- From Members of the Public
- From Councillors
Minutes:
Question 1 – Councillor Barton: Thank you my Lord Mayor. I am very pleased to be able to speak after such a very excellent debate and welcome back my colleague, Councillor Glover, it was good to hear her contributions. The new residents parking scheme in Westcotes Ward is very popular with those that are benefiting from it who live in Westcotes, but at the other end of the same streets, which are in Western Park Ward, there have been knock on effects which have been causing problems to residents there. Vehicles are parked on the pavements, which is altering the character of the West End Conservation Area, and at the Western Park end the streets are not one way as they are in Westcotes, there is two way traffic and because there are no spaces at the side of the road there are no longer any passing places which is causing safety issues on those roads. People making deliveries have to park in the centre of the road blocking the streets, and a comment I have received is it is like there is a football match on every day now. We do have considerable problems we have to plan our lives around traffic when there are football matches and we can’t go out. Could the Mayor reassure the residents in Western Park that have been detrimentally affected by the residents’ parking scheme in Westcotes that something will be done to consider the problems that have been caused for them and a way of perhaps ameliorating those problems”.
City Mayor: Thank you my Lord Mayor, and can I thank Councillor Barton for this question because it certainly is the case that the initial feedback from the residents in Westcotes who have had this scheme introduced has generally been very positive indeed. But she is also absolutely right, and she has represented her piece very effectively over recent weeks, that residents in the neighbouring Western Park area, particularly in the area immediately adjacent to the residents’ parking scheme, have undoubtedly received a very significant impact in their area of car parking displaced from Westcotes to the area. So, I have discussed this with Council officers and they will be carrying out some before and after surveys to establish just what has been happening, and to look at the effective displacement as a result of the experimental scheme. I have asked them as part of that process to consult with residents in the immediate adjacent part of Western Park Ward to get evidence of which area has been most impacted, whether they would welcome the introduction of a residents’ parking scheme in their streets as well, and I recognise that it may well be that as part of that we also need to look at some alteration of the two way into one way and some alignment of the streets that actually cross the boundary there. I have also stressed to the officers that while, of course, we are in the period of an experimental scheme and we must look at that scheme towards the end of the period of the experiment to look at its impact, we need not wait that long before we implement a similar scheme in the neighbouring part of Western Park. And if, as I think may well be the case, residents are experiencing significant detriment in that area I would look to moving as speedily as we can for the introduction of a similar experimental scheme in that area.
Lord Mayor: Do you have a supplementary Councillor Barton?
Councillor Barton: Thank you Lord Mayor. Could we have some information about a potential timescale for beginning this new consultation and looking at the area that will be covered by any potential extension of the scheme?
Lord Mayor: City Mayor.
City Mayor: Thank you Chair. I would anticipate that the consultation with the residents in that immediate adjacent area is something that can be done within a matter of weeks rather than months, but I would want to talk obviously with the local Ward Councillors to ensure that we were looking at the, well we would talk to the residents of the streets as they perceived, it the most adversely affected, so an early discussion with the Ward Councillors and very soon after that consultation with the residents.
Lord Mayor: Councillor Singh, your question please.
Question 2 – Councillor Singh: Thank you my Lord Mayor. Would the City Mayor inform the Council of the number of jobs lost as a direct result of the government’s cuts in the revenue support grant since May 2011?
City Mayor: Thank you my Lord Mayor, and my thanks to Councillor Singh for this question. In recognition of the fact that cuts in government funding would result in a significant number of job losses, as Members will recall a corporate provision was made to fund the cost of redundancies and that therefore gives us a reasonable basis for establishing the jobs lost as a result of the cuts. The total number of redundancies funded from this corporate provision, and that is as I say a fairly rough and ready way of actually measuring the numbers overall, to the beginning of January 2014 was 637 full time equivalent jobs, so there were probably more posts but 637 full time equivalents.
Lord Mayor: Do you have a supplementary question Councillor Singh?
Councillor Singh: I do my Lord Mayor, thank you. I am grateful to the City Mayor for the information. Would he consider making strong representations to the Treasury about the ongoing and unremitting cuts to the rate support grant which gives rise to the catastrophic implications of loss of services, jobs on which people depend for their livelihoods”?
City Mayor: Thank you my Lord Mayor. We have indeed made representations to the Chancellor on a number of occasions and indeed obviously to the Secretary of State for Local Government. I think perhaps more effectively we have briefed our local MPs and of course they have been very assiduous in the work that they have done in representing the City and representing the impact of the government cuts in our City of Leicester, but we have also actually taken the opportunity to brief the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee on the very evident direct relationship between the proportion of government grant that is lost and the level of deprivation in a particular area. So that if you look across the nation as a whole the more deprived an area is the more it loses and if you are in one of the Tory Shires somewhere in the South East actually some of them are seeing a growth in the amount of funding they get for their services. If you are in deprived cities, and Leicester has its share of deprivation, then your cuts are very savage indeed, and that really underlines the way in which the Tory led government is going about hitting those who are least able to defend themselves.
Lord Mayor: Do you have a supplementary question Councillor Singh? Your next question please.
Question 3 – Councillor Singh: Thank you my Lord Mayor. How will the Council mark the 100 year anniversary of the start of World War 1?
Lord Mayor: Councillor Clair.
Councillor Clair: Thank you my Lord Mayor, and also thank you for Councillor Singh to ask this question. I am happy and delighted to say that we have announced an outline of our World War 1 centenary events and activity programme this week. It was well covered in local and regional media and I would really like to thank Councillor Bhatti for the way in which he took responsibility each year that World War 1 centenary reference group, to bring stakeholders together to co-ordinate the City World War 1 commemorative activities. I would suggest and advise Councillor Singh if he so wishes to actually be part of that reference group, I would be more than happy to ask Councillor Bhatti so that he can let him know the next date and time of the meeting.
Lord Mayor: Any supplementary Councillor Singh?
Councillor Singh: Yes, thank you Lord Mayor. I thank the Assistant Mayor for the answer of course I do have a vested interest in asking the question, merely the fact that would he ensure that there is support from neighbourhoods, highways and other Council services to community groups in general, and particularly those in my Ward of Evington, who are keen to make an impact in marking the occasion as clearly a lot of history with the residents and they are obviously very keen to be involved, so if I could have those assurances I would be very grateful.
Councillor Clair: Thank you Chair. First of all I would like to advise Councillor Singh that Museum Services officers are seeking and waiting and inviting people to provide any information, photographs of their family members, fathers, grandfathers, who may have been soldiers during that World War 1 war, so that can be a part of an exhibition programme. There are three exhibitions which have been planned in New Walk Museums and Newarke, and also there would be exhibitions through community involvement and community libraries with memorabilia and stories provided by local people and gathered through the memories they have at community venues and also the Royal Leicestershire Regiment who are actually being awarded £80,000 heritage lottery fund. So they will be liaising with Museum services to organise those events and exhibitions and also in addition to Remembrance Day service, there will be a special civic service in the Cathedral which will mark the outbreak of World War 1 in August 2014 and also the City Mayor has worked very hard with officers to initiate a new Victoria Park centenary walk and that construction work will start and be complete during the celebration of 2014 and 2018. Also there will be commemorative paved stones for those local soldiers who were awarded the Victoria Cross. So that also has been taken on board and also there will be a celebration and enactment beacon at Belgrave Hall in 2014. There will be some involvement in schools with children and community groups, so there is a whole series of programmes have been planned and they are still in progress. Actually Councillor Singh I really appreciate your enthusiasm and entrust in that if you are able to join Councillor Bhatti to be part of that reference group.
Lord Mayor: Your question Councillor Chaplin.
Question 4 – Councillor Chaplin: Thank you my Lord Mayor. I think it is better having the meeting this way around my Lord Mayor by the way because everybody said the debate was much more interesting, so thank you. My question to the City Mayor is to ask “What steps have been taken to ensure the communication of the availability of the community ward budgets right across the City”?
Lord Mayor: Councillor Sood.
Councillor Sood: Thank you my Lord Mayor and thank you Councillor Chaplin for your question. My Lord Mayor as Council we look at each ward £18,000 every year to be used to support projects that bring benefits to the Ward. This is a very timely question asked by Councillor Chaplin as we come towards the end of the financial year because I would want to encourage all of us to ensure that they maximise their funding. Promotion is done mainly at local levels by ourselves as Ward Councillors, through our Ward Community meetings and through front line officers including City Wardens, Housing Officers and Neighbourhood Community Services staff, who have regular face to face contact with local residents and local community groups. As we do, our partners including the police, voluntary and community sectors, and this is supported for example by posters and flyers which promote the meetings and the times and the venues, and we have in the past run features in the Link, which is the Council run magazine on Ward funding, and also special projects supported by Ward funding and we do produce press releases on a number of projects during the year. Information and guidance is also available on the Council’s website. It is my firm view that the most effective way of promoting the funding is via face to face communication. Therefore recently we have been piloting a change of approach in supporting Ward meetings and Ward budgets through the involvement of Community Engagement Officers, working on the ground with other front line staff. These officers my Lord Mayor have been working also with groups and individuals locally to promote meetings and the funding and in some cases working on a one to one basis with applicants to ensure that the bids they submit are well prepared and meet local priorities. Next month we will complete an evaluation of this approach with a view to rolling it out across all Wards, and I have asked officers to look at ways we can help in promoting the community ward funds as we near the end of the financial year, including through the Council’s Twitter feed, the Link blog, home page of the web site and a press release. My Lord Mayor we will also be reminding staff via Face to promote this to local residents and community groups, although I know many front line staff do this very effectively throughout the year, and I thank the staff for their hard work on this. At a Neighbourhood and Community Involvement Scrutiny Commission, Members on that Commission they made very valuable suggestions which we have taken on board and I will welcome any further ideas that Ward Councillors have about other ways we could look to promote the funding.
Lord Mayor: Any supplementary Councillor Chaplin?
Councillor Chaplin: I do have a supplementary. I wonder if the Assistant Mayor would give an undertaking to actually have a final push on promoting that this week or next week, just to ensure that there is a maximum opportunity for local groups across the City to take advantage of the fact that there is some Council money that could be available to them and if there could be just a little bit of a campaign about that right now before the end of the financial year? Thank you.
Lord Mayor: Councillor Sood.
Councillor Sood: Thank you my Lord Mayor. I will be very happy to again remind all the Councillors that as we are approaching towards the end of the financial year, at this point there is approximately £120,000 uncommitted funds which we have sent emails to all the Councillors to spend – there was by a Director, there has been an e-mail reminding everybody – and this is the community ward budget, however, I know that most Wards have Ward meetings to do in the coming months and weeks and this will help them in their allocation of remaining funds.
Lord Mayor: Your next question Councillor Chaplin.
Question 5 – Councillor Chaplin: Thank you my Lord Mayor. How many of the City’s street lights have so far been changed to the new LED white lights?
Lord Mayor: City Mayor.
City Mayor: My Lord Mayor I am told that at the last count 7,350 street lights have been replaced and they are on target to have 11,000 replaced by the end of March this year. That is a third of the 33,000 that we have got across the City. Just to remind Members that we are replacing the conventional lights with these LEDs at very significant cost of some £14m, but it is investment that pays back over about 11 years so it really does pay for itself. It is obviously very good for our bottom line and it is also very good for the environment.
Lord Mayor: Any supplementary Councillor Chaplin?
Councillor Chaplin: Thank you. I wondered if the City Mayor might shed some light on just how they work – can they be adjusted and how many complaints there might have been about the new lights, particularly in my own Ward in Kingsway they have had the new lights put in and the residents actually feel that the level of lighting is much reduced and there is actually some fear of crime especially on the dark winter nights, and whether or not there could be some flexibility about the level of lighting from those new lights?
City Mayor: My Lord Mayor I don’t have available to me immediately the numbers of complaints we have received although I have had quite a number of complimentary comments about it but I can certainly find that out for Councillor Chaplin, I am sure they will be recorded somewhere. With regard to Kingsway Road Councillor Chaplin was good enough to warn me a couple of nights ago that she was interested in that particular road and I did ask the street lighting officers to look at what contact there had been with residents in that Ward and they have indeed been contacted. They actually had seen the contact not so much as a complaint but more of a service enquiry as to what was happening and why. They have undertaken to visit Kingsway Road to take a light meter with them to see what the situation is. The fact is that actually these new LEDs can be adjusted in a way that the old mostly sodium lighting could not be, and it does mean that we can adjust up and down in ways to suit the local circumstances. One of the things it is worth saying about them though, and it is part of people’s perception of them, is that they are much more directional than the old sodium lights which were spread all over the place including up into the sky and obviously for people who wanted to watch the night sky it made it very difficult for them. The LEDs are much more focused down on to the area of pavement and road that needs to be lit much less spills out onto neighbouring gardens or neighbouring houses or indeed upwards and it may be that is one of the perceived differences in Kingsway Road, but as I said officers will go and have a look and if there are issues they can turn them up and they can turn them down
Lord Mayor: Your question Councillor Clarke.
Question 6 – Councillor Clarke: Will the Executive take this opportunity to recognise the contribution of those that work hard to make Leicester such a welcoming City, particularly to asylum seekers forced to flee their home countries due to conflict and persecution?
Lord Mayor: Councillor Sood.
Councillor Sood: Thank you my Lord Mayor and thank you Councillor Clarke for this question. My Lord Mayor the news media daily presents us with the changing world. There are many people who are persecuted because of who they are. Some come and seek sanctuary in this country and also in our City. We should be proud that both the City Council and Leicester’s people have reached out to provide comfort and support to these new arrivals. On behalf of the City Mayor and Executive I would like to pay tribute to the work done by local individuals, community groups, voluntary and public sector organisations to both welcome asylum seekers and refugees to Leicester and provide them with practical support in their daily lives. We are all working towards making the City a safer place for them to belong to and be part of it.
Lord Mayor: Any supplementary question?
Councillor Clarke: Yes thank you Councillor Sood. If only our national government was as warm and welcoming as Leicester, especially in the case of Syria at the moment. Does the Executive welcome the contribution of Leicester City of Sanctuary?
Councillor Sood: Thank you my Lord Mayor. Leicester City of Sanctuary is a part of a national charity which aims to create a network of places across the country which do their best to include asylum seekers and refugees in the lives of their communities. On behalf of the Executive I wish to reaffirm the value of the work of the City of Sanctuary. The value of individuals and families in great need receiving compassionate and practical support such as the provision of weekly drop in sessions, where people can receive food and meet others in similar circumstances, as well as living with families for a short period of time through their hosting scheme which is, I have been told, it is quite useful for the new asylum seekers to be a part of a family. The work done by the City of Sanctuary also provides value to the rest of us by opening up communities to new potential friends and neighbours and enabling us to play a small part in mitigating appalling conditions experienced elsewhere in the world, and Lord Mayor as the Chair for Leicester Council of Faiths I know the value and the work they are doing, we have signed up with them and one of our officers is a member of City of Sanctuary, so I have got a great admiration for the members. They are volunteers, it is not a big team, but the valuable work they do is incredible and I am sure that all Elected Members here today they will acknowledge the valuable work of Leicester City of Sanctuary.
Lord Mayor: Your next question Councillor Clarke please.
Question 7 – Councillor Clarke: Thank you my Lord Mayor. I would like to thank residents of Aylestone who work with City of Sanctuary who contacted me who prompted me to pose those questions. “I would like to ask the Executive why is it so difficult for cyclists and parents with pushchairs and the mobility disabled particularly to get on to and therefore enjoy the Great Central Way at Aylestone village”?
Lord Mayor: City Mayor.
City Mayor: Can I thank Councillor Clarke for his question. I am probably one of the few Members here who actually will recall the establishment of the Great Central Way. Members will know that the Great Central Railway was the last mainline railway to be built in the United Kingdom and the first one to be closed and I can recall in the 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s when it was impassable along the whole length of it. It had become overgrown, the cuttings had been used for landfill and you just could not get through. The Council at the time very far-sightedly decided to bring it back into a major community facility for the City and of course for Aylestone. The short answer to Councillor Clarke’s question is that the reason it is so difficult in Aylestone Village is because that is the point where the old railway crossed the road and the river at a high level and unlike quite a lot of the rest of the length of it, it is actually very difficult to get up there other than by steps. In fact most of the rest of the way is fairly readily accessible, but the fact is though that from Aylestone the only level access as I recall it will be from Soar Valley Way and quite a tortuous route off Braunstone Lane East. It is a long way round and I readily accept that. What I will undertake to do is to look at whether it is possible, notwithstanding the fact that nobody has found a way of doing it yet at reasonable cost, to find some way of getting a ramp up somewhere in that stretch. We are, and have continued to invest in it over the years, I think about £120,000 spend on resurfacing in the last 12 months, but so far officers have felt that it was prohibitively expensive to get something up in the Aylestone Village area itself, but I do undertake to look at it again.
Lord Mayor: Any supplementary Councillor Clarke?
Councillor Clarke: The City Mayor has very cleverly answered my supplementary. Thank you.
Lord Mayor: Councillor Porter.
Question 8 – Councillor Porter: Thank you Lord Mayor. How much subsidy has been pumped into the Park and Ride scheme since 2011?
Lord Mayor: City Mayor.
City Mayor: The total subsidy for 2011/12 was £876,000. This is shared equally between the City and the County, so it was £438,000 for the City. The following year that is 2012/13, it was down to £526,000, with the City’s share, again at half being £263,000, and the forecast for 2013/14 partly to do with the extension of the service, is forecast at £532,000 with the City’s share at £266,000.
Lord Mayor: Any follow up Councillor Porter?
Councillor Porter: Yes, thank you Lord Mayor. I mean those are pretty huge figures in anybody’s book I would say even in Sir Peter Soulsby’s book. It is especially concerning at a time that the Council are pumping subsidies in to the park and ride scheme that they are also cutting bus services or changing bus services and these bus services are the only services that people who are completely reliant on public transport have any means of getting around. My question really to the Mayor is A number of years ago I put forward a suggestion to try and reduce the amount of subsidy that goes into the Park and Ride schemes was that because of their locations on the A6 and obviously very close to the motorway, that they could be used as pick up points and drop off points for coaches going either up north or going down south. So my question to the Mayor is has there been any progress on that suggestion and, if not, is it something that they could look at, because it could make a positive contribution to reducing the subsidy?
City Mayor: Thank you my Lord Mayor. The fact is that while I am quite happy to take credit for things that I have done where credit is due or blame for the things that are due where I have the responsibility, in fact the Park and Ride scheme in their entirety pre-date me and there is considerable credit to those who actually instituted it as a partnership with the County Council and indeed supported by all parties, including Councillor Porter’s own, at County Hall. Right, having said that I think there is an acknowledgement that the way in which the government that his party supports is putting the screw on local government finance, is leading us and indeed our colleagues at County Hall to review the whole range of our expenditure and that has to include park and ride. Now it does not mean to say it is a particular axe to fall on park and ride but it does mean to say that it like all the rest of our expenditure it is going to be the subject of thorough review over the months ahead. It is already in the review to be published and will be being considered over those months and I can assure Councillor Porter and other Members of the Council that we will be as rigorous with that as we are with the rest of the review processes. With regard to the particular suggestion, in fact with our colleagues at County Hall there have been a number of initiatives taken to increase usage of Park and Ride and also a number of initiatives undertaken to increase parking on the Park and Ride sites to serve neighbouring areas, and they are together producing quite a significant contribution to reducing the subsidy we have got. I have to say, and it is not a suggestion I have heard before from Councillor Porter, it does not immediately strike me as being likely that there is significant income to be gained from diverting coaches away from the Leicester Forest East Service Station, for example, where they do indeed stop, to the Meynalls Gorse Park and Ride, which I guess would be the one that he had in mind, in order to do at that Park and Ride station, or indeed the Enderby one, but to do there what they do perfectly adequately at the moment at motorway service stations, including the one at Leicester Forest East.
Lord Mayor: Next question Councillor Porter.
Question 9 – Councillor Porter: Thank you Lord Mayor. My next question is what are the recycling and composting rates for 2012 to 2013?
Lord Mayor: Councillor Russell.
Councillor Russell: Thank you my Lord Mayor. The recycling and composting rate for 2012/13 was 41.5%, comprising of 23.19% recycling and 17.55% compositing.
Lord Mayor: Any supplementary question Councillor Porter?
Councillor Porter: Yes, thank you Lord Mayor. If the figures are accurate on the Council’s website that is a reduction from last year in the levels of composting and recycling which obviously is not very good, especially as long ago as 2011 when the Council said that the introduction of the orange bag scheme would result in composting and recycling rates increasing to 48%. So my question to the Council is what other initiatives does the Council have in terms of trying to increase, not just the level of composting, but more importantly the levels of recycling in the City, because if we are going backwards at the moment we really should be going forwards, so I would like to know what plans they have got to increase recycling specifically”?
Lord Mayor: Councillor Russell.
Councillor Russell: Thank you my Lord Mayor. I would be delighted to share those. Our recycling rates have gone up and in fact since we introduced the orange bag scheme the amount of curb side recycling collected has doubled. We have seen a significant drop in composting due to a change in the process at Wanlip following issues with smell and needing to adjust that to make sure we recognise the need of the local community there. BIFFA has sadly also had to change their sand recycling processes due to economical changes which made them too expensive to continue doing it in the way they had before. To address these, we have taken some money from Mr Pickles through the Weekly Waste Support Collection Grant, we are in the process, and have just received planning permission for, a new household waste recycling centre which will allow both domestic and trade waste to be collected on the north side of the City, significantly expanding and improving our service for customers, both residential and business. We have also recently introduced a green waste collection service that residents can now sign up for from March to October each year for the bargain price of £20 a year for a fortnightly collection if you sign up before the end of April, and it is £30 a year after that for those who are interested in sharing that with their residents. We have also used the money to go out and knock on doors which is being done across the City using a recognised agency that works to help people look at their recycling levels. We have got targeted work going on in communities where we have identified the recycling levels for particular items are lower and we are also working with BIFFA on the potential of collecting small electrical items and clothing at the curb side to further increase both our recycling, our composting and our diversion from landfill figures, to ensure that we do make the significant improvements that we intend to.
Lord Mayor: Councillor Porter your next question please.
Question 10 – Councillor Porter: Thank you Lord Mayor. My next question is “What is the rateable value for 50 St. George’s Street”?
Lord Mayor: City Mayor.
City Mayor: Lord Mayor I am informed that the rateable value of the premises is £18,500.
Lord Mayor: Any supplementary question please?
Councillor Porter: Yes I have actually in light of that figure. That does surprise me. What also surprises me is why isn’t Councillor Clair dealing with these issues, because surely they are under his remit? My question really relates to the Scrutiny meeting that we were at this time last week when we were told that this Council property produces a rent of £5,000 a year and that it was being sold for £200,000 and at £200,000 that represents a 2.5% return on the investment. But now we are told that the actual real rentable value for that property is £18,500 which his 3.7 times the figure that the Council was getting rent for, which is astonishing Lord Mayor. We were also told at the Scrutiny meeting last week that the size of the property was 4,750 square feet, when according to figures on the valuation agency’s website the property is actually 5,371 square feet. So my question to the City Mayor is, are there any other matters about this proposed sale, also the Leicester Print Workshop, which he has not revealed to Members?
Lord Mayor: City Mayor.
City Mayor: My Lord Mayor, there are so many misunderstandings in the way in which property is valued – the difference between freehold, leasehold – there are so many issues that Councillor Porter has just got completely confused about, that I am really not quite sure where to begin. Let me just start with the fundamental question. He asked about the rateable value of the premises. Now the rateable value of premises has absolutely nothing to do with the actual value of the premises. Members, and I would have expected him to have picked this up by now, most Members will know that rateable value is based on a notional figure of the rental income that the valuation officer thinks would be due from those premises, and I think this is still based on the 2008, but it has absolutely nothing at all to do with the property’s actual value, whether it is freehold or leasehold, and certainly nothing at all to do with the sort of debate that we were having at the Scrutiny Commission about what the value of this asset was to the City Council, and I will just remind Members that actually what the Council owns there is the freehold of the property and what Leicester Print Workshop will need to do subsequent to actually getting the transfer from our ownership of that freehold to their ownership will actually be to negotiate with the Homes and Communities Agency with regard to the leasehold that the Homes and Communities Agency hold at the moment. So, as I said I am sure there are many other aspects of what Councillor Porter has said that if he would like to either have a seminar from me, or perhaps better our finance officers, I could arrange for this but the fundamental is that he just has not grasped what the rateable value is about and what the valuation of the property is and that the two things are completely different.
Lord Mayor: Councillor Grant your question please.
Question 11 - Councillor Grant: Is the City Mayor concerned that planning regulations do not provide enough protection to residents in areas at risk of flooding from continuous small scale development?
City Mayor: Thank you Lord Mayor. Yes, I think national planning policy does require this Council and other Councils to consider flood risk when preparing its plans and when looking at individual planning applications. This is in terms of avoiding development in areas of high risk and ensuring that any new development does not worsen flooding problems for other surrounding properties. We have got a series of policies in our core strategy and our local plan that embody the requirements. I have to say I found myself concerned by some of the statements and some of the attitudes of the present government with regard to planning and the way in which local authorities exercise their powers, particularly with regard to development on green field sites and also their attitude towards development and developers who want to develop in areas where there is flood risk associated, and I have to say that I welcome Councillor Grant’s concern over this issue and hope he will join us in making appropriate representations to the government.
Lord Mayor: Councillor Grant any supplementary question?
Councillor Grant: Yes thank you Lord Mayor. I would actually state that the problem now is that planning are not protecting people in our own City. They failed to do so in my Ward over the developments at 162 Knighton Church Road, which is now seen by Severn Trent as having worsened the flooding problems and contributed towards the flooding at Carisbroke Road in recent years. They further approved further building in another garden of Knighton Church Road next week ignoring the risk identified in the summary of ordinary watercourse flooding which warns of the lack of capacity in culverts to get rid of the water. Can the Mayor review the Planning Department’s handling of these issues and ensure that they actually protect local people.
Lord Mayor: City Mayor.
City Mayor: My Lord Mayor as Members here I think will be well aware the responsibility for development control is something that quite rightly is not one of the powers that a Mayor has, although it is one that is exercised on behalf of the whole Council by the Development Control Committee, I can see many of its members sitting here and I know that they do their job very vigorously and very effectively and I also know the way in which they do that job is something that transcends party politics. That certainly has been the case when there have been Conservative and indeed I guess in the past Liberal Democrat Chairs of that Committee. They are about controlling the development for the well-being of the city. I don’t for that reason find myself aware of, or able to answer, about the particular planning application that Councillor Grant has drawn attention to, but I would reiterate the point that I made earlier and hope that he will join me and other Members of the Council – certainly I know Members of the Planning Development Control Committee – in pressing the government and its planning inspectors to respect the rights of local planning authorities to uphold what they believe is the appropriate development in their area, rather than to be railroaded into accepting whatever developers may put in front of us, regardless of impact on local communities, as in the case of the Tesco development, or in areas such as the one Councillor Grant represents to permit development in areas where the character is being significantly undermined on a bit by bit basis, on a month by month basis, as a result of us, as a planning authority, being unable to say no.
Lord Mayor: Your next question Councillor Grant.
Question 12 – Councillor Grant: Can the Assistant Mayor for Adult Services update Council on the timeframe for the disposal of the elderly people’s homes?
Lord Mayor: Councillor Rita Patel.
Councillor R Patel: Thank you my Lord Mayor and thank you Councillor Grant for that question. I can confirm that work is in progress to implement the decision taken on 15th October 2013 to close and sell the Council’s elderly persons’ homes. This includes moving existing residents out of the homes to be closed in phase 1. This obviously is a very sensitive matter and needs to be handled with great care. Dedicated officers are currently working with residents and their families to ensure that each resident is fully supported to move to another home. It is anticipated that this process may be completed by the end of March 2014, but the exact timescale will depend on the availability of suitable alternative placements for all of the residents. In terms of the homes to be sold as going concerns in phase 1, an advertisement is due to be published at the beginning of February seeking initial expressions of interest from alternative providers. The sale process is likely to take in the region of a year to complete.
Lord Mayor: Do you have a supplementary Councillor Grant?
Councillor Grant: Yes, What is the Assistant Mayor’s assessment of the risk of not finding suitable placements for the residents”?
Lord Mayor: Councillor Patel.
Councillor R Patel: In undertaking the process there is a board and a dedicated team set up and they are assessing the risks all the time. We will take as long as it takes in order to find people the home of their choice so that they can be accommodate and they can be happy in wherever they are placed.
Lord Mayor: Your next question Councillor Grant please.
Question 13 – Councillor Grant: Given the current situation in the Children’s Services Directorate, can the Assistant Mayor tell us the details of the current review in the senior management of the department?
Lord Mayor: Councillor Dempster.
Councillor Dempster: Thank you Mayor. There is no formal review, but yes we are taking the opportunity to look at realigning responsibilities. We currently have three Divisional Directors that make up the Children’s Directorate, and we will be retaining all three posts, but what we are looking at is realigning the duties across those three posts. As soon as that has been finalised I think it is very important that we send out details of that to all Councillors.
Lord Mayor: Any supplementary please?
Councillor Gant: Yes. The school governors have, through their umbrella organisation COLGA, said the Assistant Mayor is not well supported by her Directorate, and there is no consistent message from Children’s Services. Does she feel her senior management set up is fit for purpose and will she seek permanent appointments to senior management to provide stability and consistency as soon as possible?
Councillor Dempster: Yes, I think that is a quote that you have taken from a COLGA newsletter I notice in which it was a response really and what the Mayor and we as a Labour team are saying that we enjoy a great partnership with our schools across the City and that has delivered year on year improvements for all our children across the City and just how fantastic that is, but we recognise that more needs to be done. Of course, one of the reasons that life is becoming so much more difficult for children, for families, for us when we are trying to raise attainment across the City, is because this government continually is just interfering in a way that is unhelpful, focusing on let’s move to academies, let’s move to free schools, let’s just interfere and let’s just have schools that are completely independent and away from local authorities whatsoever which really is not helpful. We should be focusing on the right things and that is what we are doing. We have an excellent relationship with COLGA, they are incredibly supportive, and yes I think that in any relationship there can always be improvements and they do comment about some issues with some staff where they feel that perhaps they have been let down, but by and large if you read the rest of the documentation we enjoy a fantastic relationship as a local authority with our governors, with our schools and they are hugely supportive as we are of them.
Lord Mayor: Councillor Grant your next question please.
Question 14 – Councillor Grant: Has the City Mayor consulted the District Auditor about the disposal of properties below market value?
Lord Mayor: City Mayor.
City Mayor: My Lord Mayor the policy of disposals of assets below market value predates my election as Mayor and I did ask officers to look back at the original policy, obviously as part of the consideration we actually looked at some recent ones and they actually dated back to 2007, and as I say the recent disposals have been very much in line with that policy, but I did find interesting one of the papers that they came across at that time which was the then Overview and Scrutiny Management Board, chaired by one Councillor Mugglestone, one of his late Conservative colleagues. At that time they were discussing three particular proposals, the Highfields Centre, of course a very significant disposal, the Outdoor Pursuit Centre and Cort Crescent Community Centre. Members will be aware that obviously they set precedents for later decisions that we have taken. But the bit I wanted to quote to Members was, as I said with Councillor Mugglestone in the chair, Members expressed support for the disposal of assets in accordance with the policy, but suggested that the report did not convey a sense of enthusiasm for the possibilities of asset transfer and that the principal of best consideration as applied was restrictive, especially in relation to the treatment to the disposal of freehold. I have to say my Lord Mayor, I find myself in agreement.
Lord Mayor: Any supplementary please?
Councillor Grant: Yes well many Members of the chamber will note that I was not always in agreement with Councillor Mugglestone. Given the sudden recent disposals of valuable assets for £1, are people right in thinking that this has more to do with the Mayor’s reselection and as a result some groups and communities within the City are at a disadvantage?
Lord Mayor: City Mayor.
City Mayor: I mean the short answer is of course not. The particular two that we have had of late both have very good reasons behind them. They are as was described in the policy back in 2007, about the abilities of particular groups to use the fact that they are owners of the property to demonstrate that they have the skill basis and secure footing, and thereby bring into the City investment that would not otherwise come to the City. That of course is very much in line with what the current government encouraged as part of the now less fashionable, but none the less much trumpeted, localism agenda. It is about empowering local groups and enabling them to be less reliant on us for their revenue support and more reliant on their own resources and know that they can themselves access in ways that we cannot.
Lord Mayor: Your next question Councillor Grant please.
Question 15 – Councillor Grant: When the City Mayor has a declaration to make in relation to a decision, what safeguards are there given only he can make the decision?
City Mayor: My Lord Mayor, Members I think will be very familiar both with the Nolan Principles of probity in public life, the work of the Committee of Standards in Public Life and of course the Code of Conduct for Members which is enshrined in our own Standing Orders and reflects national legislation. That sets out those occasions when Members might be perceived to have an interest in a particular decision of the Council and requires us all, myself and some Members of the Council, to declare those interests. I have always taken the view that we should go far beyond the requirement of that Code of Conduct and indeed the legislation and have always taken the view, certainly with regard to my own and my family’s business interests, that I should mention them on every possible occasion, no matter how remote that might be. And it is for that reason that of course I always refer to one very obvious one, and that is my daughter’s business interests. Members will be aware that she has a bar on the corner of Rutland Street, just by the curve Theatre. I declare that on every occasion. I have also declared on many occasions that quite a bit of that was funded with Dad’s money and I realise that others will have had similar experiences. The fact is, of course, if anything ever related directly to that business, I would declare an interest and either get out of the room or make absolutely sure that I was not in any way seen to be influencing the decision. What I actually do is to go far, far beyond that and actually say that in so far as I can, and practically if able to so, anything around the Cultural Quarter I will keep a distance from. For that reason, the Deputy Mayor took responsibility for a lot of the stuff there. We both decided that it made very good sense if anything to do with the Cultural Quarter for the Assistant Mayor, Councillor Clair, to take responsibility for that because obviously culture is part of his portfolio. So what we do is, whenever there is a significant discussion on most matters to do with the Cultural Quarter, Piara deals with it. It even goes far beyond anything I would normally have to declare. The particular one that of course has prompted people to say well if you do that normally then why don’t you do it on this occasion, is of course the one with regard to 50 St. George’s Street. Now, it is 200 yards down the road from the business, I don’t think anybody can reasonably conceive that it is in any way something where you have to declare either statutorily, or a Code of Conduct interest, and of course as have been evidenced from the questioning here and indeed at the Overview Scrutiny Commission, inevitably it is something that raises issues of policy for the Council. For that reason, I felt that I had on this occasion something where I needed to take responsibility for this issue myself, to explain the decision that I did earlier in response to the earlier question and, notwithstanding my general reluctance to have anything to do with decisions anyway in the Cultural Quarter, to make an exception on this occasion.
Lord Mayor: Any supplementary question?
Councillor Grant: No.
Lord Mayor: Before I ask Councillor Grant to ask the next question I was advised to read this small bit out: Under Council Procedure Rules I have agreed to accept the following additional question as an urgent item of business, as an announcement was made after the time for questions had passed and a decision will be taken prior to the next meeting of Council. Councillor Grant.
Question 16 – Councillor Grant: Thank you Lord Mayor and thank you for accepting the question. “In relation to Leicester market place phase 2, can the City Mayor explain why it is preferable to use public money to complete this development, rather than seek a commercial development to take the risk involved in the project, and which Member of the Executive is responsible for the project”?
Lord Mayor: City Mayor.
City Mayor: I think I am. I am puzzled by that last part but perhaps that will come back in the supplementary. Lord Mayor, it has always been the intention to bid for European resources to extend the scope of the original £7 million scheme. Now, as Members I think will be aware we have been very successful over the last 12 months in bidding to some extent for Department of Transport funding, but mostly actually for European Regional Development funding, bringing the best part of £20 million in total, which his enormously enhanced our own ability to do things. So what we got for this particular scheme was part of the Regional Challenge Fund intended to deal with an underspend in the EU’s programme finance. I am very pleased we were successful in that but of course what it does is to actually pave the way for private sector investment to follow on the back of it. What it does, is to do the bits that obviously the private sector is not going to do, which is to knock down that awful market hall and make a public space. What the private sector is going to do, and has shown very considerable interesting in doing, is taking advantage of the space we created as a result of spending this European money and to invest in that area and I think to create in there the sort of vibrancy of restaurants, bars and similar things that will very much complement public space that we are very grateful to have European funding to enable us to create.
Lord Mayor: Do you have any supplementary questions please?
Councillor Grant: Thank you. Obviously I am reassured to a certain extent that the City Mayor is taking on this project, given that Councillor Palmer was involved in a recent debacle at Market Corner and that shows the limitations of the Council undertaking certain developments. I may trust the Council to demolish something such as New Walk Centre, but I do have reservations about us building things. I would encourage the Mayor and ask him how he is going to seek to maximise the potential of involving developers, given that if they take a financial risk they are obviously very focused on what they are doing, rather than just spending tax payers money and also they bring a diversity of skills to a project which perhaps the Council has not always exhibited.
City Mayor: There are quite a lot of elements in that and I was just busy checking with the Deputy Mayor as to whether he could recall ever having had any involvement in Market Corner and he could not recall it, I cannot recall it and I see lots of blank faces around the chamber as well because I think Councillor Grant has had something of a fault of memory with regard to that. I think I do know that there were other Members around the chamber who did have something to do with it and very much saw it as something that paved the way, literally, for what has followed. But certainly Councillor Palmer was not one of them. Now I think the rest of the question, (because I was so flummoxed by that), was about the extent to which we look in this and indeed in other opportunities to bring private sector investment into the City and the answer to that is of course yes. That is precisely how we are approaching the New Walk Centre site. I am determined there that we should keep enough of a stake in it ourselves to make sure it actually happens – a bit like this one here actually making things happen – it is what we do, providing the catalyst for what we do, priming the pump is what we do. What we don’t do is the big development ourselves. So what we will be announcing with regard to New Walk Centre, and what Members will be seeing very shortly, is the invitation to the private sector to be our partners in development on that site. That is an appropriate arrangement, it has been successful in the City in the past, we had had partnerships with private sector developments – that’s what brought the Shires Development to the City, and paved the way for Highcross subsequently – we have had many partnerships with the private sector. We do not remotely believe that it is the public sector’s job to do those sorts of developments ourselves. What is our job, and what we have a very successful track record of doing in Leicester, is to make it possible and attractive to the private sector to bring their investment, and indeed jobs, to our City.