The Chairman will formally welcome everyone to the meeting.

The Board’s Chair welcomed Board Members to the meeting and thanked the representatives from ‘We Made That’, the consultants working with the Board in the development of the 10 Year Regeneration Plan/Vision for the Pride in Place Programme for Clacton-on-Sea and their associates from PRD who were also supporting the development of the Plan/Vision.  The Board’s Chair also welcomed Alex White from the Pride in Place Team at MHCLG and thanked him for attending.

The Secretary to the Board will report any apologies for absence submitted.

The Board was advised of the apology for absence of Ian Davidson, Nigel Farage MP (represented at the meeting by George Ivil from his office), Rob Mitchell-Gears, Craig Newnes and Cllr Mark Stephenson.

Members of the Board are invited to make any necessary declarations of interest in accordance with the Board’s adopted Code of Conduct.

The Board was advised that most of the General Declarations of Interest Forms had been returned.

In relation to the agenda for this meeting there were no specific declarations from Board Members in respect of the business to be transacted.

The Board will consider the adoption of the proposals set out in the Minutes of the Inquorate Meeting of the Board held on 25 July 2025.

The Minutes of the meeting of the Board held on 25 July 2025 were submitted to the Board for confirmation.

It was AGREED that:

(1)     the Minutes of the inquorate meeting of Board Members held on 25 July 2025 be received and confirmed as an accurate record of that meeting;

(2)     the intended decisions from the meeting of 25 July 2025 be now approved by the Board based on the content of the Minutes of that inquorate meeting, include the actions relating to:

a.   the Minutes of the meeting of the Board on 23 May 2025;

b.   the decision of MHCLG on the area/boundary of the Programme in respect of Clacton-on-Sea;

c.   the timeline for development of the Board’s Vision and Investment Plan (to enable submission by the deadline of 28 November 2025); and

d.   the budget position, at that point in time, in respect of commitments and expenditure against the Capacity Funding allocated to the Board.

To consider endorsing the submission on behalf of the Board of support for a Town Council for Clacton-on-Sea, Holland-on-Sea and Jaywick Sands (in response to the public consultation on this).

Further to Minute 83 of the inquorate meeting of Board Members on 25 July 2025, a letter to Tendring District Council submitting the Board’s position in response to the consultation on a possible Town Council (or Town Councils) for Clacton-on-Sea, Holland-on-Sea and Jaywick Sands was circulated. The letter was submitted by the Board’s Chair, dated 30 September 2025 and was prepared following consultation with Board Members.  The letter expressed support for parishing in the review area and included the following:

“On balance, I consider that a single Town Council would be the preferred option.  However, whatever the local communities of the area choose, the Town Board will work constructively to deliver the 10 Year Regeneration Plan for which the Board came together to develop and then implement.”

It was AGREED that the Board endorsed the content of the letter from its Chair dated 30 September submitted to Tendring District Council in respect of the community governance review for Clacton-on-Sea, Holland-on-Sea and Jaywick Sands.

To note that the Government has launched the Pride in Place Programme and that the Plan for Neighbourhoods Programme now forms part of that Pride in Place Programme.

The Chair confirmed that the Government had changed the name of the Programme from “Plan for Neighbourhoods” to “Pride in Place”.  While the change of name of the Programme had been accompanied by an inclusion of many more areas with it, for this Board and Clacton-on-Sea there had been no change to the financial support, guidance or deadlines for the programme locally.

It was AGREED to note the change in name of the Programme.

The next meetings are to be held on 7 November (10.30am – in person) and 26 November (12 noon - online) in order to approve the Plan that will be submitted by the deadline of 28 November 2025.

The Board was reminded that its next meetings had been scheduled for 7 (10.30am – in person).  A further meeting was also planned for 26 November (12 noon - online) in order to approve the 10-year Vision and 4-year Investment Plan ahead of the deadline of 28 November 2025.

The appointed consultants ‘We Made That’ will be in attendance and through a workshop style approach the Board Members will contribute to the development of the Plan.

(By way of background, the ‘Real People, real Voices’ consultation outcome report from CVST (as contractor for the Board) and the Government’s pre-approved interventions as part of this programme has been circulated to Board Members.)

For this item of business, the Board was reminded of many key elements of the base-line data concerning the area to which the Pride in Place Programme related in Clacton-on-Sea.  The Board also had the report from CVST (‘Real People, real Voices’) in respect of public engagement to support the development of the 10-Year Vision for the area.  The Board’s appointed consultants ‘We Made That’ attended and, through workshop style approach led by them, the Board Members were able to contribute to the development of the Plan. The list of pre-approved interventions within the Pride in Place Programme had also been re-circulated to the Board. 

The feedback from the workshop style element of the meeting was taken away by ‘We Made That’ to inform the development of the Vision and Investment Plans that would then be reported to the Board on 7 November 2025.