Agenda item

a)     Discussion with City Mayor

The meeting was invited to raise questions and comments about issues that were not specific to the Ward with Sir Peter Soulsby, the City Mayor.  As a result, the following matters were discussed:-

·           The Council had to take action over its offices at New Walk Centre, as the buildings were crumbling.  Capital funding for this had been set aside for this purpose;

·           Three options for new Council offices at New Walk were being considered:

o   buy somewhere else;

o   use various buildings across the City centre; or

o   rebuild the offices / redevelop the site, (probably with a partner, due to the costs involved).

The third option currently was the favoured one, as the site was a good one, but no decision on this had been taken yet;

·           New Walk Centre occupied an important corner site, so the opportunity could be taken to provide something architecturally pleasing and reflective of the rest of New Walk;

·           Approximately 1,600 Council staff currently were based at New Walk Centre, which was a small proportion of the total number of staff employed by the Council;

·           One possibility was to relocate Council staff to various smaller buildings around the City Centre during the redevelopment of the New Walk Centre site and then possibly dispose of the other buildings as functioning offices when no longer needed for Council staff.  However, as the existing offices were not used as intensively as they previously had been, the current site could be redeveloped by demolishing and rebuilding one block at a time.  Full consideration had not yet been given to how this could work;

·           The Council had intended to use the former Post Office building in Bishop Street as a Customer Service Centre.  However, although a Customer Service Centre did not need to be in the same place as the Council’s other offices, this building and location were not suitable for this use and it would be expensive to convert.  It therefore would be preferable to find an alternative use for the building;

·           Members of the community felt that Christmas shopping in the City Centre had not been good.  They had found that some shops closed early, no-one was in the streets and it appeared that the shops in The Lanes area had not been encouraged to participate.  The City Mayor recognised these problems.  He noted that many people only shopped in the Highcross centre, so there was a need to encourage them to use the shops outside the centre.  The City Centre Manager had established the LE1 group to find ways of encouraging improvements, (such as improving sign posting, keeping pavements clean and establishing a retail circuit);

·           The Lanes would not be gated.  A gateway in to the area was needed to encourage people to shop there and welcome them in, not keep them out.  In this way, visitors would be welcomed and would know that they were entering a special area;

·           Using accommodation over shops would be one way of encouraging people in to the City Centre.  It was noted that, when the Shires shopping centre had been built it had been proposed to have flats above it, but no investors could be found for that design.  However, things were changing and some flats had been provided when that shopping centre was redeveloped to become the Highcross centre.  There also was a lot of potential space above other shops in the City Centre that could be considered for accommodation;

·           Members of the community commented that the High Street was not an attractive route and seemed to have no life to it.  Ways of improving this could be to have an open market along the route at Christmas.  In response, it was noted that there were problems servicing retail premises in the City centre, as there were no back streets in that area and many shops backed on to each other.  Compromises therefore had had to be made about letting lorries access the shops in the mornings, but these vehicles could cause damage to the pavements;

·           Ways of bringing more life to the High Street had been considered, but it was felt that there could be greater potential for improving the area by focussing on St Nicholas Place.  This area deserved to be more than a car park and could be used to draw people to that end of the High Street, (for example, by providing squares and seating that were lacking in other parts of the City);

·           Consideration also was being given to how connections could be made between different parts of the City centre.  Redesigning St Nicholas Square could be one way of achieving this.  For example, some of the road carriageway could be used, without reducing the capacity of the road, to enable wider, more attractive pavements to be provided.  This would help to make pedestrian routes more obvious and easy to use.

On behalf of all present, the Chair thanked the City Mayor for attending.  In reply, the City Mayor thanked the meeting for the questions that had been raised.

b)   Riverside School Site

Paul Leonard-Williams, a resident of Rowley Fields, explained that, as Rowley Fields had no open space, residents used Riverside Community College’s playing fields.  Unofficial access had been available to the site for this purpose for a number of years, which also provided a route through to Aylestone Meadows.  Therefore, when it was proposed that the site should be used as part of the Football Foundation project and Ellesmere College decided to move to the site, it was felt that the opportunity should be taken to regularise access arrangements.

Residents had worked with the Football Foundation to maintain access and it had been agreed at a previous meeting that residents would be involved in the development of facilities for the site, (minute 14, “What Next with Riverside?”, 16 August 2011 referred).  This liaison had been undertaken with officers working on the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) project, as this was funding the development of the educational use of the site.

A consultation had been carried out in Autumn 2011, but the questions had not related to access, being more concerned with whether people would be interested in joining activities / clubs at the redeveloped site.  The report prepared following this consultation was very dismissive of the residents’ situation.  (For example, a short-term proposal was to stop all access across the playing fields, on the grounds of safety, even though there already was a fence around the school buildings, and those buildings were some way from the route used by residents.)  Residents had responded to the report, raising strong objections to access being stopped.

In order to maintain access to the site, residents were requesting that an area of land away from the school buildings be designated as shared fields for use by the community and the school.  This would be a separate area to that identified for the Football Foundation project.  It was recognised that BSF schools had to be secure, but it was hoped that a campaign could be started to gain formal access for residents to the site.

The Chair confirmed that the report produced following the consultation period had been dismissive of local residents’ views and had totally dismissed the comments arising from the Community meeting held on 16 August 2011 as being outside of the time frame for the consultation.  The Ward Action Plan contained a requirement to ensure that community facilities were provided for people living in Rowley Fields, but it was acknowledged that this situation would not be easy to resolve.

The following points were then made in discussion:-

·           It currently was proposed that there should be no public access to the site.  This could add up to approximately two miles to residents’ journeys to the other side of the site.  This would be particularly inconvenient for less mobile people;

·           The school site currently was well used by dog walkers and cyclists, many of whom came from outside Rowley Fields;

·           The scale of use of the school site meant that a lot of people would be affected if access was lost;

·           It was felt that enough evidence existed to enable the route through the school grounds to be claimed as a public right of way.  This would be pursued by the Ward Members; and

·           Councillor Naylor suggested that he could include details of the campaign to retain access to the Riverside site on his virtual surgery.

c)    Jubilee Parties

It was noted that Be Inspired hoped to host three parties in the summer to celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.

d)   Bus Services

Councillor Naylor advised the meeting that problems with bus services were being investigated.  Anyone who had experienced problems was invited to pass details to the Ward Councillors.

e)    Next Meeting

NOTED:

              that the next meeting would be held on 17 April 2012 at the Oak Centre.