 That good morning everybody, good morning to members offices and any members the public who are viewing this live stream from my kitchen, as you can see party this is meeting of South Campchi district council cabinet. My name's figurine, I am the leader of South Campchia district council on. I'm the chair of the cabinet for the information of members The cabinet, which is made up of myself and six lead cabinet members, is responsible for most of the council services for preparing a budget and the council's major policies and strategies and consideration by full council. Can we just ask that we have people mute because I can still hear, I can still hear that brown noise and if I can hear it, I imagine other people can as well. So this is the second virtual meeting of the cabinet, and we're still getting used to these new ways of working, as you can see, so bear with us if there's any technical issues. First, just a few housekeeping announcements. Please, could you make sure your device is fully charged and your microphones are on mute unless you're invited to speak. When you are invited to speak, please unmute your microphone. When you finish speaking, please turn off your microphone. Please speak slowly and clearly and don't talk over or interrupt anyone because it all just goes wrong then. And please, could you switch off or silence any other devices you have so that they don't interrupt proceedings. I'll try and make sure my dogs are silenced, which is always a bit challenging. The normal procedure at cabinet is to take votes by affirmation and we'll continue with this tradition. When we move to a vote on any item, I'll ask if members agree with a proposal and then if any member wants to vote against a proposal or to abstain and then a roll call will be taken. I'll then ask cabinet members to speak into the microphone so their vote's clear both to cabinet and to those watching this webcast. A member should respond for, against or abstain when their name is called. Now there's business on this agenda which is confidential and this is referred to as exempt business and this is usually because things are commercially sensitive. If the committee agrees to exclude the press in public at item 17 on this agenda, the live video stream will end and I'll let members of public know when that's about to happen. So cabinet members present, I'll now invite each of you to introduce yourselves. After I call your name, please turn on your microphone and say your name and your lead cabinet role so that your present may be noted. So, councillor Aiden Van Derwire, please could you introduce yourself? Yes, I'm Aiden Van Derwire, Deputy Leader and Lead Member for Strategic Planning and Transport. Thank you, councillor Neil Goff. Good morning, I'm Neil Goff. I'm the Deputy Leader as well for the South Council. councillor Bill Handley. Hello, I'm Bill Handley, Lead Member for Environmental Services and Licensing. Tumie Hawkins, councillor Tumie Hawkins. I can't hear you, councillor Hawkins. Finger trouble this morning, I'm sorry, can you hear me now? We can, thank you, it is Monday after all. Good morning everyone, my name is Tumie Hawkins and I am the Cabinet Member for Planning. Thank you very much, councillor Hazel Smith. Hello, I'm councillor Hazel Smith, I'm the Lead Member for Housing. And councillor John Williams. Have we got councillor John Williams? No, I believe he's still experiencing some technical problems joining us. Okay, thank you councillor Van Derwire. Have we got John Williams now? I'm just contacting him now. Okay, fine. So, if you'd let me know, Aaron, please, when he joins us so that he can introduce himself, albeit late. councillor John Williams is the Lead Member for Finance. So, can I confirm the meeting is quarit, please? It is, that's four members, okay. So, may I also just check that we have councillor Brian Milnes as the Vice-Chair of the Scrutiny and Overview Committee present in the meeting, please. Good morning, everybody. Brian Milnes, Vice-Chair of Scrutiny, reporting on every half. Thank you very much, good morning. And are there any non-cabinet members present in this meeting? Yes. Would you like to introduce yourselves, please, one at a time? I can see councillor Bradnham there, yes, please introduce yourself. Thank you. Hello, I'm councillor Bradnham from Milton and Water Beach Ward. Welcome, and I think I saw councillor Douglas Delacy. Yes, I'm councillor Douglas Delacy. I'm from Gertin Ward. And do we have any other? I'm councillor Peter McDonald from Duxford. I'm councillor Claire Daunton from Fenditon and Fullbourne Ward. I'm councillor Heather Williams, the Wardens Ward. I'm councillor Sue Ellington, Swave C Ward. I'm councillor Richard Williams, Wittlesford Ward. I'm councillor Phillipa Hart, Melbourne Ward. Is that everybody? Okay, thank you very much. Sorry, leader, I believe councillor Waters is with us, but maybe having technical issues speaking, she is here. I fully welcome councillor Waters, so thank you very much indeed. Good to see so many people. So we also have the following officers from our senior leadership team present. Liz Watts, the Chief Executive, Susan Gardner Craig, Head of HR and Corporate Services, Peter Maddox, Head of Finance, Roy McKenna, our monitoring officer, Paul Frainer, who's the Assistant Director of Strategy and Economy. He's here representing the Joint Director of Planning and Economic Development. Plus, we have our valuable Democratic Service support staff. I think that's all the key people. Liz, anybody else? We also have Gareth Bell from Conds and Stainville Communities. Peter Campbell and Julie Fletcher from Housing. John Dixon and Caroline Hunt from Planning. Hannah Loftus from Planning. Matthew Paterson from Planning. Leslie McFarlane from Stainville Communities. Sean Misson from Procurement. Trevor Nicholl from Waste and Environment. Jennifer Perry from Housing. I think that is everybody's chair. Thank you. I can see a hand raised from David Ooseby. Are you telling us you're here, David, or are you wanting to speak? We're telling us you're here. Thank you very much. Item 2 on our agenda today is Apologies. Sorry, I just wanted to let you know that Councillor John Williams is now in attendance. Councillor Williams, would you like to introduce yourself? Hello, I'm Councillor John Williams. I'm the lead Cabinet Member for Finance. Glad you managed to join us. Jonathan, are there any apologies for absence today, please? Thank you, Leader. I've received no apologies for this meeting. Lovely, thank you. Do any members have interested in declaring a relation to any of the items of business on the agenda? No? Okay, thank you. Moving on to Item 4, which is Minutes. Members are asked to approve the minutes of the meeting held on 6 May 2020. Councillor Hazel Smith has drawn attention to some corrections which need to be made to the minutes. I don't think I need to go through these because they're mainly typographic. I think they're mainly typographic, so if we can include those. Unless anybody tells me, I should go through these in detail. No? Okay, fine. Subject to these amendments, which Councillor Smith has kindly identified. I move the approval of the minutes as a correct record. Is that seconded? Councillor Van Der Wire seconds them. Thank you very much. Do members approve the minutes as amended? Agreed. Does anybody wish to abstain or vote against? No, that's fine. Thank you. Cabinet therefore agrees the approval of the minutes as amended as a correct record by affirmation. Thank you. So we move on to Item 5, which is Public Questions. We have one speaker today. I think I could see Mrs James Williams with us earlier. Mrs Williams, would you like to ask your question, please? Thank you, Chair. Good morning all. I'd like to ask, on a quarterly basis, local planning authorities are required to submit forms PS1 and PS2 to the Ministry of Housing, communities and local government, providing a range of information about decisions taken on district matters planning applications. The information gathered on these forms is used among other purposes to calculate local authorities' performance for the purposes of designating underperforming local planning authorities under Section 62A of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. On form PS2, the time from application to decision begins when a valid application and the correct fee have been received and ends on the date a decision notice is dispatched. Therefore, we'll report portfolio holder for planning, please stays in clear and unambiguous term. I'll just go back to that. We'll report portfolio holder for planning, please stays in clear and unambiguous terms whether the data reported on the quarterly PS1 and PS2 forms submitted since May 2018 is in fact accurate and free from systematic errors in the reporting of data. Thank you. Thank you very much indeed. So, Councillor Tumie Hawkins is going to respond to this. Good morning Mrs Williams and thank you for your question. The data that we submit in forms PS1 and PS2 returns has historically been generated automatically through the council's agile planning application software and is prepared and submitted using the required standard report format. Now this is data that has been inputted into the system by officers throughout the planning process and we use it to produce a return within the MHCLG reporting timelines. Now in February this year, the planning service migrated over one million records from the agile system into a new IDOCS system, shared database. Unlike the agile one, the IDOCS solution also provides a reporting tool to support and generate and submit the PS1 and PS2 returns. Now this year though we have not submitted the PS1 and PS2 returns for quarter four, which is January to March this year. As due to the COVID pandemic, the government has extended the submission date to August 2020. Now obviously we'll be taking care to ensure that the first submissions reported through the new system will represent an accurate record of the service performance. Now recognising that over 6000 applications per year pass through our system, it will be unwise for anyone to guarantee that there are no errors in the reported data. However, I am satisfied that the use of a recognised software solution and the standardised reporting templates enable us as a planning authority to provide a consistent and accurate return to the Minister of Housing, Local Government. Thank you. Thank you. May I ask a follow-up question please, Councillor Hawkins? Yes, you may. Yeah. So if the council is provided with evidence indicating that systematic inaccuracies exist in the data reported to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government on forms PS1 and or PS2 since May 2018, will the portfolio holder for planning commit to commissioning an external audit to investigate any irregularities uncovered and prepare corrective data to resubmission by the council please? Now obviously we will need to look at that and we will take appropriate action. I cannot commit to anything until I have seen whatever evidence it is that you have prepared to send my answer to you, both your original question and your follow-up question in writing. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you for your response. You are mute, Councillor Smith. You can't avoid it right. Well, while you sort yourself out, coming off mute, I just take over and proceed with the business. So the next item on the and over the committee, we have a report in the agenda pack. And so I will now hand over to Councillor Milne's, the Vice-Chair of the Overview to introduce his report. Thank you for that. So as we've done previously and given your acceptance, what I suggest that we do is deal with these matters during the items as they come up through the agenda and take it in there. So it was a written report in front of you. And then I'll comment by invitation during the meeting. Thank you. Thank you. That seems very wise when you proceed. We now have agenda item seven, which is the Northeast Cambridge Area Reaction Plan. That is on page nine of the agenda pack. This is actually my item to introduce. I'll say a brief word or two. And then we've got several of the officers who've been working on this here. And we'll say a word to two officers. I mean, this was looked at extensively by scrutiny and there was some introduction and presentation there. And so especially given the size of the agenda that we've got to cover today, I don't suppose to go in a great deal, over in a great deal of detail. I don't know what we're going to consult on. But yes, I will just say a brief word of introduction. This is a consultation on a planning policy for a very large area of North Cambridge. Originally, the Area Reaction Plan was focusing on the force treatment works and the old chest and siding. So that area going over to Johnson Innovation Park. We're now proposing expanding that area to include the whole of the science park in regards to this one area to be considered together. And that greatly increases the scope that we can, the potential that we can see in this very important strategic site. There was several transport links passing through here, the new train station, busway, potential future, high college public transport links to the north, schism trail, cycleways, and of course motor mode itself, which is one of the main arteries in and out of Cambridge. And there's also actually one of the currently one of the most important commercial areas with the Science Park and Johnson Innovation Park, as well as the Cambridge Business Park. And alongside that, we have this very large area that, especially if the watch treatment works can be successfully relocated, is a huge area for regeneration that gives us enormous potential. For providing housing in a really sustainable location as well as more opportunities for business growth. So what we're doing in the Area Reaction Plan is creating a plan for that that really is ambitious in the quality of the place we want to create the sustainability of it. So it is essentially designed as a car free area where everything is at hand, transport links, as well as all the services and a really good balance of housing and employment. There's been an enormous amount of work on this because it's extremely complex site and with these very ambitious policies. So it's a really difficult job and the amount of work that the officers have been working on this is just fantastic. I'm just really pleased that you've been able to capture so much of what we all want from this area so well. This is being done jointly with Cambridge City Council. It's an area at the start of the boundary, so that's something appropriate of this, something like that. And so we're now consulting on a draft plan that obviously that then will guide the development as once we know what's happening with the watch treatment works and the future potential of the site. It is a complex process, but we absolutely need to be moving forward with this and I'll be very eager to see what public, especially the residents in the area, think of this. So that's a few introductory words. I'm not sure which any of the officers who are here who have been working on it would like to add in the thing. You can just see the several, I'm not sure. I think I'm back up and running now, Aiden by the way, so thank you. Thank you very much indeed. Yes, no, no, I could hear you, just no one could hear me. So is Paul Frenier going to, or anybody else want to add to that? Hello Paul, good morning. Good morning everyone. I think there's a very good introduction from Aiden, so I think we can just open it up now. We have got some of the officers and the lead on the project here as well, so hopefully we should be able to answer any questions that will arise. Thank you very much indeed. So I'm just going to, we've got quite a lot of recommendations here. We're being recommended to agree the name of the Area Action Plan, be formally changed to North East Cambridge Area Action Plan to agree the draft North East Area Action Plan at Appendix A, the draft North East Cambridge Policies Map, and the topic papers at Appendix C for a 10 week period of public consultation under regulation 18 of the Town and Country Planning Regulations 2012, and that this consultation will also include the evidence documents listed in the draft AAP with relevant policy and published on the shared planning service website. Three, agree the statement of consultation, including responses to comments received to the issues and options, which was February 2019. Four, note the findings of the updated Joint Equalities Impact Assessment, draft sustainability appraisal, draft habitats, regulation assessment and duty to cooperate statement. Five, delegate authority to the deputy leader, statutory, which is Councillor Van Dwyer, for planning policies and open spaces to agree the further topic papers set out at paragraph 4.17 ahead of the public consultation. And lastly, delegate authority to the Joint Director of Planning and Economic Development in liaison with the deputy leader to make editorial changes to the draft NEC AAP, sorry about all these consultation report, and supporting documents prior to the commencement of the consultation and to comprise minor amendments and factual updates and clarification. So I will just ask now if there's a seconder and then we will see if there's any more questions and I will ask Councillor Brian Mills to contribute the views of scrutiny in his view. So can I just ask who's going to second this? I will second it. Thank you and Councillor Van Dwyer, you are proposing it, yes. I'm seconding it. There was one thing I did get to say, which was as you were going through the recommendations of mind me. So there will be some changes to this to complete this for the purposes of the consultation. In particular, for example, the graphics, there's some graphics to be completed and defined. This will essentially be a web-based consultation, so the format that we've plotted in is not the format that it will present. So there's quite a lot of formatting and presentational work to be done and that's what the recommendations allow us to do. But the content is it. That's lovely, thank you. It's a pretty meaty document as it is, but actually it's set out really well. I'm really pleased with the way that we are presenting documents in a far more user-friendly way and using plain English, which is always welcome. If I could ask Councillor Brian Mills to tell us the comments of scrutiny and overview, I know spent some considerable time looking at all of this. We did. I think this was part of our 764-page agenda with a 36-page supplement of our last meeting. So thank you for the offer to contribute. Just reflecting some of the concerns over modal shift and getting that well established from the start and an expectation for people that might be considering moving here in time that they are unlikely to have access to their own vehicle on the site. For example, I think there was a comment about potential danger for the built-in country park in terms of access to recreational spaces and that we make sure that we've got space on site as well. Then there were comments that we would like to make sure that carbon zero or carbon negative outcomes were available from the site to make sure there was compliance with our zero carbon policy. Then I'd also like to reflect the applauding the officers for putting this area action plan together, recognising the huge amounts of work that they've done on there and the comprehensive job that they've made of putting this plan together. So I think that summarises the scrutiny committee's view. Sorry, Bridget, we're missing your voice. OK, I'll carry on until you can get your sound back. Thank you very much, Councillor Milne, that's very helpful. Possibly we've got at least a couple of questions from cabinet members. And then depending on the issues raised, then we can come back to officers when they further comment. I think it was correct, Councillor Hagel Smith first. Thank you, vice-chairman. Yes, I'd like to thank the officers for the work that's been done on this. I know as a local member that there has been a great deal of consultation with the groups around the area and also with local members and with businesses and so on. And there's been a lot of information fed in. They've done a massive amount in terms of background work for this. The document, as Bridget said, has come out very well. It's come to us with more illustrations here than we had in the report that came to scrutiny. I'd just like to talk about the illustrations starting at page 128 of our agenda. There are quite a lot in there that all come in a bunch. And I don't think they're intended to be in those places necessarily. I understand that this is sort of a paper representation of what will appear via various links on the web. But I would like to understand the colours that are used in those illustrations. I expect on the web you'll have some sort of glossary that will show a key to the colours that are used for those buildings. And also where you're showing particular places, for example, page 128 itself. I was guessing that that's King's Hedges Road, CRC, Kilmaine Close, but I don't know that from what it shows. For local people looking at this and being consulted on it, I think we need to know if these are existing places where they are. Just showing this as an existing street section without saying where it is actually doesn't help local people to make sense of it. If you like. So that was the main thing on the illustrations. Also we still haven't got all of them in this document. So it would be nice to see before it goes out perhaps a full one with all the illustrations. Perhaps we could have a preview of how it will look on the web as well because that will obviously be different. The other thing which I wanted to query was the timings that are in this document and whether there will need to be changes as we understand the wastewater treatment works, DCO process and the timing of all of that. Will that need to change? That's towards the end of the document. Also, with the odour work that had been done earlier, what limit will there be on residential development before the area action plan comes in? Can we rely on that odour work? There isn't another place to ask this, but I know it's not directly pertinent to this document. Thank you. Thank you very much indeed. Thank you. Are there any other cabinet members who wish to speak and then I'll see if Aiden wants to respond to that? I think Tumi has wanted to. Tumi Hawkins, do you want to say anything at this point? Now just really to say thank you to the officers for their hard work. The AAP has been considered at the joint local advisory planning group quite extensively and the recommendations that you see have been endorsed by the GLPag. So the two issues that Councillor Hazel Smith raised, I think maybe it would be worth passing up to the sort of relevant officers, Paul Feiner and Hannah Loftus if you have any comments on the issue of the graphics and sort of managing that in the process now and then the future of the whole process for adopting the AAP. I can come in on the graphics question as I've been managing that side of things. Just to reassure you, Councillor Smith, that almost none of the graphics that you actually saw in that document that you had are the final graphics. Unfortunately the time scales for publishing the cabinet papers and the time scales for producing all the graphics don't align very well so we have to unfortunately present it to you with all the right words but not all the right pictures to go with them and I can absolutely reassure you that they are going to be very clearly labelled and with all the right keys and information on them and we'd be happy to share those with you via email to get your feedback on them. We are also going to share some of that material with the community form as well. Thank you, thank you Hannah, much appreciated. Right, if there's nobody else wishing to speak from Cabinet, I think Councillor Douglas Delacy would like to speak. Thank you very much, leader, yes. I have questions on the transport infrastructure with respect particularly to three different types of transport, if I may. First of all, horse riders. Policy 16 on page 202 says that leisure routes should include appropriate provisions for re-questions and I would heartily agree with that. I was going to start by thanking the officers very much for this report incidentally and I forgot that bit and I shouldn't have done. Leisure routes should include appropriate provision for re-questions and I'm a little disappointed therefore that subsequently on page 212, for example, they're simply lumped together with cyclists and other forms of transport. And if those cyclists are commuters, then I think they just don't mix with horse riders. I doubt there are any equestrian commuters. So I think the focus ought to be on page 202 that when we're talking about leisure routes, we need to make sure that equestrians are adequately catered for. So that brings me to cyclists and page 212 says that the NEC will include shared routes. Now I asked at scrutiny but I didn't get an answer whether it is possible to outlaw shared routes and I would like this consultation to ask the public if they would like to see shared routes outlawed. The focal issue I think is not so much the mode of transport, bike or horse or foot. The focal issue it seems to me is commuting and any route that is going to be used as a commuting route, then a shared route is simply inappropriate. People with electric bikes and, dare I say, people like me will be travelling at 15 to 20 plus miles an hour to get where they need to go. They simply do not mix with pedestrians travelling at most five miles an hour and therefore shared routes I think are inappropriate. Cycle lanes on roads are also problematic. They are inimical to commuting and they are a real problem. The new advisory lanes that have been put by the county council in various places are a genuine problem not only to cyclists but also to motorists. At my last parish council meeting we had a large number of councillors saying that whatever transport they used they found these new cycle lanes were actually dangerous. So we need to think about commuting cyclists perhaps in a new way. And it's not only cyclists of course the document does mention the possibility of scooters being legalised and they are different cattle fish as it were. It doesn't mention I think anywhere mobility carriages and these are increasing hugely and I think we really need to think for a new development that's going to be coming in the next many years as more and more people depend on mobility carriages which at the moment are on pavements harming pedestrians and in the road holding up traffic. We need to know what we want to see where we want to see these mobility carriages and what sort of provision we're going to make for them and what sort of areas we are going to encourage them not to use like the road or the pavement. So I'd be very grateful if those are taken into consideration. I think we need to think about these things now for the future of northeast Cambridge. Thank you very much leader. Thank you very much councillor Delacy. There's a really really good points and I frequently speak about the fact that when we're talking about cycling we can't just talk about cycling generically because commuter cycling and recreational cycling is, you know, they are different things. And, you know, commuters will go on different routes from people who want to cycle with, you know, three three children on little bikes with stabilise and so on, but they are all equally important. So I think these do need to be taken away and certainly the issue of compatibility with horse riding and with walking needs to be looked at. I think there's an opportunity here to do things differently and do things better. I don't know if Paul Fraenio wants to respond on that. Thank you leader and thank you councillor Delacy. I think that and the other two points I don't think we picked up from councillors Smith's questions on timing and odour. So I'm just going to refer you to Matt Patterson. You can answer those hopefully. Good morning councillors. Thank you. Yeah, so if I deal with the first issues around timing, so yes, the AAP is predicated on the relocation of the wastewater treatment works and therefore we'll need to ensure that the timing of that process of getting the permissions for the relocation and then the decommissioning of that aligns with our aspirations for bringing forward the AAP. So the timetable for the AAP may need to change depending on how that other process is working out, which is separate to this. With regard to the odour works, yes, that work can be used in terms of how we consider applications that may come forward before the wastewater treatment works is relocated and certainly will be relying on existing local plan policies in the interim as well. With regard to horse riding, yes, we agree, we'll review the wording for those in terms of both leisure and then obviously commuting. On the cyclists, again, we'll seek to provide clarity around exactly what their expectation is regarding segregated cycle lanes and the like and ensuring we do learn from best practice and apply that in any scene. We will also be in ensure that what we provide by way of sustainable transport is ultimately safe for all users of those surfaces, so we'll take that away again. And we've already made some minor amendments following previous comments regarding mobility carriages, so they will make it into this draft as well, so certainly we'll take those in board. Thank you. Thank you very much, Matthew, that's good. I'm particularly interested in this, so Councillor Delacy and I will both keep an eye close eye on this. Now look, I'm getting a bit confused on who wants to speak because some people are using the hand function, which isn't what we've agreed. Our standing orders say we should be indicating if we want to speak on the chat function which Councillor Delacy did know about. So if we could stick with that, otherwise I'm flitting around between the two and I'm going to be missing people. So I don't have anybody else indicating they wish to speak on this on the chat function, so I'm going to assume that's the end of the debate on this. So we have Councillor Van Der Wire proposing this and Councillor Hawkins seconding it, and we've had everybody speaking. So Cabinet is recommended to, as I have previously indicated, agree all those recommendations. I'm not going to read through them again. So do you members agree with the proposal? Sorry, I put my request to speak please in a bit late. I apologise for that. Is it possible to just? Yes, Councillor Bradman, please, but can we make sure we get it in early because otherwise we're going to be here till Christendom? Sorry, I do apologise. I just wanted to note that in the plans there's a lot of reference to green space outside the northeast Cambridge area action plan being accessible to people from within the action plan area, which is fine, but what I wanted to ensure was that that does not detract from the amount of green space that should be allocated within the area action plan area in order to make living there pleasurable and enjoyable and that people can thrive there. Thank you. Thank you very much indeed for that. Obviously very important. Okay, so moving on to the vote please. So do members agree with the proposals please? Agree. Okay, does anybody wish to vote against the proposal? And does anybody wish to abstain? Thank you very much. Cabinet therefore agrees the proposal by affirmation and I would like to add my thanks to those of others to the really extraordinary amount of work that has gone into this and the quality of that work. And we look forward to seeing this again as it moves forward. Thank you very much indeed. So moving on to item number eight on this huge agenda, which is at age 305. And this is the Greater Cambridge Local Plan and this is the local plan that we are doing collaboratively with Cambridge City and is probably the biggest thing that we are doing. This is the issues and options feedback and the next steps. So councillor to me Hawkins, would you like to introduce this report since it is your responsibility? Thank you. Yes, thank you Llyda. It is indeed a big responsibility. Thank you very much. I think first of all just to say a big thanks to the officers for their continuing hard work on this. There's a lot going on in planning as you've seen and this is quite a big one for us. What we're trying to do here is to give you feedback on how the issues and options consultations that we had earlier in the year went. Some feedback from that and also so that you know what we're going to be doing going forward. Now we have recognised that we need to front load this new plan. I started work on it last year. We had early engagement with key stakeholders to agree on what was going to go out in the issues and options consultation. Now we use the digital first approach, which is the first time that we've done that in South Cams and that worked really well. If you look at appendix one, there's a lot of data in there that shows you the sorts of results that we got. For example, we had over 300,000 seen as social media posts about the plan. The videos that we created especially for this had just under 400,000 views. That's a lot. We also had 32,000 unique page views on our website content. We also did the pop-up roadshow events which reached over 6,000 people. So we had a lot of engagement, but I think the very last event we had was the big debate at the con exchange, which was full 300 people in the room and was very well received. So it worked very well and I think in some respects we've set ourselves a high bar for the next consultation, but hey, it's what it is. Now in terms of the comments that we've had, if we look at a single comment as being a single answer to a single question, currently we estimate that we've got about 7,400 or just over that. Again, more than we've ever had before. So there's a lot that we're still collating at the moment, but the feedback we've had has shown us that people do agree with the seven key themes that we talked about. For example, the jobs, homes and infrastructure, and also how the plan is going to be built based on things like the climate change, biodiversity and green spaces. Well-being has been very important. What we've seen so far is that people seem to prefer the strategy to include densification of existing settlements. Which was also followed by building along transport corridors and then on the edge of Cambridge. But again, we need to engage further in order to actually establish what the strategy will be. Now one of the things that I need to emphasise is we started the plan with a certain period of time to complete in mind. But that time is now, excuse me, going to be longer for various reasons including the fact that we want to include the NEC, which we've just discussed, to provide some of the housing that will be requiring in that plan. Obviously the timetable for that is in some ways not within our control because of the DCO as you've already heard. We also have the Oxcam Arc, which we have to consider, and East West Wales is now part of it and the camp. So we've got quite a number of issues which are fitted into the local plan. And we've had COVID-19, we're still in lockdown, and we need to look at how that might affect when and how we can finish off the plan. Now what we're proposing is that because we want to engage our communities and take them along so that we don't have a situation which we had with the last plan, we are proposing to add two new stages. One is an additional member and stakeholder engagement this autumn to look at preferred options and also a public consultation on the emerging preferred option. So I think perhaps I need to maybe stop. One more thing I need to mention is that we have a duty to cooperate with other local authorities. And there is an increased obligation on us on that one at a moment which is going to be a lot of work. Now we have I think potentially 11 local authorities, 13 organisations to consult with and agree with, which is a heck of a lot of work. So hopefully you will see that we're trying to make sure that whatever plan it is to put together is agreeable, hopefully in the main. But that also includes our results in the fact that it will take a bit longer to get to that point. On the whole, I would recommend the report to you because again it's gone through the joint local plan action group. And I would think that this is the way forward. Thank you, leader. Thank you very much, councillor Hawkins. I think it's fair to say that as a council we've moved into a different league on consultation. The quality of this work has been done. Just the way things looked, it was really, really engaging. And the response from residents in participating, I've never seen the likes of it in 15 years as being a councillor. So I'm delighted with this and I think it means that we're going to have really high quality results at the end of this. And the important thing is that when we get to a final plan we can truly say to our residents, this is a plan that reflects what you told us. It reflects what's important to you because obviously what's important to you is what's important to us. So I think we, I don't know if we have anybody else from Cabinet who wants to speak. This is a really clunky system at times this. It's a bit slow. So councillor Neil Goff, have I got you next wanting to speak? Yep, thanks. Thanks, leader. I've got one sort of comment and then one question. So I think that the extent of the consultation response is obviously fabulous and it's very good to read them. When I sort of respond to consultations and when I see summaries of consultations, what I've always drawn to is the ideas which people come up with. And there are a few embedded in this initial response. And this is going to be a particular area which is important when we talk about things like how we adapt to climate change. So just a request really is that as we are reviewing the feedback from the consultations and as we go forward to the next round, if we could pay particular attention to pulling out ideas, particularly ideas which are shared across a number of different people, I think that will be very helpful to ensuring that we're taking the best out of all the consultation responses. So that was my comment. As I said, it's just really in harmony with the way we do actually respond back. My question relates to page 308 and it's just asking for a little bit more specificity on the timing. Paragraph 24 and 25 talk about the publication of the full list of the call for sites in the summer. We are already in the summer, I guess, for a few days. Paragraph 25 talks about aging with local members, Irish Council and President's Association before the lists are published. So that's quite a tall order. And I just wondered whether Chancellor Hawkins or one of the officers could give us a bit of a heads up as to when that process will start, because that's obviously quite a lot of work and communication which is going to happen in the next weeks rather than months. Thank you. If I can just answer that very briefly and I'll probably hand over to Paul or maybe Caroline. We already had a call for sites last year and we've been inputting all that data in. What we also did during this last consultation, which is an options consultation, was to ask for another call for sites really, but essentially for green spaces. Now as far as I understand that is still being inputted into the system. And yes, it is a tight deadline and yes we would like to do it, but what I'm not sure of is how far we've got with that. So maybe Caroline will be able to help with that. Thank you, Chancellor Hawkins. Yes, we are still working towards being able to publish the call for sites along with the full representations received through the Issues and Options consultation. We've said in summer because we're still working through the precise timings of that. We still think that's possible maybe around the end of July, but we're still looking into that just to make sure that we can do, you know, but we commit fully to a date that we can actually deliver on that. But very much the intention is to brief members and local press councils and residents associations in Cambridge of the sites that have been put to us before we publish them. Obviously we're aware that whilst they have no status, they're simply sites that have been put to the councils for consideration, that nonetheless they will, you know, cause, you know, be of interest in local communities and potentially of some concern. So we want to make sure that we make those communities, representatives of those communities aware of what will be coming just before it is published. But it is very much at this stage a list of sites that are being put to us that we will then be going through a full assessment process before we move to a stage of deciding on a preferred strategy in the first case and then the sites that best fit with that strategy. So, yes, we're aiming for that. We can update members as we get closer to that time. If not, then the consideration is whether it's appropriate to do that in August or whether we should wait till September, obviously recognising the sensitivities around releasing information and so on in August, albeit it is simply publishing information if it's not a consultation at this stage. And I think the point to note as well is that there is no planning status to any of these sites. I think people are, you know, concerned about that. I know that one or two communities have already started, you know, campaigns, which really isn't necessary at this point in time. OK, thank you. So is that satisfying to councillor Goff? Yes, I'm just as much as we can get if there are sort of consultations which need to happen with members. Obviously, as Caroline said at this particular period in the summer, as much warning that that's coming would be much appreciated because there is a great deal of interest, maybe too much interest, councillor Hawkins, but there's still a great deal of interest in that part of the process. OK, thank you very much indeed. Paul Thrain, is there anything else you want to add? Thanks, Lady. Yes, I just wanted to just add a note for councillor Goff around his first point on the consultation responses and making sure that we are looking at those ideas and those themes that can be tallied up. And that is absolutely the need that we have to do with the consultation work that we've undertaken so far. Obviously, it's a bigger job than we have usually experienced because of the number of presentations we've had, but certainly that gives us a greater breadth of ideas and responses from all of those people who have. So yes, absolutely. Thank you very much indeed. And of course this is a joint local plan. So that's very unusual and carries all sorts of pitfalls, I suppose, with it as well as lots and lots of opportunities. So this plan will be a nationally significant local plan because of its geography and because of the significance of the Greater Cambridge area to big strategic government projects such as the Oxford Cambridge Arc. So it's very important that our plan is ambitious and it's something that all our residents can get behind. So I think that's all the questions from Cabinet at the moment. So moving on to other members and I see councillor Claire Daunton would like to speak. Yes, thank you, leader. I was pleased to hear councillor Hawkins reply to the complexity of the consultation process because of the number of consultees, the number of bodies that we have to involve. And she said the report set it out very clearly on pages 309 to 310. And I just wondered if it would be possible to give that context to our parishes, to our residents when we explain the changes to the timetable. I think it's very interesting and very relevant and it sets us in the wider picture. So I think residents will see that as important and also just a plea that when that's done that all the acronyms are fully explained and we refer to DCOs. Most people don't know what a DCO is and don't know the major impact that it will have on the plan. So yes, thank you for the explanation, but also could that be broadened out, the full context be given. So that's really important. I hate acronyms and I hate what I've always referred to as councill speak because it's a language that only we speak. So not surprisingly councillor Lacey wanted to comment, but I think he's saying he's having to leave us ashamed because he normally really holds our hands to the fire as far as using the terminology of our papers concerned, and that's much appreciated. So I haven't got anybody else wanting to speak at the moment. So the recommendation, so this is being proposed by councillor Hawkins, and I believe councillor Van Der Wire is going to second this. Can you just conserve that councillor Van Der Wire, please? Yes, I will be seconding this. Thank you. So the recommendation is, A, note the report on initial feedback from the first consultation included at Appendix 1. We agree additional informal member and stakeholder engagement and preferred option stages to be added to the local plan making process, and C, agree the approach to addressing the duty to cooperate included as Appendix 3 to this report, subject to any material changes necessary as a result of consultation with duty to cooperate bodies. So do members agree with a proposal? Agree, agreed. Does anyone wish to vote against the proposal? And does anyone wish to abstain? Thank you. So Cabinet therefore agrees the proposal by affirmation. And moving on to item 9, which is the update of the Greater Cambridge Local Development Scheme, and councillor Hawkins again. It's your day, isn't it? You'd like to introduce this report. Thank you. Thank you, leader. I'll keep this brief because really it's just a follow-up from the last two items that we've discussed. We as a plan authority were required by law to prepare and maintain what is called a local development scheme. And I will call that LDS please for short so that I can get through what I need to get through. And obviously the LDS provides information on the documents that relate to producing a local plan and the timetable for producing those documents. Now the current scheme was adopted in October 2018 with a small update in November 2019. Now, as we've just discussed in the last two items, the NECAAP and the joint local plan, the timetables for those, the broad timetables have now changed from what it was previously. And so it's important that we update the local development scheme to reflect this and the update is set out in Appendix 1 of our agenda papers. So I would therefore propose the recommendations that we have on page 359 to the cabinet. And if I might say, this has also gone through the JLPag, beg your pardon, joint local area planning action group. Thank you. Thank you very much for that. So do we have a seconder for this report, please? I think councillor Van de Waill was going to second this one as well. Yes, that's fine. And I haven't got any speakers from Cabinet on this yet, hopefully because it's all very self-explanatory. And if there's any speakers, other speakers participating, could they please make themselves known now, otherwise we'll move straight on to the recommendations? No, OK, in which case we're moving straight on to the recommendations. So it's recommended that Cabinet A adopt the updated local development scheme for Greater Cambridge, included at Appendix 1 of this report to take effect from the 13th of July 2020, B grant delegated authority to the joint director of planning and economic development in liaison with South Cambridge, a lead cabinet member for planning and the Cambridge City Council executive councillor for planning policy and open spaces to make any minor editing changes and corrections identified prior to publication. So do you members agree with this proposal, please? Agreed. Does anyone wishing to vote against? And does anyone wish to abstain? OK, so Cabinet therefore agrees the proposal by affirmation. And moving on to item 10, health and wellbeing strategy, which is obviously linked to planning, but isn't exclusively about planning. So I'm going to introduce this. It starts at page 383. So let me just find it in my huge papers here. Sorry about them banging in the background here. I hope you can't hear it. So health and wellbeing has never been more important than it is now. I've written a forward to this strategy, which is at page 393, and I'll just read the first paragraph of that, which hopefully sets the context in the world that we currently find ourselves in. So health and wellbeing is not a standalone issue, and its importance for all of us has been highlighted in the darkest manner during the COVID pandemic, when those people with the poorest predicted health outcomes have suffered the most. One of our main goals must be to make our residents, our villages and towns truly resilient to future threats of this nature. And it's a sad fact that this pandemic may well not be the first and the last pandemic that we experience in this country and in the world. And so it's really, this is an opportunity with this strategy to make sure that all the good things that have come out of COVID, all the community action, all the volunteers that have been put in place really quickly are captured and embedded as we move forward so that we are in a far better position to deal with any other crisis as we move forward. Now officers have put an enormous amount of work into this over a considerable time. It's taken an awful long time to get to this point because health and wellbeing is complex and it's particularly complex for those of us at district council level because we do so many different things, but I think they have refined this down to something which is manageable and deliverable and which translates into a number of action plans. But it's not going to be a document which is static. This is going to have to be a document which we are revisiting on a very, very regular basis. As we find out more about the consequences of COVID and it's been some very alarming stuff in the paper about damage to people's brains and so on, this could really change things for a lot of people. This might be a disease that people don't easily get over and that often means that people then look to their local authorities for the help they need to continue their lives. So I'm very pleased with this, but it is something that is going to stay as a very live document moving forward. And I think Councillor Hazel Smith has indicated that she would like to second it and I'm sure as this is a subject she's been involved with for a long time she would like to add something. Thank you, leader. Yes, I'm quite happy to second this document. It needs to be approved by Cabinet and then we will take it forward. It's summarising what we're already actually doing and no doubt it will be looked at again in the light of what will be over the next few months. And we will have changes that we will need to make to it. But it's a sound piece of work based on evidence showing what we need to do for our district council area and I commend it to the cabinet. Thank you very much indeed. Councillor Brian Mills, I know that scrutiny and overview spent some time on this. I wonder if you'd like to comment. Thank you, leader. Yes, and you'll see on the update from scrutiny and overview committee on our page five of the agenda and then so there's five comments on there and then on page three eight four. There's a number of things that we listed in response to this. And I think many of us will recognise the difficulty of creating something from nothing. The first time that you have to create something of this nature is really the hard miles and we recommend the hard work of the officers in producing this. And we know how important health and wellbeing is now considered in a wider global sphere. If we'd have produced this report five years ago, people perhaps would have thought we were slightly eccentric. But this is a critical area for us to be considering these days. So we recommend it with the comments that we've made on page five on three eight four of your agenda today. Thank you very much and those comments are welcome. I should just reference that councillor Sue Ellington led a task and finish group a number of years ago now on behalf of scrutiny and overview, which looked at the sort of responsibilities this council should be embracing in health and wellbeing. And I think a lot of those have perpetuated into this this piece of work. That was a mammoth bit of work that she and cross party colleagues did. I should apologise. I've not put that into consideration and I was aware of that work and apologies for not mentioning it. That's fine. I thought I'd get it in before somebody else did. So that work has not been lost and has carried forward into this. As I said, it's taken a long time coming, but in point of fact, the timing is good because if we put this in place six months ago, it would have had to have a complete and utter rewrite as a result of what we now know about COVID. So I think the timing is good. So I haven't got any other speakers at the moment. Can you indicate now please if you would like to speak? No. Okay. So it's a recommendation is that cabinet formally approves and adopts this health and wellbeing strategy and action plan. Do members agree with the proposal? Agreed. Agreed. Thank you. Does anybody wish to vote against? Does anyone wish to abstain? No. Okay. So I apologize. I haven't brought our officers in, but actually I think it's generally accepted that this was a very, very good little work. We're extremely grateful for all their efforts and we now look forward to implementing it enthusiastically. So thank you very much indeed. The cabinet therefore agrees the proposal by affirmation. And moving now on to item 11, which is the establishment of additional liaison meetings. Now this was something that I think was first talked about two years ago and which Councillor Goff has led on. So I think he's going to introduce the item. Thank you. So the introduction of these liaison meetings was in the business plan for this year. So this is something we've talked about for some time. I would just like to explain a little bit about what the backgrounds of these liaison meetings are and what they can achieve because I personally am a great fan of these. And I think they can actually, in the right circumstances, do a lot to help our communities who are facing the prospect of significant new developments within their villages. The first thing to stress is that when Councillor Wilson and I established this in Cotnham, we did not know we were establishing a Cotnham model. So it's quite hilarious to be seen. It is described as a Cotnham model with the benefit of hindsight. But the circumstance of what we had in Cotnham was four different developers developing new sites of over 500 houses, which was a more than 25% increase in the scale of the village. And they were all working pretty much in isolation. And there were issues which were arising as a consequence of the fact of a lack of representation. The fact that their efforts were not focused on the integration of the new residents into our communities after the houses being built and occupied. So we had really three objectives, one of which was to improve the coordination among the developers and between the developers and the community. Secondly, improve the communication between the developers and the community. And lastly, and this is easy to forget, is to actually undertake to improve the integration of new residents into their communities. It's had a good success, I would say. And if I could just give members an idea of the sort of things which this group has achieved over the last 18 months. It's achieved, for example, coordinating road closures between developers so that they apply for road closures and do work simultaneously to reduce disruption. Reach out to road closures or road maintenance to roadworks to a free school holidays. Helping coordination between developers so one developer making available for the supply to enhance dust suppression. Agreeing changes to section 106 in terms of relocation bus stops to areas which are more useful to the community. If it works, it will save everyone time by being able to resolve these issues by having everyone around the table. And if it doesn't work, my suggestion is then, and this is the basis under which we've run the scheme and cotton numbers. If people feel that it's not delivering, then there's no point in continuing. Ultimately, this should be saving effort and improving outcomes. So this is the basis of what has worked in cotton to five villages which have got the characteristic significant increases in new builds, which represent a significant increase in the population and similarly famously sort of modern developers. So it's an initiative which I think will hopefully be welcomed by those communities and also by the developers as well. Because one of the characteristics of what's happening with cotton is that the developers also see a useful way of communicating their work to the community and to the council. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much indeed. I'm a huge fan of the cotton and model. The more people talk, the easier things go. So again, I think Councillor Van Der Wire wishes to second this. Do you want, we'd like to speak on it as well. No, no, I don't. Okay. Let's just see if we've got anything in the chat. Yes, Councillor Hawkins, I think you would like to speak. Thank you, leader. Just to say, on behalf of my community of Caldicott, thank you for including us in this scheme. Definitely we are going to see a lot of growth. I mean, the figure that has been quoted for us is 195, but in reality there's a site that is going to come back eventually which will make it 269. In a village that's barely was 650 houses, which in total is about 40% growth over the next five years, and that is a heck of a lot of houses. We have one site now that so was mothballed during COVID and they're now sort of coming back to start work. And the second developer is hoping to have the plan information shortly. So it definitely will benefit us. And having heard of how it's benefited Cotinham, I can see that. I mean, community will have work to do obviously, but at the end of the day, it's very welcome. And thank you for those who've brought this forward. Thank you very much indeed. So in the absence of any other cabinet members, I'm going to move to Councillor Brian Mills. Thank you, Lady. I just want to echo what Councillor Hawking has just suggested on behalf of and as the member for Soulston, which is a location. As the report notes that a significant number of developments will just approve the Huawei development in the village, which itself will require local housing, possibly on the site and elsewhere. And obviously there are several places in the call for sites in and around the village. So the possibility that this affords the local parish council and the residents is highly welcome. So thank you. Thank you for those supportive comments. Councillor Anna Bradman. Thank you, Llyda. As chairman of the Water Beach Liaison Forum, I think it's worth pointing out that the forums are extremely useful because they do give the community itself. And obviously that's in Water Beach, that's Water Beach Village, the opportunity to comment on how this new town will look. And it gives them an opportunity to raise their concerns about how the communities will be cohesive together. But what it also does is it gives the opportunities for the other villages who, in this case, satellite Water Beach or draw to it. It gives them an opportunity to comment on matters that affect them, like transport through them or the services that this new town will provide. And I think it's a really important forum to give these communities an opportunity to ask the questions that they want to ask. So I think they're a very good idea. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Bradman. That's a point well made that development doesn't just affect the community in which it's happening. It definitely affects the satellites around them. So that's a very good point. So in the absence of anybody else wishing to speak, I'm going to move to the recommendation, and the recommendation is that Cabinet approves the introduction of five new liaison meetings in Barrington, Caldecott, Hardwick, Swavesy and Sauston, bringing the total number of concurrent active liaison meetings to six. So do members agree with the proposal? Agreed. Agreed. Does anybody wish to vote against the proposal? And does anyone wish to abstain? Okay, so Cabinet therefore agrees the proposal by affirmation. Thank you very much. And moving on to zero carbon community grants and Councillor John Williams. Would you introduce this please? Thank you, Leader. I'm delighted to move the recommendations on page 425. We set up the zero carbon communities grants in May last year. Last year we had 42 applications and 19 were successful. We said that we would undertake a review and we held a workshop for all council members. A strong theme from both the review and the workshop was that we should make the scheme as easy as possible to help parish councils and other community organisations to devise their projects. And that we should focus on three main themes of cycling, community buildings, tree planting and including tree planting other nature-based solutions. This year's budget is £100,000. It's earmarked from the renewables reserve, which is made up of money from the non-domestic rates we get from the renewable energy schemes that we have given permission for in the district. And a workshop is planned for the 6th of July. On Friday this report did go to the grants committee and they were also very much in favour of the changes. There were some recommendations that they made regarding the application form, but they can be dealt with under the delegated powers. So I would ask Cabinet to please approve these recommendations so that we can have another successful scheme this year. Thank you very much indeed, Councillor Williams, and I'm happy to second this. You know, it was very, very exciting the grants we gave out last year. At that time we were doing also the best guess as to what would be successful and actually I think we got it largely right but it's very helpful to use our experiences to refine this still further to make it as easy as possible for communities and charities to get money out of us, which will really impact on reducing the carbon costs of South Cape, South Cambridge, to help us with our ambition to be zero carbon and to be the greenest district council in the country. And I think we're being hugely successful in achieving that thus far. So £100,000 put into the next pot to do so can only help. So have I got any speakers from Cabinet? I haven't at the moment, no. So I shall, and I don't think I've got scrutiny speaking on this, but Councillor Mills, would you just like to confirm that scrutiny aren't planning to speak on this? No, this wasn't something that has been for scrutiny on a personal basis. A rival and renewal. Lovely. Thank you very much indeed. Yes, I'd say it's been through the grants committee where I'm sure it's had rigorous scrutiny there. So Councillor Anna Bradlin, please. Thank you, leader. I wanted to say thank you very much for allocating money for this. I think it's a really good second step following the initial one last time. And I'm very glad that you've included the broadness of the categories so that people can think what's relevant to their own locations and also tree planting and other nature-based solutions. Actually, there's a lot of biodiversity that can be had in a hedge. So I'm very glad for that. The only thing I was asked Councillor Williams was giving the date. I think his internet broke down and he mentioned in July. I just wanted to check. Was that the, I couldn't hear what he was saying, whether that was the end of the start of the funding opening up or the closure? If you could just clarify that, that'd be helpful, please. Yes, I can. It's before the start. It's a workshop for all organisations to come and understand what we're looking for for this year and how to fill in the application form. Sorry, and what was the date of that? I understand it's 6 July. 6 July. Thank you guys. OK, right. I haven't got anybody else waiting to speak. So I'm going to move to the recommendation. And the recommendation is that Cabinet 1 approved changes to the Zero Carbon Communities Grant scheme as outlined in paragraph 11, which will result in a more focused scheme providing funding to projects under three themes. Cycling, community buildings, tree planting and other nature-based solutions. And 2, delegates to the Head of Shared Waste Service and Environment. The authority to make minor changes to the scheme documents in appendices A and B. Brackets, information for applicants and application form questions. Close brackets as necessary for clarity. Do members agree with a proposal? Agree. Anybody wishing to vote against? And anyone wishing to abstain? Thank you. So Cabinet there for agrees the proposal by affirmation. And my thanks to all those members who participate, members and officers who participated in the really excellent workshop that's helped to shape this. And moving on to item 13, which is the residence involvement strategy 2020 to 2023. And Councillor Hazel Smith is going to introduce the report and move the recommendation. Thank you, leader. Cabinet's asked to consider the draft resident involvement strategy here so that it can go out to wider consultation with tenants. This is a tenant document and this is the last time members will see it. The strategy has been developed through a tenant and member steering group and has also been considered by our current tenant participation group and the scrutiny and overview committee. And I'd like to thank particularly the tenant participation group and the steering group for all the work that they put into this strategy over a number of months. The strategy proposes a new framework for tenant engagement, including the implementation of a housing engagement board consisting of tenants and members. The board will act as a forum to consult on and scrutinise housing issues including performance and policy development. Officers have taken into account comments made at the scrutiny and overview committee and have made changes to the draft strategy, which are outlined in point 30 of this report. And they're working on a simplified leaflet version of the strategy setting out the key points as a user friendly guide for tenants. I'm moving that cabinet approves the draft strategy. This will then go out to wider consultation including through our lease holder, forums and sheltered housing forum. And we will use various forms of publicity including e-newsletters, website and our Facebook page. The final strategy will later be approved by the lead member for housing ahead of the elections for the housing engagement board members, which will be held in the spring of next year. Thank you. Thank you very much. I think this is a really excellent proposal here. It's an enormous improvement and simplification of the process, which will hopefully be very well received by our residents. So I think Councillor Hawkins is seconding this. Could you confirm that please? Yes, leader. I am seconding this. Thank you. Would you like to speak then? Just a quick one really. It's a really good document, easy to read, well laid out. Actually, I am excited to see what's been proposed, especially when you think what happened with Grenfalf, and the fact that it is important for us to make sure that our tenants' voices are heard clearly, and that we take on board what their views are, because at the end of the day it's their home. So yes, I utterly recommend this to the cabinet. Thank you. Thank you very much indeed. I think scrutiny and overview had a look at this. So, Councillor Brian Mills, would you like to come in at this stage? Thank you. Councillor Hazel Smith has mentioned that, in fact, on page 457 of the report, it mentions the recommendations that the Scrutiny Committee made of already being incorporated into the revised document. So thank you for that response. And I recommend it to the cabinet. Thank you very much. And I think Councillor Claire Daunton would like to speak. Yes, thank you, leader. I'm speaking as a member of the group, which helped to put this together working with tenants. And I'm delighted to see that it's almost there. And also particularly delighted to see that under Housing Engagement Board, you now see that as a body that will be scrutinising, as well as monitoring performance. And also delighted to see that there will be elections to this body. Thank you. Thank you very much indeed for your contribution. And thank you for your work in helping to put this together, along with officers who, again, have put considerable time and effort into this. I haven't got anybody else wishing to speak. So we'll just move to the recommendation in that case. And members, our recommendation is, it's recommended that cabinet approves the draft resident involvement strategy 2020-23 to go out to wider tenant consultation. The cabinet also delegates authority to the lead member for housing to approve the final strategy subject to any minor amendments arising from this consultation for many new guidance issued by the regulator for social housing or from guidance issued by government if stroke when the issues within the green paper become law. So do members agree this proposal? Agree. Does anybody wish to vote against the proposal? And does anyone wish to abstain? Okay, so cabinet therefore agrees the proposal by affirmation. And on to number 14, which is the new build housing strategy 2020-2025. And Councillor Hazel Smith again, could you introduce this please? Thank you, Peter. Again, I'd like to thank the many officers past and present who've contributed to the council's new build housing strategy. We have had a number of changes of staff and everybody has put their all into this. The financial resources for the new build programme come to full council twice a year in the autumn and the budget meeting. And we will see the progress against the targets as more new council houses become available to rent. We have two schemes due for completion and handover to tenants within the next couple of months. And so we can see that things are getting moving on the house building front and it's good to see them coming through. If there are any questions, I have officers here who can help to field them. But this had a good chewing over at Scrutiny. So I would commend it to you. Thank you very much indeed. And there's nothing better that we do than build council houses. So I think Councillor Tumi Hawkins, you wish to second this. Yes, leader. Thank you. I'm seconding this. And it's just to say obviously we know we have a housing need and we have a big target to meet. But it's good to see that we are actually making good progress. As we've seen in I think it's programme 3.2 where since 2018 we've had 29 new council homes started on site. And a further 81 approved in Nostudu to start. So that is really good progress and I'd like to see more of that come along. So yes, thank you, leader. Thank you very much indeed. So I don't know if I've got any. Let me just check if there's any speakers. No, I don't have any other speakers. So Councillor Mills, do you want to talk about Scrutiny please? So yes, we chewed it over. As is our one Scrutiny. This must be probably the least contentious of any of our policies. I think the whole council wants to see as much new council housing as possible. And we welcome this report in that regard. And so we made a couple of comments. And particularly I think over build quality insulation. You know, we had a conversation about solar panels, for example, which we for example we were upset that we didn't enforce solar paneling on previous. Projects. So with those with those comments we welcome the strategy document and recommend it to the cabinet. Thank you very much and Scrutiny's points are well well made. The more energy efficient our council housing is the cheaper it is to run. And that's also true of private housing. And it's certainly one of our missions to be making sure that all housing build in South Cambridgeshire frees up as much of people's income as possible from paying utility bills and so on in order that they can have some fun with our money rather than just spend it on the necessities of life. So I've got no more questions. So we'll move to recommendation and the recommendation is that cabinets asked to approve the new build out council housing strategy and recommend it to proceed to council for adoption. Do members agree with the proposal? Does anybody wish to vote against the proposal? And does anyone wish to abstain? Thank you. So cabinet therefore agrees the proposal by affirmation and my huge thanks and that of cabinet to the officers who have done this work and continue to ensure that we achieve our challenging targets for council house building in South Cambridgeshire. So on to item 16 review of barriers to council procurement for small and medium size enterprises. The task and finish group. So councillor John Williams is going to introduce this report. Sorry. Have you missed 15? Quarter four operational. Oh, I'm sorry. Thank you. I turned over my apologies. I turned over two pages. So thank you very much councillor Braden. So quarter four performance report. What I want to miss out. So I send 15 on our agenda is the quarter four performance report which councillor Neil Gough is going to introduce. Thank you. Thank you leader. So I think this report is fairly self evidence course it's quarter four. So the significance of that is it runs to the end of March. And I'm sure everyone's really interested in the next quarter as to what happened after the lockdown. So that that that data will come. Scrutiny raised the question of a report on the how the council is coping with the lockdown that report is under preparation. And I think we'll make very interesting reading in terms of the resilience of the council in terms of coping with the complication of lockdown. But I said this report is for the fourth quarter. And it's it's good to see sort of areas which have been in the past ones of concern continue to improve particularly the call centre. Obviously it's going to be really interesting to see how that copes and has coped in the covid period. But as scrutiny pointed out obviously the the bed and breakfast accommodation spend and continues to run a run rate which is in excess of the target which I know scrutiny pointed out and the the voids on the housing stock as well. So those are obviously areas which I'm sure councillor Smith is focused on. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. And do we have a seconder for this please? I'll second. Thank you very much indeed councillor Williams. Do you want to speak at this moment? No, no. Thank you. Thank you very much indeed. So so we can see from this report there's been considerable improvements which are down to the efforts of our officers. So so thank you very much to them for continuing to ensure that our performance is on a an upward trajectory despite all the challenges that have been being thrown at us in recent recent months due to covid primarily. So I haven't got any speakers at the moment. Anybody else from Cabinet? No, so I'm going to move over to scrutiny and overview and councillor Brian Mills. I think thank you councillor got forward mentioned the two things that we recommended. So we'll leave it at that. Thank you. Thank you very much. And I haven't got councillor Anna Bradman. You'd like to contribute. Thank you leader. I just wanted to ask if Mr Nickel could give an explanation for ES 418, which is on page 500. It's the percentage of household waste sent for reuse recycling and composting, which is cumulative, which has been dropping. And this is not intended as a criticism. It may simply be that the nature of our waste is changing. And I just or because we've achieved good percentages in the past, it's actually then hard to increase them any further if you see what I mean. So is there some sort of operational reason why that's dropping? Thank you. So the reason it drops during that time of the year is because a lot of the recycling rate is made up from organic fraction. So we don't collect garden waste or we reduce our garden waste collections during that period. So that will see a drop through the year. So we will have this our percentage goes up sort of back end of the summer and then slowly drops down through the year. So if you look on a year by year basis, we are with sort of plateauing. We have increased slightly by that half cent from one year to the next. So this is a seasonal organic composting issue that it looks like it drops through the year. Thank you. I thought it would be something of that. So thank you, Mr Nickel. Thank you very much indeed. I haven't got any more speakers. Anybody else want to make comment before I bring in? No, I think that's it. OK, fine. So I mean, it's quite itself explanatory and it's well presented. And I'm glad that we are focusing our attention on relatively few areas, which makes more sense. And again, thank you very much to officers for their considerable efforts to improve performance. So I think we're just being asked to note this report. So members, are you content to note the report? Yep. Yes. OK. That's lovely. So the report is duly noted. And now moving on to 16, not prematurely this time, which is the review of barriers to council procurement for small and medium sized enterprises, task and finished group. And that's going to be introduced by council John Williams. Thank you, leader. I think we all understand that bidding for work from a public body can be very daunting for an SME. We set up a task and finished group and that reported to Cabinet in March last year on ways to help with this. And this report is on the actions taken over the past 12 months since that report to Cabinet. I'd like to draw attention in particular because it's not just bidding that is an issue. If you look on page 507, it's also a particular importance to SMEs is to punctuality of the payment of their invoices. And you'll see that on page 507 that we have actually we have seen an improvement with payment in 30 days over last year. And we're now at over or around 99%. So I think that is an issue that particularly in the current circumstances is an issue for particularly SMEs with cash flow issues. That we also address that as well as helping them to actually bid for work. But I think it's a step in the right direction. A report shows that our officers with the workshops et cetera that they're doing are making a lot of effort to get our local businesses to pitch for work from the council. And I hope to see this improving going forward. Thank you very much indeed, Councillor Williams. This is something that I care passionately about. A very recently commissioned report that we're doing jointly with Cambridge City looking at the economic consequences of COVID has shown that South Cambridge's economy is disproportionately reliant on SMEs and home workers. So we absolutely in our endeavours to support the businesses that are part of our own economy need to make sure that they have every fair opportunity to undertake work on behalf of the council. And we need to be making it easy for them to compete with people who are possibly better resourced to do this, but no better able to deliver on what we're asking. So this is a very, very important piece of work. So I've got a couple of people wishing to speak, Councillor Brian Mills first. Thank you. Just as part of the original task and finish group, I'd like to thank the officers and members that are involved in this review. Sean Missing was very responsive at the time and subsequently with going out and investigating, for example, South Tyneside and Preston councils who have done work in this regard. So we've brought that into the mix. And I see a very good response to our desire to make it easier for SMEs, which you rightly described as the lifeblood of our economy to do business with the council. Thank you. Thank you very much. And I'm now going to invite Councillor Peter McDonald, who's our member champion for business to speak. Yes, thank you, leader. And I also echo Councillor Mills comments about the officer work and the work that he and the task and finish group did. That was great. Two observations, obviously in the situation we're in now where economic recovery is not just nice to have, but absolutely need to have to get out of the current situation. I think that the newly created business support team is going to be able to help on this somewhat as well. And so I'd welcome inputs from businesses and also from members in South Cams to engage with that team so that we can reinvigorate this process. Thank you. Thank you very much. So as well as, you know, we now have considerable expertise within South Cambridgeshire, but I know that we have considerable expertise amongst our membership with people from all sorts of walks of business life. So this is a truly collaborative bit of work and I'm very, very pleased with this indeed. So the requirement is just to note the paper. So I'm tasked with saying cabinet, are you content to note the actions undertaken over the past 12 months to reduce barriers to council procurement for small and medium sized SMEs outland in the report. An SME stands for small and medium sized enterprise. Are you content? Yes. That's lovely. OK. So as I said at the outset, this now takes us to the part of the meeting where we are going to move on to items that are sensitive. So we now come to the point in our agenda where we need to consider whether to exclude the press and public from the meeting. This is because the next items contain information which is commercially sensitive. Members of the public are advised that if cabinet agrees to exclude the press and public, the video stream will end and in which case I will thank you very much for tuning in and giving us your Monday mornings. I move that the following items of business contain exempt information falling within paragraph three set out on your agenda and the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information. Do I have a seconder for that? Yes. Thank you councillor Smith. So do you members agree with proposal? Yes. Does anyone wish to vote against? And does anyone wish to abstain? So cabinet therefore agrees the proposal by affirmation. So therefore I propose that the press and public be excluded from the meeting during the consideration of the following items of business in accordance with section 100A brackets for the Local Government Act 1972 on the grounds that if present there would be a disclosure to them of exempt information as defined in paragraph three of part one of schedule 12A of the act bracket as amended. Is that seconded? Seconded. Thank you very much councillor Hawkins. Members agree with the proposal? Agree. Does anyone wish to vote against the proposal? And does anyone wish to abstain? So cabinet therefore agrees the proposal by affirmation. So members of the public who are watching this means that the video stream will now end and we thank you very much for joining us to view today's cabinet meeting. If you've got any comments on how things could work better then please do email me. I'm always interested to hear from you. So I'm going to ask officers to confirm that the video stream has been ceased before we continue.