Overview and Scrutiny Committee - Tuesday 14 November 2023, 6:00pm

Overview and Scrutiny Committee
Tuesday, 14th November 2023 at 6:00pm

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Cllr Laura Davison
Mr Jake Hamilton
Cllr Laura Davison
Cllr Laura Davison
Cllr James Butcher
Cllr John Wing
Cllr Laura Davison
Cllr John Wing
Cllr Laura Davison
Cllr Connor McConville
Cllr Laura Davison
Cllr Tim Prater

4 Cabinet Member updates

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Cab member update

Cllr Laura Davison
Cllr James Butcher
Cllr Laura Davison
Cllr Alan Martin
Cllr Tim Prater
Cllr Laura Davison
Cllr James Butcher
Cllr Laura Davison
Cllr Tim Prater
Cllr Laura Davison
Cllr Jeremy Speakman
Cllr Laura Davison
Cllr Elaine Martin
Cllr Jeremy Speakman
Cllr Jeremy Speakman
Cllr Laura Davison
Cllr Alan Martin
Cllr Laura Davison

5 Proposed On-Street Parking Charges

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Cllr Polly Blakemore
Cllr Laura Davison
Cllr Anita Jones
Cllr Laura Davison
Cllr Alan Martin
Cllr Laura Davison
Cllr Polly Blakemore
Mr Fred Miller
Cllr Laura Davison
Cllr Elaine Martin
Cllr Polly Blakemore
Cllr David Godfrey
Cllr Laura Davison
Mr Fred Miller
Cllr Laura Davison
Cllr Polly Blakemore
Cllr Laura Davison
Cllr Bridget Chapman
Cllr Polly Blakemore
Mr Fred Miller
Cllr Connor McConville
Cllr Polly Blakemore
Mr Fred Miller
Cllr Connor McConville
Mr Fred Miller
Cllr James Butcher
Cllr Laura Davison
Mr Fred Miller
Cllr Laura Davison
Cllr James Butcher
Cllr Laura Davison
Cllr Polly Blakemore
Cllr Laura Davison
Mr Jake Hamilton
Cllr Laura Davison
Gill Butler

6 Housing Revenue Account (HRA) Business Plan 2023-2053

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7 Exclusion of the Public

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6 Housing Revenue Account (HRA) Business Plan 2023-2053

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Mr Andy Blaszkowicz
Gill Butler
Jonathan Smith
Gill Butler
Cllr Elaine Martin
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Cllr David Godfrey
Cllr Laura Davison
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Gill Butler
Mr Andy Blaszkowicz
Mr Andy Blaszkowicz
Cllr James Butcher
Cllr Laura Davison
Cllr James Butcher
Cllr Laura Davison
Cllr Alan Martin
Cllr James Butcher
Gill Butler
Cllr Connor McConville
Mr Andy Blaszkowicz
Cllr Connor McConville
Mr Andy Blaszkowicz
Cllr Connor McConville
Mr Andy Blaszkowicz
Cllr Connor McConville
Mr Andy Blaszkowicz
Cllr Connor McConville
Mr Andy Blaszkowicz
Cllr Connor McConville
Cllr Laura Davison
Cllr Connor McConville
Gill Butler
Cllr Laura Davison
Cllr Bridget Chapman
Mr Andy Blaszkowicz
Cllr Bridget Chapman
Mr Andy Blaszkowicz
Cllr Laura Davison
Cllr Connor McConville
Mr Andy Blaszkowicz
Cllr Laura Davison
Mr Andy Blaszkowicz
Cllr Laura Davison
Jyotsna Leney
Cllr Laura Davison
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Mr Jake Hamilton
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Disclaimer: This transcript was automatically generated, so it may contain errors. Please view the webcast to confirm whether the content is accurate.

Good evening, everyone and welcome to this meeting of the Overview and

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:00:10

Scrutiny Committee. This meeting will be webcast live to the internet. For those who do not wish to be recorded or filmed. You'll need to leave the Chamber for members officers and others speaking at the meeting. It's important that the microphones are used, so viewers on the webcast, and others in the room may hear you would anyone with a mobile phone, please switch it to silent mode as they can be distracting. I'd like to remind members that, although we all have strong opinions on matters under consideration, it's important to treat members, officers and public speakers with respect

do we have any apologies for absence this evening?

thank you Chair, no apologies, thank you, and are there any

Mr Jake Hamilton - 0:00:47

declarations of interest?

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:00:49

Councillor Butcher

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:00:53

yes, I declare them a director of opportunity with the relevant

Cllr James Butcher - 0:00:55

dispensation.

Cllr John Wing - 0:00:59

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:01:01

Cllr John Wing - 0:01:02

Councillor wing, focaccia also, and Joseph opportunist, private disputation provoked him.

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:01:10

thank you, colleagues, OK, we're gonna move on to the minutes and we have two sets of minutes before us, both from our two meetings on the 31st of October, the first meeting, which was held at 6.00, is the one that says budget update and the second set of minutes minutes from the meeting which started at 7.00.

which covered the other items on the agenda that night, so are there any comments on either of those sets of minutes?

no.

Councillor McConville happy to propose a minute if there are secondary for those two sets of minutes.

Cllr Connor McConville - 0:01:51

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:01:54

Councillor Jones, I think you are just for Hirst, is everyone content with those yeah?

I thank you very much.

OK, we're moving on to Item 4 Cabinet Member updates, welcome to Councillor Prater this evening and to Councillor Speakman, who are joining us, Councillor praise for the Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Finance and governance and Councillor Speakman, the Cabinet Member for assets and operations, I'd like to invite you both just to give an update to the meeting on the work that you've been doing and the issues that have been covering and then hopefully take some questions from the Committee this evening, Councillor Procter, would you like to start us off?

I'll do my best slightly unusually for me, I'm busking, and I don't have a 15 minute presentation in front of me, so I apologise for that,

Cllr Tim Prater - 0:02:45

I'm sure you're all desperately upset.

4 Cabinet Member updates

I'll do finance portfolio first, you will have seen.

I hope that by the end of the quarter 2 monitoring, so it will monitor the budget position throughout the course of the year, set the budget, you see how well you're going at a quarterly stages throughout the year performing against that budget.

at the end of quarter 2, we were broadly half a million pound underspent on where we thought we would be.

or against that budget, broadly 500,000 pounds better off than we thought it would be, it's not 500 pounds or 500,000 pounds cash in the bank because we expected to spend out of reserves last year, but with 500,000 pounds better off than we thought we would be.

that's being done by officers.

and the chief executive being really tight on spending.

making sure that spending is only being made absolutely as it's required on not filling positions, et cetera and being very.

at making sure that the only that only the spending that is necessary in order to do the Council's business and the priorities of the Council is actually being made. It's a forecast at this moment and it's not. It's not that we've saved a half a million pounds that is that we're predicting by the end of the year, but as long as everything else remains equal at this stage we will be half a million pounds better off than the Budget said we would be better off, we'll have

clearly greater certainty on that by the end of quarter 3, which is the end of December.

so you get more and more certain on your figures as you go through that period, but in terms of this year's budget and monitoring, where there are a number of councils who are currently looking at each other and government were overspending on this and that Kent County Council are in that position they set a budget and they spent more than their budget, we set a budget and we are currently spent less than our budget, it's a good position to be in but it's being monitored that's the current position.

we're also in the process of putting together the budget for next year, and there are so many documents at around that over the course of the next three months that you're gonna weep, those of you who have been councillors for the last four years will have wept at some of these before some of you and you can get to, we put them for, for the first time, hold serious documents, which accumulates to the final budget in February, which is the revenue and capital budgets. What we're actually going to spend in next financial year 24 25, but that's backed up with a whole series of things along the lines of Treasury Strategy documents. How we who we borrow from how we borrow, how we

how we use that money, investment strategy, where we put any cash that we've got, where we what interest rates would get on that, that sort of thing.

a medium term financial strategy and which is a for a full year. Look forward based on what you're setting your budget now and the next four years forward, based on the best guesses that you can make for the next four years of what is going to happen to the economy and interest rates and inflation, etc of that guessing with style and the further advance you get, the more guess it becomes and the less style. So by year four get kind of hoping that you're already on the right path. First couple of years you can have a reasonable, reasonable idea that your isn't that

what's your mortgage gonna be in four years' time, I don't know the answer to that question either, but guesses with style are placed at that stage and you get to work the best base account, so you're going to see a whole raft of documents coming forward, it's no surprise because as you'll know I keep saying it the medium term financial strategy published last year December last year, November last year.

said that this Council was expected to lose to spend 18 million pounds more than it would have an income over the course of the four years from March 2023.

we didn't have 18 million pounds and if that had been destroy, if that strategy had held a manner, then we run out of money somewhere in the middle of year, 300

and running out of money is not a not an acceptable option.

we are therefore looking at making sure that the programme that we put together this year and put forward to Council this year doesn't run out of money in four years, it's what we're aiming for, we'd really like it so that we could say that our income matches our expenditure over the course of that four years.

that's probably at this stage a tight ask, and I said, yeah 3 and 4, I guess it was style anyway so.

it is a certain amount of adding to, but we're aiming to get as close as we can to income meeting expenditure, certainly for the next couple of years, be lovely to balance it because I still share the approach that income income equals expenditure equals balance. A previous finance spokesman on this Council didn't see it that way and included using the reserves. I don't quite see it that way, but as long as we are using reserves to this day and we can see that we're not going to run out of the reserves over the next four years and we have a plan for seeing our income increasing, I'll take it

so that's that's the strategy that we're aiming to come to.

and within that strategy there are a number of pieces of work that you will have already seen, so the transformation programme discussing with staff about right-sizing management of the organisation.

getting that into place that's happening now

and we've been through a star chamber exercise where I've got to stare into the eyes of every cabinet member and all of their officers.

and

c see how much they left the room with that process. We'd gone through in terms of identifying some savings. I wouldn't say that they were the easy savings they were actually hard, saving that year going through line by line of 5,000 blind budget portfolio by portfolio and saying, Do you need back, do you need that and every officer went through that process and every cabinet member went through that process in their portfolio there aren't any easy cuts in any of those things. There are 5,000 lines in the budget for a reason that's because they thought they needed them all, but we've taken some money out of all of those

and we're starting to get to a stage whereby what we're projecting next year, and I'm gonna break a confidence, is not a four and a half million pounds loss.

closing the gap.

but there are still there, there is still a gap there, and there are still going to be some more decisions that need to be made in order to close that gap further.

but we've been very clear that we wanted those decisions to be open and put in front of more councillors than just cabinet.

was very easy for us to look at 6.00 or seven difficult decisions, and for Cabinet or for me shouting loudly in the corner of a room to say we shouldn't do that one, we could probably get away with that one, yes, we should do that one.

but actually that's not how we should be working as a council, and it certainly how we want to be working for the Council from May next year, so we're trying to get into this practice earlier.

so you've got in front of you, for instance, one of the difficult agenda items is the next agenda item, one of those difficult questions about on street parking, we could have sat in a room and shouted, Yes, we should do that or no, we shouldn't do that and we could have had that debate in Cabinet that actually we wanted to be had as widely as possible

should we other variants of it we should do, should we not do it at all and make sure that overview and scrutiny was involved in that make sure that that debate was had wider, it's not necessarily that there's a view of any specific injury.

specific person on these

or cabinet, but we can listen to what you say on this and other proposals which come forward, you come to for future scrutiny meetings.

and we want your view on how acceptable there are some of them in terms of charging to pay or park on-street, on-street parking charges, nobody thinks it's nothing that they came into local government that they wanted to do, nobody got elected, thinking that this is the thing that I wanted to face up to and to do please.

nope nobody is, as far as I am aware, invested in pay and display machine supplies.

all wants to see them, but on the other hand, there is the budget gap still to shop close and we've got to have to take some of these difficult decisions and we want to make sure that as many people in the Councillor is involved in prioritising those which are the acceptable, more acceptable ones which are the less acceptable ones so that we get the balance of that right.

so that's where the finance has come through, and I'm interested to see where your discussion goes later on on street parking charges, and I promise that that's gonna be fed back to the Cabinet meeting tomorrow, despite the fact there's a very short period of time between A and B albeit that one as well I promised to take your views to that and promised to listen to what he said on that.

just onto the governance part of the finance and governance portfolio, as you know, we are committed to moving to a committee system.

4 May 23 24, I think, Conor sits on this group as well, I think we're making good progress towards that.

we are being guided by a group called Bevan, Britain, who have done this with other councils and therefore have some expertise we're buying in expertise in order to assist us through this process, I think we are starting to develop what these have a very clear idea of what that structure will look like.

so it will broadly be a two main policy committee structure and there'll be a discussion on this on the 11th December 2 main committees at each of 12 members, I think he's again what's gonna be put to you and they will they will see the majority of the policy and the finance and structure or or and strategy discussions of the Council they are the decision-making bodies, they are big groups and the intention of them being big groups is to make sure that they are totally cross-party.

so that you can actually have discussions and debate and scrutiny of the decisions on the day that the decisions being made, so scrutiny will take place in those meetings. There are groups of there are meetings of 12 people, as they are entirely cross-party at that stage, and the intention is that not that you do scrutiny in advance and then pass your thoughts to a decision making body which happens at some other time, but the intention is that all of the that those views can be in that meeting and they can be interrogated, and you can ask the appropriate questions and get the feedback in that decision-making body each time so that you can make the decision you can do the scrutiny of the decision, you can test it, you can pressurise it, you can poke it and you can make the decision

actually on the night, so there will be two main policy committees, 12 each.

I'm afraid we get to keep a planning committee as well, sorry to all of those who sit on planning, we're not abolishing new hits required, there'll be a licensing committee as well, and an audit committee as well, you've got to have those straight, it's just the law.

there will almost certainly be some sub-committees of the two main policy committees, which are, I think, finance one finance committee finance and something I can't remember, there's something and we have a communities, community and environment committee, so one of them, essentially the cash and that strategy and one of them is essentially the doing stuff that housing and the environment and,

community broadly had us splitting up at the moment, we've got some more discussion about exactly where the line is between those which decisions go to, which of those how we, we'd make sure that things don't bounce backwards and forwards between committees.

there's also a piece of work there around making sure that any decisions which are made by officers or are in the Forward Plan might be made by officers that members have got the oversight of that and that they can call in decisions that haven't yet been made make to say actually we want those to come to the committee, please and make them come to that committee or even if a decision has been made within a period of time.

but if enough councillors put their hand up simultaneously and say No, stop, we wanted to discuss that before that happens, but there is a rescission process there as well. We're hoping that that's quite a high emergency override button. We hope that we're not gonna be resident residing sending rescinding decisions that much so that's probably a 50% of people sign. I'd like to see that decision come to Council, please, that sort of level, because we wanted to make sure that we got the ability to move with reasonable pace and that if a decisions deemed to be something that we should get on with that, they can get that it can be got on with, but we also want to have in place that process whereby Councillors retain that control because we should be a councillor led authority and off-slip, and so they will be set for decision. Stop that decision for right now, I want to bring it to committee and we want to discuss that, will bring it to Full Council and we want to discuss that and a call-in process. Slightly smaller number of people for decision had not yet been made. We understand that you were about to make that decision based on this report. Actually again we'd like to talk about that before you make it slightly low number of people, because it's easier to slow something then yeah, it is easy to bring something that hasn't been done yet, rather than stopping a decision, but that's that's the broad shape of where we're trying to go on that. There'll be much more detail. I think it's on the 11th of December at the members' meeting on that, and I hope papers will go out with all sorts of diagrams and lightens and listings of where those the various decisions sit in those committees. I hope that goes out then,

that's 15 minutes speaking without notes, or I apologise for rambling, I'll leave let you off now, thank you, Councillor Prater, obviously

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:16:55

some of the things you've raised there will be specific opportunities to discuss, but do colleagues have any comments or general points that they want to raise or questions at this stage?

Councillor Butcher

I just wanted to register thanks to you, you talked about the work

Cllr James Butcher - 0:17:15

officers had done to get us to that point where we were 500 k underspend, that seems just an extraordinary achievement and just a huge benefit for the challenges we're facing, so I just wanted to acknowledge that that work that was done so it really is very helpful and just to acknowledge how positive it is that these conversations are happening.

or both publicly, but with and with more councillor involvement, I think that's incredibly healthy.

Councillor Martin,

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:17:44

otaku

what you just said there, I think, has done an excellent job just

Cllr Alan Martin - 0:17:48

regarding the the role of scrutiny.

and I appreciate will talk about this in a bit more depth, another another time I'm just trying to unpack everything you said there and I guess in my mind, any group of people working as a team within a meeting can form a bias and will be making decisions that should stand scrutinising.

I appreciate that the dynamics are different from a cabinet model where your your scrutinising the decisions made by an administration, but even well, put it this way, just because Committees are made up of multiple parties, doesn't mean to say that they're going to be making perfect decisions.

also appreciate that there's going to be some kind of kind of call-in process, but it it does worry me a little bit that decisions won't be scrutinised in quite the same way that they would be now and she's been interested what discussion you had around them.

yeah, perfectly fair question.

Cllr Tim Prater - 0:18:57

one of the issues we've got to face in terms of doing this and

is that one of the things that we are quite clear, we want is a streamlined process that you don't have a meeting followed by meeting and follow up at a meeting in order to make a decision?

and that's the risk if one has a separate one, it was considered at the front is, do you have a separate scrutiny committee, which then looks at your two committees, and it scrutinise the decisions as it is going to each letter included still offer input into each of them or won't actually run out of councillors after a period of time at that stage because you've got lots of lots of people already you certainly run out of officers relatively quickly because they go OK in order to make that decision. I've got to go to the Scrutiny meeting followed by the Committee meeting followed by God if they call it in, I've got to come back and do this again and take it out of the full Council, so there's an amount of time in terms of the process of that

the best imagine you've got, it's actually a town and parish council decision making process at this stage you don't have a separate scrutiny committee looking at stuff you debate, stuff in a wide enough committee and group, you have the documentation up from and you look at the question and you think it through and your group you know people who aren't on that committee might have input into your et cetera and you make the decision on the night you don't have a separate scrutiny committee, you just do the business in the meeting. That's the broad principle is that you're gonna do the business in the meeting, it's gonna go to the appropriate meeting and that it's discussed and properly that now you're absolutely right in terms of making sure that that has proper process around it, so it's got the opportunity to call, when you know called witnesses, experts, people in that's what I think we will make sure that that's built in there and we make sure that we institutional lying flat as we go through, and we will also test it a bit in running as we get to May we will learn that some of the things here, you know, I'd like to think that we were about to write the entirely word perfect constitution right off the bat day one, but I bet we do, so that's gonna be some tweaking and things like that, but we are. We are keen to see that it's a model work that's streamlined that it doesn't go from meeting to meeting to meeting because that's the fear that those who have been in the committee system and 1990 80 s or 90 s committee system they did see their process and that's the fear which is always brought back to me on God it takes a year, you'd go for meetings which lasts for hours and then it goes to another meeting which lasts for hours and decisions take for months and months and months, and it's really important we don't go there. This is not what we're going to go into a streamlined Committee system whereby the decisions can be made relatively quickly at that stage, but with those constitutional checks and balances to make sure that you write that that feedback comes in from other people that you can call those witnesses from outside, and that you've got the ability to

the challenge things properly on the night and have a proper discussion and debate and come up with the right answer, as opposed to just the one that was on the paper.

thank you very much, Councillor Procter, Councillor Butcher.

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:21:54

just on the back of that team, when you talk about challenges and

Cllr James Butcher - 0:21:57

things on the night, I think one of the issues might want to look at is the way in which reports are written in order that we can do that challenging whether it's in this forum or the forum that you're describing because I think often reports are incredibly complex or difficult to get one's head around and not always clear what the kind of key messages coming through are and I think it would be worth our while really looking at that in order that we can do that streamline decision-making in an informed way rather than

papers getting ticked off and actually hand on heart, have we really got to the bottom of what that papers saying?

I see nods.

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:22:33

in support of that who wouldn't yes, you've got to unpack that right,

Cllr Tim Prater - 0:22:38

so we've got a paper in front of you tonight whereby you have an addendum arriving late, which proposed a third way, as they suggestions are something to consider as an option there because somebody sent an LC e-mail earlier this week sorry for it.

so it was that the the the the the offers another option at that stage, but I think we can get much better of that and much good work that making sure that the information is in the paper, but the recommendations are as black and white necessarily, as sometimes they've been announced that that there has been so that you've got the ability to interrogate it, you've got the ability to see what happens when you move things around that you can ask for well how about if we did this, but that's a little bit about asking far enough in advance that those numbers could be worked out because I asked that question a few days in advance, it allowed some numbers to be put in front of you this evening, which can give you a steer as to whether that's a potentially better idea or whether it's still not might do not deadlock

but yeah, I think we need to do some work about how we model those reports, and I think that's something that will that's part of that work in the run-in to, but also post-May that we will learn as we're going through, how can we make those who make those reports better for our Committees to to deal with and to,

actually have a proper decision-making process on the night.

thank you, yes, it's also about people in are members of the public who are following on as well in terms of understanding those reports

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:24:09

I'm going to move on Councillor Speakman.

thank you.

Cllr Jeremy Speakman - 0:24:18

thank you, Councillor Dobson, I'm afraid I don't have Councillor Brait, his busking skills, so this will be a or a return.

overview, it is a kind of portfolio of two halves rarely, which is looking at the ve, largely at the value, the earlier contract waste management service, and then looking at our assets, there's an overview.

and operations on that side, so starting, I think I'll go through the whole thing and then we can ask me questions on both rather than doing it bit by bit, I think so for regard the waste management service members of the Committee will be aware that the Veolia contract is at 5.00.6000000 the largest service contract that Virgin High District Council holes.

and also that we share management of that contract with Dover District Council and that's historical.

members will also be aware that an independent audit of the service,

took place roundabout April May time reported back in, I think it was June, and that did raise some concerns about certain aspects of the service.

we were pleased that the audit found a good deal to commend, not least the domestic bin collection, which was held to be a good standard, also inspections largely took place in the Dover area, for reasons I'm not quite sure, but that's what happened and that did find issues with the street cleansing service and weed control which,

was inconsistent in achieving acceptable standards, and I think, even though that those took place largely in Dover, I think they felt the same, could also apply to our area as well and needed to be looked at and addressed, so at that point it was sort of, I suppose roundabout

July August time with Dover District Council and the waste management team that's the team that actually oversees the contract on a day-to-day basis and are based in Dover they operate out of Dover out of the depot there we immediately put in place an action plan which had been which was accepted by the auditors and without going into too much detail it is on the website but a century of the key issues related to governance arrangements of the contract which they felt around performance monitoring.

and

also, we felt that we, we need to actively look at ways of how to improve that, particularly at weekends during the peak season we are finding, obviously, as I'm sure you are aware that the issues

arose largely during the the the peak summer period and, as you'll recall, particularly earlier in the summer we had overflowing bins and all that sort of stuff which we did address, and I think over over the time we we took, we took probably say quite robust action and I think there was a significant improvement but still a way to go yet.

as the portfolio holder, I am always keen to ensure that any complaints or concerns that come to my attention, whether from residents or councillor colleagues, received a prompt response and are speedily resolved wherever possible, I would like to say as a newly elected Member how impressed at being with the Council lead officers in this area, it is a very complex contract management structure as we share it and it's jointly managed with seconded staff and I think they've been exceptionally skilled in promoting the interests of this Council and the residents of this district.

we continue to explore ways to improve our recycling rates and work closely with local community groups such as high environmental community group, for example, in where I'm meeting with them in terms of how we can support their very successful electrical recycling waste scheme, we're also reviewing arrangements in relation to the recent government announcements setting a targets to improve recycling over the next three to five years, although,

from what we can see that, in fact, many of those.

targets such as a free weekly food recycling were already achieving, but not to be complacent, obviously, but we should be looking at that in more detail, so I let on those fed onto the assets side.

and so, despite, I think, then the the key challenges on what is clearly becoming a longer growing season and also her coinciding customers with staff shortages. I think the grounds maintenance staff continued to provide an excellent service, the award of Green Flag status for Kingsnorth Gardens Ragnall Park, the Royal military KAL and the canal and the coastal park, I think, will were well deserved. There is no doubt that the staff are extremely stretched, particularly at peak growing season and keeping on top of all the moaning and grounds maintenance over such a wide error area is, frankly, nearly impossible.

that we get social complaints from residents and also the many compliments we do receive are a testament, I think, to their hard work and dedication and I think our parks or something to be really proud of. Actually, I, I think they're great again. As a newly elected member, I had been very impressed by the entrepreneurial spirit of the assets team, and I think it's in a way I can put it where imaginative developments provide significant sources of income for the Council. As projects at Ship Street Coast Drive begins word, as well as others come to fruition, the income derived will be of major benefit to the council. Smaller scale schemes such as the concession a new toilet block at the coastal park, may bring less income but have proved enormously popular with the public, we also have things like the new potash courts are being installed at Radnor Park, following money raised by a community group, and through the winter there will be new fish wins installed for fishing on the royal military canal following that was following the award of grant funding from the Environment Agency.

changing places, toilets for disabled project adults, this project is on track to deliver new facilities at the coastal park Radnor Park and dim church main car park, and I just want to reiterate, I think the energy and proactive solution, focused culture of the team is highly commendable and a motor and a valuable resource for the Council happy to receive questions. Thank you very much, thank you, Councillor Speakman any questions, Councillor Martin,

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:30:56

Cllr Elaine Martin - 0:30:57

thank you great report, I just find it on the on the waist, did you have any ideas of what our recycling rates are and where we rank, because they do have some sort of tablas to where each area ranks?

in the country, in the count, our recycling rates argue I can come

Cllr Jeremy Speakman - 0:31:18

back to you with exact figures, I think we are recycling.

yes, thank you.

yeah

thank you, thank you, Councillor Golton.

yeah

any other questions, Councillor Jones.

and, as you mentioned, the new café toilets and a coastal park, and

Cllr Jeremy Speakman - 0:31:47

obviously we were talking about the Green Flag award for the canal, I think it would be really beneficial if we could put something similar, obviously when we look at the end of the canal near the Princess Parade area.

I think it's been fabulous, what you've put down the coastal park could could hide have something similar, I will definitely talk that over with the with Andy and his team.

yeah, I'd take a bow, thank you for getting that plug in there,

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:32:18

Councillor Councillor Martin, Alan Martin, thank you Chair.

Cllr Alan Martin - 0:32:20

I was looking through the output from the star chamber and looking at some of the

cost reduction measures and the one that leapt out at me was the one relating to replacement waste bins and suggesting there should be a charge irrespective of the the cause of the the damage or the or the loss, my own experience is the only time I've seen a bin go missing or get broken is actually

in the hands of the binmen themselves, and so I don't see that one.

being well received, I think that's what was known as being running up the flagpole and see what happens, and I think we're not suggesting it's may stay there very long, I don't know.

I think it's one or shall we say the

the least attractive options right up. There will be looking at so yeah, I take a point of doing on it. Thank you and a slightly more positive one. I I don't really now go where I'm going with this, but I noticed the pressure to reduce bins and I understand why, and it makes a lot of sense, I also know that if there's anything a resident says to me they it's the fact they want more bins. So in terms of how we square that circle, I know when you're next on the on the Marsh, I'm desperately trying to get you in

to meet up with some of the litter pick litter pickers from the Marsh, who do a fantastic job and a lot of us give some of our grant money to them to support the excellent work that they do and in the same way that I think this might help us with fly tipping, I'm wondering the extent to which there might be an opportunity to collaborate with them in some way and maybe in return of of us providing them with some additional funding, they might be able to plug some of the gaps for us, so I just flagged that as or something maybe we can

have a chat, and I am certainly happy to look at it, I mean, I'm aware that the high that it appeared litter, picking team, which I've been all along, to help on a couple of occasions they have an Area officer support, I don't know whether the same happens on the Marsh as well, but I think I think they do and they also have their own network of their own private bins and I'm not sure of the top of my head the extent to which they are then collected by the the bin, men or not, but something to explore anyway,

I think the more we can encourage, and I'm very keen to see that we encourage community involvement in in in this is as one, for example, as I said earlier, I think the the Hyde initiative and they they collected seven tonnes of electrical waste since the beginning of this year and now there is there's.

discussions that we're gonna be meeting with us to see how we can develop a scheme in folks and I'd also like to see that scheme and we've talking with them happening in wider parts of the district as well, because I think you know it. Obviously, if you're living a long way from focusing on the recycling centre, there are limited opportunities to how you can access recycling spot. So I think we're looking at a kind of outreach, recycling spots, but that's for discussion, but I think that's looking quite promising interesting. I think on that point alone at the the mosque, litter pickers actually raised quite a lot of funds from selling tin that they crush and process and so on, and so it may well be. We can help them out by giving them some of our problems to deal with. I would love to talk to you about it officers. OK, thank you, because I was great

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:35:50

thank you, Councillor Martin, any other points or questions.

no, OK, thank you very much, Councillor Speakman, thank you again, Councillor Prater.

you may be excused indeed.

OK, we're going to move on to Item 5 on the agenda which is proposed on street parking charges.

5 Proposed On-Street Parking Charges

I'm conscious of that, Councillor Jones has to leave us after an hour, so can I just alert officers to that in terms of giving an opportunity, if possible, in terms of presenting the item for Councillor Jones to come in, if she wants to before she has to go?

who is taking the lead on this this evening, Councillor Blake more, thank you.

Cllr Polly Blakemore - 0:36:30

Good evening, Chair and Councillors,

this report are see overview and scrutiny committee to consider recommendations to Cabinet for parking charges to be introduced in and around shopping streets in Folkestone, Sandgate, Hive and New Romney, there is huge demand for short-stay parking in these areas, the current free limited waiting bays for up to two hours are extremely difficult to enforce and they increase traffic on traffic and parking congestion.

these limited waiting restrictions are clearly unsustainable to help manage the parking more effectively. It is proposed that subject to statutory consultation, charges are introduced from the 1st of April 2024, but we have listened to the various feedback received in the last week and an addendum has been published since the agenda for this meeting was produced. The charges are now proposed as follows for Folkestone free for the initial 30 minutes then 2 pounds per hour linear per minute charging for Sandgate, Hyde and New Romney free for the initial 30 minutes then 1 pound 80 per hour linear per minute charging

these proposals will a increased parking enforcement efficiency be encouraged, driver compliance through fair and consistent enforcement.

c, improve traffic flow and reduce parking congestion.

d encourage greater use of off-street parking and e help plug the council's budget deficit.

pay and display is a highly effective way of managing parking pressures, it has been used widely across the county and beyond, with charges ranging from 1 pound 50 to 2 pounds 14 Canterbury, 1 pound 8 in Dover and 2 pounds 10 to 2 pounds 60 in Thanet it is estimated that these proposals will generate annually around 288,000 pounds that's the best-case scenario or the worst-case scenario 1,073 thousand pounds which will help plug the council's budget deficit.

Over the past five years, the Council on street parking account has had a net cost of over 440,000 pounds.

it should be noted that before arriving at these proposals, officers looked at savings in many other areas within the service, the new cashless parking contract has saved the Council over 100,000 pounds annually.

parking charges are also being reviewed, tender options for enforcement will be considered by Cabinet tomorrow.

I would also like to point out that it has been included in the recommendations that Cabinet considers the results of the consultation on this proposal, we expect a wide range of views which will be key, which will all be carefully considered, and rest assured that your comments this evening will be fed back to Cabinet tomorrow evening and I'm happy to take any questions.

thank you, Councillor Blake, Moore, and just want to make sure that

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:39:25

all councillors have seen the additional addendum that was circulated this afternoon, there are paper copies at the front of people need it.

Cllr Anita Jones - 0:39:37

OK, I'll open it up, Councillor Jones, thank you, I've thought about this, the loss of the last couple of weeks and certainly I invited Councillor Batemoor down to his so we could have a wander down the High Street and discuss the challenges obviously that it presents to the high street, it's a big dilemma I mean as a Green I would like to see people more using more public transport or cycling to the town.

but we know that public transport is often unreliable, particularly more recently, and this plan isn't actually a plan to stop people driving to the high street is just to charge them more for the convenience of being there, so currently I mean I'm looking at it from his point of view.

I am on the business and tourism association, I'm the mayor of Hayes, we've got a lot of independent traders down the high street

and they do struggle, you know, it's difficult times for businesses, and I would like to be seen to be supporting them.

we need accessible parking in Hyde, in particular, there are four hours in the day when you can't actually park in the High Street at 3.00, they all queue up so that they can get their accessible parking so that they can obviously go and visit the the shops at the moment in high as you can any park for an hour on the high street it's not the two hours that was first suggested.

Thursday, so I'm looking at it and thinking Well if they've got to pay 1 pound 80 to have a cough cup of coffee and Hive they've parked there.

no, there'd be ads, sorry, I'm talking about a cup of coffee if they're probably going to buy a cup of coffee, it's gonna cost some 1 pound 80 more if they're gonna part for their hour and I wonder whether this is gonna put people off using the high street and popping in so I've got a lot of issues with this proposal.

and how it's gonna affect the traders, because I think we need to support them as the most, that is the the heart of the town.

another on the side thing I was thinking about the fact that High Street is a conservation area and if we're going to stop doing a lot more infrastructure down the High Street.

are they going to be issues with how that's going to affect our conservation status as well, so again it's been something I've been debating with myself and I've been having a look and I've been talking to traders, and I think there is a lot of concern about this.

the numbers don't suggest that we're going to make huge gains from HIV.

it's a bit of a a lot of effort for very little, so I would like to suggest that we we don't consider this for Hyde. I'm sure that Sandgate and New Romney would have similar views. I can't speak for Folkestone, I don't know the situation much there and I am sure that traders would be really upset about this too. It is really tough times, particularly for small, independent trainers traders and if we

by not supporting them, we won't have a high street at the end of this, so anyway, sorry as long speech.

thank you, Councillor Jones.

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:42:41

Councillor Alan Martin, thank you, I'd like to I'd like to build on that from the perspective of of New Romney, where I think a lot of the

Cllr Alan Martin - 0:42:50

things that Councillor Jones has just said would apply to the residents on the Marsh generally who used New Romney as their kind of is their capital city if you like, where everyone on the Marsh gravitates to from or from a shopping perspective but definitely they're definitely the traders.

I think this will cause a huge stink, actually I think businesses would be very concerned and residents will be very.

frustrated.

I'm also with my New Romney hat on I don't actually think this will will bring in anywhere close to the revenue that is discussed either for for reasons I'll come back to in a second and the proposal to have the the 30 minutes free parking, I think will mean you you raise virtually nothing from from this definitely in New Romney I think you'll have some unintended consequences not not least that you're just going to push the problem out to the roads that are parallel to the High Street which are already regularly quite cluttered.

I speak from personal experience, I will go down the High Street if I can't find a space, I'll circle round and either go to one of the car parks or parking one of the two or three roads parallel to the High Street on either side of it there are no parking restrictions on those.

people also frequently use the Sainsbury's car park, which is where the parking is free, I don't think Sainsbury's are enjoying that they've started to put signs up in recent months to suggest that you should only park there if you're shopping at Sainsbury's and it may well be that they consider some kind of charging structure in there in the future so you're sort of pushing the problem.

out, I'd also highlight that new Romy serves a rural community, and if you live in Ivy church you don't have an alternative way of getting into New Romney, you can't get a bus or we can, but it's just you when we ought to get back again there's only one bus a day.

you there's no sort of viable cycle path or easy way that you can walk in from these rural communities, so someone's only real, viable way of getting into New Romney is to drive and they obviously then need to to park their car.

I would also observe

some biome behavior and what I observe of others.

and, to a certain extent, this actually supports that the the 30 minute.

proposal, but my sense in the High Street is the majority of people stop for no more than about 5 10 15 minutes if you, if you sit outside the spa or the butchers or the charity shop, someone is dropping something into the charity shop or buying something from the butchers are going to the spa and they're in and out of their car and you'll see a very regular turnaround of of vehicles.

and what I was going to say with the first proposal was that if you're going to force those people to pay, I think they will seriously question whether they come into the high street at all, although just move out into the parallel roads with the second proposal, I think that would be welcome and it would probably mean that 80 or 90 of the p 90% of the people coming into the High Street would park and be quite happy with the fact that they'll only be there for half an hour, but it would mean that you're not going to get any gain from the pain and you're not actually going to generate any additional additional revenue. When I was speaking to traders and people around the Marsh, I think they're feeling was. This would massively impact trade, and I think when you look at Church Lane in West Street car parks, which are tiny car parks, but they never fall, and I think most people look at that as being an indication that, if charged for parking people will tend to gravitate to other parts of the town,

or just not bothered to not bother to come in at all.

I think I would also raise a fairness point and I don't want to raise this because I'd I'd rather this does not happen at all, but if you if you are going to look at New Romney, I'd question why we're not looking at Cheriton,

and we've great apologies to to herself.

we couldn't help noticing that military Road Hive outside Sainsbury's has free parking and people park there and go into town, and there are many more parking spaces there than there are in in New Romy High Street was are biased of observation, and I really don't want to say this but why New Romney and not dim Church and and lead

just from a pure point of fairness, I guess so.

thank you, Councillor Martin, do you want to come back on any of those

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:47:33

points at this point, Councillor Blake, will surely yeah?

in answer to your question about Cheriton at the moment, we're just looking at at the for.

Cllr Polly Blakemore - 0:47:43

main shopping areas in the district, obviously there are problems in others, and Cheriton was most definitely one of those and they will be considered at some point as well, but to address some of the other issues I think.

fact that we've listened and have gone down a 30 minutes.

vote.

is re recognition of the fact that people do tend to go to the high street for a short, shorter period of time or pop in one and a pop out, and the fact that you can get in it's not not so much for high, but in the areas where there are two two hours free parking.

when you've got two hours free parking in an eight hour day, yeah you'll get eight to two people coming in a car, you'll get eight people coming into the town if you make that those people coming for half an hour that and do those sums it means you've got 32 people coming in, so they've got much higher turnover. It's in fact something that they asked for in Hyde some years ago they asked for the 30 minutes and for one one rather than the one hour, that they ended up getting for that very reason that it does increase the throughput and it does mean that people who just want to pop in and pick up the dry cleaning or pop to the post office or go to the bank if they're not lucky enough to have been there

does that mean that they can do that get on their way, get somebody else in, so there are different ways of cut, cutting it, and I think I think there is an unnatural antipathy towards it.

but I don't know that we know for sure that half an hour free parking rather than one hour or two hours is definitely going to be worse for trade.

and I'd also asked the question about when you last went to a high street in this in the south-east or indeed in most towns across the country where you haven't had to pay pay to park in the high street, so there, as I say there are different ways of looking at it and no benefits got anything else that he wants to add.

thank you, Councillor Wood, Councillor Blake, more than you cover most of the points.

Mr Fred Miller - 0:49:53

yes, as you are, as you said, across some districts in Kent they already charge for parking on-street in Dover which close to us, they do charge up to 1,080 an hour as well, and the same in Ashford and Canterbury, so most east east do charge.

this is something that should have been conceded a while ago we have a budget deficit, on-street parking.

gives us a net cost of about for the past five years of about 440,000 pounds, so it's something worth considering.

thank you.

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:50:36

Councillor Martin and Councillor, Godfrey.

Cllr Elaine Martin - 0:50:41

thank you, and I just want the backup for them.

another Councillor Martin, split.

wow, with the half hour three parking, I'm really pleased to see that's been suggested because.

as you said, people just popping in for dry cleaning banks, whatever you would need it, and or detract from if they had to pay for it.

also my correct in thinking that any money raised from the parking would be reinvested into local transport initiatives and

if so, can I suggest it's reinvested into active travel improvements?

to encouraging the cycling, the walk-in, one or more thousand, the cycle paths, the PA to Councillor Martin said are and are now unavailable, so thank you.

thank you, Councillor Godfrey.

Cllr Polly Blakemore - 0:51:39

thank you, I've got great sympathy with the other Council has said you know opposing this.

Cllr David Godfrey - 0:51:41

can I just ask that the with statutory consultation period is 21 days.

because that also worries me a little at this time of the year when people aren't quite focusing on it, that perhaps it ought to be a little longer if we're gonna go into this, because it does seem that this amounts answered questions so I'd like that to be considered to extend it for perhaps a couple of weeks I came down to vote and today from upon the hills where we're building an OK for you, people in the low nouns by the way and,

popped into my bank Nationwide bank and there were three or four spaces available while I was there less than five minutes, 10 minutes and away again, so I am not sure whether he's gonna bring you a great deal of benefit, the public and you just see as another money-raising exercise and I accept we need some money but I don't think that's the right reason for doing it.

so I would be very supportive of the other Council decision.

suggesting caution on this one, thank you, Councillor Godfrey I've got

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:52:41

Councillor Chapman on and Councillor McConville, indicating, do you want to pick up the point about consultation period, Councillor Plainmoor?

Mr Fred Miller - 0:52:53

the statutory consultation period is a minimum of 21 days, our programme, we have done it for 24 days, so it will start on the 24th of November and finish at and finish on the

on the 18th of December, so that's a period of 24 days and we've extended it by three days, and that's what our programme is currently indicated, thanks clarifying that Councillor Bateman, I just wanted to

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:53:19

come back on Councillor Lane Martin's question about active travel to

Cllr Polly Blakemore - 0:53:23

say that yes, money raises will ring ring fenced for transport and other public transport or,

our road infrastructure, or all the paraphernalia around that and yes also that active travel would very much be up there as one of the projects to be finance.

thank you.

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:53:42

Folkestone councillors, Councillor Chapman, and then Councillor McConville.

yeah, it's really unfortunate where, even in this position, isn't it,

Cllr Bridget Chapman - 0:53:50

but there we are, we've got to clean up a bit of a mess that was left.

I would.

I I don't drive and I just think it would be, it would be great, wouldn't it if people were able to get buses, as you said, or or cycle but the infrastructures really really poor, I'd like to pick up what you said about active travel I've cycled into folks and to do shopping.

and there is nowhere to park a bike.

there is nowhere to park about those, or there's a couple on Rondo booze-free off of of cycle racks, but apart from that I've got you know there it just isn't anywhere, so we've really got to give you know that's an inexpensive thing that we can do to assist people to find other ways to come in and do their shopping.

are we, I'm just wondering about it, because I take on with the original proposal I take on board that it cuts there's there's environmental benefits because it cuts down on circling and things like that, but with the 30 minutes aren't we just gonna have a lot more people circling, how do we know that that's that's gonna cut that down?

I, I think, because of the higher churn you'll get with the 30

Cllr Polly Blakemore - 0:55:06

minutes, I think you'll find that that those spaces are going to free up that much quicker, whereas with the two hours I mean you know what it's like down Sandgate Road, it's like the wild west down there, sometimes with the double parking and a people to drive a ground, run people staying a bit more over their two hours, so I know just isn't that turnover and I think the 30 minutes will assist that, but I can also borrow to Fred who knows more about Mr Naidoo.

what the the the the the scheme would do?

Mr Fred Miller - 0:55:38

the pay and display machines will require the drivers to buy a pay and display ticket. So, even if you have another 30 minutes' free parking, you will need to go to the pay and display machines and obtain a ticket or book a session via windows, so you require a ticket. So that means the issue we currently have is people park up for two hours and then move to another location where they can find another parking space for two hours so that we'll go, because if you booked a session for 30 minutes that will read for the day, so you cannot then go and book a normal ticket for another 30 minutes, so we should see you. A reduction in vehicle cycling round vehicles, double parking, just hoping for that, free parking space, and there will be a higher chorus as Councillor Blackman just said, because it's only 30 minutes so people would go and there will be

well, for a lot more spaces available.

thank you very much, Councillor McConville.

thank you Chair.

I mean in terms of Folkestone, I mean with without folks and this

Cllr Connor McConville - 0:56:46

scheme doesn't really work, I mean all the money is coming out of Folkestone.

but.

on your you know, looking at the figures well, firstly I mean reasons for recommendation or reason e, which I assume is the least important reason is to make money, so let's just start at that making money is not an important point in this discussion or is the least important point I think if we can if we're starting from that position if we look

the numbers are hundred and that you're proposing 132 parking spaces in the area, you're looking at, I've walked it twice, I've gone on Google Maps a number of times, but sadly it's it always seems to be the same, it's just to say they've updated the image as often as I'd liked, but I'll make it a hundred and two

yeah, I assume you're not going to take away the disabled bays and expect people to start paying for parking on the disabled face.

so Sandgate Road.

top end outside of Rosemont, I make 12 base Manor Road, I make 15 days second part Sandgate Road between Christchurch and Manor Road.

that is thus your biggest bit, that's that's 41 days booby square 15 base.

and

Bouverie Road 19 base, sadly, the part of the scheme that this is not looking at the most awful part of Sandgate Road outside of KFC, those shops which is not in your red line.

description the only place I would probably agree with having some sort of paid parking, which has 41 spaces currently is not in this scheme.

so for me that's just bonkers.

I could see that there could be merit, possibly in having some paid parking there and possibly in the alphabet of Sandgate Road, but if you, even if you take that, even if you took your 1 32 figure.

through every square and Manor Road a resident permits, so there's no guarantee that the residents wouldn't just leave their car there all the time, there's no, there's no guarantee, you'd make any money out of those streets, so that's that's 30 that's 30 spaces lost already so by my account I'm at about 70 that you're going to make money on.

and that's in your best, that's in your best-case scenario, I mean in the worst-case scenario.

it's that for me that about a hundred just for Folkestone that 144 would come down quite considerably.

I think there's merit in, rather than than going for this straight away, there's merit in looking at reducing the parking times again, that that stretch of off road.

the report mentioned circling double parking, double parking is an issue in the part of the road that you're not addressing in this report.

the delivery drivers, the people that just stop and think they can just park in the middle of the road for 90 seconds, while they dip into savers, then that's that's where double put people aren't dumb people aren't really double parking up by Rosemont or out, so maybe a little bit outside a Tesco Express, but nothing to the scale that goes on in that last section of Sandgate Road so I mean if anything if you're going to do anything there,

I would want to see some sort of some sort of play that you could stop people from from actually double parking there, I think.

having the discussion about possibly even even 30 minute parking there or one hour parking, maybe around those those permit roads, Manor Road Bouverie Road Bouverie Square, I'm sure the residents who live in those roads and can never park in them would be would be happy to see a reduced time for visitors to park there to allow them to possibly get parked near their house but I think the the far end of the scheme Sandgate Road outside of Rosemont just opposite our parking.

it's right opposite our our parking.

station and then on the other side outside of Tesco, Express on that side of Bouverie Road West.

people people park, there, they go to, obviously the Rosemont restaurant, on that side, you've got Coco me, you've got about six or seven restaurants on that side, so you know people are going to want to park there for use that to our parking to go and have a meal.

so I don't.

are they going to go, are they going to park there and have that meal, I don't know it, maybe they maybe they would, but.

I think if money's not the main reason, if we're trying to improve.

enforcement, efficiency, drive or compliance, then I think there are better ways that we can look at, especially just focusing on on Folkestone and Sandgate Road specifically, there are better options to consider, in my opinion, than.

than going forward with these proposals as they stand, I mean, I would hope Cabinet would seriously consider those thoughts, I think, if they are still minded to to go out to consultation, by the way there's a cost of consultation which isn't reflected in the report so that cost is factored in then I would hope that they would at least,

go with the amended sort of looking at that at that 30 minute option.

and I have to agree with Councillor Godfrey, I think any consultation should should continue until after Christmas, a lot of trade, is it going to be busy it's their busiest time of the year to expect them to to actively engage with this consultation?

but swiped between when it starts, and a week before Christmas Day, I think is a hard ask gift, given the time between Christmas and new year, where a lot of them will clothes, they'll be able to read whatever documents go out, they'll be able to engage properly and you'll get a much better if you get a much better, more fairer response to your consultation, so I would want to see the consultation. At least go to the third or 4th of January.

that's enough for me

thank you, Councillor McConville, do you want to come back on any of those points?

Cllr Polly Blakemore - 1:03:27

I think you are right about the financial imperative, but there is more to it than that, though there are enforcements and compliance issues over our congestion issues, there are.

verb due to the congestion issues, the air quality issues. So and I think it's also worth pointing out that the the charges in the off street parking in the car parks were Archie Lever, so we're trying to encourage people to use the car parks Rob that rather than the on street parking, and they will find it cheaper, obviously to park there. No, none of this affects the disabled. Blue badge PA badge holders, and I think that I'm just trying to think of it that that that top end of Sandgate Virgin referred to, I think, is mostly disabled parking. There were the

OK, I will go back in and checked.

right yeah, OK right, I'll go back and check that I don't know if some floods got anything to add about space numbers and so on. Yeah, I've got the numbers but I haven't got into two to hand, but the the the

Mr Fred Miller - 1:04:35

the entire Sangat world and where we have we limited waiting for up to two hours. The proposal is to convert those 12 spaces to pay and display, obviously where we have disabled bays they will remain unchanged, so everywhere we've got two hours, they will change to

pay and display gases proposal.

did you want to come back to Councillor O'Callaghan just to confirm

Cllr Connor McConville - 1:05:02

the pilot Sandgate Road, I'm referring to from Cheriton Place to Burberry Square, which is not highlighted as being part of this scheme, will not have parking charges.

there may have been an issue with the the map, I haven't got the map

Mr Fred Miller - 1:05:20

in front of me, but it's definitely included in Sandwell.

Sungate was definitely included, apart from obviously the disabled bays, which will remain and change the maps.

apologies for that okay.

we need to clarify that point, Councillor Buchanan.

Cllr James Butcher - 1:05:41

yeah, I just wanted just to put a counter position to what we've had so far, and I think it's important to pay attention to some things in the report that quite possibly this could be a benefit to traders and we were concerned about the impact on businesses there's a hypothesis here that it could have a beneficial impact and that that's worth looking at,

I am concerned that yeah, just getting that clarity about the sang the the top into Sandgate brought, because that does seem absolutely the most critical part, as Connor says, where the double parking happening.

but I think if we can do something that increases Joan and I think there'll be plenty of occasions taking that top, it has Sandgate Road where you'd go and look, and it's very rare as a place to park there and you would go off somewhere else to a supermarket or else or somewhere else and it could well be that it makes it easier for people to drop into those shops and I think that will be a welcome thing even if it's difficult to,

get this across to people, but just because it's difficult, I don't think we should not do it.

thank you, Councillor Butcher, or are we able to get clarity on that

Cllr Laura Davison - 1:06:53

point this evening or was at something that needs to be?

clarified afterwards.

Mr Fred Miller - 1:07:01

yes, I've just linked to that now it looks like the the the east are a point narrow because definitely that bit of Sandgate Road is included in the proposals and we will be if the decision is made where we will be consulting on that end of Sandgate Road since the map shared with the committees is not correct, yes unfortunately, and I do apologise for that because I should have picked up on that OK, thank thanks for clarifying that point.

Cllr Laura Davison - 1:07:31

are there any other comments from councillors this evening on this item?

Cllr James Butcher - 1:07:42

Councillor Butcher just wanted to register some some frustration about because comments clearly gone to a lot of trouble.

to work out and double check the figures on here, and it does seem pretty extraordinary that at this stage we're kind of getting a map that doesn't actually represent the scheme under consideration and adjust.

yeah, well in college, he's not be hugely frustrated, having gone to all that trouble, I mean, it just feels that we should be able to rely on documents, and the public should be able to allow documents when they get this far, there's something as fundamental as that it should be accurate,

thank you, Councillor Butcher.

Cllr Laura Davison - 1:08:19

no other comments. I would just add that one other thing that has been raised is about the work that was done last year on the parking strategy review and how what's happened with that work and the conclusions from that work looking at parking across the town, and how does that feed into this as a wider picture? Thinking about the items that are listed there around, you know things that could be done to improve some of the issues that we know get a lot of e-mails from residents about parking issues in the town, how some of that work could actually be constructive around trying to resolve some of those practical problems. So I just wanted to flag that up as well. Councillor Bateman,

yeah, just to say that the the parking strategy was commissioned under

Cllr Polly Blakemore - 1:09:09

the old administration, so we are having another, we've had to happen now, but look at that, so it's not quite ready to be shared yet, but it does very much concentrate on one on just the yeah just the town centre now and now needs to include the harbour area as well. So yes, a lot of the same same issues are brought up, but it doesn't really have the effect of the fact that we do still need to find a way of managing the parking on street

around the centre, as the strategy is very much more focus on off street parking as well.

Cllr Laura Davison - 1:09:47

thank you, and I don't think I don't see that we have specific.

recommendations for for us as a Committee to vote on this evening only to have discussed the points that are in front of us can I just clarify that, and is that correct.

yes, I mean.

Mr Jake Hamilton - 1:10:10

officers gonna take the feedback with regards to the statutory consultation to Cabinet.

Cllr Laura Davison - 1:10:20

yeah, that's it there's nods there, OK we consider that registered okay in that case, if there's no more comments on this thanks very much, that's very full contributions from Members this evening, I hope that's useful feedback for the Cabinet meeting when it takes place, thank you, Councillor Blackmore, thank you for it.

OK, we're going to move on to the next item in front of us this evening, which

is the housing revenue account HRA, business plan 2023 to 2053?

6 Housing Revenue Account (HRA) Business Plan 2023-2053

item 6 in front of us, but to invite Jill Butler to introduce this

Gill Butler - 1:10:58

item, thank you, Chair members, just to give you a brief, very brief introduction, and before I go through these, these few slides.

just to say, the housing revenue account or HRA is a 30 year business plan, so it sets the parameters of the work and the spend that is undertaken by the Council's Housing Team.

and it underpins every decision that we take in the HRA for the next 30 years. It was last published in 2016 and although it was reviewed in 2020 when East Kent Housing stock came in house, that was a very light touch review so myself, my housing team, my finance colleagues who are here today have been working on a revised model for over a year and our aim has been to ensure that the Council continues to provide a financially balanced housing and asset management service that meets the legislation invest in our stock and delivers excellent customer service to our tenants and leaseholders across the district, in line with the Housing Services vision.

the business plan model itself has been built with expert assistance.

by a drum chuckled Adrian Waite, who is from A W ICS, there's quote here from him, he's very experienced in all the aspects of finance management public services policy, having worked really closely with several local authorities and housing associations on preparing developing their business plans so we've been able to put quite a lot of benchmarking and information into this report directly from him it also allows us to say that we have most definitely had independent scrutiny.

to ensure that the plan looks sensible to an objective reviewer and is sustainable over the 30 year period, Adrian has put together a sensitivity analysis under Appendix 3 in this report, which shows you what would happen if some of the assumptions in the business model were to change significantly over time, so I would draw your attention to that if if you haven't had a chance to go through that particular element of this very long report just to summarise here,

the key challenges and features of the business plan.

as I'm sure you all know, local authorities across England are facing significant financial pressures on their HRA's, we seek to build new homes.

to maintain and improve existing homes and improve the service for our tenants, the cost of living crisis has increased management and maintenance and construction costs for new build.

interest rates are increasing, capital financing costs have affected the viability, particularly of of new-build schemes. Government has capped rent increases, but homes must still be maintained to the decent homes standard and must be improved to meet. The decarbonisation agenda. Plus services to tenants must be improved to meet the requirements of the social housing regulation act, which is brand-new July 2023. However, despite all of these challenges, the folks in an HIV count District Council HRA, is relatively robust. It has a net operating income of over 2 million a year and will end 23 24, with balances of over 4 million. The stock is in relatively good condition now and debt is relatively low. This enables the Council to prepare this 30 year business plan that maintains financial viability, whilst making a significant investment in existing stock and new stock, to help tackle the housing crisis in Folkestone. Hive district

the key features of the plan are on this slide.

7 Exclusion of the Public

I'm sure you know, you know all of these and most important things that we're looking at in terms of carbon reduction and retrofitting the social housing decarbonisation fund.

6 Housing Revenue Account (HRA) Business Plan 2023-2053

has so far allowed us to retrofit 125 homes 20 to 23, and that brings 109 of them up to IPCC.

and Ross House 16 flats up to SPCA, the total investment to date on that scheme was 2.9 million.

and we are. We now have another 5.2 million social housing decarbonisation fund wave to 2.1 over the next two years to 2025 to deliver a further 300 homes on that programme. So, although there are still uncertainties about the long term costs and effectiveness of some energy efficiency measures and it is challenging for the HRA business plan to accurately forecast decarbonisation costs across a whole 30 year period, we now feel we have a clearer understanding of the costs associated with retrofitting our Council stock to achieve greater energy efficiency and we're confident that we should we be lucky enough to secure yet more government funding. We will be able to achieve our ambitions to 2030, although

our ambitions to 2050 are slightly more based on some more assumptions.

Over 1,500 people are currently on the housing waiting list and Appendix 2 in the, and the main document of this report gives a table of the housing need in this district so it whilst it remains an imperative for us to acquire and build more affordable homes is new housing genuinely affordable in our district. The table in the report in section 8 highlights the challenges that we face with the local housing allowance, for instance average rents for a 3 bed at social rent level, which is what most of our council tenants pay. Currently is 111 pounds 55 per week. Market rent at Local Housing Authority level is at 1.00 7 9 62 per week, and if we were able to charge for affordable rent at 80%, it would be 212 pounds 90 per week. So it gives you some context as to the income that we are currently working with, with most of our council. Tenants paying social rent at Local Housing Authority level

the other couple of things on the slide, the the housing capital or improvement programme, has been refocused and smoothed out for the the life of this over the next 10 years, but across the whole 30 year business plan and now presents a more realistic and consistent programme across the next 10 years and that's that's been a crucial way that we've been able to now put back in some money for new build and acquisitions.

this slide just very quickly, some of you might recognise it's a list of our key priorities for the HRA agreed with Overview and Scrutiny in January 2023, the revised business plan looks to focus on meeting statutory and legislative requirement and resident satisfaction by delivering in this order, firstly, compliance.

tenant health and safety and wellbeing we've put across the 30 years 38 million capital investment in disabled adaptations to our council stock, remodelling independent living schemes, rewiring estate improvements of another programmes to benefit our tenants.

number 2, housing management repairs and ongoing maintenance.

this is a very, very key area for us.

in terms of 3 317 million revenue expenditure over the next 30 years on managing our homes and providing services to our tenants 187 million revenue expenditure on repairs and maintenance of our homes.

decent homes, investment and capital improvements to our stock, we've put in 166 million over 30 years, decarbonisation retrofitting existing homes, 44 million in the capital programme acquisitions and contributing to affordable homes new build 126 million over an 18 year period to deliver 360 new, affordable homes, followed by investing a further 40 million in the Capital Maintenance of those homes.

so just moving on to some of the tables that I pulled out of the report and put here, I've got my colleague Jonathan here, who can add to any particular finance side of things, but just to quickly say, the BP report provides us with an update to the financial position of the HRA over the next 30 years based on a lot of reasonable assumptions laid out within the report and the forecast that the HRA business plan continues to be robust and viable and is able to deliver on those key priorities that I just mentioned. The detailed income and expenditure as set out within Section 7 and 8 and fully in Appendix 1, A of the main Cabinet report

the financial model is is a tool for testing existing priorities and the impact of changes in government policies and changes in key business sensitivities to ensure plans remain affordable over time, so this is, this is the first 10 years.

have the next 10 years to 2 2042.

and there is the 5 million a year at current prices.

INF for the next 18 years for new build and acquisitions, as you can see, and that's index, so that's in line with in fro inflation to 2041 42.

after that period of time, we are more dependent on securing grant funding and HR cash resources and incomes, such as right to buy receipts.

and then this is the final 2050 or 2052 2053.

table.

before I go on to the capital programme, I thought it probably be good to stop there and see if there are any financial questions that you might want to put to Jonathan.

very happy to do that, are there any financial questions at this point?

perhaps we can come back to that of the second part of the presentation okay.

so this is a summary of the capital spend our capital programme, this our investment in our housing stock.

Over the first 10 years, it should be said, or, as I mentioned earlier, that we feel we have a very good level of confidence in our knowledge, around our stock and the investment needed in it.

although some of the assumptions for met were made in the plan using the data from the originals Rapley's stock condition data that was carried out in 2021, much of this has now been reviewed, I'm more up-to-date survey information, our surveyors have actually been going out there looking at Rose saying there is this roof gonna last 10 years or cannot last 15 years so we've done a lot of validation of the projections and the costs.

to maintain and upgrade the housing stock, which has enabled us to be able to smooth out the capital programme and provide a consistent and manageable low level of investment over time, which supersedes the HRA assumptions in the previous medium term capital plan.

that was taken to members previously, and it's allowed us to put this extra 5 million a year towards acquisitions and new build in, and I know 5 million a year does not sound very much, but we are, we would say that we are very strongly looking to find some additional funding from bodies such as homes, England, brown release funding and also that covers acquisitions as well.

this is the final 10 years.

yeah

sorry, Councillor Khan, who you are waving away because I had just just while we're on this slide.

I was going to bring it up later as the slides there, obviously in recent years we've really struggled to utilise HRA capital budgets.

22 23 3 million had to be able to be rolled over just initially, to get a sense of the assumptions that you're making to sort of, give some maturity that you know we can deliver on these capital budgets, you know all the things that need to go into place to get the get the actual work done.

that work is has been done in an and and we are, we are back on track in terms of delivering.

yeah

thank you, Councillor McConville, are the you you refer to a number of

Mr Andy Blaszkowicz - 1:25:06

staffing issues within the site.

which have now been rectified, very pleased to say that we've got a very good team in place, who seemed to be very settled and very thorough in their work. I think they're on track to deliver the capital programme this year. I think the year before the year you just referred to, I think they spend 100% of the capital programme at 10 million, which was a huge achievement since the service came back in house the capital programme up until that year, excluding new builds, because obviously we know the issues there, but for the capital works the budgets were spent on and that's why we've got a slightly has been able to smooth the profile of that spending, because the money that's been spent over the last couple of years has improved a lot the level of the stock. So I just thought I just wanted to say that just to

OK.

Gill Butler - 1:25:53

so if I just continue briefly on this is the strategic summary.

this, the 30 year business plan assumes that at some point, in fact we've we've put in by 2025 CPI, inflation will fall to around 2% Bank of England target from August 23 from the current levels of 6.7

the majority of local authority borrowing is undertaken from the public Works Loan Board with current borrowing rates around 6%, and there is an assumption that in the medium term, by 2027, this rate will reduce to 5%, and then there'll be a new normal of around 4.5% for the majority of the business plan to 2030, so which will allow us to reconsider our current level of borrowing to help fund the HRA re investment in stock and potential new build and acquisitions. The business plan also models debt repayment commitments, financing costs to ensure the HR Ray remains able to meet its obligations. The total borrowing within the HRA, as at April 23 was 47.4 million, and the business plan therefore assumes an opening debt in 23 24 of 47.4 and a closing debt for 23 24 of 50.9 million based on the budget for the current financial year. And I think it was Councillor Butcher that raised one one question before this meeting of the the actual position as of 23 24 24 25, that hopefully covers that, that, bit of it,

OK, so so yeah, the the the the total.

the total borrowing within the HL re as at April 2023 was 47.4 Mill million.

the business plan assumes an opening debt in 23 24 of 47.4 and a closing debt of 23 point of 50.9.

for 23 24, based on the budget.

for the current financial year, Jonathan have I explained that correctly?

essentially an additional 3 million worth of borrowing for 2023 24 effectively.

so we don't understand why you pick the figures for what you add enough to get to these figures, so some say this at the moment the HRA has an existing borrowing level, so at the moment there is 47 million of borrowing within the HRA as it presently stands the business plan obviously being forward-looking without additional borrowing based on whatever is in the capital programme would have we're doing for new

Jonathan Smith - 1:28:54

builds and the like, so that's that's the difference between those two 42 million is already in hand and being serviced at the moment, but in the business plan obviously looks to increase the borrowing to achieve.

the aims of the HRA business plan effectively.

Gill Butler - 1:29:12

OK suggest, to move on.

just to highlight some of the financial assumptions that we have put into the report.

in inflating, as I said, falling to 2%.

rent increases capped at 7% in 2024 and that will be going to to Cavani kerb cabinet in February as as it does every year, so we're assuming it will be capped, it may not be, but we're waiting to hear back from the regulator and the rent standard at this moment in time but increasing by CPI plus 1% in accordance with government policy.

after that time

the management of repairs and maintenance costs are assumed to increase by CPI plus 1% each year, with a slightly higher increase in construction costs in accordance with recent experience, although we are due to reprocure the repairs and maintenance in April 25, as, as I know you are aware.

the rate of interest paid on new loans will reduce from the current high level of 6%, as I mentioned to 4.5 there will continue to be around 10 right to buy sales each year until 2035 36, and then we've suggested they may fall to to say five a year because we don't know what government policy at that sort of time is going to say around right to buy.

the plan includes annual resources, as I said, of 5 million at current prices for ongoing delivery of additional council homes, this in essence allows us to deliver up to around 20 additional homes each year in the first 18 years of the plan, but we may make some decisions about year on year we may not decide to deliver all 20 in that particular year.

we may decide OK, what will keep that back and in the following year do a slightly larger scheme.

so that's that's a possibility, but the the most important thing to remember here is that all our opportunities for funding and delivery will be explored.

as I mentioned, including the homes, England, affordable homes programme, brownfield land release fund and looking at Section 106 agreements and, where possible, we will look at delivery on council owned sites.

so looking at smaller developments that perhaps look to regenerate existing schemes and build some new, affordable tenures on an existing HRA site.

this plan is.

financially balanced upon, and it is affordable over the 30 years managing the borrowing, and I would just finally say the plan delivers on the key priorities for our stock and tenants and is based on good practice in housing and business planning, that's it are there any questions?

thank you very much.

Councillor Martin,

sorry, I was just wondering, in one of the slightest said that the tenants' health, safety and wellbeing you allow 38 million does that

Cllr Elaine Martin - 1:32:34

include upgrading or current properties for mould and damp, because there's been Michael lot of

legislation recently regarding that, and I was just wondering if that included upgrading those properties, yeah, mould and damp, is included

Gill Butler - 1:32:55

as part of decent Home Standard, the health and safety and the compliance amount that we've put in yeah we we will be looking at anything that doesn't meet decent homes standards and making sure that that we do meet decent homes standard.

in terms of specific mould and damp problems, we retreat all of those reports very seriously and we will manage those as part of our repairs and maintenance on an ongoing basis, as well as upgrading as part of our decarbonisation work and our installation work.

sorry, I just happened to have a resident that's been.

having issues with mould and damp for the past two years, which he says hasn't been addressed, so that's why I was asking the question, thank you, Councillor, if you wouldn't mind, perhaps some give me the details of that particular case outside of the meeting I will follow that up separately, thank you.

Councillor Godfrey.

yeah, I'm I said too privileged to have the portfolio and when we took this service back in house at a very difficult time, COVID and the

Cllr David Godfrey - 1:34:10

work that the team were doing from then, as it has been pretty robust, there was a hiccup as as Andy mentioned because of staffing difficulties.

but the amount of work that has gone into this report, which started a couple of years back, is astonishing, so detailed, and it takes a lot to observe the difficulty we have is no department is pit.

and we've heard several times about assumptions for the future, we don't know what's going to happen, we didn't know that I was going to be more in Ukraine, we didn't know, they're going to be such inflation and I'd know nothing maybe more disappointed when we had to cancel his view because that was going to be a state of the scheme.

carbon 0

beautiful homes, a mixture of tendencies, but we had to knock it on the head because we just couldn't afford it through unforeseen circumstances and we are going to face those going forward, there's no doubt about it.

Julia said, and I'm proud that she says, and I'm glad that Rebecca has taken this on as well that we have him have a robust position at the moment. 30 years is a long time. We don't know what's going to happen going forward and throughout by 10 years portfolio holder officers will remember. I used to give warnings that we're gonna have some difficult decisions to make and you still will have some difficult decisions tonight, so I think, given the tools that we have and I think the officers should be commended on the work that goes into you, don't just get these funding grants by saying what kind of ground Place there's a huge amount of work goes into applying for those and takes up a lot of officer time, so that should be commended on doing that.

yes, we'd like to see I'd like to see they've heard me say many times and when it gets more new builds in I want to get us going, but things conspire against this put this programme. I think it is prudent in many ways and I think it stands us in good stead going forward and I hope that it will be support because I think we can never get the number of houses out that we want to get out, so we might be lucky if we get

article going now and we can get some revenue from that that should help us a lot, but that's a couple of years off yet, so I thank you for the report and I hope that helps thank you.

thank you, Councillor Godfrey and other councils councillors had certainly echo that there is a lot of information, useful information

Cllr Laura Davison - 1:36:28

in the report, so so thank you for that, Councillor Butcher.

Cllr James Butcher - 1:36:36

yeah thanks Chair, I suppose the first observation is really goes back to whatever I was saying to him earlier, and I guess it's a question about what does it mean to scrutinise a report like this, and I can put my hand hand on heart and say as a result of reading this report several times in these conversations, yes, tick, I feel I've scrutinise it because it's it's kind of baffling, and maybe that's just inevitable, and it's unrealistic to expect otherwise, but I think in terms of going forward how we think about scrutiny and how we, as Members and members of the public, can get their heads around things like this. I think there's work to be done in just how we can

get a bit clearer what what's the story coming through these figures and then just want to appreciate your you responding so promptly to queries that are sent through, so thank you very much for that there was just one area I wanted to pick up on and,

it's it's about the affordable homes target and and I guess I think this is again symptomatic of reports that we look at where it's often really difficult to reconcile things from one place in the report to what looks similar in another place in the report.

so I've been trying to understand what is the target or the number of affordable houses we are expecting to build.

in the presentation slides it says this is expected to deliver up to 20 homes a year elsewhere, it says 80, I'm sure, as you know, that you have an explanation for that, but it is an example of where one just ends up a bit puzzled am I supposed to be thinking about 80 or am I supposed to be thinking about 20 and if we see a target the obvious question is how are we doing against that target?

in one of your responses, you talk about during 22 23, council and housing association delivered 104 additional, affordable homes against a target of 80.

in another place, it looks like it's 86 homes over a five-year period, that is not just the Council, not partners as well.

there's the target about the number of affordable homes that ought to be for people with support needs, it's really hard to figure out how are we doing on that then, because some of the figures it looks like we're not doing at all well with that, but you may be able to come back and say it's just those things to me ought to be just easier to make sense of than I've been able to do.

Gill Butler - 1:39:06

yeah, apologies, it is quite confusing.

we have an overall target as part of the local plan around affordable homes, it's a council council target and not HRA specifically new, affordable hands in the district and that that's the one that I think you were referring to, which was 80 affordable homes and I think we gave you a breakdown my colleague Adrian Hammond who is the strategic housing specialist in terms of our own new build and and acquisitions across the Council the

that we had, I think, the breakdown was between 18 nr or 18 1928 1920 10 21 2021 1921 22 10 22 23 19, a total of 86 homes, so the target was during those years.

80 and we delivered 86 that include housing association delivery right, not the HRA, it's just what I've got here is against and any annual delivery target of 80 homes, so is it not?

Mr Andy Blaszkowicz - 1:40:26

I will clarify thank you, the 80 target is for housing association partners within the district, so we want to see 80 houses delivered for affordable rent within the district each year from our partners that the numbers that Jill has been referring to with the 80 to many was at 82 86 homes delivered over that six year period is what the Council has actually delivered within that period directly itself.

Mr Andy Blaszkowicz - 1:41:01

thus the title affordable homes delivered within the district.

Cllr James Butcher - 1:41:20

three years ago, to pay down the debt.

Cllr Laura Davison - 1:41:23

OK, thank thank you, Councillor Butcher, thank you for clarifying that

Cllr James Butcher - 1:41:26

Cllr Laura Davison - 1:41:28

any other comments Councillor Alan Martin yeah, thank you, thank you, Chair to quite specific ones, I wondered if you could say a little bit

Cllr Alan Martin - 1:41:33

more about the

de-pooling exercise, so when I lost had a little bit about that sounded like totally the right thing for us to do to better understand where our costs are and also make those more transparent to residents.

I say it's gonna bring in an additional 400,000, so presumably in the past we've been under charging for services, so just maybe you could just speak a little bit too what we've an uncovered and where we're gonna see those those gains from.

yes, we are in quite still quite in quite early stages and there will be a paper that will go through the Government's process and will come to open scrutiny and eventually to to cabinet in the new year, it's quite a complex exercise for us to undertake and at the moment just for those that aren't aware of exactly what do the pooling means, our tenants pay a flat charge, flat weekly charge so for all the services they receive that the are service chargeable.

and we have looking at it if it were to be apportioned out in the same way that it's apportioned out for leaseholders, for instance.

we have discovered that we aren't charging, or we're not getting as much income as we should be getting on on those services until we actually do that, the piece of work that a portion set out across the whole portfolio, which is a significant piece of work,

we can't be at absolutely sure exactly what those service charges will end up being there will be some winners and some losers, as as we apportion it out across the whole of the 3,900 homes, but it is, you know, it is good practice to do this piece of work.

all other local authorities that still have a pooled service charges have already done it and are now charging, though the service charges that have been deport.

so we are, we are looking at the key thing here is that we will have to do it and a full consultation to our tenants and make sure that our tenants understand exactly what the ramifications of of doing this piece of work will be and so consultation is gonna take about we're talking about a two year programme essentially we wouldn't be looking to introduce any changes until 2024 25.

Craig, thank you and me, my second one was relating to the water treatment plants on on the Marsh which were inherited when everything was brought back in Marsh in n brackets back in house, and I think I'm right in saying that there was an acceptance that there's over the years had been some underinvestment in in those and I just wanted to check to see the extent to which the future investment into those water treatment plants is included within this plan.

yet the the the pumping stations and water treatment works are included, there is money in there, both for a car can't remember exactly, I can give you the details of this meeting, but there is money in there for capital, improve some capital improvement and obviously there's revenue in there as well for a general repairs and maintenance.

yeah, hopefully, thank you.

Councillor Buchanan, Councillor McConville.

Cllr James Butcher - 1:45:17

sorry to complicate, but there was something else I wanted to ask about the percentage of affordable homes delivered to meet the needs of people with support needs that is meant to be 20%, and I've got I've understood that correctly Joel,

I'm just looking at paragraph 5.4 wouldn't mind.

clarify points or in order to address local needs, the Council's housing strategy sets out that 20% of the affordable homes delivered within the district should be delivered to meet the needs of people with support needs.

it isn't, it doesn't look like we were meeting that, but it would be good just to have that articulated as to where we are and if, as I think, we're not anywhere near meeting that why that might be, you know, I'm sure that kind of good reasons for that we could just to have that highlighted if we're gonna have a target.

I'd expect us to have a report, how are we doing against it, I will clarify that with my colleagues, I believe that's in the original healthier housing strategy, OK, thank you, thank you, Councillor McConville.

Gill Butler - 1:46:23

thank you.

Cllr Connor McConville - 1:46:29

a couple of things. Firstly, I just start with 2.6 in the in the main report, we so briefly talk about net present value and it states there that this this criteria are basically for the fight for over 30 years, which I assume is what the financials are being based on in the report I mean, it says, should it, it does need to be reviewed as 30 years is no longer viable with today's build costs, et cetera,

so.

where where does this, whereas this, if Cabinet or a future Committee in the very near future decide to take a vote to say Well, actually no, I think 60 years is more viable in terms of loan repayments, because we want to build people, new homes, I mean, how would a decision like that affect this business plan?

thanks Conor, I think it's quite complex, we have very complex

Mr Andy Blaszkowicz - 1:47:26

modelling, looking at every scheme now, which we didn't have previously.

will evaluate schemes on a scheme busking basis of obviously affected by many things, as many of you Councillors will know already, from initial site costs through to abnormal costs. What you find on the site and things like that, how much remediation you put a TPO, and these are all things that we come up against, the which took them all into the viability model, and it tells us what we can do and then we look at the tenure of the houses. Should it be affordable, rents should be social rent, should it be shared ownership. What grant is available in each of those and we factor all of that in and then that ought to chuck out as a whole load of numbers

which around net present value internal rate of return cost to value ratio, et cetera, et cetera, and then we can evaluate looking at those metrics wherever the scheme is viable or not, and then what sort of with affordable rent the payback period is unnecessarily quite as important because you keep in the house in perpetuity you get in the rent.

what hurts us the most of them, and which has been spoken about previously, is the all ha rate on the rent, because we will work on a capitalised rental stream basis over a number of years where you'd expect that capitalised rent oversight 30 for 30 years, 40 years 50 years to have paid for that house plus the management and upkeep of that house during that period.

I mean, that would be the the biggest single thing that affects our viability and if we could improve that, we'd be in a much better place, but I think the short answer is we would evaluate them on a scheme by scheme basis and make sure that we've got enough income to cover the cost and if that all looks like like a good one and what help we can get from homes in England.

brownfield land released bond, et cetera, et cetera, because, as you know, a lot of sites per day need remediating, such as Ship Street such as High B, when we first got that with the demolition begins would which were nearing completion on and then if the site is not viable, to bring the houses forward ourselves, then we can look at other options and be more facilitator so facilitating that site taste, stepping in where there's been market failure bringing the site forward by de-risking it, so dealing with the remediation bringing in those sources of funding and then rigging the site forward for another development partner to step in and bring that site forward. So there's more one way of doing it. Obviously we'd love to be involved in the development and bringing a houses for ourselves, but sometimes it is not always possible, but we need to recognise where it's not possible and then get someone else to come in and do that for us.

Cllr Connor McConville - 1:49:55

thanks for that, and then you know a few other possible assumptions. The the social housing decarbonisation fund I mean, it's it's it's referenced in the in the Capital Budget I should have brought it up when we have the capital budgets slide on that roughly roughly a million sort of a year move forward, I mean it is a assume, or are you assuming that there is gonna be future waves if so how many and into what sort of years or is that just just our own expenditure from our own from our own resources?

the assumptions are that there will be, that is our match funding

Mr Andy Blaszkowicz - 1:50:30

element and that funding will continue, obviously the seven central government pledges around obviously net 0 what they want to do with MBC and say we ought to see that there is a big assumption, I know that our funding will continue but we've got nothing to suggest that it warrants that million is our match funding element and we've managed to keep that in the plan through the whole 30 year period.

so not just worrying about getting to IPCC by 2030 is the period beyond that and keeping that money in there, we've got no idea what in reality, what's gonna happen after after 2030, with regards to social housing decoupled fund, there is an expectation that something will continue in its place if that doesn't continue itself but we've provided money all through the plan period.

which we can flex if, if need be, and then how we how we continue on that, decarbonisation journey after 2030 is a big question for us as well at the moment and one we've agonised over massively through the plan, because you can you see the numbers in the plan, everything they're all huge numbers. I wrote over a big long period of time and we've made a set of assumptions and provided a decent set of about money around each of the priorities of the plan.

and I think at this time I don't think we could do more, but I'll go on to say that this is the most detailed business plan that we have ever had as a Council and as part of the HR Ray, and we have scrutinised every single line of data in this to make sure that we have gotten as much money and we can use as much money as we can have whilst having a sustainable business plan and making it fit for purpose and fit for the future, because it is very important as well that we leave some capacity in there because we don't always know what's gonna come out of the woodwork was gonna be fine as what the regulator gonna say, what's gonna come out from central government? So all through the plan period it keeps 2 million pound minimum reserve level

and it can afford to pay off its borrowing through the whole sorry finances borrowing through the whole plan period.

thanks Andy.

Cllr Connor McConville - 1:52:32

and so that was the that's the social housing detailed fund, is there any assumptions about a continuation of the local authority housing fund going in and is there scope within that new build acquisition budget obviously to to match fund some of that if there's an additional wave?

and to obviously produce a more pursue some more units.

the local authority sites on local authority housing fund.

Mr Andy Blaszkowicz - 1:52:56

cameo is quite quickly, absolutely earlier.

in the year, and as you'll be aware, we've delivered the first 10 homes on that now, I'm so delighted to have done that we started within such a short timescale and then they released another, the funding for another five homes.

it came, it was completely unexpected when it came when there was, we don't know what's going to happen with it in future, if it's there, we can make decisions around whether we use some of our 5 million new build acquisitions budget to supplement that, and I would suggest probably doing that if if we can afford to do it at the time depending upon what our pipelines look like and what we've committed,

because essentially is is if funds about 40% of the house price, so if we can acquire homes under that programme, it makes sense for us to do so.

but there's no assumptions are in the plan about, because we, just like we don't know what's going to happen with it, and I have been doesn't mean nothing coming out from central government on it.

OK.

maybe it may be that or maybe that will come next week in the autumn statement you never know.

Cllr Connor McConville - 1:53:56

and I guess.

with the with with the 5 million, which is obviously up from the sort of three and a half that we were looking at, which is which is excellent. Yes, you sort of say, 20 homes, so you know quarter of a million ha of homes. I mean those assumptions based on building or acquiring homes on land that we don't own. Obviously you know we we we we do own land, so I mean, if is there is there the assumption that if we were to build on our own land and those costs could possibly come down, just be interesting to know where where those just as presumption is coming from, I think our assumptions around that are

Mr Andy Blaszkowicz - 1:54:40

that there will be grant available to help with those are the acquisitions I mean we've got around built

on our land as you reference, but are sections 1 0 6 purchasing so buying affordable homes from other developers,

and and acquisitions.

and where we could make the best use of that money, I think so we know roughly we got with our partners, homes in England, one public estate, et cetera, will we know where the grants are, where they're available and how much they likely to pay? So against. Coming back to the viability of some discussion earlier, we'd be looking at what grants are available to help to supplement that income, because we recognise 250,000 pounds as an average for property, probably just about covers about where we buy bigger properties and we've got to pay for land and higher abnormal costs. You need help to develop that and we can't put enough money in the plan to cover all those eventualities, so we make assumptions around grant levels, so we know that for additionality, so something that's above policy allocation on a scheme

we know the levels of grant available from Highways England, for example, for social rent, for shared ownership for affordable rent, so we know what we can leverage in and then when you've got low housing values as well, homes, England are receptive to conversations about an increase in that grant, so there are a number of assumptions around the level of grant. We recognise 5 million pounds isn't always going to deliver 20 homes, it might do in a block of flats, but it might not do in in a set of houses somewhere else, so we there are assumptions around that being supported by grant

and the next one.

Cllr Connor McConville - 1:56:19

just looking at the assumptions made around, you know our independent living, our sheltered living schemes, you know 30 years is a long time to wait with where what assumptions are being made and you know I'm not too sure if you know is there it is there a sort of a statutory level of of housing that needs to be provided as a percentage of of the population or what determines that the the the level the need that that that's required and how we sort of extrapolating that over the 30 year period or is that sort of something that's a bit sort of to the periphery at the minute?

again, something we've NGO might want to come in on some of this as well, because he's far more clued up on us all, a lot of the housing

Mr Andy Blaszkowicz - 1:57:00

site than I am.

I, I think there's no set targets, it would be done on local need, I think it's worth noting that it's not just for us to provide that need and there's other providers out there, and we can't step in to every single area of service provision because we can't afford to let you save from this from I think this year 17 million pounds worth of rent.

we have to work within that ring-fenced HR account. So we have. We have the rental income and we have our service charge income. That is the income that we have to do. Everything that you've seen detailed in the plan detailed on the spreadsheet, and we have to work within that, so we can't look at everything whilst we would love to have all the independent living schemes up to while everything retrofitted getting rid of Eddie bedsit so we don't have those and things like that. The problem is with the schemes. It costs just as much to do that to retrofit these buildings and say add a floor to them, but and taking out the bedsits to create one or two bed apartments in these buildings that costs you just as much as a complete new build with nowhere with no additionality, because you're taking out bedsits and and replacing them with a bigger footprint unit. You get no additionality, yet you still absorbing all of you knew new-build money. So I guess I think probably you, as Councillors, need to make decisions when we, when we talk about pipelines and stop, there are schemes that we know

we would love to to get hold of a and put a new scheme on them with additionality, because we know there's a few schemes with big land takes where we could knock down an older shelter scheme, independent living scheme, replace that with a new one and then get additionality on that site. And when I say additionality, maybe a big landscape with a couple of garage block sites, we could probably get another 10 12 14 houses around the periphery of that site, while still maintaining some of the green space and a decent independent living scheme. The problem is with that is the amount of budget that it takes, and we can't do everything, so we've got money in the business plan for ongoing maintenance, decent homes standard and the stuff that you'd expect to say to maintain the properties that we have

but there's currently no money in there separate from the new building acquisitions budget to do any further development, but I'll say it is not just for us to step into that market, you've got extra care providers and people like that we can make decisions around doing that in future if the business plan can sustain it, but at the moment if we're gonna put stuff like that in we wouldn't be able to do the retrofit we wouldn't be able to require other properties will embed to do the new build so it is a massive balancing act across a width.

obviously allocate the money across the priorities that have previously been discussed answer, whilst we would like to do more of it, there's limited funds, Councillor McConnell, can I just pause your second because Councillor Chapman wanted to come in.

Cllr Connor McConville - 1:59:49

Cllr Laura Davison - 1:59:51

Cllr Connor McConville - 1:59:56

I'll just go Saigon and it'd be great to sort of look into those those figures, and it's quite interesting for me personally, yeah, I guess just to say you know, it's a very good report, very detailed. I'll probably end up having to read it, probably another three or four times before right before I truly sort of ingest all of it, it's been a long time in the in the in the in, in the in the waiting. I don't know how many times of off off I've asked, is it a wee that isn't there yet they are, so it's great, it's great fun, it's great to finally see it

all I'd say you know and fully understand this is the position we're in today you know, as you say it's a very long plan, anything can happen, so I would hope you know if, if things do change for the better in the very near future some some historical debt might get wiped off, housing rates might almost double.

then I'd hoped we'd be able to bring it back as soon as possible and review some of the assumptions and and hopefully make her make quick, quicker decisions based on a sentence that's me, thank you, and can I just say that we we will be looking.

Gill Butler - 2:01:08

officers will be reviewing it year on year.

because, as you say things change year on year and we will be bringing it for formal review back to cabinet or members every five years, so that that will be something that we will definitely be doing, but if you do have any further comments and suggestions just send them to me outside of this meeting that's that's fine, thank you can I,

I was just going to bring in Councillor Chapman if that's that's OK.

Cllr Laura Davison - 2:01:39

Cllr Bridget Chapman - 2:01:43

she's been very patient, tell me it's a quick one, and I really apologise if this is not the time to assess and again also, if I should know the answer to this.

but why it seems like an opportune moment to ask him what is what is happening with with the Ship Street development as a big sign on the side saying that development is gonna start in 2021 and be completed by 2024 25, and it's something I get asked about a lot I or I like I say apologies if this isn't the moment but I'd be really great to just get a very quick update on that.

Mr Andy Blaszkowicz - 2:02:23

we are currently working with the design team to formalise planning application which is expected.

we are working through the viability at the moment, are it's a very tricky site, as I'm sure you'll appreciate, we've done some great work, the scheme, the design is looking good, really good.

very excited to bring it forward, as they were working through the viability at the moment. Is gonna be a report coming to Cabinet and I think it's on the agenda for December, but there's some further work we're waiting on, so I think it's probably unlikely I'll be December, I think he'll be January because we need to get it right and then obviously we'll get the report submitted and then we'll be submitting our planning application following the report, which is essentially gonna be how we bring it forward now. Whether that's

we are a partner or whether we dispose of the site or how we bring that forward, but again, Ship Street is gonna be largely, so none of those decisions being made yet, but our primary focus has been de-risking the site massive market failure, no one has been derelict since 1960 odd.

no market intervention, so we're done with an on site, investigation works, we're writing a remediation strategy, we're getting all the planning reports done to again de-risk its appearance, so developers know exactly what they're dealing with.

and yeah, it's all coming together, but so what is space over the next 3 4 months we might have a much clearer way forward with ships re, but planning is expected to be submitted and I think in January am I right

Cllr Bridget Chapman - 2:03:51

in understanding that land contamination is a big factor on Ship Street because of the previous,

use of that site.

Mr Andy Blaszkowicz - 2:04:00

two are to a degree, but is nothing that we haven't seen before and dealt with, and it's about getting the right information, so you know how to deal with that, it's been designed in such a way so that a lot of remediation work was done when it was with Southern Gas.

so, but that was to a level that sort of alleviated them from their statutory responsibilities. We've done further site investigation works dug bore holes all over the site, so we know exactly what's there are and then a remediation strategy will be designed accordingly. And that's what you'd be aware. We've got the Bradford Land Fund award as well to help pay for that element, the site has been designed in such a way, so the expensive part of dealing with a site like that is Cotterill. So if you are changing all your levels and cutting loads of stuff out and taking all your contaminated material, all sides of how it is dealt with on site level, this scheme has been very much designed around the levels of the site. Not moving material is because it's all kept already. I'm not moving material and minimising solved the transfer of material across the site and off-site to minimise that cost

I can see Councillor McConville or each one to come in on the item he

Cllr Laura Davison - 2:05:06

did, and he did mention that the Brentford person, but am I right in,

Cllr Connor McConville - 2:05:10

am I right in thinking that our application to the fund in that round was that was the largest allocation for us for a scheme I believe it was it was two and a half million pounds and it was held up by the one

Mr Andy Blaszkowicz - 2:05:21

public estate board as an exemplary best practice for our submission.

Councillor

yeah anymore.

Cllr Laura Davison - 2:05:32

and anything else, Councillor Chapman on that.

okay, thank thank you, Andy Hewitt, taking that point, and he wanted to make her a final other comment.

yeah, sorry, the challenge now I have remembered, thank you, thank you very much Chair.

Mr Andy Blaszkowicz - 2:05:50

I just want to say it was kind of followed on from my previous comment.

this is the first time where housing colleagues have been involved so extensively with finance colleagues to design and deliver the business plan where previously it has been very much a finance document and said what we can afford to do.

this is a proper analysis of everything that we need to do and everything that we can do and obviously end housing colleagues supported by Finance colleagues, own it and they are in the plan which is really good to see going forward.

Cllr Laura Davison - 2:06:25

thank you, and thank you for the comment about if there are further points that.

colleagues want to raise, they can send those through because there is a lot to get our heads round here and I think this is going to Cabinet in December, isn't it, so there is a bit of time on that OK, thank you everybody we've got two recommendations in front of us to receive and note the report and to consider the presentation and provide feedback in order to inform a report to Cabinet.

would anyone like to propose those?

Councillor Martin and seconded, Councillor Butcher.

OK, everyone agreed agreed, thank you, thank you very much, colleagues, for that one.

k we have our last item on the agenda for this evening.

Jyotsna Leney - 2:07:16

which is item 7, I'm going to invite Joyce now just to introduce this item.

Cllr Laura Davison - 2:07:18

Jyotsna Leney - 2:07:21

Cllr Laura Davison - 2:07:26

Mr Jake Hamilton - 2:07:29

we are going to just have an introduction before we take item 7, if that's acceptable.

thank you, so we've now published our refreshed safeguarding policy

Jyotsna Leney - 2:07:42

that is reviewed every two years, just as a reminder, it's a statutory function and we need to make sure that, as an organisation we're meeting our safeguarding obligations, the report you have in front of you accompanying the policy sets out the changes that we've made to the last version.

that we published in 2021, and we've embedded a lot more links within the policy, so it helps the reader to access more information.

in the report, with what we also presents some updates on other safeguarding work audits that we've undertaken and new issues that we've dealt with over the last 18 months, we've presented some statistics in the covering report on safeguarding concerns received and just to say we are having to exclude the public because the policy contains some personal information.

and we have some work ongoing that is currently subject to court proceedings, just to add that a redacted version of the safeguarding policy will be uploaded onto our website once it's gone through final

Cllr Laura Davison - 2:09:03

approval, thank you very much, and it's it's on that basis that,

the Committee needs to decide on the item in front of us, which I'll just read out, and then we can take a a vote within the committee.

to exclude the public for the following item of business, on the grounds that it is likely to disclose exempt information, as defined in paragraph 2 of Part 1 of schedule 12 8, The Local government Act 1972 information relating to any individual, so we would need a proposer,

Mr Jake Hamilton - 2:09:40

Cllr Laura Davison - 2:09:42

for that proposal to make this a closed item, Councillor Elaine Martin, thank you, and we do need a seconder for that item as well. Councillor Godfrey, thank you, the Committee in agreement with that agreed. Thank you in that Close thus closes the public part of the meeting

Overview and Scrutiny Committee - Tuesday 14 November 2023, 6:00pm - Folkestone & Hythe webcasting

Overview and Scrutiny CommitteeTuesday, 14th November 2023 at 6:00pm

Agenda

Slides

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Votes

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:00:10

Mr Jake Hamilton - 0:00:47

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:00:49

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:00:53

Cllr James Butcher - 0:00:55

Cllr John Wing - 0:00:59

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:01:01

Cllr John Wing - 0:01:02

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:01:10

Cllr Connor McConville - 0:01:51

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:01:54

Cllr Tim Prater - 0:02:45

4 Cabinet Member updates

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:16:55

Cllr James Butcher - 0:17:15

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:17:44

Cllr Alan Martin - 0:17:48

Cllr Tim Prater - 0:18:57

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:21:54

Cllr James Butcher - 0:21:57

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:22:33

Cllr Tim Prater - 0:22:38

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:24:09

Cllr Jeremy Speakman - 0:24:18

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:30:56

Cllr Elaine Martin - 0:30:57

Cllr Jeremy Speakman - 0:31:18

Cllr Jeremy Speakman - 0:31:47

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:32:18

Cllr Alan Martin - 0:32:20

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:35:50

5 Proposed On-Street Parking Charges

Cllr Polly Blakemore - 0:36:30

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:39:25

Cllr Anita Jones - 0:39:37

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:42:41

Cllr Alan Martin - 0:42:50

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:47:33

Cllr Polly Blakemore - 0:47:43

Mr Fred Miller - 0:49:53

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:50:36

Cllr Elaine Martin - 0:50:41

Cllr Polly Blakemore - 0:51:39

Cllr David Godfrey - 0:51:41

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:52:41

Mr Fred Miller - 0:52:53

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:53:19

Cllr Polly Blakemore - 0:53:23

Cllr Laura Davison - 0:53:42

Cllr Bridget Chapman - 0:53:50

Cllr Polly Blakemore - 0:55:06

Mr Fred Miller - 0:55:38

Cllr Connor McConville - 0:56:46

Cllr Polly Blakemore - 1:03:27

Mr Fred Miller - 1:04:35

Cllr Connor McConville - 1:05:02

Mr Fred Miller - 1:05:20

Cllr James Butcher - 1:05:41

Cllr Laura Davison - 1:06:53

Mr Fred Miller - 1:07:01

Cllr Laura Davison - 1:07:31

Cllr James Butcher - 1:07:42

Cllr Laura Davison - 1:08:19

Cllr Polly Blakemore - 1:09:09

Cllr Laura Davison - 1:09:47

Mr Jake Hamilton - 1:10:10

Cllr Laura Davison - 1:10:20

6 Housing Revenue Account (HRA) Business Plan 2023-2053

Overview and Scrutiny Committee
Tuesday, 14th November 2023 at 6:00pm