Welcome to this July meeting of Council and I hope all new members who were voted in following the May local elections are settling in well.
Tonight’s agenda features items on the Hinckley High Street Heritage Action Zone scheme, our housing repairs service, an innovative pilot project on housing and respiratory illness which is a Leicestershire-wide project being led by HBBC, our financial outturn for 2022/23 and an overview of our corporate plan achievements from 2022/23.
I have set out some brief updates below:
Summer events
With the schools having broken up for summer, we can now start looking forward to an exciting few months of events across the borough.
For those at a loss for things to do, we have lots of family-friendly and FREE events planned over the next few weeks.
On the weekend of 22 and 23 July battling knights will be descending on Argents Mead for the Medieval family fun day. Organised by the High Street Heritage Action Zone and supported by the borough council, you can expect a gruesome barber surgeon, a children’s re-enactment of the Battle of Bosworth, a jester and an archaeology talk. There will also be music, have-a-go dancing sessions and more.
Our ever-popular Snapdragon festival returns to Argents Mead on 2 to 4 August. The week’s events will include a celebration for National Play Day on Wednesday, 2 August, a “Play, re-use and recycle” event on Thursday, 3 August and Snappy’s spectacular tenth birthday celebrations on Friday, 4 August. Families can also enjoy a games garden, a giant sandpit (with thanks to sponsors Hinckley BID), wellbeing woods, a teddy bear’s picnic and a craft tent (with thanks to the Hinckley United Reformed Church) for free on each day.
Finally, we can look forward to our mouth-watering annual Feast food festival which returns to Argents Mead on the weekend of 5 to 6 August. With free entry, our annual town centre food festival will feature around 50 street food vendors representing foods from all over the world. You can also expect live music, entertainment and a giant 120ft inflatable assault course (sponsored by Hinckley BID).
Full details of our events can be founds in our “What’s on this summer” brochure. The brochure is full of exciting summer events and activities taking place across the borough as well as information and guidance for children, young people and families and can be found at www.hinckley-bosworth.gov.uk/whatson.
We also have a host of events across our parishes, many of which feature in our Borough Bulletin and can be found on our website.
I would encourage everyone to come and join us this summer and celebrate all that our borough has to offer.
Support our businesses this summer
Whether you’re shopping for your holidays, planning a staycation or throwing a barbecue in the garden, I’d like to encourage you to shop locally wherever you can this summer. We are fortunate in that our borough has some fantastic town and village centres, with many boasting independent businesses which are bucking national trends and thriving. We also have lower than average vacancies so we are encouraging people to come and support the amazing businesses we have this summer.
Our new Big Bin service
I am pleased to report that the Executive this Wednesday will be looking to sign off a proposal for a new ‘big bin’ collection service for our residents.
For those planning a clear-out later this year but don’t have the space for a skip, they will be able to take advantage of our new service which we plan to rollout for the autumn. For just £60, residents can have the equivalent of five wheelie bins worth of rubbish – plus recycling – collected right from their driveway. This will initially be a pilot project for up to 12 months. We will also be offering discounts for those on benefits.
Further details will be published on our website and included in the next edition of the Borough Bulletin.
Find work at our jobs fairs
We continue to work proactively with partners to promote job and career opportunities for our residents. For any of our residents who are looking for work or might want a career change, I’d encourage them to come along to our regular job fairs which we hold at Hinckley’s Atkins Building with our partners at the DWP. For more information, residents can sign up for the free weekly jobs email at www.hinckley-bosworth.gov.uk/emailupdates.
Cost of living support
Linked to the work the council has been doing to support our residents during the cost of living crisis, officers have updated the cost of living pages on the website and the link may be helpful to you to share with residents who approach you with concerns. As you will see, it provides a comprehensive overview of assistance available from both the council and other agencies / voluntary sector organisations: Cost of living support | Hinckley & Bosworth Borough Council (hinckley-bosworth.gov.uk)
Keep fit at our revamped tennis courts
Over the past few weeks our TVs have been dominated by Wimbledon tennis. May I offer my congratulations to all who took part and particularly the finalists. On this note, I’m pleased to reveal that our Green Flag award-winning Hollycroft Park has recently had its tennis courts revamped in conjunction with the Lawn Tennis Association. Whether you’re a budding tennis player or would simply like to get more active, you can now visit www.lta.org.uk/book to enjoy the new-look courts.
Planning performance
I’m pleased to report that our planning service is now out-performing government targets and I would like to express my personal thanks to Sharon Stacey, Chris Brown and the rest of the planning team for their incredible work in turning around the performance on planning applications.
Following several struggles in late 2020 until September 2022 resulting from the pandemic and a higher than usual rate of staff turnover at a time where there has been a national recruitment crisis in planning, planning performance has significantly increased over the past six to eight months as new staff have joined the existing planning team to improve the customer focus and response.
The council has been performing consistently above the government’s performance thresholds for both minor and major applications since October 2022.
I can report that officers recently invited senior officials from DLUCH to meeting the planning team and also those agents and developers who regularly use our service. The DLUCH representative was able to hear first-hand the passion and commitment of our planning managers and staff to improve service to our customers as well as the positive feedback from agents and developers about their recent experiences with the planning service.
On Friday last week we submitted our most up to date performance figures to the government which will now be considered and will determine whether this council is ‘formally designated’ for its performance on minor applications. Based on the evidence of our performance since October last year, which exceeded 80% since January and reached 88% of applications determined between April and June this year against a government target of 70%, we do not expect to be ‘designated’. This, of course, assumes any government decision is based on the evidence alone and for no other reason.
Stuart Bray
Leader of the Council
Minutes:
In his position statement, the leader referred to summer events, supporting local businesses, the proposed big bin service, jobs fairs, cost of living support, revamped tennis courts at Hollycroft Park and improved planning performance.