Cabinet - Wednesday 11 December 2024, 5:00pm - Folkestone & Hythe webcasting

Cabinet
Wednesday, 11th December 2024 at 5:00pm 

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Cllr Jim Martin - 0:00:00
And welcome to the meeting of the Cabinet.
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:00:05
This meeting will be webcast live to the internet.
For those of you who do not wish to be recorded or filmed,
you will need to leave the chamber.
For members, officers, and others speaking at the meeting,
it is important that 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 would like to remind members that although we all have strong opinions on the matters
under consideration, it is important to treat members, officers and public speakers with
respect.
Thank you very much, members.

1 Apologies for Absence

So our first item is apologies for absence.
Gemma, do we have any apologies?
There are no apologies this evening, Leader.
Ms Jemma West - 0:00:55
All right, jolly good.
Fantastic.

2 Declarations of Interest

Cllr Jim Martin - 0:00:58
moving on to declarations of interest.
Does anyone have a declaration of interest to make?
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:01:07
Casserous route. Thank you.
Cllr Rebecca Shoob - 0:01:11
Declaration of the director of Otipool LLP for the last two items.
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:01:17
Good. OK, thank you very much.

3 Minutes

Moving on then to item three, the minutes to consider and approve
as a correct record the minutes of the last meeting.
Are there any issues, amendments, comments to make on the minutes?
I wonder then if I could have a proposer.
Happy to propose, Lee.
Cllr Tim Prater - 0:01:41
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:01:41
And so Councillor Prager to propose, Councillor Holgate to second.
All those in favour please indicate.
Thank you very much.
Just give me one second.

4 Romney Marsh Partnership (RMP) Senior Specialist -Successful Grant application to Nuclear Restoration Services (NRS) to fund post for additional three years

Thanks very much.
Right, very good.
So to the first substantive item, item four, the Romney Marsh Partnership, Senior Specialist,
successful grant application to Nuclear Restoration Services to fund post for an additional three
years.
And I understand that Councillor Holgate will start us off on this one.
Thank you, Lida, and good evening.
Cllr Rich Holgate - 0:02:30
So just a very brief sort of headline on top of this item.
This report seeks candidate approval to accept an external grant, just to have 100 grand
over the three years, from the Nuclear Regeneration Services, which is formerly Magnox in Old
This will part fund about 50 % of the dedicated Romney Marsh resource to help with the economic
impact of Dunginair's nuclear power station decommissioning.
The role has been in place for over a decade, since 2012, following the creation of the
Romney Marsh partnership, which is a group of key stakeholders within the Romney Marsh
area.
And just to highlight, I wanted to double down on the importance of this partnership
and the work that it does.
It is a dedicated resource and has been instrumental in securing funding for a wide range of socio -economic
projects such as the Marsh Millions Scheme, the Romney Marsh Business Hub, creation of
new employment land at Mountfield Road, the Livestone Coastal Destination Project, successful
nuclear decommissioning authority bid for officer resource, skills fairs at the Marsh
Academy, community transport dial -a -ride schemes, Cinamarsh Community Cinema at New Romney and
so on.
This is a hugely successful endeavor.
The role is also funded the other half, the other 50 % by FHDC
and is within our council's baseline budget.
The aim of the role is to produce and implement
a three -year economic action plan for Romney Marsh
and to seek further external funding to bolster those projects
and emerge successfully as a result.
I hope, hopefully, everyone here could support this report
by agreeing to accept the grant from NRS.
bit of waffle, but hopefully helpful context.
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:04:17
Thank you very much, Councillor Holgate.
Would you like to propose?
Cllr Rich Holgate - 0:04:22
Yes, I'd like to propose.
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:04:25
So happy to take any comments or that anyone may have?
Happy to second.
Councillor Projos, happy to second?
That's good.
Cllr Tim Prater - 0:04:35
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:04:35
Okay.
Okay, well if there are no comments,
it's certainly really good news as far as I'm concerned.
So we have a proposer, we have a seconder.
All those in favor, please indicate.
Thank you very much, everyone.

5 Equality and diversity Annual Report (2023/24)

We'll move on to the item number five,
the equality and diversity annual report.
I'm not quite sure who's gonna take us through this one,
I'm sorry, Councillor Blakemore, thank you very much.
Thank you.
Cllr Mike Blakemore - 0:05:12
The Equality and Diversity Annual Report is prepared to comply with the Council's Public
Sector Equality Duty.
It demonstrates our commitment to advancing equality and good relations, summarising activities
undertaken in 2023 -24 to promote equality, diversity and inclusion.
These include establishing the tenant scrutiny panel in 2023, which began its work by examining
the housing services approach to complaints handling, support for the district food network,
including launching the mobile food service with the Rainbow Centre, over £87 ,000 in
member ward grants benefiting local charities and community groups, plus annual grants from
the council funding organisations including the Sports Trust, the Courthouse, Citizens
of the Vice Bureau and Kencoast volunteering.
Innovative consultations to engage the community over Folkestone in a brighter future, the
transformation of the town centre.
And the Folkestone and Hive Community Safety Partnership, which has been administering
projects to vulnerable and diverse communities, including engagement with over 900 young people.
There are many more examples and a wealth of facts in the annual report.
I'm not saying other reports are dull, but this one generally makes very, very good and
interesting reading.
There's a wealth of interesting information in there, a lot of work, and thank you to
Gavin for all of his efforts in producing it.
So I'd like to move that we receive and note the Cabinet report and consider and approve
the draft Equality and Diversity Annual Report, which is Appendix 1 in your pack.
Thank you very much.
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:06:55
I'm very, very happy to second that.
I started to read it, it's quite a lot,
but it's sort of good news after good news after good news,
which, as you say, is not always the case in the reports that we read.
So that's my comment, so I'm very, very happy to support this.
So happy to open it for other comments or questions.
Councillor Spillane.
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:07:27
Cllr Jeremy Speakman - 0:07:29
Just a query on page 17 of the annual report.
Just a query about the turnover in relation to staff workforce.
We had, I think you mentioned a figure of 13 .77%.
I mean turnover is always an indicator I think of, if you like, a health of an organisation.
I just wondered if, you probably haven't got the figure hand,
but how that compared with previous years, is that fairly average
or something to be concerned about?
Thank you, Councillor Spiritwort.
I don't obviously have those direct comparative figures to hand,
but I'm happy to speak to HR colleagues on that
and come back obviously with a response on that, to Cabinet on that.
Thank you.
Gavin Edwards - 0:08:14
Councillor Scotland.
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:08:16
This isn't so much a question as an observation.
Cllr Stephen Scoffham - 0:08:19
I was looking at the engagement on the brighter future consultation
for the Living Up project in the town centre, page 21,
if you're interested in it.
Over a thousand people attended, which I thought was really interesting.
About a quarter of them were children.
I think that's a tremendous achievement,
to get that percentage of young people engaged in their future,
the future of the town centre and the way that it's going to change
and evolve and hopefully be very much better.
and the virtual reality component of that seemed to be absolutely crucial.
I think it's worth noting that that is... I know that it costs money.
I'm aware of that, don't tell me.
But I do think that virtual reality as a device
is something that we could really note and make better use of.
We can see if we could make use of it in other contexts in the future.
and I know that the digitised data for the town centre
and indeed for the district is available at a reasonable cost.
So I just think that's worth noting.
Thank you very much.
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:09:28
I also think we must be pretty good at consultation
because our consultation figures seem to be good on everything.
The corporate plan, for example.
We get better responses than most others.
So I think a big plus for our communication group.
Councillor Holgate.
Being quite close to the engagement,
Cllr Rich Holgate - 0:09:56
I could definitely echo that sentiment and applaud it.
And the deliberate design around bringing in schools
that contributed to that younger demographic.
But I want to further it saying that future engagement events
won't just be schools,
There will be non -school -based children clubs and things,
that also to ensure that there's a diversity of young representation as well.
And I look forward to that, it's only good news for us.
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:10:23
Thank you very much. Councillor Scotten.
Thank you for coming over enthusiastic.
Cllr Stephen Scoffham - 0:10:27
I think some of you in the room will know that I've been keen
on the idea of a virtual reality balloon trip around the district.
We could be using all sorts of different contexts,
and particularly to promote the Geo Park,
which is something that this council has said that it's keen to support,
but it could be used in lots of different ways, for tourism, for education,
and indeed for promoting the district.
So there's a direction of travel here,
and I do think that it fits in very well
with the desire that we've expressed, which is in the corporate plan,
for greater transparency, greater public engagement
and greater consultation, meaningful consultation.
So, as you said at the very beginning,
Councillor Otton, this is a good news story.
Thank you very much.
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:11:14
Councillor Proctor, are you... No, you're not...
Right, so we have...
Well, we're about to enter the Tim show, so...
We have a proposer, we have a seconder.
All those in favour, please indicate.
Thank you very much everyone.

6 Quarter 2 performance report 2025-25

So we move on to item six, quarter to performance report 2025 and that's pages 69 to 92.
Councillor Prater.
Cllr Tim Prater - 0:11:53
I don't think even virtual reality could make this better but we'll give it a shot.
This report, for those of you in the room who have been excited by this report, I can
say that you're behind me.
I was excited by this report a fortnight ago when it went to the Finance and Scrutiny Subcommittee
who went through it then.
So this is my second time with this report.
Many of the papers, most of the papers which we're going to look at tonight in the Tim
show, whatever that is, went to Finance and Scrutiny two weeks ago and the minutes of
that were on the website and it's worth looking at what they thought about it, what they said,
their questions etc. which went to Gavin.
So they, in their introduction report, they picked out a number of comments, a number
of the points in there and raised some questions around those.
Raised those to Gavin which I'm sure he's responded back to them in a number of instances
and if you've got questions on those,
the questions on the questions they were looking at.
So they raised questions about my account.
So for instance, not just recording
how many people have signed up for it,
but how often it's being used by the people who are signing up
for it, that sort of thing.
The number of rough sleepers, the work
that we do with the Rainbow Center,
where we are in terms of new build,
and we could discuss with them the excellent news
about the new acquisitions at Shorncliffe,
etc to add to the HRA and things like the improvement in performance on data breaches
and things like that.
So there has been already scrutiny of this excellent report and one of the points that
they continue to make is that this report is being honed regularly.
You get to see it quarterly but it is being worked on throughout the year and the way
and the targets have tried to be clearer each time and Gavin takes the feedback each time
and clarifies further reports.
I think we've got a very clear monitoring report of our performance as a council against
the KPIs which are there.
Clearly when we've reset the corporate plan, the KPIs will change because we will have
different targets and we will have different outcomes to monitor and different targets
to aim for. I'd suggest that they're going to be, many of them are going to be similar.
Some of them will be the same and there will be a few new ones and a few changes. This
is my way to, I don't think that there is anything in this report which is red flag
and on fire, but if anyone has any questions about red flag and on fire KPIs, then Gavin
would be delighted to field those questions. I'm happy to move the report for recommendations.
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:14:47
Thank you very much, Councillor Prater. I'm very, very happy to second the report and
open it up for questions or queries. I'll work that way round. Councillor Blakemore.
Cllr Mike Blakemore - 0:15:01
I just had a couple of queries. In 2 .4 .1, homelessness prevention and relief, I wasn't
understanding what the 49 % against a 40 % target means. So this is where we've accepted a duty
to provide housing support. So what's our 40 % target is that we're providing that relief for
40 % of the cases in which we've accepted we've a duty to provide. I just didn't quite understand
what that figure meant. Thank you.
Thank you for your comment.
Gavin Edwards - 0:15:43
I call this account of Blakemore.
Obviously he says a monthly target
there as we see and obviously what
it reflects is obviously the obviously
in the month obviously the cases of
the duties closed as a homeless is
prevented or relieved so it's the
categories there, so that's what that main essence represents.
Do you have another question?
Cllr Mike Blakemore - 0:16:09
Oh, sorry.
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:16:10
Andy, are you going to...
I can get further information from the team, but it's essentially when
Mr Andy Blaszkowicz - 0:16:16
there's been an
approach and the team have essentially prevented the homeowners by either providing some form
of support outside of providing a home or temporary accommodation, finding a way through
that normally to remain in the existing accommodation or to guide them into some other solution.
I just had one other comment, if that's all right, which was 2 .4 .9,
Cllr Mike Blakemore - 0:16:40
where at the end of
that paragraph it refers to the council actually exploring other delivery opportunities across
the district as part of his ongoing plan to deliver up to 20 council homes a year.
Our target isn't right up to 20 counts of homes,
our target is probably 20 counts of homes a year.
It bothers me when people say up to, because up to could mean one.
Maybe I'm being pedantic, but I think our target is 20, isn't it?
Our target is 20, definitely,
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:17:08
and I'm confident to predict that we are going to significantly overshoot that target.
But, yeah, it's a point well made, Mike, thank you.
Do you want to come in on that, Andy, or is that OK?
No, that's fine.
Sorry, a councillor speaking.
Cllr Jeremy Speakman - 0:17:24
Sorry, I'd like to follow in a more pedantic and nit -picky way.
But it's 2 .2 .3 about Misfit collections,
and it's very close to my heart, obviously.
But it's in the report, but actually I think he just talks about
that Misfit and Slob's done from 35 to 32,
but it's in the context of this report as opposed to the main report.
It's a little bit, kind of, so.
But actually it's in relation to the national target I'm looking at,
which I think is 50 per 100 ,000.
It's just for the record,
it gives it a bit of context rather than taking it out of context.
Yes, do you want to respond to that, you or no -one?
Yes, thank you, leader.
Just to confirm what you're saying, Councillor speaking,
overall our performance year to year is excellent.
We should have a slight change in this quarter.
But I can see why you're saying...
Well below the national target.
Absolutely, yes. Point is well made.
Yeah. And the other thing... Sorry.
Another comment.
Another comment.
On my account, and I know we've got KPIs on my account,
just as a plea, really,
Is there any way we could review the KPIs around My Account?
I have a concern I pick up, it's very anecdotal,
that people say,
I'm not getting responses back to My Account.
Is there some sort of KPI we could look at developing
around response to My Account?
I just think that would be something interesting to do.
But, yeah.
That's it.
Kevin, yeah.
Thank you, Lida, and thank you for that comment.
I can obviously have a conversation with the relevant officer
Gavin Edwards - 0:19:11
So with regards to that on the mic,
I think it was something that came up obviously
as well at FPSC as well with regards to responses
and cases and things like that, performance around that.
So I will look into that with them as well
and see what kind of things that can be done
for the future.
The cancer, okay.
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:19:30
Cllr Rich Holgate - 0:19:33
Excuse me, 2 .6 .5 around the Freedom of Information request,
I think is one of the furthest off target comparatively.
It talks about a solution that looks
a temporary resource until February 25 feels very temporary.
What happens after February?
Is there a long -term solution to improving that?
And it is often behind target.
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:19:55
Yimin, are you going to take that one? Thank you.
Mr Ewan Green - 0:19:59
Yes, thank you for your question on that.
It's been a source of concern for us for a while now,
as you know, reporting to members.
What we have done is boasted a team with additional resource.
That was for a temporary period to see what difference it made and to address some other
structural changes that we're thinking about, issues in our structure that we're thinking
about as we go through the transition period.
I think I'm happy to report that for the quarter three and moving forward we are making some
good progress so that I'm confident that future reports will show an upward trend against
that one.
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:20:38
Any other questions?
I guess I'd like more.
Yeah, just a bit of a positivity.
Cllr Polly Blakemore - 0:20:45
I was really good to see.
I know there's been an issue in previous reports about late reporting of potential data breaches
and it's really good to see here that 100 % of eight potential breaches were reported
in time and that number, they were actually reportable to the IOC.
So yeah, really fantastic progress there.
Fantastic stuff.
So we have a proposer.
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:21:11
We have a seconder.
If there are no further questions,
then all those in favor, please indicate.
Thank you very much, everyone.
Moving on to item seven, treasury management,

7 Treasury Management 2024/25 - quarter one

24 to 25, quarter one, 93 to 112.
Councillor Prater.
Thank you.
Cllr Tim Prater - 0:21:38
I'm going to try and concatenate these two because items seven and eight look pretty
similar to everyone involved, so there is no point in us doing both of these simultaneously,
so I'm going to move at the end of this, both items, the reports on seven and eight for
just to see if we can move this thing along a bit.
This Treasury Management Report is obviously what we're doing, is watching what we're doing
in year and how we are performing against the strategy which was already set for the
Council.
I had an excellent question from Councillor Speedman earlier today.
Sorry, I had an excellent question from Councillor Scoffin earlier today.
I'm awaiting the excellent question from Councillor Speedman.
I had an excellent question from Councillor Scott from the New York State about whether
we could do some wording changes around the strategy which we have in place.
And actually that's not the purpose of this report.
We're monitoring what we're doing against the strategy which is in place and when we
come back to that strategy we can review that strategy and change the wording in that strategy
at that stage.
So it's a tool for it.
Thank you, Professor Fraser. That's why I asked the question in advance of you,
because I didn't make my foot in the air this evening.
And you didn't? It's always here.
I was told today in an interview that there is no such thing as a stupid question,
and I'm taking that for read.
So, when we will come back through,
and I would have suggested that after the corporate plan has been removed,
has been passed,
the corporate plan has a great deal about what we should be doing
in our environmental and social responsibilities, both within the district and wider than that,
and I would have thought that our treasury management strategy can then reflect the wording
and the intention of our corporate plan into that new treasury management strategy. Whether
that's done in January or post -January, I think we're probably going to be doing it
the following year because of the timing of the corporate plan, because you can't do everything
at the same meeting. But that would be the intention to do so. So what we're looking
out here is marking our homework against the strategy which is currently in place and making
sure that we're doing the things that we said that we would do and that the money is being
invested in the way that we said we would. The report is detailed. It also went to the
Finance and Scrutiny Subcommittee who asked a number of questions but supported the report
and were happy with it, my recollection of that meeting.
So yeah, they're both there for you for voting.
Are you proposing the, yeah, fantastic.
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:24:22
I'm very, very happy to second
and open up for any questions councillors may have.
Okay, well then, as there are no questions,
we have a proposer, we have a seconder.
Could you please all indicate if you're in favour?
Matt is for both set mandate for jealous.

8 Treasury Management 2024/25 - Quarter two

Cllr Tim Prater - 0:24:44
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:24:46
So, just for formality, do you want to move item 8?
I just did.
Cllr Tim Prater - 0:24:56
You had?
He just voted for it.
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:25:00
I'm not sure whether the chair agreed that you could take both items together.
Are you okay with that, Gemma?
So I'll second both.
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:25:15
Yeah, I'll second both.
Yeah, I'm on the Tim Brater shorthand here.
So just for clarity, item seven was proposed,
seconded by myself.
Item eight was proposed by Tim and seconded by me.
And we all voted in favor.
Is that everyone's understanding?
Yeah, terrific.
Okay, jolly good.
Moving on then, back to you Tim with item nine.
I try and shorten the Tim show when I get told off.

9 General Fund Revenue Budget Monitoring - Quarter two (2024/25)

Cllr Tim Prater - 0:25:45
I try and make them a Tim show and get told off.
There is no way of winning this game.
Quarter two, monitoring report.
Again, this time a budget monitoring.
As you'll see, we're at the end of quarter one,
we were at a stage,
the projection was that we would be running an underspend of somewhere towards half a
million pounds. We're not saying that anymore. It is looking at this moment like our projection
would be that there would be an overspend of a hundred and fifty four thousand pounds
in a year. I'd like to say that we don't plan to let that happen and management action is
already in place in order to make sure that we don't turn around to you with that at the
end of it, but that's the point of monitoring reports, is to flag things early and to be
able to look at it and take management action and make sure that we're going to get there.
Much of the reason, when you read into the detail of that report, as again the Finance
and Strategy Subcommittee did two weeks ago, there's significant additional demands on
in terms of temporary accommodation and housing.
They have broadly doubled what they were a year ago.
We didn't budget for them to double, because why would you?
We didn't see that coming and that has had an impact because the amount,
although some of that money is reclaimed, some of that money for the homelessness
and the temporary accommodation is reclaimable from the government,
only a ridiculously small percentage of it is.
and we have to bear the remainder of the cost of that.
We've all been through this conversation before and we know that we're going to be coming
forward with proposals and Andy and Rebecca and others are already working through proposals
because it is much more, both cost effective to this council but of course also much better
for the people involved in the process if there is good quality temporary accommodation
owned by this council and we use our own accommodation from that stage.
It is financially better because we can claim more of the cost of that back from the government
and therefore you don't end up with nasty surprises of half a million pound movements
in a quarter. And also it allows us to get better outcomes because we're not just renting
what is available, it's going to be designed for purpose and it's going to be fit for purpose
for which it is being used.
I am casting no aspersions on the private temporary accommodation
that we're using at the moment, but clearly if we own it
we have better control of it and we have better management in place of it.
So that is going to be why some capital program work
and some discussion about temporary accommodation
and the purchase of additional temporary accommodation,
how we make more of that available is going to be coming to us in the next few months,
not just because it's the right thing to do, but it is,
but also to help protect us against movements like that in future and get better outcomes
for residents who are in housing difficulty.
Other than that, the report is detailed in terms of the number of variations.
In terms of variations, as I said, the Finance and Scrutiny subcommittee again had a good
go through this and looked at, asked a number of questions on a variety of the cost centres
when we're going through.
One point that they did raise quite specifically, which is a big area, was the investment building
which was purchased some time ago at Connect 38 in Ashford, and whether that is still returning
value to this council.
There is going to be some discussion about that coming forward over the coming months
and there will be, before any decision is made on that, that paper will come back to
but it is being looked at as to see whether it's long -term core value
to this council or whether there are other options which would return
better value to the council at this stage.
But I'll let other people run the maths and run the estate agent on that one
before we take that any further.
So that's the report we've had here.
I will, again, happy to move the quarter to one for now.
Thank you very much, Councillor Prater.
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:30:12
Very happy to second and open up the floor for questions or queries or any issues that
anyone has to raise.
Councillor Holcote.
Cllr Rich Holgate - 0:30:23
Just a very quick one.
You mentioned, so it's great to hear that we are looking to tackle temporary housing
need and that's fantastic for the reasons you said.
You also mentioned it might take months to come back with a next step on that.
Is that just because of how long it takes? Can we do anything to do with it quicker?
And mindful of a situation spiring out of control.
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:30:49
Mr Andy Blaszkowicz - 0:30:50
Thank you, Councillor.
We're working hard on it at the moment with the housing team
and looking at ways to use our own stock
so we can claim back a full subsidy amount.
There's some complications in that and we will be bringing a
paper back to CLT first and then cabinet to approve the approach
of doing that and it's a balancing out. Careful balancing
out between freeing up homes in the HRA for temporary
accommodation. And then obviously having enough homes
for. Housing families moving moving forward so we do have to
make sure that homes in the right location so they don't
cause further problems within existing housing setups.
Notably also just to report, which is positive news. I have seen the figures for today and we are down to 54 families in temporary accommodation, which was previously last month at 66. The team have been working really hard to reduce that. So we've got all the prevention work going on as well, and then we're going to be finding ways to obviously improve the facilities that we have for temporary accommodations so we can claim that back for our subsidy. But it will take a little bit of time and we're working through the process of how we're going to do that at the moment.
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:31:57
That's really good news, Andy.
That's brilliant news just before Christmas.
So okay, we have a proposer.
We have a seconder.
All those in favour, please indicate.
Okay.
Jolly good.
Thank you very much.

10 General Fund Capital Programme Budget Monitoring 2024/25 - 2nd Quarter (Q2) 2024/25

Moving on to item 10, General Capital, General Fund Capital Program Budget Monitoring 2024.
2 .25, second quarter. Over to you, Tim.
As written, Section 2 .2 gives the main reasons for the decrease in
Cllr Tim Prater - 0:32:36
the projected expenditure
out -turn, which is essentially all slippage from year. There's no programs deletion going
on here, there's no work that we're not going to do. It's just recognising that actually
moving paving slabs around for the brighter future work isn't going to start until next
financial year.
It's recognising that some coast protection work on Coronation Parade is going to happen
later as well.
So we've noted before that capital programmes start by being a big number and then money
slips back into future years due to circumstances.
But the monetary is clear, nothing has stopped.
The Lough work is ongoing and is delivered and government has agreed.
As I understand the new timetables, the new timing in terms of the funding on that, I
understand that contractors have been tendered for and that the tenders are in and it's still
affordable as a project. I think when Andy gives me the dead eye on that sort of thing.
What don't I know? You would nod or stop nodding. Andy just gives me the dead eye.
As far as I'm aware it's still all affordable and things like that. Andy doesn't have to
place and I think 25 -26 is actually going to be a year of build.
For us there's lots of work going to be out there and lots of things that you're going
to see certainly throughout Frowton and the wider district including the beach hut destination,
Great Stunt, etc.
But yeah, the capital program is in front of you.
I'm happy to move the recommendations.
Thank you very much Councillor Prater.
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:34:39
I'm very happy to second and open it up for questions or queries from councillors.
No, the report was fairly clear to me.
It is what it is.
If there are no questions, can I ask you all to indicate your support?
Thank you very much.
Thank you.

11 HRA Budget Monitoring Quarter 2

Okay, moving on to item 11, the HRA budget monitoring report, quarter two.
Rebecca.
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:35:15
Oh, sorry, Rebecca.
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:35:17
A bit of variety.
Cllr Rebecca Shoob - 0:35:19
So this is the HRA budget monitoring for quarter two and we're being asked to receive a note
and to approve a £35 ,000 environment.
So the paper sets out there's been an increase in both, an overspending both the revenue
account and the capital program, both largely due to the repairs and maintenance contract
inflation.
The heat metering project at Windpine House has come in under budget by £35 ,000, so it's
propose to move that to the budget for planned electrical testing and heating works.
So very happy to move the report.
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:36:09
Thank you very much, Councillor Shrew.
Apologies for not coming to you straight away.
I'm very, very happy to second the report.
the HII, you know, a 35 ,000 pound environment, to my eyes, on these sort of numbers is a
relatively minor shift.
That's the way that I'm reading it.
So I'm very, very happy to second that.
And Councillor Fuller.
Thanks, Chair.
Just had one quick question.
Cllr Gary Fuller - 0:36:44
The increase in expenditure, one of the other things mentioned was an increase in disrepair claims,
with 21 open claims. I wondered if this is just a sort of historical thing from clearing up
previous issues, shall we say, from before our time, or are we seeing maybe an increase in people
advertising those kind of services?
Cllr Rebecca Shoob - 0:37:13
Yes, I think it's sadly an ongoing steady stream of disrepair claims, as you say.
A bit of an industry behind it now, unfortunately.
Andy.
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:37:28
Mr Andy Blaszkowicz - 0:37:31
Yes, just adding to that, we have a team working on this and it's reported to Housing Leadership
team monthly on the number of disrepair cases.
It is a problem moving forward.
It costs us a lot of money to defend claims and takes a lot
of team time away from the day job.
There is, as Councillor Shiff says,
there seems to be an industry of no win, no fee solicitors.
And the ironic thing, I guess, for our tenants
is taking money out of the HRA.
and the only real winners are the solicitors.
When you look at a claim that might pay out £1500,
you quite often get solicitors fees
in the range of £5000 to £7000 on that sort of claim.
And I mean you get instances where we're not even aware
of the disrepair at times.
And it's literally door knocking.
And you get spates of it, go over habit as well,
where they target specific areas to do this.
Some claims are genuine, of course,
we put our hands up, we look into that.
We make good.
We do the job as best as we can.
But it is a problem for all housing providers and something does need to be done about it.
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:38:45
Is that okay?
Any other questions or queries on this?
So we have a proposal.
We have a seconder.
All those in favor, please indicate.
Okay.
Jolly good.

12 Budget Strategy 2025/26

Moving on to Item 12, the budget strategy.
Councillor Prater.
This is one of those documents that you don't just pass, you live.
Cllr Tim Prater - 0:39:11
As we all know, we're moving through the delivery of the budget for this year.
We've already been through some stages of it.
We have things like the fees and charges paper this evening, and there will be more, Kevin,
and papers and cancelled before February.
Some of the budget strategy details the timing of that and the process that we are going
through, indicating where we are in the process and where we go.
It feels to me like we're going to be in a reasonable place in the budget.
As the line 1 .3 of our strategy says is to maintain a balanced budget such that expenditure
manages income from council tax fees and charges and government and other grants and to maintain
that position.
That is what we did last year.
We did not fund our expenditure from general reserves.
That is what we fully anticipate that we are going to do next year.
That we will have a balanced budget which is not balanced by spending money from general
reserves.
unlike the previous administration.
So I think we are going to be in good shape for that,
but I will only be able to give
firmer promises on that when we have seen the final local government settlement,
which is governments pretty much Christmas present to local authorities,
which is that they throw the government settlement,
they throw the local government settlement out of the door at local authorities
and then run like hell for ten days off,
to give us some reading to do over the Christmas period.
So we look forward to our reading over the Christmas period. You will then have a much clearer
shape of what that budget will look like
going forward
because
the team
including
Montesola and Jonathan and Lydia will sit there and do some of that number crunching
early in the new year but not over Christmas
in order to give us the shape of our budget. This strategy obviously runs through to
setting the budget, you then run the budget through the year, you then go through
the close down and audit processes of that. The reason I'm doing that is because
I'm segwaying nicely into a piece of good news, which is that for 2022 -23, the
Audit and Governance Committee last week had the joy of seeing the audited
accounts signed off for 22 -23. So the external auditor has signed them off as being an accurate
record and they are hitting the website, the audited version of that is hitting the website
very soon. Also, you will, for our first year in charge of the 23 -24 year of the accounts
are moving through that process of being completed and audited as well. They are broadly complete
and they will go out for a final version and will be published for inspection of accounts
just as soon as Jonathan's computer stops crashing.
It is possible that you will see a capital expenditure for a new laptop appearing in
the budget process between now and January, depending on whether he has to throw it out
of the window if it eats his spreadsheet again.
But if it hadn't eaten his spreadsheet, that would be open for consultation.
Now, we'd like to hope it's by the end of the week, but let's see what colour screen
it has in the morning.
Blue screen of death equals worse.
So the paper sets out the strategy.
I don't think there are any surprises in there in terms of what we're doing.
We needed to see what the final settlement for government is, but we're hopeful that
it will be, it will move us positively in the direction we have and we will have a budget
that will meet all the criteria that are set within the strategy.
So I'm happy to move and I hope that's a spot.
Thank you, Councillor Pérez.
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:43:19
I'm very happy to second the report and open it up for discussion.
It is worth noting that we are asked to agree to budget strategy as well as approving the
general fund growth and savings proposals, agree the draft proposed timetable and to
agree to the proposed arrangements for consultation.
So there's quite a number of things that we're agreeing on this one.
But very, very happy to take any questions.
Oh, Councillor Fuller.
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:44:02
Just a quick one, just because I didn't spot the difference in the timetable before.
Cllr Gary Fuller - 0:44:07
I noticed that we're having two full councils, one for the HRA side and one for the general
side.
I didn't notice we've done that before.
So I was just curious why.
Have we got an answer to that one?
Lydia, thank you.
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:44:21
Lydia Morrison - 0:44:23
We can't go to full council until the other major preceptors have had their meetings,
but also the HRA rents have to be agreed to allow consultation and issuing as well, and
this year we couldn't quite align all the dates, so we are having to go twice, so apologies.
Thank you very much.
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:44:43
Thank you for your excellent question.
Okay, we have a proposal, we have a seconder.
If there are no other questions, could I ask you to indicate if you are in favour?
Thank you very much.
Item 13 is fees and charges.

13 Fees and charges 2025/26

And is this another Temporator event?
For some reason, yes.
Cllr Tim Prater - 0:45:15
I think they just ran out of other names to put on it.
Obviously the fees and charges actually cuts across pretty much everything that all of
us do, so all of our portfolios have had input into this, we've had discussion of this at
Star Chambers in terms of where there are any significant movements in terms of it.
The fees and charges are set across the piece, A, to ensure where we can cost recovery on
items, so where there's any significant, so where things cost us a certain amount, we
try and make sure that we're actually getting that back in terms of the charges that we're
levying.
Also, and for those items that aren't all cost recovery but are effectively income items
which support our bottom line and mean that we can provide the services that we do, despite
the ongoing constraints on our council tax. On the whole, you're looking at a CPI increase,
the CPI plus rounding increase, and that's the intention of the budget. There are, within
the paper, as I mentioned, there would be some specific changes and the paper's been
detailed and in each of our portfolio areas we will be into why some specific things have
changed and where different rates are being proposed, where they go.
Again I should, you know, I think we can, the paper is detailed.
I think it is fair to say that one of the areas that we are, one of the areas we've
gone to here is in the parking area and a number of the car parks we're looking at,
and winter charging and we shouldn't be hiding behind that.
But that's because we're in a coastal area and frankly a number of our car parks are
deeply seasonal in terms of the usage that they get.
There are some car parks that you could throw a brick across in November without hurting
any vehicles but if you tried the same trick in July you wouldn't have room to move the
brick.
and I think it is reasonable that we have different pricing, which is for seasonality
in those areas, which is something which is reflected in many other council areas as well.
It's not that we're inventing a new idea here.
One thing that I do think is a failing of this report in terms of parking, and should
be written in red, underlined, and have a balloon attached to it, is that although we
understand that the parking charges have gone up by CPI there and we're looking at that
seasonal charging. We have frozen the cost of the resident's car parking permit. This
is a permit which for £20 you can buy a three month permit which allows you to park for
two to three hours in any district car park in the area. That's under £2 a week for that
permit. That is less than the cost of parking for one hour in a car park under that new
charge in general. If you are a resident that parks in district car parks and don't have
a resident's car parking permit, you are burning money. You should probably stop it and you
should probably go and get the permit. It is, we have deliberately and intentionally,
and the Parking Services Department team have helped in making sure that we are keeping
the price of that as low as possible.
We have frozen the price this year in
order to support local residents who
want to go into our towns and into
folks in the high -valley to New
Romney and support the shops there to
make it cheap for them to do so,
as cheap as we can support.
We can't support residents from outside
of our district in the same way,
but residents in our district can
benefit from those cut rates.
I strongly suggest that we make sure
that we are telling residents about
that as loudly as humanely possible, including for the three people watching the webcast
now, I hope you got the message, get a permit. Also, what else are you doing? But again,
the fees and charges document is in front of us. It's never the popular thing to do.
Obviously it includes increases in costs as read. It's never a paper that anyone sits
So, when any glee -in goes this way.
But it supports the budget strategy.
It supports increasing our income across the piece,
which allows us to continue to deliver services
and to improve services and deliver to our priorities.
The council will move the recommendations of the report.
Thank you very much, Councillor Prita.
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:50:05
Very, very happy to second and to reiterate
Your sentiments on the bargain that the residents parking permit is and I think we will all
be promoting it as enthusiastically as we possibly can because it really is a bargain.
So Councillor Blakemore.
Cllr Polly Blakemore - 0:50:33
I'm going to get in on that as well and I'm very glad you both mentioned it because if
you hadn't I would have done it yet.
it should be there with bells on saying that that is being frozen for the year and I was
really quite determined that we got that in there when we did our star chamber process.
And that needs to be at the very front of everything when the comms go out on this as
well.
And yeah, we're looking after our residents, although as Tim has said, it makes sense for
us to put prices up seasonally, but we are still looking after our residents and that's
the most important thing.
The only other thing I was going to note was, and I think this applies to the whole document,
I'm looking at the spreadsheet now, on the parking, it's different from last year in
that when you look at the comparison between what we're proposing and what we're doing
at the moment, it's showing it without VAT.
And that may make sense in other parts of the fees and charges where there's lots of
exempt charges or ones that are outside the scope of VAT.
But for parking, it makes a lot of,
especially for the car park parking, off -street parking,
it makes the rise look bigger than it actually is.
So it looks like we're going from one pound 50
to two pounds, whereas in fact,
we're going from one pound 80 to two pounds.
And I just think that's not gonna help us get this through.
Can anyone give us a view on that?
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:52:01
I can entirely agree on the presentational point that we should make it absolutely clear
Cllr Tim Prater - 0:52:06
that where it says approved charges for 24 -25, that's approved charges ex vat, and the actual
charge is inc vat, obviously, because it's the law.
And yeah, if we could make sure that that's clear when we're taking that through council
so that people with that point of view is really, really well made, and I'd totally
take it.
Thank you for pointing that out.
Excellent point.
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:52:31
Any other questions?
Sorry, Councillor Fuller first and then Councillor Blake.
I thought Councillor Woymaw was first but I'll take it.
Cllr Gary Fuller - 0:52:41
Just on the presentation point, even though it mentions in the report that the percentages
may be putting it in the spreadsheet, so to speak, the percentage increase is another
way of just making it clearer for somebody that's just glancing through.
And just on the point of seasonal tariffs, I think it would be useful to make the point
that effectively what this allows us to do is to reap some dividends from tourism to
the district and put them back into services for local people.
And we're doing that alongside the safety net of giving people a flat rate charge for
the parking permits as well.
So if we can just make that point as much as possible, that would be useful.
Great, thank you very much.
So, okay, you're all okay with that, good.
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:53:28
And Councillor Blakemore.
Cllr Mike Blakemore - 0:53:34
I understand the reason why we have to increase parking charges, and it's not just the change
to seasonal hours, it's extending the hours of parking, isn't it, from six o 'clock to
eight o 'clock, which I think will, for local businesses, will be very unpopular.
I understand, I think it's a matter of great regret that we have to fund services by increasing
parking charges and that funding doesn't come from elsewhere.
The one I have the real problem with is the coastal park and that already would cost you
£20 to park for four hours and one minute down there and that will now cost you £25
to park there for four hours and one minute, which I think is too much.
I don't doubt that we'll fill the coastal park with whoever can park down there, some
of whom will be local people if they're lucky enough to find a space and they may have residence
permits but a lot of them will be visited but it just seems like too much money to me.
Councillor Pritchard.
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:54:23
Cllr Tim Prater - 0:54:25
It looks like it's extraordinary because it's an extraordinary car park.
That move was made about three years ago only.
It was on a standard rate car.
This is a car park which is accessed exclusively via Radnor Cliff which is a narrow road and
It is the best located car park for our excellent
Lowndes Park.
Broadly, three times as many people tried to get into it each day that it can fit and
it was, it jams Radnor Cliff and it jams the road to the extent that the road becomes unsafe
and impassable and if and when we end up with a red light, a blue light call to the coastal
Park, we are going to be in big trouble if that road is gridlocked, because that is the
way you get an ambulance here in the Netherlands.
The suggestion came from local residents in Radcliffe in terms of trying to reduce some
of the demand on Mount Cook Park to increase the charging of it in order to reduce the
number of people going to it.
It remains one of the busier car parks in the district, and it remains one of the loosest
I think it is the most lucrative car park in the district.
I mean, because the parking charges are high for it,
and it's a reasonable number of spaces in there as well.
So, it's not that we are using that as a cash cow for the council.
In fact, I think some, if not most, of the income of that
goes to the Fence and Parks and Government's charity.
All of it goes to the Fence and Parks and Government's charity,
so it's not actually a cash cow for this council.
It goes towards the services of folks in parks and gardens and helps keep those and keep
the park itself in order.
But it was set not as a cash cow, but as a strategic response to trying to reduce the
demand there and allow the free passing of traffic in Wagner Cliff because we didn't
have other solutions which are going to work there.
The only other way you can do it, it broadly either to put a double yellow line up both
sides of that road which is not supported by neighbours.
he said, having tried to go there,
it is not a popular response to it,
or alternatively knocking one side of Ravencliffe down
and increasing the width of road.
That is also not popular in Ravencliffe.
So it's a strategic response to a difficult parking situation.
I'm open to other strategic responses to the difficult parking situation
and I understand the point about it looks very expensive,
but as you say, actually if you are a resident
and you wish to park there for two hours a day,
your parking permit will cost you less than half an hour of parking permit in order to
be parked there for two hours, once a day, every day.
I can just come back on that.
So I think yes, I remember it came in three years ago before we were in power and I thought
it was too much then.
Cllr Mike Blakemore - 0:57:22
But what I would say is if it's a strategic response three years ago to make it £20,
whatever it was three years ago, and the car part's still full, increasing it by another
25 % now, is that are we thinking that that's going to make the car parts not full in the
because that strategic response hasn't worked up to now,
so I don't think it's going to work in the future.
I understand entirely the point you make about trying to reduce the pressure on that road,
but I don't think hiking the price charge up more and more is actually going to achieve that in the end,
because there are people, especially visitors, who come down here who will pay £25 to park there,
and unfortunately the residents with the resident's permits, including neighbours of ours,
are unable to find a space in there, so they may have a resident's permit,
but they can't actually get to use it down there,
because it's so popular as you say because it's a wonderful free attraction for visitors
to the district.
Councillor Proud.
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:58:15
Cllr Tim Prater - 0:58:19
I think very briefly I think I'd say that £25 is probably the ceiling on a day's parking
there.
I don't want to encourage people parking illegally but essentially a parking, if you went out
and parked on the W and a line just outside of the Lowndes Park, your parking ticket for
day would cost you £25 at the house bench. So actually I think it has now hit the ceiling
because charging more to park in the car park than taking the fine for parking outside the
car park would strike me as a bit baffling. So unfortunately it has to be set by I think
a £25 limit to what you can charge somebody for parking on W & L is ludicrous and that
should be something if the government wants to give some help to local authorities to
to deal with these problems,
then give us some more flexibility around that.
But, yeah, I think your point is really well made,
your point is absolutely fine,
but I don't think it can go any higher than it is on that paper
until the options that we have around that give us better options.
Because, as I said, otherwise you will just park outside,
take the fine because it'll be cheaper than the car parking.
Cllr Jim Martin - 0:59:28
Councillor Holcomb, will you indicate?
I will, thank you, Peter.
Cllr Rich Holgate - 0:59:32
Two observations.
First of all, continuing conversation on parking.
I am very nervous about, from an economic to veteran perspective,
the impact that these charges will have on our visitors.
We are about to spend £20 million improving on High Street.
We want people to be there, we want people to be there more often.
and we are almost arguably actively de -incentivizing people to come into town,
coupled with our currently poor public transport service and stagecoach.
It doesn't feel like the correct way to...
I'm sure the numbers are...
that can be justified into support of the wider budget needs,
but I cannot see how this approach supports shops on our high street
at a time when we really need people and footfall.
I am, I, and that, because we mentioned about the evening,
we're increasing the time of the day as well.
And so I would, I'd value maybe just another conversation
or an opportunity to discuss on the set how these punk charges go through.
We are not putting up ever more friction barriers and encouraging people
to visit our high streets.
It's point one.
Point two, as a green administration,
it surprises me that we continue to charge
twice the amount of money for a recycling bin
than we do for a general waste bin.
Again, I'm sure there's longstanding logic,
but it just feels a little backward
from some of the principles that we
would like to promote across the district.
I don't know what the solution is, but maybe that's not helpful, but yeah, it sticks to
me, both those points.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Cllr Jim Martin - 1:01:26
Would anyone care to come in?
And Councillor Blakney.
Yeah, I mean, just to put it in context, obviously these places are sort of benchmarked across
Cllr Polly Blakemore - 1:01:38
the other districts, right across Kent.
and I don't know if you've been to Whitstable or Cadbury recently,
but you'd be paying an awful lot more than what we're proposing for next year.
So I think in a broader context,
although I had hoped we wouldn't have to make the hikes this year,
that we have had to and that wasn't the original plan,
but unfortunately we have had to go down that route.
But I think in the context of the country as a whole,
I think they are reasonable charges and still on the lower side of average.
Thank you very much.
Councillor Prater.
Yeah, thank you.
Cllr Jim Martin - 1:02:17
Cllr Tim Prater - 1:02:20
I think the point around the support for our town centre is really well made and that's
why the Levelling Up project is doing a number of things including massively improving the
approach to town from the folks on the Central Railway Station to make it a much more walkable
cycle -borne space from the train station or from public transport and why it includes
the entirely non -controversial rebuilding of a brand new bus station in the middle of
Folkestone.
So, that level of the media itself is bringing, giving new ways and improving ways of getting
in via public transport and I believe that a linear bus station is going to be more efficient,
It's going to be more effective in those allowing buses to go through.
It's going to mean that they've got less loiter time for buses and bus station because they'll
be coming and they're going to be picking people up and they're going to be going on
their journeys, which hopefully is going to increase the number of journeys that they
can make.
It's going to increase the number of bus services that we have in our area and increase the
number of people coming in.
Of course we can, your two points made in counter juxtaposed against each other are
interesting.
of course there's a green administration to be arguing for lowered car parking fees as
well is an interesting point to then make it against that.
We should be encouraging people to get onto the bus and go into the person.
I should be getting on the bus from Sangay to folks, and generally do, as opposed to
going and parking there.
We should be using those services more, not least because the more people who use those
bus services, the more bus services there'll be to use them.
That is the argument stagecoach spent their life arguing with the leader at the moment
is that the more people that use them, the more people will get them.
And they should be running later as well to support that evening economy that you talk
about and those restaurants and those pubs and those bars and those places that actually
want those people to go in there.
And they need to be able to get home again at 11 o 'clock at night and at 12 o 'clock at
night as opposed to, I've seen them out equally, I don't want people driving to the pub and
driving home at 12 o 'clock at night particularly.
That's a thing. So of course it's a balancing act. Of course you've got to look at the different
things implemented. I really hope that the work that the Lebanon Art Fund delivers and
the improvements that it's going to make to Fosun Down Centre and the improvements that
we're making wider in the district will balance, will more than balance increasing some seasonality
there but also we should bear in mind that if people are using their residence permit
to park at that stage they can park for free from 5 o 'clock in the evening anyway and they
can stay there until 8 o 'clock the following day, 8am the following day.
The parent charge is absolutely, that will enable that to happen.
What we need to be convincing residents is that that is the way of doing it and that
we are supporting residents in doing those things.
I would be surprised if many of our evening destinations were currently getting a huge
number of visits from people outside of the district into our evening economy.
I would have thought most of the people who are eating and drinking in Folkestone and
high venue Romney are people who live in our district on a regular basis.
I haven't got any figures for that beyond that's my general feeling is that most people
and they're not driving from Dover and Canterbury in order to go to Faxon for the night.
Yet. One day, but not yet.
Councillor Spillane.
Cllr Jim Martin - 1:05:57
Cllr Jeremy Speakman - 1:05:58
I just was coming back on the earlier comment from Councillor Holgate
regarding the differences in the bin.
I've been... I'm surprised at that, but I'm taking a quick look.
I need to have a look at that again,
because I can't immediately see where that difference is.
But I will bring it up, maybe do it outside,
But unless, you know, help me on this.
As far as I know, the prices are the same for the same type of bin, whether it's being
used for recycling or waste.
But I may be wrong on that.
I'll withdraw.
Maybe I've misread the date.
Okay.
Sorry.
Thank you.
Well, we'll check it out.
Yeah.
For sure.
Cllr Jim Martin - 1:06:35
Just to put a positive spin on some of Councillor Prates' words, I've recently received the
The tourism figures are really good.
We're 99%, folks in the hive, we are 99 %
when compared to pre -pandemic,
so compared with 2019.
So visits and numbers and in all sectors have crept,
and I mean crept, but...
The day trip numbers are back up to pre -pandemic levels.
Hotels not quite there, but not far off.
And a really, really positive picture.
I'm not quite sure why.
No one else has got them apart from me.
But it's coming out... I'm sorry.
No doubt there'll be a paper at due course.
But generally...
So I think we'd be surprised how many visitors we do get to restaurants and to other things
both during the day and the evening.
But it's the first thing with good news.
I couldn't wait to tell you.
Okay, so thanks very much for that debate.
I think that was very good.
We have a proposer in Councillor Prater.
I have seconded it.
And all those in favour, please indicate.
Jolly good.
Those who wish to abstain.
Cancel.
Okay.
And unless I've miscounted, I don't think there's anyone left to be against.
No?
Okay.
Thank you very much for that.
That's great.

14 Otterpool Park: Collaboration agreement with Homes England

Turning the page to item 14, Otterfield Park Collaboration Agreement with Homes England.
This report seeks approval for the council to enter into a time limited collaboration
agreement with Homes England.
The outcome of this activity will support ongoing work to secure the necessary investment
to identify a delivery route for Otterball Park, which is quite stark when you read it
out considering the amount of work that goes into what those words mean.
So, yeah, the collaboration agreement is included in the pack.
Very, very happy to answer any questions on it.
Essentially, it's an agreement that binds us to seek an agreement.
We must work earnestly and purposefully towards achieving another agreement with Holmes England
and we have six months with a three month extension if necessary
within the scope of this agreement to achieve that.
So effectively this is a collaboration agreement which hopefully will lead to a much more meaningful agreement
if Homes England decide that they want to be our strategic partner.
If not, we will go back to our plan that cabinet has given approval for, that we go out to
seek a strategic partner.
So this is something that Homes England have asked us to agree to and we are minded in
terms of those immediately involved in the negotiations to present this to cabinet with
the recommendation that we do enter into this collaboration agreement.
So I hope that's clear, but it is an agreement that leads to another agreement.
So I don't think the earth is going to move at the moment, but hopefully it will do soon.
And I'm happy to move this particular item.
Cllr Jim Martin - 1:11:00
Oh, and open it for questions, sorry.
Councillor Proyter.
Firstly, happy to second.
Cllr Tim Prater - 1:11:07
So that that bit's been done.
Again, this is an item which has been to an overview of the scrutiny working group.
It's written within the report, but I think it's worth again saying that out loud,
is that though cabinet are requested to sign this off,
despite the fact it's talks about talks, as opposed to actually a deal,
It is something which scrutiny have been involved in.
They've had those discussions and that they have agreed, as I understand it, that they
are happy for this approach.
We have had it pre -scrutinised, which is the right way of doing these things, and discussed
and those questions asked about what it's doing and how it's doing it, and they are
comfortable with that approach.
and as the leader said to reassure council, the wider council, this is not us agreeing
to a deal with Homes England for a certain amount of money, to build a certain amount
of home, for a certain amount of equity, for a certain amount of loan, for any of those
things. It's about spending the next six to nine months and putting in a very limited
amount each. It would defund the time to do that in order to see if we can write the deal
and write a deal between us as parties.
If we were buying a football club, this would be the exclusivity period,
whereby we open book with them and we come up with the agreement whereby the takeover could take place or not.
It wouldn't be a takeover in this case, it would be a co -elaboration
to deliver those homes at Otterfield Park with the infrastructure which underlines it,
but we're not binding ourselves to a deal, we're binding ourselves to writing a deal
which could then potentially be brought forward to Council for them to look at and for them
to make the final decision on as to whether this is the way that we want to proceed and
this is the partner that we want.
So we're not setting the next 30 years of Otterpool Park, we're giving 6 to 9 months
in order to write the deal on which 30 years of Otterpool Park would then be based.
Cllr Jim Martin - 1:13:17
Thank you very much, Councillor Proj, I'm happy to respond to that.
One, I will return to the Chamber on many occasions with things to decide on Otipol,
but you quite rightly point out that Overview and Scrutiny have worked very hard on this.
In fact, they set up a task and finish group to specifically focus on this.
I'd like to record my thanks to that task and finish group
that had to swallow an enormous amount of information.
A lot of financial data, a lot of legal advice,
and they were heroes, really.
It was a cross -party group and my thanks go to all of them
because it was a significant amount of information
that they had to process.
But as you say, they have been all over it
and are happy to recommend it up to us.
So, yeah.
Sorry, Councillor Scuffler.
Cllr Stephen Scoffham - 1:14:26
Yeah, this feels like a wonderful moment.
As an outsider, as it were, who's not been close to the details of the negotiations,
congratulations to everybody who has got it to this point,
because I know from what you said,
the stark words on the page don't in any way convey
the enormous amount of effort, anguish, thought
and negotiation that's gone into it.
So it feels like a very good moment.
My point of information,
because I'm not familiar with how these contracts and events pan out,
is this a normal procedure to have an agreement like this?
and is there any sense in which we can gauge whether it's likely to...
This indicates a sort of... It's pretty nearly in the bag
and we just need to finish off six months of details.
Or is it, well, it really could go either way?
Do you see what I mean? Just a sort of indication of,
am I right in thinking it's a Christmas present,
which you've very kindly given us all, or not?
So this is, as it were, the engagement before the marriage ceremony.
Cllr Jim Martin - 1:15:47
There are a number of advantages to us because they are committing themselves as potential
partners.
It's also given us an opportunity to raise some historic costs that we wanted to raise
with them, which they are not necessarily happy to pay, but they're happy to take on
board.
It's all very, very positive.
They are putting resources and time into making Otipool work from their point of view.
Now, they are the delivery agent for the government.
The government have got very ambitious targets with regard to housing, very ambitious targets
with regard to new towns, new settlements, etc.
But they will take it a step at a time.
So that is really... But in terms of steps, this is a major step forward.
So while I can't, you know, sort of sing Hallelujah, we've done it,
we are... This is one step closer and it's a significant step,
if that's any help to you.
It is and it's a wonderful place to be.
Cllr Stephen Scoffham - 1:17:00
So what I said at the beginning is right, I'm reading it right
and I like the idea of the engagement before the marriage.
Cllr Jim Martin - 1:17:07
OK, Councillor Hallgate.
It's perhaps too early.
Cllr Rich Holgate - 1:17:11
I know there's still a lot of detail to work through
but I don't know whether it would be prudent
as part of the risk profile on 5 .2
to add in such incoming things as devolution and planning reform,
both of which I know Westminster are looking to.
to do, I'm sure there'll be a consequence of that, maybe for future reports as well.
Cllr Jim Martin - 1:17:33
Well, now you've intertwined my two favourite topics, Chas.
So, on devolution, the white paper, we're told,
will be in week commencing the 16th of December,
so we will have some indication as to what...
But it's unlikely that anything will happen with regard to us.
until the bill is published.
So that's likely to be a year.
So we think it'll probably be this time next year
when we're looking at a bill.
And in that time, this collaboration agreement
will have run its course.
And we will know whether we've got a strategic partner
or we're going out to the market.
Planning reform shouldn't really have an impact
because we've already got resolution to grant.
So it inevitably will have something,
but it's not gonna stop us in our tracks.
Cllr Jim Martin - 1:18:34
Any other questions or queries?
So I was very pleased to propose.
Councillor Praetor seconded.
All those in favour, please indicate.
Thank you very much.
And now we go into an excluded item, I think.
Gemma.
You need to consider agenda item 15, exclusion of the public.
Yeah.
And you need to have a proposer and a seconder
and then a vote.

15 Exclusion of the Public

Okay, so this is so we can consider the next item,
which has got confidential commercial information in it.
So this is item 15, exclusion of the public,
and I am happy to propose that we exclude
the public from item 16.
Cllr Jim Martin - 1:19:31
If I could have a seconder, that would be helpful.
Councillor Blakemore, that's a second.
All those in favour, please indicate.
Thank you very much.