The Council is asked to note any statements made by the Leader of the Council.
Councillors may then ask questions of the Leader on his statements.
Minutes:
The Leader of the Council made the following statements –
Disability Confident ‘Leader’ Status
“I am delighted this evening to be able to inform Councillors that the Council has achieved Disability Confident ‘Leader’ status, for the Council’s recruitment practices and support for disabled employees, in the workplace.
This is the highest accolade for an employer that is positive about employing disabled people. The assessment process was rigorous and thoroughly tested by disabled people throughout. A number of recommendations were made and implemented, including an updated accessibility section on the website which allows adjustments to be made including audio, font size and colour.
Council Officers have been working towards this accreditation for the past 12 months.
Tendring is the only Council to have achieved ‘Leader’ status across Essex.”
Councillor Stock responded to a question put by Councillor Miles.
Sport England Initiatives
“I have got some really exciting news which I want to share with Council. Last month I was involved in what can only be described as a very unusual but incredibly exciting bidding process aimed at changing people’s lives.
Sport England is currently looking to pilot and test some new initiatives aimed at addressing inactivity across the country’s population. Across Essex 22% of the adult population does less than 30 minutes of physical activity a week and in Tendring that rises to 37% of the adult population who are inactive. Similar issues apply in parts of Basildon and Colchester.
Inactivity leads to a variety of health conditions and is certainly contributing to the chronic obesity and diabetes crisis sweeping the country. Sport England want to explore new ways of getting people more active as the current systems just don’t work for everyone. There doesn’t seem to be a magic bullet and Sport England recognise that some of the new approaches they want to try will fail but they want to work with willing and engaged partners who are up for the challenge of working with them to pilot new approaches. They don’t know how this will work and I suppose that is the point which makes this unusual as we are bidding for a huge slice of funding but don’t as yet know how it will be used.
Working in partnership with Basildon, Colchester and Essex County Council we have submitted a bid for a slice of the £130m which Sport England are prepared to put on the table to bring about a whole system change and they are particularly keen to focus on those living in circumstances of deprivation, poor mental health, old age, social and financial hardship. Unfortunately we seem to tick a lot of these boxes!
Given the size of the prize it is not surprising that community and system Leaders from across the four Councils are supporting the bidding process and I am pleased to say that we already have got down to the last 19 from the 100 plus who applied. The outcome of the bidding process will be announced very shortly and could mean significant funding being made available to see how we can make a real difference to residents’ health and well-being but even if we are not successful the work which has been undertaken as part of the bid shows how strong community engagement is across Tendring and the quality of the bid is a credit to the team who worked on it. I will update Council when I have more news.”
Councillor Stock responded to a question put by Councillor I J Henderson.
Centenary Way, Clacton-on-Sea Judicial Review
“Members will be aware that the Council lodged a High Court legal challenge against the decision of the Planning Inspector to grant the Centenary Way planning application.
The outcome of the challenge is that the Secretary of State has decided not to defend the case. In turn, the developer has also decided not to take it further.
The next step is for the Court to decide whether the Planning Inspectors’ decision will be quashed, which will depend upon the Secretary of State’s reasons. Should the court quash the decision, the matter would be remitted back for a further appeal.
At present there has only been a confirmation of the parties decisions not to defend the challenges but the reasons are still awaited. Members will be updated as soon as possible. It is an incredibly rare thing for a Council to do. I am not aware of this Council of ever having done it before nor am I aware of any other Council having taken out a challenge in the High Court against Her Majesty’s Planning Inspectorate, effectively going head-to-head against the Secretary of State and especially not winning as effectively we have done. Now, it’s only a ‘battle’ that we have won, we may yet lose the ‘war’ as we don’t know how the next appeal will pan out.”
Councillor Stock responded to a question put by Councillor Broderick.
Housing Land Supply – Update
“I would also like to update Members on the outcome of recent work undertaken to review the Districts’ Housing Land Supply.
From previous briefings and reports Members will know that the Local Plan Committee requested that Officers undertake a review of the Housing Land Supply figure to ensure that this reflects an up to date position, taking into account:
The new data on population change, as published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) on 26 October this year, has had the most significant impact. The change identified is a lower than projected population increase across the District, resulting in a lower requirement for new houses per year.
Officers, working with the Council’s appointed demographics expert, reported the outcome of this to the Local Plan Committee at its meeting last night. Following consideration of a report the Committee unanimously agreed to:
· Note that the outcome of the revised population projections produced by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) in October 2017 had the effect of reducing the Objectively Assessed Needs from 550 to 510 per year; and
This work was presented to Committee in order that it be used as the basis for the Council position in respect of forthcoming planning appeals and therefore also to inform the Examination in Public of the Local Plan in January 2018.
I trust that Members will appreciate that any Council submission to an appeal or Examination is the subject of final due diligence from Counsel. Further refinement of this today has resulted in changes to the figures reported to the Local Plan Committee last night. This means that the new housing requirement, or the OAN, should be further reduced from 510 to 480 houses per year. As a consequence this therefore means that the Housing Land Supply figure is increased from 5.6 to 6.2 years.
These are the figures that will therefore be used by the Council in forthcoming planning appeals and put forward for the Local Plan Examination in Public.
The Local Plan Committee has asked Officers to carry out an assessment of the implications of the changed population and housing need figures for the Local Plan ,and more generally, and this will be reported back to Members in due course.
I appreciate that updating figures presented only last night is not normal practice but I trust Members recognise this further update is necessary following advice received today to ensure that the Council’s position as Planning Authority is as robust as possible moving forward.”