Minutes:
The Leader provided the following announcement:
The last Council
meeting took place just before Christmas, shortly after the General Election,
and early in the New Year I had the pleasure of welcoming our new MP Alicia Kearns
to Parkside for a very productive first meeting. We have already identified a
number of significant areas where we will be working together and have already
taken significant steps forward in one of our key commitments. Our aspiration
to deliver a second surgery for Melton has been strongly supported by our new
MP, so much so that she has already gained the support of the Prime Minister.
We are due to be meeting with the CCG again shortly and will continue to make
the case for choice and improved health services for our residents. We also
look forward to welcoming the Prime Minister to Melton following his agreement
to take up our MPs invitation.
On tonight’s agenda we
present our Corporate Strategy; an ambitious plan to help reshape our community
and ensure our council is sustainable and fit for the coming decade. Our
strategy proposes unprecedented investment in council housing services a
greater focus on customer services and a commitment for this council to become
carbon neutral by 2030. It puts resources into further increasing our ability
to tackle anti-social behaviour, whilst also strengthening our corporate assets
team so we can build more homes, support more jobs and help regenerate our town
centre; as well as secure the income we need to ensure our financial
sustainability. It is a bold plan, but any aspirations must be supported with
the right resources and tonight we also present our Council Tax and budget
proposals, which for the first time in 5 years will deliver a surplus against
ongoing expenditure. At a time which the finances continue to be a challenge
and the future funding settlement remain unclear, this is a fantastic
achievement, particularly when you consider all we are seeking to do through
our strategy. I was grateful for the extensive and robust discussions we had at
Scrutiny in relation to our proposals and thank the Chair of Scrutiny for her
diligence in leading such an effective process.
Our focus on council
homes remains our top priority. Tonight we seek approval for rent setting, a
new set of service charges and our Interim HRA Business Plan; the financial
basis of our Housing Improvement Plan. We are committed to undertaking a full
stock condition survey over the next two years and this will form the basis of
a new 30 year business plan which will be produced in 2022. Our rent proposals
seek to ensure the sustainability of our investment proposals and HRA; as do
our service charge proposals which represent a first step towards a more
comprehensive policy which we will bring back later in the year. We continue to
actively monitor progress on bridging the gaps in compliance we identified last
year and only today I chaired the latest Housing Improvement Board meeting
where we received positive progress updates. Last week we had a further contact
from the Regulator following our referral to them in October and once we’ve
provided them with some further information next week I would expect we will
receive their assessment of our position by mid March. As we know we have had
some significant historical challenges and while there is still a way to go we
have taken significant strides forward since last Autumn. On that note I am
delighted to welcome Andrew Cotton, our new Director for Housing and
Communities who is hear tonight and will be leading the improvement journey.
Andrew joins us formally in early April. One key challenge in effectively
managing our stock has been reliable data and tonight another report before is
the proposed investment in a new IT Housing system which will more effectively
enable this to happen. Approval of this tonight will represent another
important step as we look not only to improve, but to do so at pace.
In terms of the wider
agenda, you will be aware of our track record of working collaboratively with
our neighbouring district and borough councils. As we await the government’s
Devolution White Paper we want to ensure we are best positioned to take
advantage of any new funding settlement or arrangements. You will have seen
from the recent letter signed by all District Leaders that we continue to
encourage the County Council to work with us and to abandon their unsupported
plans for a single unitary for Leicestershire. To further strengthen our
district-led partnership we have agreed to form two strategic alliances; with
Melton forming part of the Northern Leicestershire Strategic Alliance along
with Charnwood and North West Leicestershire Councils. This strategic
partnership will build on existing collaboration and will help co-ordinate
important work on issues like reducing our carbon footprint, improving services
and strengthening our town centres. The groupings are not hard lines on a map
or formal arrangements but provide a further opportunity for councils to come
together and work on shared services and shared agendas.
One area where we may
wish to collaborate further is in encouraging more tourism to the area. I
recently had the pleasure of joining the MP and a delegation from the Council
on a visit to Belvoir Castle. It was great to hear their aspirations to work
with us and increase links to the Rural Capital of Food and play their part in
our place partnership work. To further support this work we are currently
making preparations to hold a tourism forum where we look forward to launching
the new Discover Melton website and I look forward to sharing more information
about this with all members in due course.