Agenda and minutes

Councillors will elect a Chair for the meeting.

Councillor Bhatti was re-elected as Chair of Rushey Mead Community Meeting for the remainder of the year 2009/10.

Apologies were received from Sue Taylor (Community Legal Advice).

The first main item on the programme is Declaration of Interest where Councillors have to say if there is anything in the programme they have a personal interest in. For example if a meeting was due to discuss a budget application put forward by a community group and one of the Councillors was a member of that group, they would not be able to take part in the decision on that budget application.

Councillors are asked to declare any interest they may have in the business on the agenda, and/or indicate that Section 106 of the Local Government Finance Act 1992 applies to them.

There were no declarations made at this time.

The Minutes of the meeting held on 21^st January 2009 are attached to these agenda papers and Councillors will be asked to confirm them as a correct record following any comments that people may have.

This next part of the agenda covers items where input from you on issues that affect your community is welcomed.

RESOLVED:

that the Minutes of the Community Meeting held on 21^st January 2009, as previously circulated, be confirmed as a correct record.

Helen Ryan, Service Director, Transforming the Learning Environment will be attending the meeting to give an update on progress with the Building Schools for the Future programme as it relates to Rushey Mead School.

Helen Ryan, Service Director, Transforming the Learning Environment attended the meeting and gave an update on progress with the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme as it related to Rushey Mead School.

Helen opened with a brief update on the overall BSF programme across the City and stated that the funding received from the Government for the programme was being administered by the Partnership for Schools and the City Council was working closely with the Partnership to ensure that the most appropriate schools were built in the most appropriate locations.

Helen stated that the Business Case for the BSF programme in Leicester was in two parts, namely: -

i)                   Identify what the City Council wanted to spend the funding on. This had been approved by the Government.

ii)                 Identify how the proposals were to be achieved. This part of the Business Case was still being worked on.

Helen stated that there was currently a growth in the number of children in Leicester and therefore there was a need to ensure that the schools in place were of the correct size. Currently this large piece of work was being carried out in conjunction with the Partnership for Schools.

Rushey Mead School was within Phase 2 of the BSF programme and were currently working through a ‘visioning’ process to decide how they wanted to spend the funding allocated. Work was being carried out with designers to see what could be achieved for the money available. In addition to the BSF funding Rushey Mead School had put in a bid for £1 million for Environmental Sustainability Works to be included in the works, if successful this funding would then be added to the BSF funding.

A member of the public questioned that when the BSF works at Rushey Mead School had been completed what activities would be available for the community, and would they include swimming facilities. Helen stated that all BSF schools would have a range of community facilities open during the day but with an ability to zone off sections of the school at night to ensure that the rest of the school was secure, BSF funding would not cover swimming facilities.

A member of the public questioned whether a new building would improve educational standards. Helen stated that this was one of the fundamental challenges that the Council had to address. If 21^st Century was to be delivered then we needed to know what this would look like, it was really a case of delivering the curriculum. The public asked when was it expected that educational levels would increase in this area. Helen stated that she expected that the results of the investment locally would show improvements within 5 years.

A member of the public stated that he was aware that the old Soar valley school was shortly to be demolished but he understood that there was asbestos in the building and questioned what the impact would be to the local community. Helen stated that she was aware  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

An update to be provided on the range of Environmental Services offered in the area.

Adrian Russell, Service Director, Environmental Services gave a brief presentation that provided an update on work in the area that had been undertaken by his staff. A copy of a newsletter was circulated at the meeting.

Adrian outlined the process of reporting incidences of graffiti in the area and of the fact that should the graffiti be of a racist nature then this would be removed within 1 hour of it being reported. The City Council’s Graffiti Manager was keeping a record of ‘tags’ to help identify the perpetrators.

Adrian was thanked for his presentation.

Stewart Doughty, Parks Manager will be attending the meeting to give a briefing as part of an ongoing consultation on works to be carried out at Watermead Park.

Stewart Doughty, Parks Manager attended the meeting as part of the wider consultation process regarding the works planned to the car park at Watermead Park.

Stewart stated that the Park comprised 50% of water and was very popular with day walkers and animal lovers. The current surface of the car park was made up of loose stone that had led to a number of problems and a series of complaints. There were currently some 108,500 visitors to the Park each year with an average number of 15-20 vehicles parked during the week, many more at weekends.

Proposals included the re-surfacing of the car park with tarmac, including drainage and kerbs surrounding the car park, and Pay and Display. By introducing Pay and Display it was expected that cars would be displaced to local streets and therefore parking restrictions were being looked at to reduce this potential problem.

Local people and Park users were being consulted on the proposals, together with the Forum for Older People and the Leicester Local Access Forum.  

Consultation on the proposals would run until the end of April.

A member of the public questioned whether a Hindu area in the corner of the Park and it was stated that the Park was a public open space and that planning restrictions would apply, together with the fact that most of the site was on a flood plain. Stewart stated that there was a vacant Marina building in the Park but this was owned by the County Council.

A member of the public questioned the cost of re-surfacing and providing Pay and Display and suggested leaving the current loose surface. Stewart stated that the current loose surface cost £5,000 to maintain and Councillor Willmott stated that to leave the current surface was one option but it would also to borrow the money to fund the works and repay over 10 years.

A member of the public stated that although the Government were encouraging healthy living and it seemed that the City Council were dissuading people from visiting this Park. Rather than pay to park their cars a number of people would likely drive away elsewhere.

Stewart was thanked for his presentation.

Sue Taylor, will be attending the meeting to outline the advice offered.

It was stated that apologies had been received from the Community Legal Advice representatives.

An update on local policing in the area will be given.

The Police representatives that attended the meeting made reference to the Policing Pledge that had recently been advertised in the local media. There were 10 parts to the Pledge and it was about raising public confidence in the Police.

Public consultation was being carried out with Police Beat surgeries being held twice per month for local people to meet local Community Police.

On the local Police website it was now possible to click on Neighbourhood Policing and then click on a map to highlight crime in any particular area.

Current priorities were: -

 Road Safety outside Primary Schools

Graffiti

Anti-Social Behaviour – Rushey Fields area.

Local people were being encouraged to report incidents by phone to help ensure that areas can be patrolled at the correct times.

At Rushey Mead primary School it was recently ‘Walk to School Week’ and parents cars were ticketed outside the school, with one vehicle being towed away. Children at the school were given road safety talks. The Police were also liaising with the City Council about getting the yellow lines outside the school re-painted. The Council were working with the school to develop Travel Plans.

A member of the public stated that traffic on Braemar Drive travelled too fast and was mainly parents taking children to/from school. Drivers needed to be made aware of the potential consequences of their excess speeding. Councillor Willmott stated that there was a need to look at the road markings in the area of Braemar Drive and Braemar Close.

Jerry Connolly, Members Support Officer will be providing an update on the Budgets available to the Community Meeting in 2009/10.

Steve Letten, Members Support Officer reported on the budgets available to the Community Meeting for 2009/10, and of the balances remaining from 2008/09 although a decision was awaited as to whether these would be transferred to 2009/10.

            Balances – 2008/09                                  £

            Ward Community Fund                      2,033

            Ward Action Plan                                      667

            Community Cohesion Fund                  -

            2009/10 Budgets                                      £

            Ward Community Fund                       5,000

            Ward Action Plan                                  10,000

            Community Cohesion Fund            2,000

Application for Funding ( Community Fund)

Steve Letten, Members Support Officer reported that an application for funding had been received, as set out below: -

            Friends of Watermead                                                   £1820

            Funding to stage a Friends of Watermead

            Family Discovery Day – 22^nd August 2009.

RESOLVED:

            that the application for funding, as set out above, be APPROVED.

To receive a brief presentation on a ‘community vision’ in respect of the future use of Rushey Park.

Mr Patel, a local resident, gave a presentation on ‘A Community Vision for Rushey Park’.

Mr Patel stated that the proposals required the use of Council facilities at Rushey Park and to be able to build a new Pavilion and Changing facilities at the Park. No funding was required from the Council.

Mr Jansari, a local resident, stated that the proposals were very much a vision of what was felt to be needed in this area. Funding was being actively pursued by LEP for this community led project that ultimately aimed to build a Sports Village. A Public/Private sector partnership was being looked at.

It was stated that the proposals as presented at the meeting could be referred to City Council officers and Members to assess what level of support could be offered.

The Chair stated that the City Council would welcome the opportunity to at the proposals in greater detail to ascertain what was achievable and what would not be achievable.

Councillor Willmott stated that there were a number of areas of work that were coming into place that might make aspects of this vision achievable. A lot more work was required to assess what would work. Arrangements would be made for Mr.Patel to meet with City Council officers and Members.

Suggested dates for the year 2009/2010 are set out below for consideration.

            2009

            Tuesday 21^st July

            Tuesday 20^th October

            2010

            Tuesday 12^th January

            Wednesday 7^th April.

Suggested dates for meetings of the Community Meeting were reported as follows: -

            2009

            Thursday 9^th July

            Tuesday 20^th October

            2010

            Tuesday 12^th January

            Wednesday 21^st April

It was agreed that the dates would be firmed up later.

Fencing – Church of Our lady

It was stated that an application was being considered to erect a fence around this Church. Councillor Willmott stated that he was aware of correspondence relating to this matter and Steve Letten agreed to liaise.

The Chair declared the meeting closed at 8.31 pm.