Agenda item - Cabinet Members' Items - Report of the Corporate Finance & Governance Portfolio Holder - A.3 - Timetable of Meetings: 2025/2026 Municipal Year

To enable Cabinet to give consideration to the timetable of meetings for the 2025/2026 Municipal Year.

RESOLVED that -

(a) the timetable of meetings for the Council and its Committees, as set out in the Appendix to report A.3, but subject to the inclusion of dates for meetings of the Planning Policy & Local Plan Committee as set out hereunder, be agreed, in principle, and be submitted to the Annual Meeting of the Council for formal approval;

Wednesday 28th May 2025

Monday 21st July 2025

Monday 8th September 2025

Monday 8th December 2025

(b) the proposed dates for All Members’ Briefings and Councillor Development Sessions be noted; and

(c) Cabinet notes that special meetings of the Cabinet and/or Full Council and potentially other bodies will likely be required in order to ensure that Tendring District Council can make its formal decision on the submission of the final Local Government Reorganisation proposals for Greater Essex by the Government’s deadline of 26 September 2025.

Cabinet considered a report of the Corporate Finance and Governance Portfolio Holder (A.3) which enabled Cabinet, as required by the Constitution, to submit for formal approval to the Annual Meeting of the Council a timetable of meetings for the 2025/2026 Municipal Year.

In presenting this report the Corporate Finance and Governance Portfolio Holder drew Cabinet’s attention to two matters. The first matter concerned the Planning Policy and Local Plan Committee and its meeting dates in 2025. The Council’s Planning Policy Team Leader had consulted with the Chairman of the Planning Policy & Local Plan Committee (Councillor Guglielmi) to agree dates for meetings of that Committee during 2025 to progress the review of TDC’s Local Plan. It was proposed that the Planning Policy & Local Plan Committee would meet, during 2025, on the following dates:-

Wednesday 28^th May

Monday 21^st July

Monday 8^th September

Monday 8^th December

The Portfolio Holder therefore suggested that those dates should be accommodated within the Timetable of Meetings for 2025/26 that went forward to the Annual Meeting of the Council.

The second matter concerned the submission of the detailed Local Government Reorganisation (LGR) proposals to the Government. As had been reported to Members at Full Council on 11 March 2025 the deadline for the submission by Essex Councils of the final LGR proposals for Greater Essex was 26 September 2025. To meet that deadline, it was likely that extra meetings of Cabinet and/or Full Council, and possibly other bodies, outside of those in the scheduled timetable, would be required in order for this Council to make its decision regarding the final proposal on LGR prior to the deadline. It was too early to be able to fix any dates for such extra meetings, but the Portfolio Holder felt that Cabinet in making its decision on this matter should acknowledge that such extra meetings were likely to be needed later this year.

Having considered the timetable of meetings proposed by the Corporate Finance & Governance Portfolio Holder, together with the other matters set out above and to enable the timetable of meetings to be submitted to the Annual Meeting of the Council for approval and adoption, in accordance with the Council’s Constitution:-

It was moved by Councillor M E Stephenson, seconded by Councillor I J Henderson and:-