Agenda item

The Leader congratulated Councillor Graham on undertaking nearly 3 terms as Mayor for the Borough and congratulated Councillor Smith and her family on the birth of her baby.

The Leader said

‘It remains a very busy time as we continue to provide support to our communities and our businesses impacted by Covid-19.  I was delighted to see Leicestershire was leading the way in the proportion of over 70 year olds who have been vaccinated and I am sure this would have been helped by Melton having one of the first vaccination centres opened in the region.  Our Community Support Hub continues to provide assistance to the most vulnerable in our community and our team has made nearly £2.3k separate business grant payments, totalling £4m since November 2020.  This is on top of the £10.7m paid out to businesses earlier in 2020.  I want to reiterate my thanks to all officers and Members for their incredible response and support to our communities during the pandemic.

We are now digesting the Prime Minister's announcement (on 22 February 2021) and preparing to support the easing of restrictions over the coming weeks and months.  I do welcome the cautious approach and we must remain vigilant and maintain our commitment to public health guidance and regulations.

Tonight, we consider our budget and I am delighted that despite all we have faced this year, we have managed our finances well and are able to propose a budget that protects existing services and is balanced for the second year in a row.  We are also still able to invest in key priorities to support our Corporate Strategy and recover from Covid-19.  Key initiatives, include developing a new town centre strategy and master plan, along with a number of maintenance improvements, helping rural businesses through a £100k diversification grant scheme and supporting vulnerable residents through more council tax relief.  We want to invest in our IT, our website and audio visual equipment, so we can continue livestreaming our meetings when we can once again meet in person.  We want to repair the footstone bridge in our country park and with an array of national partners we will be developing a business case for rail improvements between Nottingham and Melton.  All this alongside the ongoing and continued investment in council housing services, as part of our ambitious improvement plan.  I look forward to discussing these proposals with all Members later in the meeting.

Following the recent Local Government Association (LGA) review, we are developing an action plan, which I will be keen to share with all Members shortly for wider review.  One of the early actions has been setting up meetings for myself with ward Members to understand any local issues and consider how the Cabinet can assist.  I've certainly found the discussions extremely useful and I hope those Members I have met with so far have too and I look forward to those continuing.

Concerning the Melton Mowbray Distributor Road (MMDR), we continue to work with our partners, Leicestershire County Council, Homes England, and Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) on seeing if an infrastructure agreement can be reached to secure the housing infrastructure fund.  Yesterday we received a draft heads of terms from the County Council and we are now reviewing this and considering the legal and financial implications and risks associated with it.  This is a crucial piece of work and as ever, we will do all we can to support delivery of the road but we must ensure any agreement is right for this Council and right for Melton.  I will update Members on this shortly and again we are intending to formally consider the Council's position on this issue at our Cabinet on 17 March 2021.  We have also shared our draft developer contributions Supplementary Planning Document (SPD) with the County Council, which they have requested and to support their infrastructure investment being paid back and prioritised recovery of highways and education contributions above other things.  We await their feedback and also are planning to bring the consultation draft to Cabinet at the 17 March meeting.

Whilst referring to the County Council, it is again regrettable that when we are negotiating on the most important infrastructure agreement for a generation, they chose to attack this Council, regarding the recent land disposal decision taken by our Cabinet in January 2021.  I welcome the review being undertaken currently by our Scrutiny Committee Chair and Vice-Chair, as we believe any such review will show a reasonable basis for our decision and appropriate way we have conducted ourselves.  Given the ongoing review, I do not think it would be appropriate for me to say too much at this stage but irrespective of the findings, the language used to attack this council and our officers was completely inappropriate and there was absolutely no justification for it.  We, as ever will conduct ourselves in the right manner and I will have more to say at the appropriate time but until then, I look forward to receiving the findings of the review from Councillors Cumbers and Bindloss. 

Finally, I was delighted to see we were recently successful in securing a £340k grant to improve the energy efficiency of our Council housing stock, through the Government's Green Homes Delivery Scheme.  We will be matching this with a further £300k, to deliver improvement works to nearly 70 properties through either external insulation or fitting solar PV panels.  This programme will help to support tenants who can find heating their homes expensive and will help to reduce fuel poverty.  It also represents a positive step towards our commitment to become a carbon neutral council by 2030.’