Stroud District Councillors’ Report
April 2019
Summary
of SDC Wotton Ward Councillors’ Council meetings and local
business.
SDC Matters
Local Government Association (LGA) Peer Group Review of SDC. (Cllr Tucker)
Following an invite by Chief Executive, Kathy O’Leary, 7 members of the LGA Challenge Team visited Ebley Mill on 26th -29th March to carry out a peer review. The outcome of the review is now available and can be viewed at:
In summary, the Review found that SDC was a ‘good Council ready to tackle challenges and support communities’ and ‘has the potential to become one of the best in the country’. They noted that members, senior officers and staff are passionate about the district and want to actively shape how the council best operates to serve its residents. They were particularly impressed by the council’s waste and recycling service which Defra rates as the best in the south west.
Stroud Subscription Rooms. (Cllr Butcher)
The ownership of The Sub Rooms transferred from SDC to Stroud Town Council and The Subscription Rooms Trust without a hitch. The SRT are now making a few changes to the Sub Rooms to suit their new programme and intentions for the venue. n the 28th March. The cost saving to SDC will be around £260,000/annum.
Local Tourism Funding. (Cllr Tucker)
After intervention, Wotton has received £2000 for its share of the District’s 7 Market Towns Local Tourism Funding and is no longer reliant on working with adjacent Towns in order to receive their Grant. Meetings between WTC and the Heritage/Tourist Centre have been held to discuss/agree on how this funding should be spent. Updating local tourism maps is one option.
Lloyds Pharmacy, Wotton. (Cllr Tucker)
The service is still improving, with much reduced queues and better stock levels. However, we are still awaiting the appointment of a permanent pharmacist, which Lloyds are apparently ‘pursuing with vigour’. It was September 2018 when the last full-time pharmacist left. Cllr Tucker continues his progress dialogue with the Chief Exec, Toby Anderson.
Ashen Plains Camp Site, North Nibley. (Cllr Tucker)
Following a refusal by an SDC Hearing Panel in March, to sell alcohol every day of the week, the owners have now submitted a planning application to regularise previously constructed buildings and the use of new for events. Again, Parish and District Councillors and residents think this is unreasonable on many grounds and appropriate representations have been made to SDC Planning Dept.
Ground works at Waterley Bottom, North Nibley. (Cllr Tucker)
A belated planning application has been received by SDC. As the work was started before any contact with SDC, there is now no right to have a pre-application discussion with planning officers. Cllr Butcher and I are supporting residents and the Parish Council in their oppositions.
Climate Emergency
Local Climate Action Groups are being set up across the District, with the support of Transition Stroud to respond to the Climate Emergency and to support SDC’s commitment to become a carbon neutral district by 2030.
A meeting will be held to discuss a new Climate Action Group for Wotton and our local area on 26 June, at Wotton Green Drinks in The Star Inn from 8 pm. All welcome - contact Cllr Braun for more information.
SDC
Full Council Meeting (25 April)
New regional bank – Council agreed to provide £50k from the Business Rates Reserve to purchase shares in the Avon Mutual – one of a new network of 18 regional cooperative banks (report). There was cross party support for this proposal – and enthusiasm for the regional bank model – which will provide much greater support to the local economy, local businesses and align with the Council’s priorities. When established as a bank, Avon Mutual will promote sustainable and equitable prosperity for the West of England region – and will make sure bank lending goes to the “real” economy and SMEs instead of the financial economy. The bank will be owned by its customers and will be much more focused on customer service than the big banks – providing 9 staffed branches and 21 automated branches across the region. (For more info see Avon Mutual website).
Temporary accommodation – there was approval for the proposal (which had been discussed previously by Housing and Strategy & Resources Committees) to provide temporary accommodation for homeless households in the Stroud District. The former Salvation Army building in Stroud will be purchased and converted into temporary accommodation. Once complete, the property will be managed by a separate company. This will improve the ability of SDC to house homeless people closer to their local connections and reduce the inflating costs of less satisfactory B&B accommodation many miles away.
Council
motions
– there was unanimous support for two
motions:
Modern slavery (Cllr Cornell & Cllr Kay)
SDC resolved to adopt the Co-operative Party’s Charter against Modern Slavery – and to ensure that SDC procurement practices don’t support slavery.
Right to work for people seeking asylum (Cllr Butcher & Cllr Braun)
SDC resolved to:
join the Lift the Ban Coalition
call on the UK Government to change the law to give people seeking asylum the ability to seek work under the conditions outlined above, and
seek to ensure appropriate provision to support asylum seekers in Stroud District, including promotion of education and training to enable them to better integrate into the District and play an active role in the success of the local economy.
SDC Community Services and Licencing (Cllr Tucker) – No meeting in April 2019.
SDC Environment Committee. (Cllr Butcher) – No meeting in April 2019.
I have been working with Tenant Services to help solve a problem with a tenant’s leaking flat. Had numerous phone calls with Carl Mason (Repair & Voids Manager), but the situation is not yet resolved. I have expressed concerns about tenant's current living situation and will continue to monitor.
I have met with the Refuse Team several times about issues with recycling collections.
SDC Housing Committee (Cllr Braun) – 9th April 2019
SDC Older People’s Housing Strategy Councillors approved a report and new strategy for the District Council’s housing for older people, which had been developed following feedback from stakeholders. The objective is to provide good quality older people’s housing which meets a variety of current and future needs – where people want to live.
One change will be to re-brand and re-categorise the existing SDC sheltered housing schemes to be a range of Independent Living accommodation which better reflects the housing that SDC provides, as extra care facilities are not provided (see below).
These changes will be made over a number of years and will involve consultation with residents. As schemes are re-categorised, the service charge for each scheme may be reviewed to reflect the changes, for example with lower service charges where there are fewer communal areas. General council properties that are suitable for older people (e.g. bungalows) would be associated to the Independent Living schemes to allow their residents to benefit from the services.
2020 – ‘In-sourcing’ the repairs and maintenance service – The current repairs and maintenance service for council housing (with contractors NKS and Mi-Space) is due to come to an end next year. Following a very thorough review of future options and cost benefit analysis, it was agreed that SDC would set up its own repairs and maintenance service, instead of using external contractors. This should improve the experience for tenants – with a greater focus on quality of service as well as value for money. There may continue to be some contracting out of a small proportion of the service to mitigate risks in the short term. The implementation cost to the Housing Revenue Account (this account is funded by rent of council properties) to set up the new system will be £53k in 2019/20 and £132k in 2020/21 and a new capital programme for the Housing Revenue Account IT systems totalling £175k over 2019/20 and 2020/21 (report and analysis). This financial commitment was approved at the Full Council meeting on 25 April.
Separating rent and service charges – it was agreed that in principle SDC should charge tenants separately for service charges (such as ground maintenance or cleaning) rather than including this charge with the rent - this separation is known as ‘de-pooling’. Overall the amount paid by current tenants will not increase but the new system will be fairer – as people would only be charged for the services that apply to their property – and with greater transparency there will be opportunities to improve the quality of service, as tenants will be able to assess the quality of the services they are paying for. It will take at least 9 months to complete work on which service charges apply to which property, and then options for future charging will be decided by the Committee (report).
Homelessness – The Committee discussed and noted a petition on homelessness and the Social Impact Bond funded project to support rough sleepers with complex needs, and noted the positive action that Stroud District is taking to prevent homelessness, which has ranked among the best in the South West region.
Other reports - The Committee agreed improvements to the Decant Policy for Council Tenants (report), updates to the Tenancy Agreement T&Cs (report) and noted the outturn forecasts for the Housing Committee budgets (report). It was good to see that there had been improved budgetary control thanks to the work of the finance and project teams over the past year.
Housing Strategy – at the Housing Review Panel (23 April) Councillors discussed the draft Housing Strategy and proposed objectives to be included in the final version.
SDC Planning Review Panel (Cllr Tucker) – 16th April 2019.
The main topic of discussion was again The Emerging Local Plan, which, in part, is aiming to allocate land to build 12000+ homes between now and 2040. Each of the political parties have had their inputs and well as members of the public and local councils. Following a tour on the 23rd April of the larger sites being put forward by developers, there is now much more (political) agreement of where such developments should go. A very large site at Whaddon, which is in Stroud District, has be highlighted by a planning inspector to meet the needs of Gloucester City! We are deciding how to approach this bizarre conundrum, and should we decided not to ‘fight’ the case at a planning hearing/appeal, then there are some alternative provisions in place to replace Whaddon, but these have yet to have full agreement across all parties.
SDC Strategy & Resources Committee (Cllr Tucker) – 11th April.
An update on the progress of the exciting development at Brimscombe Port was unfortunately postponed until the next meeting, so that more detailed information could be presented to Councillors.
The Housing Revenue Account for 2019-20 was approved.
A report on Performance Monitoring was presented and was well received.
Approval for both the proposals and costs for ‘In-sourcing’ the repairs and maintenance service proposals and costs for temporary accommodation provision in Stroud District were agreed.
Other Agenda items are reported elsewhere.
Meetings attended by Cllr Tucker:
1 April Meeting with CEO.
4 April Task & Finish Refuse meeting
4 April SDC Investment & Development Panel.
8 April North Nibley Parish Council meeting.
10 April Corporate Delivery Plan refresh.
11 April Strategy & Resourses Committee meeting.
15 April Wotton Town Council meeting.
16 April SDC Planning Review Panel.
17 April Councillor briefing on the proposed new Forest Green Rovers Football Stadium
23 April Meeting with CEO and external bodies.
23 April Wotton Youth Partnership meeting.
24 April Stinchcombe Parish Council.
26 April SDC ‘Brexit Breakfast’ with businesses and employers and employees.
26 April Meeting with Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP.
29 April SDC Group Leader’s meeting
30 April Meeting with SDC and residents at Bearlands.
Meetings attended by Cllr Braun:
3-4 April Greenway meetings with Sustrans
9 April Housing Committee meeting
10 April Councillor training with Monitoring Officer on Decision Making
15 April Wotton Town Council meeting
23 April Housing Review Panel meeting
23 April Wotton Youth Partnership (end of meeting)
26 April Greenway review meeting
28 April Local Climate Action Group Workshop – Stroud District
Meetings attended by Cllr Butcher.
8 April North Nibley Parish Council meeting
10 April Councillor training with Monitoring Officer on Decision Making
15 April Wotton Town Council meeting
17 April Councillor briefing on the proposed new Forest Green Rovers Football Stadium
25 April Stroud District Council Full Council Meeting