016 and was now being presented to the Council for safekeeping.

Questions received in accordance with Council Procedure Rule number 11.1:

(a)        Question from Councillor Bray to the Leader of the Council

“In his recent County Council election bid, the Leader of the Council in his literature told residents that “Garden villages are being considered for future new homes away from existing settlements”. Could he inform the Council and local residents where these new homes will be located?”

Response from Councillor Hall

“The simple answer is “no”, because it is not for me to decide where these developments should be, it is for the people of this borough, but I will make sure that this Council puts in place a plan for future housing.

The current site allocations are driven by the direction of housing growth towards the extension of our existing urban areas and larger rural settlements. This will deliver our new housing requirements to 2026, but we need to provide for more new homes beyond that date.

I know that the majority of people recognise the need for building additional homes, especially affordable homes, but residents do not want to see the uncontrolled expansion of their towns and villages eating into the valuable green spaces around them. So we are working towards an alternative which can be supported by residents and delivered by developers.

We have achieved and continue to maintain a five year housing land supply, this provides us with protection against speculative development, and has been upheld through several developer appeals. We have an adopted site allocations document to fulfil the remaining requirement to 2026, with many sites already granted planning consent.

We have started the process of reviewing our Local Plan and have worked with county colleagues towards an agreed Strategic Growth Plan, which will provide evidence for our growth needs. We have undertaken some early workshops on options which have shown a wide variety of views in where homes could and should be delivered. This also highlights areas that we should protect and not build, these sites include land immediately surrounding some of our larger settlements.

Through our promotion of the need for neighbourhood development plans (NDPs), we are engaging with communities across the borough so that they can have their voice. We have provided additional funding to support communities across the borough with advice to help them to develop NDPs and have already driven a significant increase in the number of communities developing plans. These plans will give local people the opportunity to identify the growth in housing that they need, and the infrastructure growth that is needed to go with it.

Once officers bring all of these details together, there is likely to be a gap between what is required by existing communities and what is required for growth to 2036 and beyond. One option that is being considered to deliver this growth is the creation of garden villages. I personally believe this option to be of great value and if we can create more villages with an appropriate level of infrastructure we  ...  view the full agenda text for item 69.

(a)        Question from Councillor Bray to the Leader of the Council

“In his recent County Council election bid, the Leader of the Council in his literature told residents that “Garden villages are being considered for future new homes away from existing settlements”. Could he inform the Council and local residents where these new homes will be located?”

Response from Councillor Hall

“The simple answer is “no”, because it is not for me to decide where these developments should be, it is for the people of this borough, but I will make sure that this Council puts in place a plan for future housing.

The current site allocations are driven by the direction of housing growth towards the extension of our existing urban areas and larger rural settlements. This will deliver our new housing requirements to 2026, but we need to provide for more new homes beyond that date.

I know that the majority of people recognise the need for building additional homes, especially affordable homes, but residents do not want to see the uncontrolled expansion of their towns and villages eating into the valuable green spaces around them. So we are working towards an alternative which can be supported by residents and delivered by developers.

We have achieved and continue to maintain a five year housing land supply, this provides us with protection against speculative development, and has been upheld through several developer appeals. We have an adopted site allocations document to fulfil the remaining requirement to 2026, with many sites already granted planning consent.

We have started the process of reviewing our Local Plan and have worked with county colleagues towards an agreed Strategic Growth Plan, which will provide evidence for our growth needs. We have undertaken some early workshops on options which have shown a wide variety of views in where homes could and should be delivered. This also highlights areas that we should protect and not build, these sites include land immediately surrounding some of our larger settlements.

Through our promotion of the need for neighbourhood development plans (NDPs), we are engaging with communities across the borough so that they can have their voice. We have provided additional funding to support communities across the borough with advice to help them to develop NDPs and have already driven a significant increase in the number of communities developing plans. These plans will give local people the opportunity to identify the growth in housing that they need, and the infrastructure growth that is needed to go with it.

Once officers bring all of these details together, there is likely to be a gap between what is required by existing communities and what is required for growth to 2036 and beyond. One option that is being considered to deliver this growth is the creation of garden villages. I personally believe this option to be of great value and if we can create more villages with an appropriate level of infrastructure we can deliver some fantastic new places to live, rather than  ...  view the full minutes text for item 69.

I have to begin my position statement for this meeting with a reflection on the sad loss of life at Grenfell Tower, and the recent terrorist attacks in London and Manchester. During the terrorist attacks people of all faiths and nationalities came together to support the victims and their families of a few individual attackers. These innocent victims were not all British and it is a credit to our emergency services and the local communities who came to their aid.

In Grenfell, the causes of the tragedy which led to the loss of so many lives will be debated for years to come, but in the immediate aftermath it was the community who responded fastest to the needs of victims and their families. A community who once again came together regardless of race, religion or background. This is what strong communities do, not through any direction but through a common sense of doing what is right.

For the most part our communities are law abiding and respectful of peoples’ differences, most recognise that we have more in common to bring us together than the things that divide us, and we see that as people get on with their daily lives. We see the support that our officers give day after day to our communities, officers supporting people in need and enriching lives, be that through the great work delivered by our community houses, keeping our places clean, or providing leisure activities.

When we become Councillors we hope that we can support our communities through good times and bad, but we never expect things to get quite as bad as they have done for those communities, and we hope that they never will.

For our part this Council has been undertaking a review of our properties and our fire risk assessment. As part of that review a report will be sent to scrutiny to brief members on our current levels of fire safety. I should state that officers have already complied with information requests to central government and identified that we have no high rise and high risk properties needing any immediate action. If we do identify that we need to make changes to other properties then they will be implemented.

On our agenda this evening we will be seeking member approval to procure a new fleet of vehicles to support changes to refuse and recycling, groundcare and housing maintenance. Executive has authorised changes to the service of refuse collection, which will see an additional round included from next year. We will also modify the dry recycling system from next year so that households will not need to use the separate card and paper caddy, but will simply be able to co-mingle dry recycling in the blue lidded bin. Both of these changes will improve the collection service to our customers and address some capacity issues experienced with card and paper collection.

We also have the financial outturn report for 2016-17 and members will see the council’s financial position has continued  ...  view the full agenda text for item 70.

In his position statement, the Leader referred to the sad loss of life at Grenfell Tower and recent terrorist attacks in London and Manchester. Members echoed these sentiments and supported the proposal for a report to the Scrutiny Commission on implications for this council.

To receive for information only the minutes of the Scrutiny Commission meetings held on 24 April 2017, 11 May 2017 and 15 June 2017.

The minutes of the Scrutiny Commission meetings were received for information.

Report requesting provision within the capital programme to finance procurement of the vehicle fleet.

Consideration was given to a report which requested supplementary budgets for procurement of a replacement vehicle fleet. The procurement process would inform the decision on whether to lease or purchase the fleet. Some concern was expressed in relation to the uncertain future of diesel vehicles and it was agreed that consideration would be given to feasibility of electric vehicles for the smaller vehicles.

It was requested that the report should be brought to the Scrutiny Commission for review of the outcomes of the procurement exercise to inform the decision to purchase or lease the fleet, although the tight timescales were noted.

Concern was expressed about potential parking problems should staff take the vehicle home with them. In response it was noted that there was sufficient parking for all of the larger vehicles on site and acknowledged that the parking of some vehicles at home enabled operatives to work more efficiently. Members were assured that, for those vehicles that were taken home, employees were asked to park considerately.

It was moved by Councillor Nickerson, seconded by Councillor Allen and

RESOLVED –

(i)            Procurement of the vehicle fleet and the associated supplementary budgets as follows, be approved:

(a)  A supplementary capital budget of £3,855,500 for fleet and equipment procurement;

(b)  A supplementary capital budget of £82,100 for the procurement of retained vehicles which is to be funded from the grounds machinery reserve;

(c)  A supplementary revenue budget of £609,004 for the annual financing cost which will replace the current revenue budget of £396,000;

(d)  An increase in the council’s capital financing requirement of £3,855,500 to allow the purchase.

(ii)           The decision on purchase and/or lease of fleet and equipment be delegated to the relevant officer in consultation with the Executive Member for Neighbourhood Services.

Report requesting approval of the financial outturn 2016/17.

Members were informed of the financial outturn for 2016/17. The reasons for the underspend were queried and it was noted that it related to natural staff turnover and resulting vacancies, the corporate management restructure and increase in income from business rates.

In response to a question on the delay in relation to the completion of some evidence based work linked to the new Local Plan, it was agreed that members would be updated on the new timeline for completion.

On the motion of Councillor Hall, seconded by Councillor Surtees, it was

RESOLVED –

(i)            The outturn for 2016/17 be approved;

(ii)           The transfers to earmarked reserves and balances be approved;

(iii)          The revenue carry forwards of expenditure and income to 2017/18 be approved;

(iv)         The housing revenue and housing repairs account outturn for 2016/17 and transfers to and from balances be approved;

(v)          The draft capital programme outturn for the general fund and housing revenue account from 2016/17 be approved;

(vi)         The HRA carry forwards be approved;

(vii)        The capital carry forwards be approved.

Amendment to constitution

The list of politically restricted posts (4h of the draft constitution) has been amended to remove section 2 (posts at or above the specified salary level) as this requirement is no longer contained in the legislation.

Members gave consideration to the revised constitution which had been rewritten to simplify and update the document. Members who had taken part in the Constitution Working Group and officers who had worked on the document were thanked. It was moved by Councillor Hall, seconded by Councillor Wallace and

RESOLVED – the revised constitution be adopted.