Minutes:
The Leader presented his report which contained the following updates :
(a) despite the summer recess it had been an extremely busy time since the last meeting and he had to start with the fantastic announcement on Friday 1 November of the Council’s success in securing a further £15m to support the southern section of the relief road. This brought the total amount secured from government to £65m and he had to pay tribute to the fantastic support that Melton had enjoyed from its outgoing MP Sir Alan Duncan. He had been such a strong advocate for this project and its success was in no small part to his support and work within government. He wished him all the best for the future following 27 years of dedicated service to his constituency. In due course this Council would need to consider whether to enter into an infrastructure funding agreement with the County Council and this would be considered in detail at a future meeting;
(b) whilst referring to the County Council, the Council had recently received their business case into a single unitary for Leicestershire which was due to be considered at the County Council meeting in December. It was disappointing that the County Council had time and again failed to more proactively involve the districts in the development of these proposals. The County Council had spoken with town and parish councils as part of developing them, but not any of the 7 districts, despite numerous requests for the County Council to work with the districts and to look more collaboratively at options for improvement. According to government’s own announcements, any proposals for structural change in local government should have a strong local consensus and it was hard to see this emerging when all 7 districts had stated their opposition to this ‘one size fits all’ approach. This viewpoint was mirrored by the 7 Leicestershire MPs who had also been critical of the County’s plan. As a Council we would ultimately need to look at the County’s plans in more detail but he would resist any plan which made finances the main driver and failed to consider a multitude of options. Ultimately democracy costs and Melton Borough Council was a lean and agile organisation and well connected to its communities. The Council must ensure any proposals for change don’t undermine this because quite clearly big was not always beautiful;
(c) alongside the Council’s success with the HIF bid, the Council had also recently secured £200k of revenue funding to support the development of proposals for a Food Enterprise Centre and to further support development of proposals at the Sports Village site. Securing major infrastructure investment, regenerating our town and finding a sustainable future for the Borough’s leisure facilities would be key parts of the Council’s new Corporate Strategy. At that meeting the Council would consider the Housing Improvement Plan which would form another key part of the Council’s plans and which would see over £2m invested in to the management and maintenance of council homes over the next 3 years. This represented a huge investment and would enable the Council to deliver a step change in the quality of its housing services and to correct some long standing under investment. The new Corporate structure was due to be considered at the Employment Committee later that week and he looked forward to another significant milestone being achieved as the Council reunified the housing teams and bolstered senior capacity and expertise to lead the Council’s housing improvement journey;
(d) our developing new corporate strategy would also strengthen the Council’s ability to tackle issues that mattered most to residents. Issues like litter, dog fouling and anti-social behaviour could really affect the lives of the Borough’s residents. Last year the Council invested in a new Environmental Enforcement Officer and he was delighted that the Council would be going further by creating two additional enforcement roles to strengthen the approach to tackling planning, licensing and tenancy issues. This followed the approval, by Cabinet in the previous week, of the new Public Spaces Protection Order, further demonstrating that the Council was delivering on its commitments to tackle the things that mattered most to residents;
(e) the developing Corporate Strategy responded to many of the issues that residents told the Council about in the comprehensive residents survey undertook over the summer. More than 1,700 responses were received and later that week the results would be published as well as our investment proposals so the Council could hear what residents think about the areas the Council wanted to invest in and make better. The consultation would last for the next four weeks and the feedback would be used to finalise plans before seeking final approval, alongside setting the budget in February next year;
(f) following the Council’s declaration of a climate emergency the climate change task group had now met and had started its work on formulating a plan for the Council to consider. The Council had had a number of flooding events recently and whilst the County Council was the main flood authority, he had asked the group to ensure it looked carefully at what more the Borough Council could do to support residents who were directly affected when severe weather hit;
(g) the Council had also recently concluded the procurement for a new digital self-service platform, which would support the customer-focussed process improvement work already underway. The strategy would continue to focus on ensuring the Council delivered outstanding services to its customers and he was very much looking forward to seeing the outcomes from the excellent work being done across the organisation in this area.