 amser o gyhoesdiad yr Unedig sydd arredu i'r cyfaf? yw tyfnod 12 fef comforting, atun yn 2 am. So, y c兴au i fynd wedi am trefonau cyfeirio neu yn ganddo? Rydym yn fawr. Rydym yn hynny, Arna Bradnam, ac rydw i, mae'r Cymysgol Liaethadeg Siwet. Ond yna'r cyfaf wedi'u gweld i'r arwain Cymru, ddigitwch? Tadwch. Fy oedd yn gweithio am ymddangos ac mae hynny'n gwaith o gweithio ar gyfer yr athlame i Gwysig Cynigodd Judith Ripeth i amser. Rwy'n gweithio ar gyfer yr athlame i gael. Felly, fel ydych chi. Rydych chi'n gweithio gwaith o gweithio ar gyfer yr athlame i gael. Rwy'n gweithio ar gyfer yr athlame i Gwysig. I'm Casagid Rhyford, and I represent Milton, and would reach Ward. Thank you. So, a few housekeeping announcements, members. Please make sure that your microphones are switched off unless you're invited to speak. For those participating remotely, when you're invited to address the meeting, please make sure your microphone and camera are switched on. When you finish addressing the meeting, please turn off your microphone and camera immediately. Please, with members who are attending remotely, indicate a wish to speak through a chat message in the team's meeting. Those present in the chamber should indicate their wish to speak by raising their hand. I'll ask the vice-chair to note the order of speakers, both virtually and in the room, and I will try to ensure that we take people attending remotely as a priority so that they know that they've not been forgotten. The church facility should not be used for any other purposes except when necessary to write down a symbol amendment. Complex amendments should have been shared with democratic services in advance of the meeting. When we move to a vote on any item, and there is not clear affirmation, I'll state that a recorded vote will be taken. Members in the chamber will then vote electronically selecting for against or abstain, and the result will be displayed. As has been the practice since we've resumed physical meetings, since microphones are on the tables, it makes it rather impractical to speak. I propose to stand to speak. I propose that standing order 21.2, standing to speak, be suspended for the duration of the meeting. Do I have a seconder? Thank you, Councillor Smith. Does anyone wish to vote against that motion or abstain? Thank you. Members, are you content to take this decision by affirmation? Agreed. Thank you very much. So, Councillor, that's therefore agreed by affirmation. Officers have confirmed that the meeting is courate and we can proceed. Just before we go on to the first standard item, I just want to be clear, Members, I'm liable to be very strict about time today because we've got a lot on the agenda. So, I may be expecting you to respect the timings. So, number one on the agenda. Apologies. Are there any apologies for absence, please? Yes, Chair. Apologies for absence have been received from councillors Grenville Chamberlain, Sarah Chung-Johnson, Claire Delthafield, Pippa Halings, Steve Hunt, Tony Mason, Nick Sample and Ian Sollum. Some members, as you know, are in attendance remotely and just to indicate those I'm aware of, they are councillors Peter Fane, Neil Gough, Deborah Roberts, Nigel Cathart and Nick Wright. And finally, Chair, I believe councillor Aiden Van Derwire will be attending the meeting a little later towards 4pm. Thank you very much. And Councillor Cathart, can you hear me? Councillor Cathart. I can hear you, yes. Okay. Would you be so kind as to turn your camera off while you're not speaking? Because otherwise we've got a lovely view of you for the whole meeting. No, no, no, it's quite, I can't believe about that. Lovely as it is to see you. It's off. Thank you. So, moving on to declarations of interest, do any members have interest to declare in relation to any item of business on the agenda? If an interest subsequently becomes apparent later in the meeting, please would you raise it at that point. So, councillor Heather Williams, thank you. Thank you, Chair. I sit on the Greater Cambridge Partnership Assembly. Any others? Councillor Gough online. Yes, I sit on the board of the Greater Cambridge Partnership with respect to items 18B and 18C. Thank you very much, Councillor Gough. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Milnes. Yes, if we're declaring interest, I'm a member of Greater Cambridge Assembly. Thank you. So, councillor Milnes, Greater Cambridge Assembly. Thank you. I can't see any other hands. Oh, councillor Wilson. Thank you, Chair. I'm also a member of the Greater Cambridge Partnership Joint Assembly. Thank you very much, councillor Wilson. Thank you. Okay, so I think that's... I sit on the scrutiny panel of the combined authority. Thank you. That's councillor Judith Griffith. Thank you very much. Okay, I think that's all the interest done, but obviously if something comes to mind later on in the meeting, do say. Thank you. So, we'll move on to item 3, register of interest. Can I please remind members that they need to keep their register of interests up to date and they should inform democratic services of any changes? Thank you, members. Okay, so item 4 is the minutes of the previous meetings on the 23rd of September and the 18th of October. I propose these minutes to be approved, but I have some amendments myself and I can see councillor Smith has and councillor Williams and lots of fans. I'm going to go first on this one. I have raised these already with democratic services members, but just to let you know. So, item page 1 under presentation, I wanted to clarify that at our meeting in September it was Gavin Chappell Bates of Centre 33 who gave a presentation, not Circle. Second item is on page 3, and it was under item HA, councillor Williams' report to cabinet. In the third line down, councillor Williams congratulated officers for coming top in terms of the collection of council tax and near the top in collection of business rates. And I ask for clarification of top of what, if that was possible. On page 13 under item 16A under councillor Sollum's presentation, third paragraph down from the top of the page was reporting what councillor Nigel Cathcart had said. And at the last sentence he, that is councillor Cathcart, had suggested that abstraction licences needed to be reviewed. That's abstraction licences, not abstraction licences. And the final one I have is page 15, the fourth paragraph from the top. Again it was councillor Nigel Cathcart and the second line from the bottom was referring to councillor Brian Mills agreeing with councillor Cathcart and adding that many concerns expressed about planning applications at a lower level. That's a level, not lever, were material considerations. Thank you. So other members, councillor Smith. Thank you. So this isn't a correction to the minutes, it's a point of additional information. I'm kind of looking at Rory, that's a thing. So it pertains to page 12, the top paragraph in page 12, which was a recording of a response that I gave to a question from Heather Williams about a proposed, well, kind of proposed development from a company called Fecum. It's written as Fecum here, which I think will alarm the residents of Fecum. So if I could just give some additional information and if that relates to an email. So this question was asked on the 23rd of September 2021. I refer back to an email I sent to councillor Williams on the 70th of December 2020, which said similar question about emails between this company and myself. It says having checked back on my emails, I had a request for a meeting with Fecum from their PR company creators on the 7th of the 7th of 2020. They then wrote again on the 13th of the 7th and on the 21st of the 7th. On offers of advice, I declined their invotations on the grounds that I could not discuss any sites that might be in the local plan called for sites. Early in September, I received a call from Cratus, who were their promotional company, to say a press release was coming out the next week about something I knew nothing about and that this might cause embarrassment if the councillor was not aware of it. Liz Watt spoke to Cratus on the 14th of the 9th, confirmed that the meeting was, I quote, not about any site in the call for sites. I therefore agreed to a 45 minute meeting with Stephen Kelly present. This meeting took place on the 25th of the 9th during this meeting, both Stephen Kelly and I told them if they had any plans they had to go through the proper process, which was a call for sites. A second short meeting involving myself and Stephen Kelly took place on the 7th of the 12th with Cratus in response to informing the council that they were going live with a press release the following day because we felt we needed to know what was going to be in it. I hope that satisfies. Thank you very much. We had a hands up from Councillor Heather Williams. Thank you. On page six, on the second line of the third paragraph, there's an extra that. On page seven. Sorry, just to clarify, Councillor Wesson, what's your paragraph? Was it page six? Page six, the second line of the third paragraph. That's that, yes. On page seven, at the end of the fifth paragraph, it says agreed by all councillors. That's not what I said. I said agreed by this administration. And actually, we can't say all councillors because councillor Howell actually voted against it. Page ten, and this goes on throughout and the point that the leaders made that they come its TH rather than F. It's not as if in the place in Northwch. And then just a point of additional information on page seven, the 90% figure was later found to be incorrect as it didn't include one of the vacant properties. Sorry, which was that? Page seven, did you say? Page seven. From the 90% figure where? On page seven. Where are we on page seven? On moment, chair. I can't see anything of a percentage. Okay, so we're in the middle of the paragraph. It later transpired that that admitted one of the properties which is currently vacant, so that's just a point of extra information. Okay, thank you very much. Councillor Daunton, thank you. Thank you. Page six, towards the top of the page, the paragraph beginning, Councillor Dr Clare Daunton. I think the centre should read, she explained that the original draft code of conduct had been examined by herself and former councillor Dr Douglas Delacy as chair and vice chair of civic affairs. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Councillor Clayton. Thank you. Yeah, it's actually a point of a minute that's not, that I cannot find, which was a comment that I made about the medium term financial strategy in that there was no mention of a cultural strategy development, which I... Do you remember where in the minutes it would have fitted? At what subject? I can't, I'm afraid. Well, what I recall is that councillor, the leader, Councillor Bridget Smith, was very supportive of the idea that a cultural strategy should be included in the budget and business planning. That's what's led to a whole range of meetings around it, because otherwise later on in the agenda, the labour proposal just seems to come out of nowhere. OK, we can try to find that space perhaps maybe by outside the meeting. I do remember you talking about the cultural capital. OK, so with those amendments, members, are you happy to approve minutes of 23 September 2021 as amended? And with those adjustments as a correct record by affirmation? Agreed? Thank you. So onto the minutes of 18 October, are members happy to approve minutes of the meeting of 18 October? I have no amendments. Does anybody else have any? No, can't see any. So members, are you happy to take those minutes as approved and a correct record by affirmation? Agreed. Oh, pause the moment. Sorry, councillor Ellington. Thank you. I was promised a written response to my question about the number of administrators on page 22 responsible for the accounts, and I haven't received that. But are the minutes correct, councillor Ellington, as far as you're concerned? The minute is correct, ac the action is not completed. OK, that's fine. So perhaps you can take that away and get quite an answer to me. Sorry, I thought you had indicated to speak, councillor Williams. No, OK, that's fine. Thank you. Right, OK then. So minutes approved then. So under announcements, I'd like to make the following announcement, and that is if members would like to donate to the chair's charity, centre 33, please do get the contact details and payment details from Glenda Hansen. Leader, do you wish to make any announcements? Not today, thank you. Thank you, and Chief Executive Officer, do you have any announcements? No, OK, thank you very much. So moving on. Item six, questions from the public then. We have received two public questions from James Littlewood and Ben Shelton. The questions have been circulated with the main agenda and, sorry, and in a supplement published on the 18th of February. I understand Mr Shelton, sorry, Mr Littlewood has confirmed he will attend remotely, and I'm not quite sure whether Mr Shelton is also going to attend remotely or in the room. He's at the back of the room. OK, lovely, thank you. So first, firstly, Mr Littlewood, would you like to put your camera on if you're able to do so? And I'm going to invite you to ask your question, but in view of the length of your question and that it has been published in the agenda, I was wondering whether it was possible for you to summarise? Thank you, chair. Good afternoon, everyone. I'll do my best to do that. Firstly, just say although I'm chief executive of Cambridge Pass President and Future, I'm making this request on behalf of a group called Betterways and Busways, which is an umbrella group for parish councils, NGOs and others who believe there's a better viable alternative to the GCP scheme being proposed for the southeast of Cambridge. So in summary, in July, the GCP Executive Board gave approval for the Cambridge Southeast Busway scheme to be submitted to the Department for Transport. It hasn't yet been submitted and since then there have been some significant changes in relation to this scheme. Firstly, as you might be aware that the preferred option for the next local planners to include an extension of the Cambridge Biomedical Campus next to the A1307. Now, this new extension wouldn't be served by the GCP's proposed busway, but it could be served by a route which was considered by the GCP in 2018, but discounted. Secondly, we reviewed the decision that was made by the GCP in 2018 to discount a route in the A1307 corridor in favour of a route through Open Countryside, and it's clear that one of the major deciding factors was that the A1307 corridor options could not form part of the Cambridgeshire Autonomous Metro known as the CAM. As you are very well aware, following the mayoral election, the CAM has now been dropped and so there's no longer a policy requirement for fully segregated routes. Given that that was a major factor in reaching this decision, we feel that there's a need to review that decision in light of that change. It's also wanted to note that the local transport plan is no longer being refreshed and will in fact be a more significant review which won't be completed until the autumn. Thirdly, as you might also be aware, a planning inspector has recently granted permission for a new development on the edge of Stapleford, and this includes the creation of a new country park and the busway would run through or adjacent to that country park. So the impact of the busway will now have to be assessed in terms of its impact on that park rather than on the private agricultural land. In other words, the negative impact of the busway has increased. Fourthly, plans for Cambridgeshire Station have progressed and permission for that will be granted while ahead of the busway. That means a network rail scheme will be on site before the busway. They intend to use some of the same works compounds as the GCP scheme, which we believe will create a risk of further delay for the GCP scheme. And finally, there's a growing awareness of the carbon emissions that are created by large infrastructure projects such as the busway. And the alternative options require less infrastructure and therefore will have better carbon budget. And as a council, you'll be aware that you've pledged to reduce emissions as fast as possible. So we've carried out some preliminary work to consider an alternative busway within the A1307 corridor. This would involve adding sections of bus lane to the road to avoid congestion. There would still be a large park and ride at Baberham. But the new busway that we're proposing would effectively cut across countryside where the extension of the biomedical campus would be. So it would serve the new expansion of biomedical campus and also bypass traffic in that location. So this alternative would provide a similar journey times and reliability as the proposed off-road busway put forward by the GCP. But it could be delivered at significantly less cost more quickly and with less damage to the countryside. And due to the expansion plans of the biomedical campus, it would also deliver higher economic and transport benefits. So we're requesting that the council uses its position on the GCP Executive Board to ask the GCP to formally revisit the decisions that it made in 2018 and 2021 and also ask the GCP to carry out a full assessment of an optimal scheme in the A1307 corridor as a viable alternative. Thank you, Chair. Thank you very much, Mr Littlewood. And I understand Councillor Goff, who's attending remotely, will respond to your question. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. And thank you for your question, Mr Littlewood. So major infrastructure projects like CSET are complex. They affect many people over a wide geographic area. And for that reason, there is a process of evaluation that has been prescribed by the Department of Transport. And that process cannot be circumvented. But one of the consequences of that is that the process takes time. And during that period, there will inevitably be change in circumstances and proposals made that may or may not come to pass. The CSET scheme reflects the ambitions of the transport strategy for Cambridge and South Cambridge prepared in parallel with the extant local plan. Delivery of such infrastructure is therefore essential to support planned new homes and jobs. As required by the Department of Transport's scheme guidance, the GCP Board considered a number of factors when agreeing with the preferred strategy for progressing CSET. This included the results of public consultation, the ability to serve local settlements such as Great Shelford, Stapleford and Sauston, and the wider economic benefits of the scheme reflecting the mandate of the city deal. All things will be considered and incorporated as the project proceeds and refinements made. But what is not possible is that whenever there was a change or the prospect of change, we all go back and restart the process. That approach would be a recipe for an action in addressing the needs of improved infrastructure in this corridor, which I firmly believe is common ground between us. Officers from the GCP will continue to keep under review changes in circumstances to determine whether the original basis under which they recommend to the Board with a CSET scheme needs to change. Their advice to date is notwithstanding the matters you have identified. The assessment process upon which the Board made its decisions is still sound. The Board will continue to seek their advice on the provenance of that solution offered, and as a Board member, I am satisfied with their advice and guidance to date. The GCP proposed Transport and Works Act or application will provide for a full public inquiry into the CSET proposal presided over by an independent inspector. The inspector will hear both from the applicant, which is the GCP, and objectives to the scheme, ensuring effective public scrutiny of the screen. All of these issues will be considered as part of that process. It is therefore in everyone's interest that a full public inquiry is undertaken, allowing groups such as Betterways and Busways and others the opportunities put forward their views, including any revised proposals. Thereby providing reassurance to the communities of Gated Cambridge of an open and transparent decision making process. Thank you. Thank you very much, Councillor Gough. Mr Littlewood, do you have a supplementary question? This is one minute. Yes, Councillor Gough mentioned that the DFT guidance actually does require back checking in a process. So when there is a significant change to a project, there is a requirement for the decision to be revisited. He seems to be indicating that that has taken place, but I'm not aware that the officer's advice or any information is in the public domain with that respect. Will he offer to promise that that advice is made available so that we can be sure that back checking has taken place? Councillor Gough? Thank you, Mr Littlewood. Yes, I can assure you that the process, as you correctly say, will be followed. And to the extent that we can make any of that information available, we will do so on an ongoing basis. Thank you very much, Councillor Gough. Thank you very much for your question, Mr Littlewood. Sorry, I do apologise. Thank you. Moving on, then, to Mr Ben Shelton. Mr Shelton, would you like to ask your question? Thank you, Chair. The technology has improved somewhat over the recent years. My question is regarding water in Shelford and Stableford, and I think members will have a copy of the question that I submitted, which is that on the 8th of February this year, residents in Stableford and Shelford found out through the media that the water supply to households may have been dangerous, which naturally caused some panic and concern. So, my question is to the administration, when did you know that there was a potential problem with the water supply affecting those areas? Thank you, Mr Shelton. Councillor Brian Mills is going to respond. Thank you, and thank you for the question. So, South Cambridgeshire District Council first became aware of the claims around PFAS and the specific PFOS when contacted by a freelance journalist on Wednesday, the 2nd of February. We immediately sought to gain clarity on this claim from Cambridge Water, who were the responsible body, are also seeking guidance from Drinking Water Inspectorate and the UK Health Security Agency and the Environment Agency in order to assess the information in this emerging area. Replyses, of course, were not instant, and there is little official guidance on this topic available online. So, our aim was to gather facts to allow a proportions and helpful response rather than simply responding with an immediate public statement which may not have provided clarity or reassurance for residents. Via email on Thursday, the 3rd, we received advice from Cambridge Water that the affected borehole had been taken out of service in June last year and that there was no continuing risk to customers. Thank you, Councillor Mills. Mr Shelton, we have seen a text of a supplementary question. Would you like to put your supplementary? Thank you, Chair, yes, and I appreciate Councillor Mills' response on that. The question is for Cambridge Water, while they're saying it is safe now, I believe residents are asking, was it safe prior to June 2021? But my supplementary is regarding any meetings and dialogue that the authority have had with Cambridge Water and what this authority is doing to communicate that with residents of Shefford and Stableford. Mr Shelton, Councillor Mills, would you like to respond to the supplementary? Yes, so, as we indicated, we had several lines of communication open on this issue, including with Cambridge Water and as soon as we were made aware on the 2nd of February, numerous emails, meetings and conversations have arisen between Cambridge Water and ourselves, Cambridge Water being the responsible authority for drinking water through the tap. The first meeting that we had was on the 4th of February and the subsequent meetings held on the 10th of February. Local district councillors and myself attended a specially convened public meeting of Great Shefford Parish Council on the 9th of February, at which Cambridge Water attended in order to relay residents concerns about the water supply they provide. We can also confirm that other multi-agency meetings with the UK Health Security Agency and the County Public Health Department have also taken place. While still working to gather information about the claims, the council began working to support residents whose water is provided by private water supply, such as Ballholt and Wells in the area around Duxford. While water authorities are responsible for mains water supply, so with Cambridge Water in this case, the council has responsibility for monitoring this small number of private water supplies. Environmental health officers visited homes with these private water supplies in the area around Duxford on Wednesday the 9th, Thursday the 10th and Monday the 14th of February to both discuss the situation with effective residents in person and conduct sampling of water supplies. When the story was published on Tuesday the 8th, the lead member myself was actively involved in dealing with the concerns expressed and forwarded in Cambridge Water's response to residents in the area. On the afternoon of Friday the 18th of February, last Friday we received the first of 16 of 20. You need to wind up please. Yep, not that long to go. 16 out of 20 sampling results which have been confirmed verbally the four remaining ones just yesterday so that we can assure local residents that their water supplies are safe for consumption. Thank you councillor Milne's. Right, thank you very much indeed members and I'm going to go to, I believe councillor Batchelor would like to make a declaration of interest. Thank you chair, I should have done this earlier in the meeting but I need to declare that I'm an unpaid member of the council's two investment partnership boards which are mentioned at various points throughout the agenda namely under item eight. Thank you very much councillor Batchelor. Moving on in the agenda to item seven, petitions. Sorry, I meant to say to Mr Shelton before he left. Thank you for attending. There are no petitions that have been received for consideration at this meeting so we'll move on to the following recommendations. The first of which is item 8a, the pay policy statement for 2022 which is a recommendation of the Employment and Staffing Committee on the 14th of January 22 and it is on pages 25 to 38 of our agenda. May I call upon councillor John Williams, the lead cabinet member for finance to move the recommendation of the Employment and Staffing Committee as stated in the papers. Councillor Williams. We can't hear you Councillor Williams, you need to put your microphone on. Thank you. Thank you chair and good afternoon members. My first report to you I hope will not be contentious. I'm pleased to present the revised pay policy statement and recommend it for approval. As the report describes our current pay gap ratio between the highest and lowest pay points and that between the salary of the chief executive and the lowest paid employee continues to be under 1 to 8 which compares very favourably with other organisations. The gender balance of the highest grades continues to be in favour of female staff and overall the mean gender pay gap between the mean hourly rate of male full pay equivalent employees and that of female full pay equivalent employees is 9.54% in favour of females and the mean median rate is minus 19.48% in favour of females. This applies across the board with the exception of the shared waste service where the council's workforce is mainly male although we are encouraging women to join our waste service. We do of course have a policy of a minimum 10 pound wage for council employees which is reflected in this. Finally I feel I ought to bring your attention to our contribution to the local government pension scheme which as you can see is currently 17%. That is the council contributes 17% of pensionable pay to the pension of a member of staff within the pension scheme. Also we will be seeing our national insurance contribution increasing April in line with government policy. This means that when we employ someone nearly a third of the cost of that employment will be going to either the pension scheme or the government in the national insurance contribution and that is a real disincentive for us to employ people. Thank you. Thank you Councillor Williams. Do you have a seconder for that recommendation? I believe Councillor Henry Batchelor. Yes please chair I'll speak at the end if needed. Thank you. So you're reserving your rights. Okay so we're open for debate then members. Councillor Ellington and Councillor Heather Williams first. Thank you chair. I sat on staff employment committee as well and we did welcome the report for the pay gaps. We did also say that going forward we should look at things on the basis of perhaps taking out bottom and top so that some sort of obviously we have female chief exec for example so that we are making sure we get a view across the board. So going forward hopefully that will be taken on board what was mentioned at committee. But yes very welcome report chair. Thank you very much Councillor Ellington. Thank you chair. I've been here nearly 16 years and perhaps I haven't read the papers before as well as I have this today but I just wanted to be sure I wasn't reading something that was inaccurate. I note on page 34 the returning officer gets £372.72 b for each ward which seems an enormous amount if you count those 45 wards in our council and therefore there is potential for a very substantial I mean I added it up to £45,000 and so gosh does that really happen every year and I just wanted clarity really. Thank you Councillor Ellington. Councillor Williams. Thank you chair. Well first of all it happens when we have elections so it happens when we have a district council election which is a before year when there's a general election and therefore it's not every year. Secondly I understand that this is set for us so we don't really particularly want to respond here but that's my understanding that this rate is set for us. Thank you Councillor Williams. I think this is what we'd like to speak. I understand that it's a rate that's agreed across Cambridgeshire and Peterborough and that it's been in place for some time. I can tell you now it's certainly not £45,000 that the returning officer has paid for a district council election but I haven't done one in my time here and I don't have the number off the top of my head. Thank you. Right, members so Councillor Bachelor would you like to I can't see any other hands up so Councillor Bachelor would you like to say? Thank you not much more to say chair it seems to be general agreement on this albeit just to say I'm happy as chair of the employment committee to take on board any comments around the way we do look at this in the future in coming years. So happy to do that and happy to put this to council chair. Thank you. Thank you very much. So members can I check that you are happy to take this by affirmation? Thank you. Is there anybody wishing to vote against or to abstain? Let's see, I can't see anybody on line. Thank you. So in that case members of the council therefore agrees this motion by affirmation. Thank you very much. I had some indication that another member might wish to declare an interest. Does anybody wish to declare any further interests? Sorry chair if I just might come at this stage obviously Councillor Fian is not in the meeting present physically but it might be that he would like to declare an interest as a director of South Cams Limited training as Urban Street but it's a matter for himself. Councillor Fane did you wish to declare such an interest? Chair, obviously if advised by monitoring officer certainly declared interest as director of both Shire Homes and Urban Street housing to the extent that is relevant to this particular agenda. It is on my list of declared interests. Thank you very much Councillor Fane. Okay moving on to item 8b. This is the council's business plan for 2020 to 2025 which went to Cabinet on the 7th of February 2022 and is in our agenda at pages 39 to 62. May I call on the leader to propose the recommendation of Cabinet? Thank you very much. Yes it's a very comprehensive document. I hope you've already very helpfully summarises all the achievements of this council over the past four years and also sets out very clearly ambitious plans to build on the work that has been going on in the last four years as we move forward for future years. So I don't think I need to go through the detail of it because I think it's extremely clearly set out there but happy to answer any questions. Thank you and do you have a seconder? I believe that's Councillor Mills. Do you wish to speak now or to reserve your right? I'll speak at the end if necessary thank you. So we're open for debate. I believe Councillor Neil Goff would like to speak. Thank you chair. So this business plan covers the five year period to 2025 and maintains the focus on our four key priorities of helping businesses to grow, building homes that are affordable to live in, being green to our core and putting customers at the centre of everything we do. As a result of the pandemic we recognise the need to add additional focus on supporting businesses in our area and increasing the resilience of our communities. We recognise this through the creation of two new cabinet positions and the enhanced focus on these areas continues in this plan. In some ways the most important element of this plan are the achievements at the bottom of each section. The fact that so much has been achieved particularly over the past two years is testament to the flexibility skill and determination of our offices. I thank them for that. On all of this has been achieved above and beyond the day-to-day services that we've continued to deliver efficiently and effectively. The delivery has been impressive from the practical support given to businesses in the pandemic to the delivery of new council homes at a rate of roughly one a week. In the interest of time I will not detail them one by one but many represent significant achievements in the way we are delivering for our customers. The next phase of the plan is further progress on these objectives, further support for local businesses, further support to communities through the successful liaison group meetings for example, creating a work programme for insulation measures on our council house stock, progressing the community facilities at North Stowe, progressing our zero carbon strategy with another round of zero carbon grunts and implementing our doubling nature strategy, further progress in improving the accessibility and convenience of our services to residents and businesses. All very exciting initiatives all underpinned by a sound financial strategy and budget without which we would not be able to deliver and execute such an ambitious plan. I fully support this plan and recommend it to the councillor. Thank you. Thank you very much councillor Goff. Does anybody else wish to speak? Thank you. I would just like to observe that on page 57 there's a name of doc missing in the document which I'm sure will be filled in at a later point. It's in the bullets at the bottom of the page. Thank you councillor Heather Williams to go ahead. Thank you chair and I did pull out about page 57 so if perhaps before the vote's taken someone could let us know what that document refers to, that would be good. So I'm going to start by saying that this may sound holistic but I think a lot of the time what brings us all here is much more, we're much more on agreement than not but there won't inevitably be times of disagreement. So there is things in here that I welcome and as a group we've always tried to support things that benefit the environment and help move things forward as we try to achieve zero carbon. However there are things in here that I'm not content with particularly around the financial implications of the investment strategy and it does seem to be very reliant on that in the business plan. Page 48 at A5 and page 59, two different elements reliant on the same thing to deliver that makes it potentially unsustainable in my view so I won't be supporting it on those bases but there is something more fundamental that I do struggle with and I think I raised this in the first budget meeting that I attended when I said it was originally client now it's customers chair we do not have customers, we serve residents and I say that because if you're a customer of a shop or you know we've all brand loyal you have a right and an ability to move and change your commercial preference that's what customers have they have the right to spend the money where and how they wish but our residents do not they cannot go to a different council and ask them to collect their bins they can't ask a different council to you know submit their planning application and actually physically moving so I would stress again the emphasis should be on serving residents and not the commercialisation of customers thank you chair Thank you before Councillor Heather Williams would you like to just clarify where it was you said that there were two things relying on one piece of information just so that members can understand Page 48 chair A5 continue to deliver on our investment strategy and Page 59 generating come-through delivery did you say 48 or 58? 48 and 59 48 and 59 do we know what it is? you've got it okay good fine as long as somebody's made a note that's fine thank you very much anybody else wish to speak Councillor Clayton thank you chair as is my want I just wanted to flag up a couple of things which seem to have been kind of lost over the four years that I've been talking about with myself just the controlling value and the first one is that the I want to applaud the encompass training that's happened and the training around gypsy rumour and traveller cultures and so I want to start with that I'm really pleased to see that work going on but it doesn't seem to be proven into this document and that's where I'm kind of slightly concerned that particularly around the Visit South Cambridge brand there was talk at the earlier stage of that which never came to anything that we were going to pick up on the encompass training and the safer spaces kite mark for local businesses and encourage local businesses to adopt those marks so that LGBTQ members of customers I think you want to call them customers also feel that that very direct and public message is being sent I think that needs to be picked up again I can't as the history of Canbourne High Street I can't fail but just flag up I'm wondering where that where that fits in terms of encouraging local shops in the high street developments and also on page 9 again focusing on health and wellbeing of our communities that feeds through into a cultural strategy which I'm guessing is maybe not going to be considered today as a budget proposal and maybe won't have a budget line identified for it but that's a really important thing that needs to be picked up in these ambitions that you're expressing here and also just wondering where the benefits maximisation officer whether that is picked up on page 52 within the support which I also welcome and particularly on the back of the appointment of that post the support that's been given to people in receipt of benefits and for vulnerable tenants and I'm just a little confused whether that is the benefits maximisation income officer role or whether it's some other role so I think that's worth flagging up I can't see it here so I just wanted to clarify that and just finally on the green to our core section I mean Brian who I've enjoyed sitting next to well apart from pandemic most of the four years that I've been a councillor I've asked you and Pippa about where does the plastic waste go that is collected and you've done your best to answer that question I know but I'm still not clear on how much of that plastic waste that is collected in South Cambridge is recycled in the UK and not shipped I remind you to address your question to the chair I'm sorry thank you very much had you finished thank you so yes would you like to respond or you're seconding so I'm just wondering would you like to respond to that is everybody else finished I don't think I need to point out the fallacies we can't hear you very well do you want to bring your microphone a little closer I'll just lean forward a little bit is that better slightly not great it's not very easy to hear you okay thank you good I was just expressing the reluctance to point out logical fallacies from the opposition's statement because our customers or our residents do have a choice and they'll be able to exercise that choice on May 5 but otherwise I'd like to give my support to this motion bring the personal explanation chair thank you very much Councillor Mills point of explanation would you like so yes I feel the lead member for environmental services may have misunderstood me I'm saying that our residents unless they move to a different district will have the council regardless of what administration is in place it is this council and therefore we serve as a council the residents regardless of who is in opposition or who is in administration thank you Councillor Williams thank you so I understand that some of you may not wish to support this so I propose to take a vote on this members we would you like to proceed to a vote thank you so do we have the wherewithal to go to a vote folks so members for those of you who are quick off the mark you've already understood what to do so first of all press the blue button to indicate that you're here if you're in support of the motion press green and if you oppose the motion press red so press the blue button first so everybody okay and understanding what they're doing so everybody voted Councillor Bygott because he's having problems are you okay yeah sorry right so that vote is carried on the basis of sorry can we just check that everybody has in the room voted yes good okay and the results are 19 in favour and 9 against one abstention okay so that is carried thank you Councillor Bygott if you want to escape that's fine are you coming back Councillor Bygott thank you right thank you item 8c then and Councillor Bygott will not be able to vote on this if he doesn't get back pretty shortly localised council tax support members this is from 2022 to 2023 recommended to cabinet on the 7th of February or it's a recommendation from cabinet on the 7th of February and it's on pages 63 to 66 in our agendas so Councillor John Williams would you like to present the recommendation thank you chair I hope members this is another non contentious report from me for the introduction of universal credit in which we apply localised council tax support by using income bans this gave claimants some stability should their circumstances be constantly changing and avoided additional cost to the administration for the scheme and with further automation of the process we anticipate further savings in the future it is our intention to review the scheme early in the new financial year to ensure it takes account of the emerging financial implications of COVID-19 on our residents the scheme has proved to be very successful and I recommend to you that you approve the continuation of the scheme meanwhile but uprated by 3.1% to ensure that those residents in receipt of benefits and limited means will not be worse off due to inflation thank you thank you Councillor Williams do you have a seconder Councillor John bachelor thank you do you wish to speak now or reserve your way thank you very much okay so would anybody wish to speak Councillor Heather Williams thank you chair I won't re-run everything that I said at cabinet but I did say that this particular document has a close place in my heart and I think it was meant for continuity and to give certainty so I'm pleased that there isn't any proposed changes will support it so and also to just prove to all members that Councillor John Williams myself we can agree on occasion where they may be good I'm glad to hear it thank you so no further request to speak so are members happy to vote for this by affirmation agree just one moment sorry I do apologise Councillor bachelor I do apologise no I'm going to quit whilst we're at him did you want to speak no well I'm very happy with that let's do it great okay thank you very much indeed so I apologise I'm going to contain your you speaking so are members happy to take that by affirmation then thank you okay and anyone wishing to object or abstain and I know that Councillor Beigol wasn't in the room for that vote but has now returned this is purely for the purposes of the minutes not to show you up Councillor Beigol okay item 8d then so that's taken by affirmation thank you very much members moving on to item 8d the capital program for 2022-23 to 2026-27 which is a recommendation of cabinet on the 7th of February and is on pages 67-78 of our agenda may I call upon Councillor John Williams to propose the motion thank you chair my next report brings you a revised capital program for the next five years of financial year 2026-27 for you to approve this revision takes account of the changes made to the public works loan board rules which now precludes us from investing purely for the financial gain you'll see that we must adhere to a number of prudential indicators to ensure the program is affordable and with regard to this I'm proposing that we only agree to a level of capital investment that is affordable in the long term which is revised which this revised program does the revised schemes including notes that have required re-profiling are listed in paragraph 11 of the report the total external borrowing required for this five-year program including our current borrowing remains within our borrowing limits as described in our capital strategy as you can see for the coming financial year we intend to spend nearly 50 million pounds on capital projects these include over six million in total on solar energy, electricity fire water beach depot, more electric refuge, collection vehicles and mechanical road sweepers 100,000 pounds on land drainage 145,000 pounds on LED street lights and 110,000 on additional electric vehicle charging points for north Stowe there is over 8 million pounds for the civic hub sports pavilion and community centre with a further 10 million earmark for 2023-24 nearly a million pounds for home improvement grants and loans every year for the five years so please approve this green and community based capital program, thank you Thank you councillor Williams Do you have a seconder? Yes chair I'd like to second that Thank you councillor Peter McDonald Would you like to speak now or reserve your right? Reserve my right Thank you very much Members this is a for debate councillor Heather Williams Thank you chair Sorry So on page 69 paragraph 14 it says the level of borrowing is a factor that needs to be considered by the council as increasing borrowing will need to increase revenue costs associated with the financing of borrowing and as such would fall on council tax On page 71 we can see the amount of borrowing intended on the chart on paragraph 27 but when we look at page 75 we can see the investment strategy requirement and on page 78 we can see the external borrowing requirements which mirrors like for like I would stress that this external borrowing is needed to fulfil the commercialisation projects and the investment strategy At this current time that level of borrowing A I believe is at a rate that is unsustainable long term but B in the current climate and the uncertainty that many are facing and markets are facing I really do not think that that is what this council should be doing at this time We are not or I am not opposed to maximising our assets and things like Irmond Street has always had our full support and in fact was set up by us and has returned very well for this council so I'm not saying that you know these projects and investments don't work or shouldn't be done but I do think we ought to be extremely careful that when we're getting to debt to do them and that is my main reason for not supporting this Thank you Councillor Williams Councillor Ruth Batson Thank you chair My question is in relation to page 77 Members laptops £50,000 I was just wondering what How has that been offered I think a few of us weren't aware that it was an option and how has that been communicated or Councillor Williams would you like to respond It's page 77 and it's about six lines down it's members laptops under head of transformation HR and corporate services Okay so Councillor Williams Liz Watts has said she would respond the chief executive officer If you Thank you and through you chair As you know we do have a district election coming up and we're proposing to offer laptops to all members following May We're actually going to do a survey of members very shortly in the next week or so to try and assess what sorts of laptops are useful and how to use them and so on so that when the election happens we've got everything ready to go Thank you Liz Watts Councillor Williams Councillor Heather Williams Thank you chair, just on that response can I clarify because it's in the revised budget for this year May obviously will be in the 2023 year so is it in the wrong column or are we proposing to purchase them ahead of the election just to clarify please We're proposing to purchase them this year to have them ready for May Thank you Councillor Williams Thank you chair Can I explain that the reason we are giving laptops to members is so that they can participate in council anywhere at the moment using our own laptops we can't fully participate in council anywhere we need laptops that have got the right software on so that we can do that so that is why we've got this amount of money in the budget to spend this year in readiness for the start of the new financial year after the elections in May Thank you very much and as the user of a South Council Street Council laptop in dire need of update I'm very pleased to see this money in the budget Thank you chair Further to that same question what would happen if a lot of councillors decided not to have the new laptops after they had already been bought is there a risk that we would have things in stock that we wouldn't be able to use Thank you Would Just one moment Is what's right to respond? For you chair So 3 CITT provides an IT service to over a thousand colleagues across three councils so we have a constant turn of stock going through so it would be absolutely no problem I mean that stock could easily be reallocated to offices Thank you Councillor Clayton Thank you Kevin Thank you chair, I just wanted to pick up on the ability to fully engage with council business through our laptop as we'll see later people can't second proposals budget proposals and the like or vote So I'd question whether that's actually going to solve that problem unless there's a policy change within council about how people can engage remotely Ms Watts would you like to respond? If you'd like me to chair just to clarify So the reason people can't vote is because national legislation but I think what council Williams was referring to was that that the laptops that officers are using are on a platform where we have a huge number of apps that make it a lot more easy for us to communicate with each other through means other than by email and I think that's the service that we're trying to offer to councillors so that as we continue running out of the hybrid working you don't feel as though you need to be face to face with somebody in the office you're able to be face to face as you would be in a teams meeting but through a much easier platform Thank you Ms Watts and Councillor Bill Handley Thank you Just like to say that I'm really pleased to see that the residents of Norstow will be to see the money appearing now in the budget for the Norstow Civic Hub Sportsverdian and so on It's very welcome seeing the money in the budget makes it feel a bit real Thank you very much Councillor Handley with Councillor Smith Yes Thank you just start picking up on the previous comment It is a frustration to us that we can't access pink papers you know by using our own laptops and there's no choice but to print them out and post them to us or hand deliver them to us and we are trying very very hard to be paperless but you know it will help us help us move to that and yes it is a frustration which I hope this will do some way to resolving Thank you very much members coming back to the second Councillor Peter McDonald Councillor Handley he's stolen my funder because I was going to say how welcome it was to see the programme for Norstow so thank you to him Okay so then members I don't hear anybody in disagreement with this so can I ask Oh you wanted a vote sorry in which case we'll go to a vote Chairman sorry It's a Roberts sorry to speak before we go to a vote Thank you Chairman yes I'll then put my hand up or in the chatroom or whatever I would just say that I share the anxieties of Heather Williams, Councillor Heather Williams at a time of such uncertainty not only locally but nationally and in the world I really think that we need to be very careful about borrowing money and how much we borrow and I'm a little conscious that we are borrowing a lot of money and as for the laptop situation well this is a second hand one which has been thank you very much given to me during the time of the pandemic and I found it very useful but I have to say I really think that before any move was taken you actually ought to have spoken I can't recall anybody coming to me and saying do you need a brand new one we do seem to like to spend other people's money we do forget it's not our money it's our taxpayers money and you know should we really be spending £50,000 at this particular moment in time I think we've got a lot better things to be spending it on than ourselves and it disappoints me it's just like the building itself and all the tarting up which I personally think was greatly unnecessary at most of it and when you look at all the done up lose and the done up cafe areas and the done up members you know what impression does that give to the public it doesn't make us a better council it's just making ourselves more comfortable I don't think it's acceptable thank you chairman council Roberts okay since the second hour has already spoken I'm going to take us to a vote then members so would I'll just wait for the vote to be put on our microphones so press the blue button to register that you're here and press the green button if you agree the red button if you disagree with the recommendation has there are two people who appear not to have voted one is anybody having a struggle is councillor Buttercherry having a problem with voting okay we're all there so that's 20 in favour nine opposing that vote is carried sorry the recommendation is carried okay so moving on to I right just um thank you right e is the treasury management strategy which came from as a recommendation of the cabinet on the 7th of February it's on pages 79 to 118 of our agenda may I call on councillor John Williams lead cabinet member for finance to move the recommendation of cabinet please thank you chair every year as you know we review and update our treasury management strategy and I ask that you approve the revised document attached to Appendix A the changes made are in red apart from changes that bring figures up to date I should draw your attention to the decision to retain a minimum yield expectation at 2% this is being kept under review because of the current inflation trends and given the target of the portfolio as a whole to is to achieve a return above the bank of England consumer price index so obviously we are keeping this under review but otherwise at the moment we are retaining our minimum yield at 2% on our investments thank you thank you councillor Milnes do you have a seconder I understand councillor Brian Milnes might be seconding this so I am good so will you reserve your right to speak I reserved your right thank you we are open to the debate councillor Bygot and councillor Waters councillor Bygot first thank you John I have a question it is on page 92 the third paragraph down beginning with the word strategy councillor John Milnes has mentioned inflation as he was talking so it says here to achieve the objective above the council has set a target based on CPI inflation and then at the end inflation is expected to peak at 6% in April 2022 and then subside so my question is how quickly is he expecting it to subside and what would the impact be if it doesn't subside thank you thank you councillor Bygot councillor Williams first of all you should ask the Government that because we don't know your Government's financial strategy and secondly councillor John Milnes would you pause one moment please quite a bit of information from councillor actually from councillor Bygot it should be really well as you said quite rightly in last meeting chair it is our Government and things should go through you sorry it's not our Government it is our Government councillor Williams well it's not my Government so it's not our Government it's a Conservative Government and I will go back to the point Members could you just use the Conservative Government sets the financial strategy for this country so therefore you should be asking them if inflation will be coming down if it doesn't come down clearly as I said we have it under review and we will take appropriate action but at the moment we are waiting to see if the expectation that inflation will come down will happen thank you councillor Bunty Waters could you just come a little bit closer to your microphone please page 97 the top paragraph yield on the last line it is saying how often I am asking how often are you defining the word regular so regular review you are saying it needs to get under regular review thank you councillor Williams John Williams sorry every day next question councillor Williams a daily review that will be quite a challenge for officers so I will look forward to my next question asking what that day's review is on page 97 we have referenced this about showing the yield to decrease the 2% on investment I do have a concern that that means that other investments may be subsidising less performing ones and that is how we are taking it but also to achieve the outcomes that you need to achieve the amount of money that the council will need for this to generate means that we will have to be investing more and the more we invest the more risk we get so I have that concern on page 107 unfinanced capital expenditure I think we all know what that really is which is the need to borrow and on annex C we can see the external borrowing and we can see that it's gone up from 2021 to 2025 it's planned to go up over 100 million I've said before it is the rate of the increased share of borrowing that I really do worry is unsustainable for this council to withhold I'd also point out that on page 194 we have the council tax yield referenced at just shy of 10,500 this external borrowing will be 34 times 34 times that figure now I would never be able to get a mortgage for 34 times my regular salary and that does concern me chair and I do think you know whatever party political things you haven't have in mind of governments and everything else we are here to judge it for residents and I very much am concerned about this borrowing and the rate of increase because it's just not sustainable long term thank you chair thank you I can't see any other speakers so councilor Brian Milne's I'd just like to commend this professional management strategy to the council they invite us to vote on it thank you very much so members I'm hearing that we might need a vote let's take it to the vote so those in favour of sorry chairman I'm putting my hand up again do apologise no no no problem chairman don't worry because I do understand there can be a bit of a delay on the stream so do carry on councillor Roberts thank you chairman and through you chairman again I have to share councillor Heather Williams concerns here and I would like to know from the portfolio holder if our concerns prove to be come to fruition and I really can't think that the amount that we are jumping up the great increase is anything but unsustainable what is the plan B every business and every organisation should always have a plan B if this does go bottoms up of the other way around what is plan B to get us out of it thank you chairman councillor John Williams you can respond to that if you wish to but since councillor Roberts put her question after the recommendation was seconded you can choose not to if you don't want to I think chair I must point out that the majority of this borrowing comes about by this council taking out a loan from the public worst loan board of £205 million in order to pay the government its council rents now we all agree to that I'm not quibbling but let's be honest here the bulk of our borrowing is that £205 million so can we please take that into account when you start criticising the level of borrowing of this council point of personal explanation chair thank you councillor Heather Williams thank you chair for clarity chair I am being honest and I have expressed the rate of increase that is the main concern there were reasons for that borrowing chair but as I think the leader might have misunderstood the real concern here is the rate of increase thank you very much I think we'll go to the vote then so we're voting on the treasury management strategy page 79 to 118 and those who wish to vote in favour of the treasury management strategy press the green button those who wish to oppose press the red button those who wish to abstain press the yellow button I think we're all done that's 17 in favour nine against and one abstention the motion is carried so I'm not the recommendation is carried I did wonder about that we've only got 27 has anybody left let's just do a quick count around the room is anybody's microphone that's the correct number it's right okay fine so we're 19 in favour nine against and one abstention so that is recommendation is carried thank you moving on I'm going to try and go to four o'clock before we stop folks so moving on to item 8F the capital strategy was a recommendation from cabinet on the 7th of February 2022 it's covered on pages 119 to 138 of our agendas can I call on Councillor John Williams to lead member for finance to move the recommendation of cabinet please thank you chair as would our treasury management strategy our capital strategy is reviewed annually and the report attaches the updated strategy appendix being which I ask you to approve once again the changes are in red the changes ensure that the capital strategy meets the requirements of the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accounts credential code the changes to the public works loan board rules mentioned previously and the introduction of an infrastructure funding statement which local authorities must now produce to section 106 and community infrastructure and levy contributions I hope these changes are not controversial thank you do you have a seconder for that I believe Councillor Bill Handley might be seconding don't look so shocked would you like to reserve your right to speak okay thank you so would anybody like to speak on this Councillor Heather Williams go ahead thank you chair so on page 113 paragraph 9.3 it does say about the change to PWLB and I think those changes were necessary actually due to the investments that authorities were starting to use using that public source funding and I'd also say that that should be a warning as well to councils and local authorities to be to be mindful of how and why they borrow on page 107 power 4 are you looking at the right papers Councillor Williams we're talking at ATF we're looking at capital strategy on page 119 onwards the references you've referred to are could you do the paragraphs could you give the paragraph references thank you sorry I appreciate the numbers of different online or if you'd like to give us the numbers if you're looking at the actual strategy document you could give us the chairman I'm trying to scroll through it's going to take a bit of time so I'm not supporting it that may make it simpler okay if you'd like to come back later then do okay anybody else wish to speak anyone able to do a search on public works loan board find out where it was okay right there so I can't see any other request to speak and if Councillor Heather Williams is happy to rest at that point just clear that we know that you're not wishing to support that's fine so yep we've moved to the vote um oh sorry first of all we need to um ask Councillor Henry I'm happy to go to a vote thank you okay so members if you want to support the capital strategy press the blue button and then green if you wish to object to the strategy blue button and then red if you wish to abstain it's yellow I think there's still 29 in the room aren't we that's interesting it's showing 27 at the present and nobody not voting how's everybody are we 28 I think we're still 29 though are we in the room bingo right okay we've got 29 votes recorded that's 19 in favour nine against and one abstention so that recommendation is carried thank you item 8G then members housing revenue account revenue and capital budget for 22 23 a recommendation from cabinet of the 7th of February 2022 and it's pages 139 of our agenda to 182 so may I call on Councillor John Williams lead cabinet member for finance to move the recommendation of cabinet please thank you Jeb um as you know the councillers housing revenue account is a ring ffence account for the councillers stock around 5500 council homes and therefore it has its own revenue and capital budget plans which I ask you to approve for the coming financial year by law we cannot subsidise our council housing revenue costs from the general fund and therefore we'll be speaking must rely on rents from our tenants and capital receipts from right to buy section 106 receipts and borrowing etc following a four year 1% cut in social rents by the government to 2020 rents have been permitted to rise by the consumer prices index plus 1% given the small amount of funding received from government for new social housing in south camps rents must play a significant part enabling us to deliver new council housing not only to replace those lost through right to buy but also to increase the stock to meet the needs of those on our housing waiting list so we have to increase rents by 4.1% to continue to provide a good service to our tenants and build more homes for rent for those wanting council housing income from rents will be over 31.5 million out of a total income for the HRA of over 34.5 million so you can see how important council house rents are as to capital the HRA budget for this coming financial year includes investing 17 million to build new energy efficient council homes and over 7 million in improving existing stock as part of our business plan priority to continue to bring forward housing that is truly affordable to live in so I ask you to approve this HRA budget for the coming financial year to enable us to continue building more council homes and improving those that we already have thank you thank you councillor Williams oh councillor John Batchelor thank you would you like to speak now or reserve your right? reserve your right please thank you councillor Batchelor so councillor Nigel Cathcart thank you hello councillor Cathcart would you like to speak I think you're on mute councillor Cathcart you were briefly on mute there we are thank you just a couple of minutes I should have declared an interest earlier I rent a garage from the council for my vintage Riley that needs to be noted the other point is really on rents basically looking at the figures looking at the strategy it looks a reasonable balance between the rents and what can be afforded and what we need to do and clearly as John Williams pointed out a substantial buy and share of what we need does have to come from rental income and that's fully understood and accepted my only concern is that we distinguish I think between existing tenants where we're going to increase by 4.1% and the possible increase to new tenants now there is an indication that we could increase it by up to 80% of market rents in the future perhaps and also if we look at the documents I note on page 145 the the average affordable rent is about 146 pounds presumably per week and ours is only about 109 pounds so my concern and it may be an invalid concern is that at some stage in the medium term we may actually be pushing up our rents to an awful lot more by up to a third beyond what we are at the moment I know it's existing council policy to cat rents at about 4.1% which I think is a reasonably comfortable figure but I think we have to recognise that by and large those are council tenants are those on lower incomes and perhaps are less able to afford higher rents in the future so really it's a point of clarification in fact and really I think I'm looking for some sort of comfort that there are no plans to increase rents in the future very significantly indeed which there is a possible indication of that in these figures thank you very much Your declaration at the beginning was because you rent a council garage, wasn't it? That's right, for my victory driving Thank you Okay, did anybody else wish to speak on this? Councillor Roberts Thank you Chairman Yes I'm very unhappy about it Once again we never seem to take into account what the ordinary man in the street is finding upon their doorstep at this moment in time there is terrible effects and it's not just about this government it's right across Europe and beyond where there's huge pressures on ordinary people because of the problems with fuel et cetera et cetera and I really find it very difficult to understand how we can be so couldn't care less about people who are living on very meager incomes It's alright, here we are asking for a over 4% increase where the other councils and the police et cetera et cetera are also upping the game and upping their incomes but for our residents there's no way of upping their incomes they're either living on their savings or their retirement money money that they've probably put into pensions funds all their lives and they're finding it getting more and more hard to cover everyday living I find it amazing to hear a Labour councillor describing that an average rent is only £109 a week only £109 a week to some of the people that we say we serve that's a huge amount of money out of their weekly income they've got no way of extending their weekly income and I would have thought we could at least have tried a little bit ourselves and not put up their rents Yeah, it's okay for those people who won't be paying any rent for whatever reason but for those people who are actually going out and earning and trying to keep a roof over their heads and being independent in the old working class way that my family did and looking after their own family Do you have some up? Yeah, if I was there I would absolutely be voting against this I find it so difficult to understand how Liberal Democrats and Labour can go along with this because you're supposed to have social consciences it's supposed to be the people on the blue line that haven't got them so I hope that the Conservatives will vote against this I think it's an absolutely abhorrent thing to be doing at this moment in time to decent people Thank you Chairman Thank you Councillor Roberts Councillor Heather Williams Thank you chair Just on the other item was page 133 power 9.3 Was that on the previous item? Yeah, so that was correct In relation to this the HRA is something that traditionally we've normally all agreed on because I think as a principal we are a district council we've fought to keep our council housing and we want to see that expand So this has been a difficult item for myself and I'm sure others to look at I would like to reassure Councillor Roberts that myself and I'm sure my colleagues do have social consciences and that one thing that we don't talk about enough in South Cambridgeshire is fuel poverty because of our high dependency on oil as I know some areas are supplied by gas but in places such as mine oil and oil prices and that's the only form you have of heating comes at a very difficult thing because not only do you have an expensive form of heating but you have to come up with an upfront cost and that upfront cost can be very difficult with the changing prices So having looked at this in great detail and looking particularly at appendix B on page 175 where we can see that we do have the flexibility here to not increase rents we do have those carry forward balances of multiple millions I do think that while completely support the capital programme elements of this I can't support putting up people's their rents at this time particularly to the maximum had it been a different figure it might have been a different answer I would like to move that we take recommendations A to F separately to G to I because I think it's important where we can agree we should I can't agree to putting up council rents to the maximum that is allowed but I do believe that there is sufficient flexibility to do the capital programme regardless of rent increases So chair, I would like to move that we take to the clarity housing revenue the review of rents and charges separately to the capital Thank you, so councillor Williams I'm quite happy to take recommendations 3A to 3F separately to recommendations 3G to 3I Thank you chair Thank you Would you like to tell me I'd like us to take advice about that about whether we can actually split those please I've taken advice The legal advisor has said I'm satisfied that the council can split the 2 votes I think what we decided was we were taking the recommendations on block we could have taken each part individually and members could have voted on each one but I'm happy that we do take the vote in the way the chair says So does the decision to do that rest with the chair or do we need to or do the members get to decide whether to split it or whether to take it on block please I think the gift is within the chair It's in the chair's gift Interesting Just one moment I will just consult a few pause I'm advised that's acceptable Does anybody else wish to speak on this item Thank you I can see Councillor Hull, Councillor Bygott in the other order Point of order Right, this capital the revenue capital programme is based on the increase in council So you can't support the capital programme if you don't increase the council rents because the council rents are supporting the capital programme Point of personal explanation So you can't lift it up in that way Okay, thank you Councillor John Williams Councillor Heather Williams Thank you, thank you chair So I did reference and pre-empted this potential conflict that people may find Appendix B on page 175 shows carrying forward balances Now an increase that this would propose is well within those boundaries So you would still be able It is mathematically and financially possible to do the capital programme while not increasing the rents It's there on page 175 Thank you Councillor Heather Williams So Councillor Tom Bygott Thank you Chairman So I'd like to also talk about the increase in rents and about inflation As Councillor Roberts and Councillor Williams mentioned prices of fuel So our economy has had an external price shock because fuel because oil and gas prices have increased and if you cast your minds back to what happened in the 1970s with the open oil prices there's a danger that that will feed on into general inflation Typically when those sorts of things happen there is a call for individuals to show wage restraint So to show restraint in asking for higher wages So my question is why should individuals show restraint in asking for higher wages when large institutions don't show restraint in wanting to increase their rents Thank you Chairman Thank you I don't know if that actually requires an answer It's sort of a speculative thought isn't it So John Williams, would you like to respond to that? For those families who are council tenants on low income there is of course universal credit there is of course housing benefit there is advice that our housing officers give to help those people I think all that happens when you freeze something and we come onto this with council tax is that those who are better off get a better deal and those that aren't don't get anything and for most of those people on low incomes whose rents are already paid for them they won't see any of this it's the people who are better off that will benefit from not putting up our council rents because for those people on low incomes most of the time their rents are already paid for them Wait for personal explanation chair Fair enough, go ahead Thank you chair To clarify, when I spoke I didn't say that it's essentially a freeze, I said actually if we weren't going for the maximum this conversation could be very different that each member has I'm sure unintentionally suggested that we've said no increase although that would be preferable that we're saying no to the maximum increase legally filed Council Heather Williams you'd already registered to speak is there anything else you wish to say? Council Howell here Thank you Chairman Chairman I have been in the position opposite of second council rents for many years I did that position and for many years I was quite happy to set the council rents and in fact we went for target rent with regards to social housing that was what we were trying to do for many years I don't believe however this is the time we should be setting council rent and it seems to me, bizarre that the conservative group which is often labeled nationally the nasty party is now asking for not to be put up to the maximum amount of rent I appreciate that this could be quite difficult to try and achieve today because figures have been set and things have been looked at but I ask for the opposition party or the controlling party to look at this quite carefully an approximate rise of rent of £350 a year is going to go quite some way towards fuel bills which we know have gone rocketed high and therefore I will not be able to and I'm sad that I can't support this because I do believe that we have to keep on putting a lot of investment into our council housing I will not be able to support this and for the first time I will be voting against this, thank you very much councillor Hal I can't see any other hands wishing to speak so I'm going to come to John councillor John bachelor right, thank you very much and through you perhaps we're addressing the issue on council rents the option as I understand it is not there to actually increase rents by our own choice of how much we can increase it the formula from government is as it is 3.1 plus 1% so the choice for us is not to increase it at all but increase it by the level that is prescribed by government when we we are as you see proposing that we do accept the levels of the government is allowing and in that case councillor bachelor would you pause for a moment councillor Heather Williams thank you chair I don't think that's the way you work excuse me I should actually be allowed to finish my speech before any introduction thank you very much because we have had a look a number of interventions which perhaps should not have been allowed having said that the choice is we either put it up by the level of 4.1% or not at all we are proposing the 4.1% which still meets all our criteria in terms of our local housing allowance it meets the target levels and it is still significantly below the housing benefit level set by government so in those terms it is affordable and the people in most need are protected as councillor John Williams has pointed out with housing benefit I'd like to take the opportunity chair if I might to actually congratulate our new build team who have achieved more than doubling the number of houses social affordable houses built in any one year that is projected to be nearly 90 houses in this current financial year and I'm pleased to be able to report there's a pipeline of more than 120 houses which we have already contracted for so we're investing in new housing we're investing in the future we're investing in zero carbon by 2050 by a huge amount of more than £440 million over the next 30 years so I recommend this to the members and I hope you will vote for it thank you thank you very much no we've had the summing up we've had the summing up okay I want to have information at this point then thank you chair I want to actually assist there it is not maximum or nothing and I'm sure officers can confirm because we checked this ahead of the meeting it is within our control to change this so that wasn't reflective of the advice that we've had just one moment I just need to take some advice Councillor John Williams Peter Campbell has offered to speak on the matter of rental if you wish if you feel that would be useful but what if you don't want to Peter Campbell I believe you're online would you like to clarify the matter of rental yeah pleased to do that so what this rises from is when the government sets target rents so when the council bought themselves out of the national subsidy system there was a settlement from the government they had to pay an amount that's only £5 million which Councillor Williams referred to earlier that was based on a business model which meant that rents would increase by inflation plus 1% every year afterwards and then shortly afterwards the government went for their rent reduction they've now confirmed moving forward that rents can increase by again by inflation plus 1% largely to service the debt arising from buying away out of the national system but it entirely was in the gift of the council to decide at what level to set the rents thank you very much Mr Campbell so I'm going to go to the vote now now so those in favour of the recommendation sorry yes yes sorry so I'm going to take items 3a to 3f first so members if you're in favour of 3a to 3f that is the housing revenue account revenue review of rents and charges if you are in favour of that vote with the green button and if you object vote with the red button and if you have staying vote with the yellow button so members that is 19 in favour 9 against and 1 abstention so that 3a to 3f are carried so if we move on to the second part Councillor John Williams yes I'm sorry but surely I should have the right to reply to the amendment you haven't had an amendment well there's an amendment the amendment was to split the we're taking the same recommendations Councillor Williams as you had proposed but just in two halves but I didn't agree to that it is in the gift of the chair I believe yeah okay so Councillor Smith might it be a good idea just to take a break short break now not in the middle of a vote oh sorry now I'm at the end of this sorry we will be so members we're looking now at items on capital 3g 2 3i those in favour vote with the green button those against vote with the red button and those wishing to abstain yellow one more to vote no it's I've got 28 on my screen yes I know I'm waiting for 1 yeah has anybody had difficulty registering their vote we're missing 1 just bear with us members good we've got to 29 now that's excellent and the voting is 27 in favour of 3g to 3i and 2 abstentions so those are also carried thank you members I'm going to call a pause now for what do we need 10 minutes so back at 10 past 4 please 2 hours and counting folks so thank you welcome back to full council on the 22nd of February so we're on item 8h on page 183 of our agendas we're looking at the general fund budget for 2022-23 the recommendation of cabinet on the 7th of February may I call on Councillor John Williams to move the recommendation of cabinet please thank you John well this is what we've been waiting for the budget for the coming financial year from April firstly I wish to congratulate the finance team and particularly the deputy head of finance for the way the report is set out I present to you positive budget plans to put the environment at their heart and demonstrate exactly how we are working to tackle climate change on a very local level in south Cambridgeshire so I recommend that you approve the recommendations we continue to endeavour to increase annual income sources and reduce annual expenditure without materially reducing front line services provided by this council this has not been made easier by the government's financial settlement being for one year only instead of the three years councils were promised we know that local people quite rightly expect us to be taking action to deal with the climate emergency that we face and these budget plans are proof of how our ambitions are embedded across the council from our business plan there are also of course important contributions towards our other priorities of providing housing that is truly affordable to live in and growing local businesses and economies as you can see from appendix A nearly a third of the gross expenditure of the council has to be met from taxation and grants the rest of the funding comes from sources outside of the council's control including business rates and grants such as the new home's bonus raising our small share of the total council tax bill paid by householders by £5 a year for band D property £160.31 is the equivalent of a 10p a week increase this means that we can continue delivering key front line services that residents rely on as well as enabling us to work keep working on our ambitious zero carbon action plan and strategy band D represents the average property in south canvature with 65,431 such equivalent properties estimated in the 2022-23 financial year we understand that for other reasons beyond the control of this council that households are facing a financial storm this year so I'm pleased we have a number of measures to help residents with their council tax bill if they need support including the local council tax support scheme which we have already voted on and more officers to help them and not to forget that even with our £5 a year increase our council tax charge remains in the lowest 25% in the country the council's gross expenditure for the financial year is expected to be over 80 million with 25 million to be found after allowing for incomes from savings, investments pension adjustments and our shared service partners etc before contributions from reserves and taxation and grants the new council tax charge will bring in 10.7 million of that 25 million with business rates and grants making up the rest we estimate we will deliver a balanced budget with 2.1 million going into general fund reserves including 1.1 million from the business rates pool to the renewables reserve bringing the total of that reserve to 4 million thereby helping us to make the point that we are one of the few district councils in this country to be budgeting a balanced budget this year most have a deficit this is a very good financial position to being given the current circumstances the total amount expected to be spent on capital costs that being purchased in equipment, vehicles and property is expected to be around 48 million a total of over 6 million is earmarked for project services and equipment that tackle climate change on a local level in south Cambridgeshire through the council zero carbon strategy and action plan it is supporting the district to half carbon emissions by 2030 and reduce them to zero by 2050 climate change related projects featuring in the proposed budget include installing a solar farm at the water beach depot of the shared waste service this solar farm would power the council's growing fleet of electric bin lorries and support vehicles and balance equipment and activities to tackle climate change at greater Cambridgeshire waste such as the purchase of the new electric bin lorries in 2020 Cambridgeshire shared waste began using Cambridgeshire's first electric bin lorries and I understand that there are two more due to be delivered initiatives to improve and adapt waste services encouraging recycling and minimizing waste maintenance of the 275km of water courses which crisscross through the district and the council is responsible for maintaining this is very out given the current storms that we are facing and the rising water levels the council zero carbon community scheme which provides financial support to parish councils and community groups to provide greener initiatives and reduce their carbon footprint the installation of electric vehicle charging points in the district and the completion of converting the council's streetlights to energy efficient LEDs meanwhile the council's retrofit of its Campbell office here is nearing completion this plan includes measures to dramatically reduce energy bills and carbon emissions from the building as the electricity grid continues to decarbonise due to new renewable energy generation schemes coming online the carbon footprint of this building will reduce to 25% of current levels by 2030 and 10% of current levels by 2050 playing a major role in the reduction of the council's own footprint the work is also expected to help the council avoid steep price rises in its energy costs and that obviously will then work through to our council tax bills The Greater Cambridge Shared Planning Service recognising that there is a shortage of planners that additional posts will not be sold there is a new funding towards encouraging more apprentices to begin a creative planning and the budget has an additional counter full post in our full team for an extra 10 pence a week for the average household this budget is very good deal for the residents of South Cambridge who have seen a transformation in the breadth of services now delivered compared to four years ago whilst continuing to pay one of the lowest council tax charges in the country so I hope you will agree and approve this budget, thank you Thank you councillor Williams Can I ask have you a seconder I believe councillor Peter McDonald may be seconding this Yes, happy to second chair Do you wish to reserve your rights to speak Yes please So members this matter is open for debate but I understand that the Conservative group would like to present your amendment which can I just clarify members the amendment is on page 285 a Conservative group budget proposal is on page 285 of our agenda tucked in sneakily behind the rest of the budget and just while we are there I'll point to the Labour group budget suggestion is on page 287 Do you go ahead councillor Heather Williams Thank you and I hope the chair has got in mind that we sleeked this in, it did go through cabinet and everything else I meant simply in terms of it wasn't very obvious in the papers that was all Thank you chair So our budget proposals are laid out in front of you but I want to stress we have obviously on other agenda items that are working about the cost of living and I think that's something that everybody is becoming more and more aware of I appreciate the figures that were given in the moving of the original motion however if we look at the incremental increases that have happened for residents over the last four years it will actually be £50 more a year than what they were paying four years ago and that can be a weekly shock for a family of four I do think we have previously been very pragmatic actually about tax rises and we have supported them but in the current climate I do think it is right to just give a pause and perhaps for some it is a good world gesture but actually it would show a bit of unity with our residents that we respect the difficulties that are facing people that are already just about managing we also want to see some increased investment in relation to flight of pink and environment crime I hope that's something we can all agree is an absolute blight in South Cambridgeshire and it should be enforced and we hope that this would help to prevent it in the first place and also enforce those who continue to do such disaster to our countryside the fraud prevention and I say this as an accountant and my original training around tax is an obligation for anybody to pay a penny more tax than they need to but they have every obligation to pay every single penny of tax that they owe and with that I bring that emphasis to this it will never be possible to actually quantify how much you can save before prevention but I think it's very worth doing and on a principle point of view if people are defrauding the public purse if they are defrauding the hard earned money of residents sometimes struggling to pay their bills then they should be held to account planning enforcement I think an extra officer as I said at cabinet is needed not just because of the volume of cases that there are now but also the demands that some of these cases are taking and there are some enforcement cases on the agenda of our planning committees from the very first meeting that I sat at the money needs to come from somewhere and I think a good place is actually again with ourselves over the last four years we've gone from 19 to 66 types of special allowances and members are now also allowed to have two which means in previous times where there was 19 in theory every one of us here could have two and that would be 90 allowances and I don't think that's right we also say about taking the money from the transformation reserve which originally was given approximately four million from the advice I've taken and I don't feel that we're going to need that level of sums so I would ask members to look at this carefully and respect that increasing the tax for many people year on year is just making it harder for some and we should be helping them Thank you chair Thank you very much councillor Heather Williams Do you have a seconder? I'm happy to second that chair Thank you councillor Williams Can I ask whether you sorry councillor John Williams Can I ask whether you and your seconder as the mover and seconder of the original motion indicate whether you're prepared to accept the amendment through its incorporation into your motion? No So we have a seconder for the amendment councillor Cohn Can I ask councillor Cohn do you wish to speak now or do you wish to reserve your right? I'm happy to reserve my right to speak Thank you So members when anybody would like to speak on the Conservative amendment I can see that councillor Cathcart has his hand off online councillor Cathcart Can you tell me whether that's you wish to speak on the Conservative amendment or whether that is for a later item? No, that's just to to speak on the labour amendment Okay, thank you very much I'll pause at that point, I'll come back to councillor Cathcart So councillor Battitario councillor I'll just say councillor Roberts I can see that you've asked to speak also So councillor Dr Battitario I do go ahead Okay, go ahead Thank you, I appreciate the presentation Are you withdrawing your wish to speak at this point? Sounds like it, yes, okay So councillor Roberts Thank you Thank you again chairman and through you chairman I think we need to be realistic here and really understand that because of the huge prices of property in South Cairnbridge you don't have to earn a mansion to be overbandy So in fact there's an awful lot of people get caught up in having very large council tax who are there may be sort of have the benefit of a a little bit better house but they haven't got any extra money and we are in that dreadful position round here of properties are just too expensive So we as a council adding to their problems I think is very very bad I don't think we need to add to the council tax at this moment in time and it is this cumulative effect as we've been saying earlier everything for the ordinary man in the street is going up whether it's a transport cost keeping the house warm et cetera et cetera and I'm sorry to all you great green supporters but I'm afraid the reality is that the alternative fuels I'm not going to be ready for many many years not to the amount that we'll need to keep our homes warm so people will still be having to use gas they will still be having to use oil they will still be burning wood they will still be burning coal and the prices of all those commodities are rising alarmingly so where's our conscience here where's our moral line that says we understand that we're only this about oh it's only 10p a week more it's not true for most of the residents of south cams it's going to be many many many pounds more on top of everything else their food, look at the food price if you go into Tesco's now and you will see the rise in prices over the last 8 or 9, 10 weeks it's just alarming and people are going to be desperate and the people that are going to be desperate are the people who are actually going out to work if you're not going out to work and you're getting all your council tax everything paid for that's fine but that isn't going to be the majority of people the majority of people now are over that line can I remind you to begin to sell up and ask struggling chairman so it really is upon us to try to do our best not to take extra money we need to cut back we need to be realistic thank you chairman and I will remind members we're talking about the conservative amendment at the moment other people wishing to speak cancer Ellington thank you chairman others will speak on other things and I agree with the whole proposal that we've put forward but the one thing that I would like to stress is the need for an additional enforcement officer the need for an enforcement officer is key to how much it costs the authority to deal with people who have not complied with planning in the way that if there is somebody available when a councillor or a member of the public or a parish councillor or whatever phones up and says Joe Bloggs is building that extension and it's just getting out the ground if there isn't somebody there to go and deal with that at that point and stop the building progressing it's up and once it's up it's even more difficult and more expensive to take down again and to actually enforce the planning decision and the reputation of this council at the moment is that they don't bother to enforce very much because it's too much of a bother and I believe that that is not the way we ought to be presenting ourselves to our residents they want planning permission made sometimes they'll disagree with them but when a decision is made that something shouldn't happen it shouldn't happen thank you I can't see any other request to speak on the Conservative amendment sorry I'd just like to respond to something that Councillor Ellington's saying because I assure you Councillor Ellington our officers care deeply and they try extremely hard and actually I really not terribly impressed at the implication that our officers don't care don't take pride in their job and are doing a half hearted job of enforcement because they absolutely do so I'm afraid I take issue with that thank you and I have Councillor Timmy Hawkins Doctor Timmy Hawkins who'd like to speak you need to turn your microphone on when you're ready thank you very much Ella through you chair I know the issue of enforcement is something that has been mentioned time and again I just wanted to update actually on what is happening now with the enforcement team now in January of this year the chef planning service supported by the council's transformation team started the initial work on actually scoping out the project for review of the planning enforcement and that programme we expect will take about six months to complete so we're looking at how it's operating now the review includes assessing the overall workload and the resources that we currently have is sort of seven full time employment places we've got two principles three seniors and one enforcement officer yes there is a vacant manager position right now but it is not different when compared with other similar size local authorities now what this review will do is also to deliver opportunities to streamline our process and learn how to use the new uniform idox software that we use which is not something that is used by enforcement so really what we're doing is reviewing how current resources are deployed across the Greater Cambridge area so that we can measure that we're using the staff we've got to the maximum that is possible now enforcement workloads actually is probably not as high as you think it is just to let you know that in 2021 we had 439 cases which is slightly less than what we had in 2020 which was 473 and in 2019 there was 705 so effectively there's a lot less enforcement requests that we've had now of course we can say that that number has been affected by COVID which is fair enough but it remains stable the last couple of years so really what we're saying is we recognise that enforcement is an important thing to do and very many it's not a statutory function it's a discretionary function so what we're doing is trying to update the process and ensuring that it's working efficiently now so until we've done that review we can't say we need an additional person because we already have provision for seven so we'll know at the end of it whether or not we need more but at this point in time they are working and working well to deal with the issues that arise thank you could you use your microphone not order a point of clarification and that is I was not in any way inferring that our officers are not doing their job thank you Councillor Ellington that's fine thank you Councillor Hawkins had you finished what you were saying thank you okay I can't see any other requests to speak on the debate so I will come back to Councillor Cohn to comment on that thank you thanks very much chair I'll be brief just to repeat on the council tax freeze the reason we're proposing this this year is because of the sort of backdrop that our residents are facing it's not something that has to be ongoing we'll be looking at this every year but I think given the situation this year with residents struggling as they are I think that is a reasonable proposal which is costed within these amendments that we've put forward and just building on the case for enforcement I think all councillers have had issues of enforcement within their patches and you know it really is important to our residents that those things are dealt with quickly and efficiently not because as Sue says because the officers are in any way not doing their job but because they need the resources and the staff allocation that is reasonable for a district like ours and it might be that the numbers are similar to that across the country but I think you know councillers could cite many cases where enforcement is a difficult issue for them and our residents and those enforcement officers are over two councils as well they are over Southcowns and the city but I just hope we can support the amendment that we've put forward thanks very much chair coe right having summed up the amendment I'm going to come back to counciller John Williams who is entitled to speak on the amendment I will also at this point just note that counciller Peter McDonald was left thank you counciller John Williams will you proceed yes but before I do a point of information I want to correct counciller Roberts the council tax isn't based on current property values but the value of a property that it would have been valued in 1991 so make that clear they are not based on current values right to pick up on my response to the various points that have been raised in this amendment first we are picking up on fly tipping four years ago fly tipping in this district was out of control and it took weeks to have it removed we reorganised the way fly tipping was dealt with and have received praise for how quickly it is now removed Covid restrictions over the past two years led to limits being imposed at the household recycling centres however the government now expects us to live with Covid and at this moment in time it's not clear how this will impact on the future use of the centres and fly tipping the logical assumption would be that it will have a positive impact moreover you can see from appendix D in the full report there has been an increased use of the bulk waste service and there is an expectation that this will continue so the evidence at this time does not support that proposal going on to fraud four years ago this council had no coordinated approach to fraud we are pleased to see now that in opposition the Conservatives accept we need to combat fraud we set up the fraud team before the Covid pandemic and they have been invaluable in supporting the distribution of the government Covid grants totaling 45 million we recognise there is a need for additional results and you'll see that we have increased the full team budget by 15,000 pounds but once again the government has said that we must live with Covid so clearly there will be no more government grants this gives us the chance to reassess the workload of the full team in the future once again we are being asked to increase council expenditure considerably on top of this increase without a plan going forward now we come to freezing council tax the Conservatives know that a freezing council tax this year will lead to a £1.5 million in the revenue budget in five years time but they make no reference to this other than saying it will have an ongoing effect on the council's medium term financial strategy we are already facing a shortfall of several million in five years time due to recent changes their government has made to limit our commercial investments so you might have thought they wouldn't mention this fact also they give the impression that all the additional spending our proposing today will have little effect beyond next year whereas the opposite is true is there policy to recruit more staff for the election year and sack them in the next year we have the responsibility of delivering good council services not just this year but for the future and we take this responsibility seriously that is why we have a transformation fund at the moment the transformation of this council is delivering something like £230,000 per annum we need that fund to continue the modernisation and the transformation of this council in order to keep council tax down would not solve that issue and finally on funding I've explained at every post zero council tax rise will have an impact on us beyond just this coming from next year assuming they intend to go back to a £5 council tax rise next year the maximum we are committed to increase the tax this leaves us with having to £1.5 million by the end of the five year period plus of course we will also have to find £184,000 every year for their ongoing value in costs so this funding proposal just doesn't add up thank you right so now I'm going to call for a vote on the conservative amendment thank you so we'll have the vote put up in front of us so press the blue button first and make sure it registers your presence then if you are in agreement press green if you oppose the amendment plus red I don't think the vote is correct yes it's my impartial view are you just terrified you could give no no it's the amendment yes it was oh it's me who voted incorrectly then right okay so we're 27 in the room that is correct I apologise and I declare now I have voted the wrong way myself so can I just register that I would have wished to vote against the amendment for myself please members just bear that in mind I'd just like it to be recorded that I intended to vote against the amendment thank you now we have a vote of 27 people that is correct we have 10 for 16 against and those numbers will be adjusted according to my vote thank you that means that the amendment fails thank you moving on to the next part I know we have an amendment from the Labour group and I would like to ask Councillor Gavin Clayton if you would like to speak to the Labour amendment thank you chair I should say sorry just to butt in again I'm sorry that's on page 287 of our agenda thank you chair unfortunately is the minority group here I think I don't know whether Deborah is the minority minority there's more than one with Nigel the change of day Nigel couldn't be here because he's got hospital appointments which means that I have nobody to second these proposals but I'm going to talk to them anyway in the hope that some of you might feel persuaded to act as second on the day so here goes itch for somebody to second them so we actually have to go to a vote and maybe have them concede I was interested to hear from Councillor John Williams about the success of South Cambridge having a balanced budget and being able to move 2.1 million into general reserves and I would hope that that contributes to an ability to make some positive choices on the lines that the Labour group are setting out today the first one refers to the benefit maximisation income officer role which has by all accounts been a great success and being very much used by residents across South Cambridge and I just wanted to make sure that this is registered as something that can build on the successes that are referenced in page 52 of the papers for this meeting and I would hope that I've got a recollection of the first time I went through papers of seeing that was an extension of it but I think I don't know whether I'm right about that and maybe you could let me know Councillor Williams whether that is the case but I think if not there is a case given the economic pressures of residents across South Cambridge at the moment there is a case to be made for another half or potentially another whole post to fulfil that function the second point is around cultural strategy development which as I said at the beginning was mentioned in the previous meeting to which the leader of the council responded positively that this should be the case and myself and colleagues from the controlling group held several meetings along with Councillor Hanley about cultural development I think what if we can identify a budget line for this work what it does is it takes an opportunity that is there at the moment but won't be there very soon to work alongside one of the major cultural assets of South Cambridge i.e. Wising Arts Centre who are ready and poised to move with this if we can identify for their NPO applications to the Arts Council to build in additional funds that we'll build on any money that can be identified within our district council's budget if we don't take that opportunity now that opportunity will go and we won't have a chance to build it into their long term strategy to build that I think given minds as in the charity mind response to the levelling up paper from the government around disproportionate impact to our arts Councillor Clayton would you like to sum up well that feels like a very short time the Scottish Government for instance are undertaking a review into cultural delivery by voluntary and community sex arts organisations and the positive role that plays on the mental health of young people mental health of young people can be I know from my professional experience can be very positively impacted by cultural strategy and artistic activities provision and the rates of mental health within poor mental health within children and young people across England at the moment is rocketing with hundreds of referrals coming in each week to local council services we have an opportunity to do something about it with this council to use the fact that you've got a balanced budget to use the fact that you've got that freedom that wiggle room to use something around the 40k mark which given that you're dealing with a budget of tens of millions of pounds 40k is a lot to an individual but to a council operating on the size of budget that's how CAMHS is, it's a drop in the ocean and I think to invest it now to potentially double or treble it over the next 12 months and forward into the next three years would be a really forward thinking approach from this council and I would like to see that happen Thank you for your points, do you have a seconder? No, because Nigel's not here he didn't know the meeting in which case no did we go no further with that because we do not have a seconder? I'll get to this because you allowed Councillor Clayton to put a case before you had a seconder and you have not given me the right to reply to the points he made Just give me one moment As I understand it if there is no seconder the there is no there is no amendment to ask you to incorporate just wait a moment please members I'm going to take legal advice so did somebody want a seconder motion? Yeah I'll second the motion just so we can have a debate and I think that's fair Could I just also point out that partway through that council Harvey left the room so that's why the numbers were low but one down on the previous vote sorry just to record that so we now have a seconded motion Councillor Williams would you like to set that motion into your into your amendment would you like to incorporate that into your motion? No Thank you Can I just please speak Sorry Who is asking to speak Nigel Cathcart Sorry Just one moment Councillor Cathcart Just one moment Thank you Councillor Cohn would you like to speak now or reserve your right to speak? I don't reserve my right to speak Thank you Thank you Thank you I did record my wish to speak quite early on in this debate Yes but we've only just got to the point at which you are able to do so Do go ahead now Councillor Cathcart No No there's a sort of a common thread running through these proposals which is to increase the and improve the range of quality of people's lives to try to address issues of facilities which are not being fully addressed at the moment and to do it in a way which is cost effective and is within the resources of the council Now my colleague has already spoken at length on the cultural strategy which I fully support I'd just like to mention one of the other things there the care and nursing home provision we are now the country is now looking seriously at the way we actually provide provision for care the proposal here is to build on what we already do via the warden assisted schemes where we have an excellent record of actually looking after people but the proposal here is to look at whether we can take this further to work cooperatively with other agencies with other councils and to see if we can have some form of support or direct nursing home provision which authorities years ago used to do to some extent we are missing the point because the whole debate and argument is about how to fund private nursing and care home provision where we should be looking at whether local authorities like this in collaboration with others building on the experience we already have can actually do it and I think council Clayton has mentioned here that other authorities are looking seriously at this and this is an opportunity to do so always suggesting here is a feasibility study to see whether it is practical, sensible affordable and how we can actually do it collaboratively the other thing we need to look at is green infrastructure yes much of what the council is doing is excellent but we need to build on this and to see whether we can go further again always suggesting is a is a feasibility study to see what's possible a small item on local composting which we looked at previously on this council to see whether pilot scheme is practical which builds on the council's green initiative and conservation grounds so high streets in many of our villages would benefit from such a scheme which we had years ago and we do need to make sure that our conservation areas are protected and restored and also build on craft skills in the district of which there are many but we need to ensure they're preserved and enhanced and I think the suggestion here received we can fund us from savings elsewhere in the planning budget so there's a whole range of issues here connected by a common theme which I think we could look at constructively for the future and the long term security and wellbeing of our residents many thanks I apologise I had assumed that you wanted to speak on either the substantive or the amendment the labour amendment thank you for your thoughts so councillor howl I'm assuming you wish to speak on the labour amendment thank you chairman I won't to be referring to the labour amendment I will leave that up to the deputy leader the conservative group to do that sorry but that is what we are speaking on can you say chairman there was a reference made to the charity mind and therefore I think it's only right to be said that I am a member of mind and have been for the last 15 years thank you chairman thank you very much and while we're about it I just want to check that councillor dr Bata Charia wishes to speak on the substantive or on this labour amendment can I just check with you on the substantive ok thank you very much right so we've had a declaration of interest from councillor howl on the fact that he's a member of mind councillor Carn do you go ahead in terms I wanted to speak briefly about the issue of cultural strategy development because I also remember the group that is looking at this it's most unfortunate that the on what councillor the elements of the labour group proposals regarding cultural strategy cultural strategy development because this isn't a community of involved in the group that's looking at cultural strategy it's clear that we want to make forward it's unfortunate that this has come through at this time when we've only really in very very early stages of looking at this and it's clear that action will be taking place it's difficult for us to as far as I can see to make a commitment at this time when we don't know which way the strategy is going to go we can't really make a commitment in the procedural process to one particular partner without going through a long procedure and the time scale is too short I would say I would hope that during the year we will be able to look to find resources if necessary in this year but it may not arise in this year so I think it's too uncertain but I hope that in the future I certainly will be pushing for some provision on this line perhaps in the next year's budget Thank you very much councillor Carn could I ask members to be a bit quiet during people making presentations Thank you to do them the courtesy that they do you Thank you councillor Handley Thank you chair Yes I would echo what councillor Carn has said We do have a genuine interest in the cultural strategy and say that through you to councillor Clayton There is some money in the budget as it is for progress possibly not as much as you would like but there is money there and I would also say and add that our mayor is actually keen on the cultural strategy so there may perhaps be some money coming from that direction as well apart from that unfortunately I can't support this motion but I can assure you that we will be picking up this cultural strategy and working with you and others depending on what happens in May I guess Thank you councillor Dawnton I'd like to echo that as another member of the group working on that with Ben Thank you very much I have no other people councillor Heather Williams Yes just to say that however people vote on this I think if you support it you should vote for it If you don't support it don't vote for it but don't say you support it and they're not voting for it Thank you councillor Heather Williams Thank you councillor Cone now as the seconder Lovely thank you very much chair so I will be supporting this amendment I understand that not all of my group will be but I have been convinced by the argument especially around the funding for cultural spending I think this is actually quite a small amount in the grand scheme of things it's 40K so I think that's really small in the scheme of this budget and I recognise the benefits of art and culture especially around mental health so I think that I'm happy to second it I'm happy to vote in favour of it Thank you very much so I'm going to go to a vote on the amendment Oh sorry councillor John Williams sorry Go ahead Thank you chair I'll pick up points that have been raised Okay the councillor tax and safeguards in addition to the officer already in place we have made provision for 3000 advice officers who will not only help council tenants but also other people who are at risk of losing their homes or have money difficulties I should also add that citizens advice receive 85,000 pounds a year to support south Cambridgeshire residents so we are already doing what you are asking us to do and more On the cultural strategy we've heard that the development of the cultural strategy is in a very embryonic stage and really there is no report yet to enable us to start hanging things on it to enable us to then assess the cost and just making 10,000 pounds out of the air to be honest we can deal with that within we can deal with that within the existing budget we've also recently beefed up the community chess fund which is open to cultural groups and increased the maximal wall to 2,000 pounds the community team has also been reorganised and being more proactive support is being given to well-being in our communities particularly as they come out of Covid so there is ample opportunity for cultural groups to seek assistance including match funding and indeed we look forward to such community based groups coming forward we have asked that the communications plan is developed to support this unless we go on for the next year and it becomes evident that we need to have a more detailed approach planned and framework to our cultural strategy then that's the time to come back to something in the budget for it on nursing and care home provision thank you for acknowledging the role of the expanded community warden scheme and the excellent work done by wardens to help people stay in their own homes for longer this is very much based on the premise of supporting local communities usually parish councils in their wish to provide a basic service for their residents who are at home and have mobility difficulties while we understand your concern we see the provision of something more than this as a matter for the county council as the social care provider and no doubt as we come to the integrated care development of that that would then become part of that on green infrastructure we already engaged with partners including the county council in investigating possibilities for green energy infrastructure investment drawing on the experience of other councils such as Lib Dem controlled south summer set which has an extensive green energy investment portfolio and are accommodating the feasibility costs within the existing budget so we don't need to put £10,000 aside for that on local composting you're quite right this has been done in the past or has been considered in the past but found to be impractical we believe our curbside household collection with the facilities available to us at Walter Beach is much more effective in engaging all residents in composting and delivering good quality free compost material however we are aware that not everyone can avail themselves of the compost so we are considering how to provide local collection points for it and finally on conservation grants if in an ideal world we could give money to everybody to enable them to repair their homes the fact is that we can't but we are prepared over the next year to look at some sort of way in which we can help those who haven't the means to come for to come and apply for grants to do it but at the moment there isn't a game to hang a game look, you go to Council Cate in an extra two minutes I'd be grateful if you gave me the same opportunity so we don't have the scheme yet to be able to decide how much we require to do that so at the moment I'm afraid that we can't take that forward but we will be able to come in here thank you Councillor Williams right we are no, you need to apologise sorry, just one moment just one moment we have gone through the debate you have had an opportunity to reply and Councillor Williams has now responded as the person as the proposer of the motion I did notice that yes, I'd noticed that thank you, the spelling mistake is noted, thank you chair, I wish to apologise thank you very much Councillor Williams, the reason I was sharper than you might have thought with you was because I accidentally gave Councillor Clayton too short of time so the comparison might have seemed unfair to you so I was correcting the error that I'd made earlier on thank you for your apology which I accept right, let's move to a vote then folks on the Labour amendment making sure we understand what we're doing this time so, if you wish to vote for the Labour amendment vote blue and then green and if you wish to vote against the amendment register yourself on the blue button and then vote red if you wish to abstain vote yellow and I think 27 28, thank you so the votes I can see are six in favour of the amendment 21 against the amendment and one abstention so that amendment fails, thank you right, that brings us back to the substantive so does anybody wish to speak on the substantive motion if we all talked ourselves out, the only person who'd registered to speak on that was Councillor Dr Batataria and Councillor Heather Williams so Councillor Batataria, would you like to speak yes, thank you and Councillor Smith could I just run something past the monitoring officer please Councillor sorry, Brian Peter MacDonald seconded this and he's had to leave because of his health and because Councillor Peter MacDonald had seconded the motion before he left but obviously he doesn't he didn't have an opportunity to speak so that's fine so just one moment Councillor Hale do you have your hand up, can I just clarify on what matter you want to speak I just want to check that I'm able to vote because I've walked Peter down to the car so I've missed I observed that too and I was advised that since you were out of the room for a very short time it was up to you whether you'd missed a load and whether you felt able to take part in the vote I've definitely got the gist of it so will you be voting or not if I may yes, I'm happy with that thank you Councillor Dr Batataria, you wanted to speak yes, thank you thank you for the presentation I ask you to speak clearly into your microphone and bring your microphone a bit closer please page number 275 and page number 276 I'm asking are these figures a realistic at the volume of seven at the volume of seven on the page number 276 realistic giving that for the because the previous two budgets we are having we have been told or warned that savings will be harder and harder to come by I'm just asking on these figures are they realistic I mean this figure realistic to me so Councillor Batataria can I just clarify are you asking for clarification from Councillor John Williams thank you Councillor Williams did you hear what Councillor no right I think the question was and I will come back to Councillor Batataria she was referring to pages 275 and 276 of the agenda and Councillor Dr Batataria asked since the numbers were all in red did you are you confident that you can make the savings that are implied okay sorry Councillor Batataria would you like to clarify what you asked I just meant this question that are the volume of savings on page 276 realistic where are you referring to the volume of savings Councillor Batataria at which point this whole list there's a whole list of 275 and 276 is ended here 276 for the because previous to budgets we have been given we have been warned that the savings will be harder and harder to come by so that's why I'm asking thank you but John Williams so the question is are you confident that you can make the savings illustrated on page 275, 276 this budget has been based on a expecting the worst case scenario so therefore the savings that we are anticipating are those that we believe we can achieve in the worst case scenario so yes Councillor John Williams I haven't got anybody else who wishes to speak on the substantive that's ahead of Williams sorry Chair if you permit Councillor Richard Williams wasn't waving for some time before me I didn't see Councillor Williams needs to wave more obviously Councillor John Richard Williams do go ahead I'm very not curious Chair thank you very much I had a question just about the increased resources to be allocated to planning so page 190 we've got 2.2 million Councillor John Williams referred to that earlier and that's very welcome in principle it's something I think we've called for several times it's good to see but could Councillor Williams clarify for us or give us more detail as to exactly what that will fund are we talking about more officers being employed so we'll have a net increase or is a large part of that on other alleviated existing staff pressures agency fees, pension deficits etc so just to clarify Councillor Richard Williams you're talking about planning services as referred to on page 190 and increased spending is that what it is 2.2 million 2 million, 206,000 I believe in that table thank you very much Councillor John Williams would you like to respond I think Councillor Dr Toomey would you cover this in a previous answer but to say that we are in the process of reviewing the shared planning service and this is based on the transformation work that's been done in that service to enable us to have sufficient money to enable us to take that transformation forward so I can't you know give every detail on that but certainly that is the level of additional spending that the shared service, planning service has asked for to be put into the budget to enable it to complete that transformation work thank you Councillor Williams um Councillor Heather Williams you had a question thank you chair may I play out for the minutes as well but it has our four names as it's got very confusing between the three of us today um so you know I want to start with I said earlier that some things you know we will always agree on and on certain things such as the green initiatives they are to be to be welcomed of course and actually on page 195 paragraph 55 the joint enforcement group I think would actually be quite good because I know I've stood in this council and literally walked up and down those stairs between planning and environment several times before actually being able to get to a conclusion so I'll give credit words to you I think that is a good thing however I do obviously have the concerns about council tax chair as I've raised and I would like us to look at how we're spending some of that money so for example we're spending £200,000 on page 272 on replacing the carpets I mean I don't see any issue with the carpet in here we're spending £70,000 on redecorating again is that really necessary to put people's council tax up forward to fund I'd also say that actually there is a slight error on the table on paragraph 28 on the page I'm just having to log back in because the internet's dropped out it's thank you going back to paper at least I'm trying to do paper free chair so it's the core spending power we're trying to get it because it's logged me out £189, thank you very much Mr Maddox hope there's some money in the internet so talking about £189 page 189 table at 28 there is a slight error on the bottom right so the SFA 2700 should be in the total at the bottom I believe but that actually shows sorry what's the error that you're saying on the bottom right hand corner core spending power that should be 14 something because the 2700 isn't carried down as it is on the other columns so that's just something for members to be mindful of but what this table shows us is actually we're looking at having more money next year from government than less and given we're going to be getting more money from government next year I think we ought to be reflecting that in not putting up council tax to be quite frank we know there are potential issues in the future and we should judge those on what happens in the future but for now I think the savings I'm concerned about the savings we were warned about this several years ago it's admirable that officers will make that achievement but officers have to work on the parameters that we give them and if we make unachievable targets that's not going to happen so we have to be confident that this is achievable I'm afraid I don't see the need to increase the council tax given some of what we are spending the money on is carpet and decoration and I also don't believe that the savings are potentially going to come forward and we could end up in a worse financial position and just to note because of comments earlier that actually the provisional figures for 2023 are higher than 2022 thank you chair thank you councillor Williams so councillor John Williams would you like to respond and when you've responded we'll go to the vote on this thank you chair the point is that this is a one off payment for this year and what we need to do is that if you don't have the income from council tax this year that then carries forward into the following years because we have a limit of £5 which we have applied and next year we will still have a limit of £5 so we will be short of the money that we have raised this year even though we have covered it by other means so you will still need to find that money in successive years and you haven't done that in your amended budget have you finished councillor Williams thank you very much we are going to vote then on the original motion which is on page 183 and 184 of our agenda is to A through to L and I'm going to take them all as one so members if you wish to vote for that you press the green button and if you wish to vote against that you press the red button can members remind me how many people we are in the room I think we've got one person who has not yet voted 28 good 184 and 10 against so that recommendation is carried thank you next item on the agenda is council tax resolution which was sent to us as a supplement on the 15th of February this is item 9 on the agenda members the council tax resolution and the accompanying report were circulated as a supplement to all members of the council on the 15th of February may I call on councillor John Williams the lead cabinet member for finance to move the recommendation in the report thank you councillor John Williams finally for me following approval of the HRA and General Fund budgets they asked that you approve the council tax resolution for 2022-23 thank you thank you very much on this oh sorry do you have a seconder councillor Bill Handley thank you so does anybody wish to speak on this I can't see any hands so we might very swiftly go to ask if you would like to accept this by affirmation no okay sorry we need to take a recorded vote that's fine sorry so those members who wish to vote for the council tax resolution press the blue button and green those who wish to vote against press the blue button and then red and if you wish to have staying same but press yellow and I've noted that councillor Clayton has left the room so we're going to be fewer numbers than before okay so of the 27 people in the room we've got 18 voting 4 and 9 voting against thank you members so that vote is carried thank you very much which brings us to item 10 the swaithersie byways rate for the year 2022-23 and that's on pages 289 and 294 in our agenda councillor dr Tumi Hawkins I invite you to move the recommendation from the swaithersie byways committee thank you very much chairman it's very simple the byways charging group and vice versa met a few weeks ago and decided to keep the rates charged at £1.20 per hectare for those who are charged payers this is the same rate as was last year they've had some money given to them by the A14 which is still being used so I just recommend that we accept this and we're done thank you very much do you have a seconder councillor Brian Milms thank you very much I know we have one other speaker so do you wish to wait I'll wait then councillor Ellington thank you chairman I think this is a really good news story and we need some good news stories round here two years ago we were here we remembered that I reported significant problems with the byways act in many ways the farmers who were volunteering to keep the byways repaired with their equipment and their manpower were getting older and fewer and many of the byways were being built on by residents and they didn't come under the levy to pay for the roads but used it more than anybody else as a result I undertook a survey of the byways I walked the nine miles it was very good for my waistline and took a record of all the state of it each byway took pictures and wrote a report this went to the committee but it also helped us to persuade the parish council to support my idea for asking for machinery to repair the byway rather than asking contractors to come in and repair the byway um and that the money was offered to us um well was offered to the parish council from the A14 levy fund um the parish council agreed that we should use the money that way and with agreement and help I have to say significant help from southcams drainage officer and support from the leader lead member it was agreed that the grader should be bought it's taken a little while to get it but we got it last month they attached it to a rather large tractor they used it on one or two of the byways with lots of people watching the RSPB are very interested can we borrow it only if you pay us and the parish council have agreed to look after it and ensure it because it has to be owned by an organisation um the 21 nearly 22,000 pounds we only used 18 of it on the grader the rest of the money has been put into a special parish council account to be used for maintaining it people are being trained to use it would you like to wind up would you like to wind up? we don't need so many planings because you're taking them from the high spots and putting them in the low spots the roads look lovely and everybody's happy raw wonderful thank you very much that's lovely so can I just suggest I don't think we've got any other speakers so Councillor Brian Mills would you like to respond I just want to thank Sue for the story and her support in looking up to this page thank you thank you very much okay Councillor Ellington would you like to turn your microphone off thank you splendid so those people in favour of that can we take this by affirmation lovely does anybody wish to vote against or abstain okay so that's unanimous by affirmation, thank you very much next item on the agenda is 11 the calendar of meetings for the year 2022-23 you're invited to approve the calendar of meetings and I move the recommendation and do I have a seconder? yes I'm prepared for seconds thank you Councillor Judith Riffith does anybody wish to discuss this in any way agreed by affirmation lovely, thank you very much does anybody wish to object or abstain no, so it's by affirmation thank you very much item 12 on page 301 of our agenda we're invited to note the report does anybody wish to ask any questions or speak thank you chair unfortunately the update gets shorter I think we need to try them now given the change of priorities on the odds can mark could we now know what it is that the leader is vision is as to quote Councillor Wright and what is being represented at these meetings over the last few years thank you so I think the paper makes it quite clear that as far as as far as we're concerned the arc is no more and in fact the confirmation I've heard nothing official from government ministers that the arc is dead however I was in a meeting with the MP for central for sure Richard Fuller last week and with some parish councillers talking about cycleways and one of the parish councillers there asked him about the Oxford Cambridge Arc and he said I asked Mr Gove about this and then he made a gesture which I won't show you in a council meeting which implied that it had been it had been flushed away somewhere so that was from that MP I've heard nothing else from the MP other than that so you know as far as the levelling up white paper made it quite clear that there was to be well probably no further significant government investment in the Oxford Cambridge London Triangle so I'm afraid Councillor Williams I really know no more than anyone else really at this stage of the game so there is no vision because I'm not sure I don't understand at the moment and I think the paper made that quite clear Councillor Williams did you want to ask a third question thank you so based on a supplementary question then leader through your self-chair does this mean that this council's intention to withdraw from this group if it's no longer required or are you looking to continue with the project without the government as the report suggests as an option so at the last meeting of the last plenary meeting of the all the council leaders across the arc they agreed to continue funding the funding the staff that support the councils for the next six months in the hope that it will become apparent what government's views are you know until we're clear on government's views then I don't know is the answer it was a government project we need clarification that it no longer is I might ask Liz Watts to come in because she has some are you not getting away with it she has she has involvement at officer level but I don't think knows any more than I do so we don't know what the future holds thank you Liz Watts could throw some light on it through you, Janet I have nothing more to add on the fact that Councillor Smith has really told you the picture as it is thank you in which case we are just Councillor Coe did you wish to ask something thank you chair I was just going to follow up on what Councillor Smith had asked or told us about must keep in provision for the next six months we as South Cambridge district council will pay it into that or is that a different how is that funding coming about now let me think we could get Liz do you know about the funding Liz Watts we do pay all districts pay a membership fee I can't top my head what it is Councillor Coe but we would be expected to pay six months as all districts and counties thank you so no further questions we are invited to note the report I think we've commented and noted thank you so item 13 the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough combined authority members I invite the council to note the reports on the work of the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough combined authority as outlined in the circulated papers and ask the council's representatives on the combined authority to comment on this so our representatives are councillors Bridget Smith on the combined authority board Judith Rippith and Agent Vandal Bayer on the overview and scrutiny committee and Councillor Cheney Mason on the Audit and Governance Committee do any members have any comments have got nothing to add nothing to add nothing to add anything from anybody online no okay thank you so members we've noted the reports and we'll move on thank you very much so that's on to item 14 the greater Cambridge partnership we'll now consider the item summarising the recent business of the greater Cambridge partnership may I invite the council to note the decision summary of the meeting of the greater Cambridge partnership executive board at its meeting on the 9th of December 2021 thank you okay right so item 15 on our agenda we takes us back to little where is it yes here we are it's the supplement that we received on the 18th of February which of course I expect my vice-chair has got one thank you very much so members your attention is drawn to the leader's proposal that councillor Peter Fein be endorsed as chair of the planning committee leader do you wish to speak leader distracted here so this is we're talking about the proposal that councillor Peter Fein be endorsed as chair of the planning committee yes thank you very much my apologies it's turning into one of those days spinning the people being in but as knows what else yes I would like to propose that councillor Peter Fein be approved as the chair of the planning committee as of now thank you very much and we have a wonderful picture of him on our screen thank you councillor do you have a seconder I believe that's councillor Tumi Hawkins doctor Tumi Hawkins thank you do you wish to say anything now just to step on the proposal thank you very much are there any alternatives to the chair of the planning committee no okay lovely so I'm going to take that by affirmation lovely does anybody wish to vote against or abstain silence thank you very much okay so group leaders do any group leaders wish to notify the council of any other changes in any bodies so we don't have Labour do you have any other notes so none from Conservative are none from Labour thank you so members you're asked to note and endorse those changes in their bishops and roles and I think we're duly noted thank you item 16 on the agenda is an urgent executive decision which is on page 339 and pages following members we are invited to note an urgent executive decision and I think we do thank you okay right there so the next part of the agenda members would be questions from councillors does anybody want to pause before we go into this or should we go straight into it pause for five minutes oh yes and also could we right okay so if you want five minutes well I'll give you a little bit longer we're at 1738 so I'll say quarter two 1745 thank you please be back here by then so I just want to clarify at the beginning when we were registering apologies for absence I just wanted to confirm that we did say that councillor Ian Sollum had given his apologies okay so right members you are reminded we are dealing with item 17 which is on pages little v11 on our agenda we have a third period of 30 minutes for the entire item and the 30 minutes includes those questions where notice has been provided as set out in the agenda and if there's still time remaining after those questions with notice have been dealt with we will deal with any questions which have been notified to democratic services manager before the start of this meeting can I just ask if there were any no there are no further okay so I will invite councillors to ask their questions in the following order so a councillor Judith Rippeth would you like to ask your question thank you Asred thank you and I believe the leader will be responding to that question thank you thank you very much indeed chair normally councillor McDonald would answer this but obviously he's had to leave so thank you very much indeed for your question councillor Rippeth so as a councill we've been able to provide significant discretionary funding to local businesses since the onset of the pandemic and this discretionary funding has come in the form of additional restrictions grant government grants from the government grant scheme our ARG payout totaled £4,667,646 from April 2020 to the end of June 21 and this also included our hardship scheme which was a unique scheme that we devised to specially focus on those businesses which had been ineligible or unable to receive grants elsewhere funds were paid out over 1,600 businesses largely operating in the supply chain to retail leisure and hospitality businesses affected during that time so between June and October 21 we paid out a further 1,377 1,377,500 from a top up ARG fund received I think we got that as we performed well and we called this our growth grant payment and that was made to an additional 102 businesses and again specifically businesses who were looking to launch to scale or grow in our district so we're currently administrating the Omicron ARG funding received from central government in January 2022 to date paying out £152,000 out of a total £354,628 and that allocation has gone to 48 businesses we expect to have made full use of the funds by the end of March and this final charge of funding has been allocated to those businesses who have been able to provide the monstrous evidence of sales as a result of the Omicron wave specifically Thank you councillor Smith Did you have a supplementary councillor? Yes I did What's been the business feedback? Thank you that's a really nice question so we know that this funding has for many businesses been a complete lifeline during the last two years when businesses have really really suffered so some of the quotes we've had include I honestly can't express how grateful we are for this it means the absolute world to us that we can push forward with our bed and breakfast project and get it completed thank you so much so lots of lovely examples of people being incredibly grateful and I think we've allocated the money speedily and effectively Thank you councillor Smith councillor Sue Ellington Thank you councillor as on the order paper and so this was how long would it take for a planning application to come to committee Thank you so councillor Dr Tumi Hawkins I believe you might be responding Thank you chair and through you I hope this answers the question because I wasn't sure how much extra extra in addition to what so here goes of course because the nature and type of planning committee decision varies what we've tried to do in answering this question is look at the costs of this specific meeting we chose the 9th of February most recent which was a meeting that considered three applications and a postman report and took 4 hours and 55 minutes in total so we run that up to 5 hours now of course the cost of a meeting is determined by the number of fixed costs such as allowances paid to the members who are receiving allowances costs from officers within the council outside the council and the county democratic services et cetera et cetera and of course it includes the time spent preparing for the meeting at the meeting and the follow up after the meeting now one specific enquiries have taken place about this most recent meeting what we've also tried to do is try to check the conclusions on officer hours for this meeting by referring to the time recording system that exists now that officers use now from the published early rates the cost for this particular meeting across all those services was a figure of £7,892 that's for those 5 hours now of course if you round that up to the per hour costs that comes to £1,578 per hour and of course don't forget it was just three time applications and enforcement report so clearly it depends on how big or complex or involved an item is that takes the amount of committee time that takes to reach specific decision and just to clarify this particular meeting I think you were there the number of the specialist officers we had was limited we have had more in previous so a great number of officers attending for all or part of the meeting for things like conservation landscape, urban design to increase the cost beyond this figure and just to say the service also have any data on the specific time by each officer on each application before during another meeting so hope that helps to answer the question but I wasn't sure whether it's extra on top of what thank you thank you councillor.org councillor Ellington did you have a supplementary thank you yes thank you for taking the time to think that through I suppose I really am concerned my question is really a follow up to the November council meeting which members can find on page 10 in minutes when I asked about the council's enforcement policy I followed that question with the lead member out of the meeting and was informed that even though the application have been refused by the planning committee it was decided that to enforce the decision would not be cost effective and to an extent I have to say that I could understand where exactly the lead member was coming from so my question is therefore if it costs about £1500 to bring an application to the committee has the council a cost, risk benefit enforcement policy in place to ensure that money and reputation is not wasted does that all make sense thank you councillor Ellington councillor Dr Timingall and thank you and the leader I don't have a cost for enforcement that I can give you now but Bear in mind I said earlier on today we are going through a transformation project for the enforcement process and not out that we will be able to potentially put something together ond am eu gweld yn meddwl, pan weithio gyda'r system ac yn meddwl, mae'n gweithio. Felly nid o bwysig y cysylltur wedi bwysig o'i wahanol angen iawn i'r pyff Dailyd? Rwy'n cael ei gynnal arna. Rwy'n cael ei cherd Ewch yn ni chi gael eu gwybannau i'r dda. Rwy'n cael ei gydweud i'n wneud. Rwy'n cael ei gynnwys i'r ten iddo i ni i dda, tydd arlaed oedd y cwmdd? Mae'n oed yn dda i'n gwirio. Be gennym i? Yn5 i. Yn5 i. Rhaid i'n meddwl ein gweithio'n ymweld. Felly ei gymryd yn tynnu. Rhyf yma o'n cwmdyn nhw'n gweld i gyd. Rhaid i'n meddwl? So, councillor John Williams, did you want to respond to councillor Hela Williams, Jen? Yes, thank you, thank you, Jen. When we were elected in 2018, those who voted for us expected us to look critically at all aspects of the council's functioning, including the composition of the senior leadership team. Councillor Williams will be aware of the council's legal obligations to ensure fair severance payments and to treat those employees who were displaced by restructuring with fairness and respect. To answer the question, the expenditure on separation agreements and redundancy payments was 300,000 in 2018-19, 109,000 in 2019-20, 48,000 in 2020-21 and 92,000 in 2021-22, and the restruction of the senior leadership team accounts for some, but not all of these amounts. The restruction of the senior team has streamlined the organisation and delivered greater efficiency. Our willingness to tackle this problem and create the right organisational structure is now delivering results with an ongoing saving to the council of 230,000 in 2018. Just one moment. Councillor John Williams, do you accept the point of order? What is your point of order? Point of order for yourself, chairs. 12.7a direct orl answer, I've had the answer. Anything else, just churning up time. Councillor John Williams, would you like to finish what you were saying? Yes, OK. If you ask me to finish, yes. We now have a professional and well-run organisation with the capability to deliver an ambitious business plan, and it has demonstrated enormous resilience and flexibility as demonstrated by the brilliant response to the challenges of the pandemic. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Williams. Did you have a supplementary, Councillor Heather Williams? Yes. Does the sort of doing some rough calculations about half a million, does that fit with the value of money strategy just using that money to get rid of staff? Yes or no question, chair. Sorry, it's up to the member to answer how he wishes. Thank you. Yes, it's not as plain as yes or no. As I explained, we need to treat our colleagues, our business, our council colleagues with respect, and with fairness and respect, and with the fair severance payments. So it's not a question of right or wrong. It's a question of what those former colleagues were entitled to. Thank you. Thank you very much. OK, so moving on to Councillor Graham Coe. Your question is 17D, relating to the cost of new furniture. Thank you, chair, just on the order paper. Thank you very much. Councillor Neil Goff, are you able to respond? Thank you. Yes, thank you, chair. So work practices have changed dramatically over the past 18 months, and the council is adapting to new hybrid ways of working and collaborating, in particular, providing space for sort of impromptu collaboration that is now needed for staff in the office to work efficiently. These improvements also facilitate the use of new and emerging technology and are now different teams to work more closely on cross-functional projects. The figure spent on furniture fixtures and fittings in the last 18 months is 46,622 pounds, which includes not just the replacement of broken furniture, but also upgrades required for developing those more collaborative workspaces and buying furniture to meet the needs of people with disabilities through the access to work scheme, something I'm sure all members would support. Thank you. Thank you very much, Councillor Goff. I know that Councillor Dr Baticharia is leaving. Councillor Coe, did you have a supplementary? Yes, I was just going to say, is it possible to split those figures up between disability access and what has just been new fanishings in the council? Councillor Goff. I don't know the answer to that question, Councillor Coe, but if we can, we will give you a written response if you say so. Thank you. Thank you very much. Councillor Bunty Waters, your question. Thank you, Chair, as on the agenda paper. Thank you very much. And this relates to refurbishment of the Council, the Members' Lounge. Councillor Goff, are you still there? Yes, sorry. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Waters, for your question. The replacement of the Members' Lounge and the updating of the office equipment and furniture were part of the planned overhaul of South Cairns Hall, which included replacement for fire alarm system, flooring, overhead lighting, and the repair of structural damage sustained in a previous store. The original Members' Lounge was installed over 18 years ago and needed refurbishment to meet health and safety standards to replace furniture that was worn out and also to enable hybrid meetings to be undertaken. The room also now provides the four workstations for Members. The upgrade to this room was first proposed by the former independent Member and Chair of the Council, Councillor Douglas Delacy, who was very concerned about the poor state and unsuitability of the room. In his words, it was not a nice place to work, increasingly a number of new members wanted a place to work in the building, and the room was certainly not suitable for working in. The lounge now known as the Corporate Lounge could be used by both members and officers alike, ensuring that increased use will be made of the improved facilities. The cost of this refurbishment amounted to £12,396, which included painting and redecorating, replacing the flooring and replacement of the furniture. Where is this money from, this 12, nearly 13K from? Where would this be from? Is there a special budget for it? I don't think there was a special budget, but I think it was part and parcel of the genuine refurbishment to the building, but maybe one of the officers would clarify that. Thank you very much. I was just meaning the whole overall costing of that. Councillor Waters, Peter Maddock is, I think, going to respond. Yes, so this would just be part of the normal budget we'd have under our office accommodation budget. Thank you very much. Moving on, question F from Councillor Ruth Betson. Thank you, Chair. Has on the papers. This relates to cost on agency staff and management consultants. Councillor John Williams. Thank you, Chair. It's good management to use short term resources to bring in skills and to fill temporary gaps to ensure that council is able to discharge its responsibilities. Gone are the days when any organisation has all of the capabilities it needs internally. Similarly, given the hiring challenges we face in some key areas, agency and temporary contract staff have been needed to maintain services. All this is part and parcel of running a large organisation. To give more detail, I will break down some of the numbers. Consultants are often used to bringing skills and specific expertise that the council does not possess, and for which it would be uneconomically create permanent roles, for example short term projects. It is useful to further break down the expenditure on consultants within the shared services of waste and planning In the waste area the spending on consultants was £23,872 in 2018-19, £62,9 in 2019-20, £29,31 in 2021 and £10,684 in 2021-22. In the planning service the spending was £620,700 in 2018-19, £899,971 in 2019-20, £566,396 in 2021 and £318,724 in 2021-22. Of the amount spent on consultants in the planning area a significant amount over the period was driven by the need for technical input and support to the local plan, area action plans and SPDs. Consultants were also employed in support of specialist areas such as neighbourhood plans. In other areas of the council activities the spending was £202,569 in 2018-19, £505,779 in 2019-20, £366,111 in 2021 and £239,647 in 2021-22. Of these amounts approximately £231,000 was spent on transformation which of course is delivered and will continue to deliver very significant ongoing savings. Overall the average annual spend on consultants is at the same level as this council spent in 2017-18, the last year of the previous administration. Turning to agency fees, agency staff are often retained to fill budget role where it proves to be difficult to attract permanent staff. This has been the case in planning and over some of the time in the waste services. Agency staff are also hired for short term requirements where permanent staff are unavailable for example sick or on leave and the service needs to be maintained. I would again break the figures down by the main shared service areas and other council areas. In the waste area the spending on agency staff was £303,084 in 2018-19, £360,787 in 2019-20, £344,250 in 2021 and £284,876 in 2021-22. In the planning service the spending was £431,346 in 2018-19, £1,422,255 in 2019-20, £1,202,274 in 2021 and £503,819 in 2021-22. As I mentioned in both of these areas the challenge of hiring staff was considerable over this period and was essential in order to retain service levels for which the council is responsible. In 2021-22 a total expenditure on agency staff was approximately 7% of the total payroll cost of the council. The spend was in absolute terms about as was incurred in the last year of the Conservative administration but when adjusting for Covid related agency costs in 2021-22 agency costs were over £100,000 lower than in the last year of the previous administration. I thank Councillor John Williams for the detail there. I don't know if democratic services will be registering all of that in the minutes. I doubt it. Is it possible to have the detail in writing? I appreciate that. Thank you. I did start trying to write it down. I couldn't follow. My question, my supplementary is, does a lead member feel that any of that money could have been used elsewhere? I'm a member of Camborn and I'm desperate to give Camborn its high streets. Couldn't some of that management fee be spent on that? The consultants and agents could have perhaps been working on Camborn high street. Thank you. Thank you. As I explained, we only employ agency and temporary staff when we absolutely have to and the difficulty we have in South Cams that we are in an area of virtually full employment. We have less than 3% unemployment in greater Cambridge area and we have prices that are similar to those in London and it is extremely difficult to attract staff to come here because we can't give London waiting even though the costs here are very similar to those in London. It is extremely difficult to recruit very experienced staff and therefore we have to go out and hire those staff as consultants and agency staff to enable us to deliver the services that our residents expect. I would love to be able to fill all these posts with permanent staff but it is just not possible. Thank you, Councillor Williams. So moving on, Councillor Richard Williams, you are at 17G about countries. Thank you very much, Chair. My question is on the agenda. Councillor Timmie Hawkins, I believe you are responding to this one. I apologise about tree offices. Thank you, Chairman, through you. The shared planning service employs tree officers only for South Cams area and it has a different arrangement for Cambridge City. So there are currently two officer posts for tree officers. One is permanent. Both should be permanent but we have somebody in one. The other one became vacant following departure of the officer that you are well aware of. However, this vacant post is currently filled by an agency worker who works part-time as well as a tree person from Cambridge City. So that vacant post is actually covered full-time and we are currently in a recruitment process for a permanent officer in that place. Just to let you know that adverts that we've put out to fill that post with the permanent member of staff have not so far resulted in any successful appointment. So we are reviewing the strategy and after this is where we need to put a supplement on the offer that we are making because there is a national shortage of suitable specialists. So hope that helps. Thank you, Chancellor, Dr Hawkins. Dr Richard Williams, did you want to have a supplementary? Yes, please, Chair, a very quick one. I thank the member for that. I asked a similar question back in May. We're not really any further forward than we were last May. In fact, we're a tiny little bit back. I'm pleased the post is being covered. But some of that 2.2 million, can I make the case again that we allocate some of that in this area and do what we need? I mean, I do have trees officers, parish level trees officers, volunteers in my patch who are on the verge of resigning because they feel everything they do is ignored by the council. Now that is not a criticism of officers at all. They have a very heavy workload. I think as we talked about last May, you know, for a thousand cases they have to look at. We do need more manpower in this area. So can I please make the case again that, as I say, part of that 2.2 million, we look at allocating more to this area. Thank you. Chancellor, Dr Hawkins, did you want to respond to that? Thank you. I refuse to accept that we are in a worse position, especially because we have the post filled, even though there were temporary staff. My suggestion to you actually will be on what you have just mentioned regarding the tree people in your patch. Why don't they come and talk to me? I just want to understand what the issues are. If they are saying that they're not being responded to, then perhaps they need to let me know how we can look at that. However, yes, we are seriously looking for someone to take that vacant position. And again, don't forget we're going through a transformation project here. We're looking at exactly what we're doing in terms of the various types of services we offer. And we will, if we need to, increase the service or the people providing the service. So thank you. Thank you, Dr Timmy Hawkins. We've just got a couple of minutes left for the last question. I will have to call the hall to 20 parts. So, Chancellor, the question being asked by Councillor Nick Wright, who is online. Thank you. Go ahead, Councillor Wright. As the written chairman, thank you. Thank you. Councillor Dr Timmy Hawkins. Thank you. I will be quick. The total value of plan application fees associated with applications in SCDC for which the 2012 regulations allow a reform because of the age is 300 and 493,000. I hope that makes sense. 300, 493,000. The majority of this figure actually is about 268,000 of that comprises fees from major applications, 24 of those, and 15 of which are between 6 and 12 months also for major applications. There are 12 applications for household developments which come to a potential figure of 2116. Actually, the largest number of applications in that relate to the shadow of conditions and that just represents 10,910 planning fees. For completeness, those are at risk. So the 300,000 is at risk. We've only paid out 9,492 on 17 applications just for comparison. We've had the 30 minutes for questions and answers. So I'm sorry, Councillor Wright. You don't get to ask your supplementary. I do apologise. I have a good point, Chairman. We've sat through some very waffly answers using up the time. Councillor Wright, I have done my very best to keep members to time. Thank you for your points. I'm sorry. That's just the way it goes. Thank you. I wanted at this point to say thank you very much to John Williams, Councillor John Williams, for all the answers he has given up to now, including those in questions. Right. Notices of motion. Ah, yes. We don't have to do it until 6.30, but I'm going to do it now, and that is to ask that we have permission to go on over the four hours. Can I just see if members are happy? Okay, happy would be an overstatement. Prepared to continue. Thank you. Does anybody object? Yes, I might need a second. Perhaps the Vice-Chair would kind of be second. Yes, I can be second. Thank you very much. Good. Okay, so we can continue after 6.30. Thank you very much. And members agree that by affirmation. Yes? Lovely. Thank you very much. So moving on to notices of motion. This starts on, well, they're on starting right at the very bottom of page little Roman 7 in the beginning of the agenda. We are reminded that a maximum of 30 minutes is allowed for each motion to be moved, seconded and debated, including dealing with any amendments. At the expiry of your 30 minute period, debate will cease immediately and the mover of the original motion, or if the original motion has been amended, the mover of that amendment, now forming a substantive motion, will have the right of reply before the motion of the amendment is put to the vote. And for the purposes of voting numbers, I just wanted to record that both Councillor Batahtaria and Councillor Waters left during questions. So, and I just would like to remind you, proposer speeches may not exceed five minutes and other speeches may not exceed three minutes. So I'm going to try and be quite strict about that. So we first look at the motion from Councillor Richard Williams on page Roman 8. Councillor Richard Williams, would you like to move your motion? Thank you very much, Chair, and I promise not to treat that five minutes as a target. I will treat it as a limit and I hope this won't be controversial and that we can move through it reasonably quickly. Just to give members an idea of the background of my motion. My motion grew out of something that occurred in one of my parish councils where a resident raised the question of the council's biodiversity policy and its legal obligations. And the resident who raised the concern was it was in fact quite right. The parish councils are under a legal obligation under the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act to take account of biodiversity in carrying out their functions. Insofar as it's compatible with other obligations on the parish council. Now the first place a parish council tends to look when it's looking for guidance as to how to meet a policy like that or a legal requirement like that is to south camps. Unfortunately there was nothing really available from south camps in terms of guidance. Now we have lots of good initiatives about biodiversity and I want to keep this on a cross party basis if I can and acknowledge that with our SPD. It fits in with the Environment Act as well but there was a gap essentially was the point I want to make in terms of the specific guidance that parish councils could benefit from in terms of how they might meet their obligations. Particularly in terms of adopting a biodiversity policy so that they can be clear and transparent about how they do fulfil their legal obligations. Now there is a lot of good material out there. Natural Cambridgeshire has for example a toolkit called their nature recovery toolkit which includes a lot of the same sort of information that we need. But that is obviously not directed specifically towards parish councils. Now I know subsequently some information has been put on our website. But following the publication of the motion I have in fact been in touch with Natural Cambridgeshire and an officer of the association who have agreed that there is a gap in the sort of guidance that we could provide specifically tailored towards parish councils. There are some good examples of that. Leicestershire for example has got a very good short toolkit easy to understand for parish councils and similarly Devon as well has got quite a good toolkit that they use. So what I'm hoping really is that we can work with partners like Natural Cambridgeshire and we can develop a similar sort of toolkit to enable our parish councils to be able to have some guidance about how they might best discharge their obligations. As I say that work is in a sense already underway through the conversation I've already had with Natural Cambridgeshire and one of our officers has been involved in that as well. So I very much hope that we could by adopting this motion just help to plug this small gap in the chain that I think has come to light. Thank you Councillor Williams. Is that seconded? Oh thank you Councillor Carn. So do you wish to reserve a right to speak to me? So open for debate members. Councillor Bridget Smith. Thank you very much indeed. So Councillor Williams, thank you for this. I'm surprised that you seem to be quite unaware of all the work we've actually been doing with our parishes and community groups over the past four years. Does the Board encourage them on their race both to zero carbon and as they strive to do their bits to preserve, enhance and protect their own natural environment? If you'd been at last night's launch of this year's climate and environment fortnight you would have met representatives from quite a few parish councils throughout our district. And you'd also have heard from the brilliant presentation from Annie Sander who's the head of Cambridge Carbon Footprint. And they've put together with our sponsorship a fantastic online resource and which I think is 16 hours of training for community groups on it's kind of a whole package, how you recruit volunteers, how you keep your volunteers motivated, great big sort of menu of things you can do and how you can succeed. So a quick glance at our own website links to the zero carbon grants and the community chest biodiversity grants which are fairly new and actually it has a link to this eight part net zero now online training pack. So the fact that we've sponsored that through the zero carbon grants programme means that we are also promoting it to all our parish councils. So additionally our planning and natural environment team are talking to parish councils about biodiversity, about the SPD in particular at the next parish forum about how they can implement it themselves. And you've already referenced Natural Cambridgeshire and their toolkit which we already promote so I think we need to be really careful about reinventing the wheel and duplicating work when actually there's really good stuff that we've sponsored but also we work really closely with Natural Cambridgeshire and I think councillor Pippa Haleins actually sits on their board and I certainly go and speak to their forums very regularly. So finally as you know governments mandated that nature recovery plans are created across the country and I believe that Natural Cambridgeshire are going to be working with the county council as the lead authority on the nature recovery plan and I think that's going to probably include audits of the natural assets. So I'm really struggling even I'm happy to support this because it's all good stuff but I'm slightly struggling to see clearly what's being asked for over and above what we are actually already doing either ourselves or with our partners or by our sponsorship of other bodies within the field. Thank you very much councillor Smith and I believe councillor Tuma Hawkins would like to respond. Yes, thank you leader. I'm actually quite surprised to hear that councillor Richard Williams thinks that there isn't much available. I'm obviously protecting and enhancing biodiversity is greatly important to residents and you may recall actually that biodiversity and open spaces is one of the seven key things of the emerging local plan so it's quite important. And we introduced this thing back in 2019 at the start of the plan making process and you know put it to residence in the first conversation that we have back in 2020 and it was a high priority for them so it shows we actually well ahead of many organisations and the government in our thinking about biodiversity. Now the other thing we did as part of the work ongoing is our doubling nature strategy. I think you might remember that we have one which we adopted on the 3rd of February 2021 and this strategy does provide guidance for parish and town councils. And I think if you look on pages 26, 27 of that document you will see what we are offering and enclose what zero carbon communities grand scheme, the climate and environment workshops, the pre-wardens network, you know we even have the planting of free trees. We have three free trees which will end up into six free trees which we offered to all parishes and also a neighbourhood planning for nature. So there's a lot that we are actually providing in terms of guidance in that document and I would suggest that you know we all actually talk to parishes and encourage them to take up and have a look at this document. And the other thing is that the communities team as far as I know have been talking to, as you mentioned, natural, natural Cambridgeshire and they are talking to them about how that toolkit which you mentioned actually could be expanded and used to make things better. So there's no point reinventing the wheel, so to speak, that toolkit could be used by parishes. So all I'm saying is we are doing a lot at the moment. In fact, we are going to say is please tell your parishes and encourage them to actually attend the area team meetings that we have for parishes. We had the first awful area one parish council yesterday, I think it was, and I was, there was some attendance but there could have been a lot more and I think we had. Sorry, councillor, Dr Horwf. Sorry to talk to you about. No, I'm sorry, we must stop now. Thank you. So 30 minutes for the whole discussion and debate and answers. So I'm afraid we'll stop there. And although other people had registered to speak, they won't be able to. Thank you. We need to go to the boat. Actually, we should have gone to each school. Sorry, sorry. I thought it seemed a bit quick. Sorry, I do apologise. That was just for councillor Hawkins. I do apologise. There are other speakers who wish to speak. So councillor Brian Mills. That's fine, thank you. Okay, you're withdrawing, are you? Okay. And then councillor Heather Williams. Thank you, chair. I mean, I just looking at the wording of the motion, which is what we're voting on, you know, this seems like a very sensible pragmatic thing to do. And I think that it's a gap has been identified and this can help for it. I agree it should not be controversial and will be fully supporting this. I would also say in response chair to to the issues around people coming to the forums. I have raised previously that actually for some of the smaller parishes coming into those forums is they've not had always they find it quite intimidating. I've found we've had better results if you go on size rather than geographical area. I had a parish council report to me that they came to a planning meeting, but people were talking about bigger developments and things that were going on. So they almost felt like they they didn't really have a place or a right to moan where actually it does matter. And I think this this here actually is very important what councillor Richard Williams is suggesting because this isn't about sort of getting people to do things. It's about enabling people to help their communities and get involved in it themselves. So I'm fully supportive of it. But those meetings that have been referred to, chair, if we could look again at looking at population and size because they have by their nature different different issues. Thank you very much. So coming back to councillor Martin Khan as the seconder of the motion. OK, I'm thoroughly approved of the attention given by diversity and it's a matter which we are already actively promoting has been explained. I've got a particular personal commitment to this is an area where I worked in local government for many years. We've acted already to declare biodiversity emergency and one of the only 15% of councils in the UK have done so and we promote doubling the idea of doubling nature by 2050. That's a really big challenge. I worked it out. It involves adding roughly 250 hectares of new habitat, natural habitat a year in Cambridge in addition to any existing natural habitat there is. That's perhaps 50 hectares a year inside Cambridge itself. Biodiversity gain in major new developments will help but we now have new biodiversity SPD but this won't be sufficient on its own. We can't do it on our own and we need new partners. Parish in town councils have essential partners and can help in this. They have a role in local planning. They can involve promoting biodiversity through their neighbourhood plans. Many local councils have good knowledge themselves and have expertise in that field among their local residents and among their councils themselves and therefore they're willing to help. They already support local action to protect nature and plant trees. For instance, my village, Ystyn and Impington, they have a recently bought set-aside area and a meadow area. They've already got a community orchard and pocket park. So there are things they can do but to ensure and as already mentioned there's already been a local nature recovery tool kit provided which is very helpful in this. So actually providing a tool kit in itself is probably not what's needed but there is need perhaps for better information. It's clear from what people have said that people don't know where to go and I'm sure that we can help in improving that. We run a ground scheme which provides opportunities through the zero carbon community grounds. There's already been seven successful nature projects and we do encourage applicants to refer to the tool kit for planning projects. We've also got specialist staff who can help councils undertaking this role. Local councils have a range of powers. This includes parish councils to protect and enhance nature, including the power to provide local nature reserves which I was surprised to find out it covers them as well, and to provide land for informal recreation so they should be encouraged to use them. Local support is the best protection that natural habitats can have. So we are reactive but we have tended in the past to pass this rely on others to provide these sort of services. I hope that we can see more effort put into this in the future. Are you winding up Councillor Carn? Yes, I'm winding up. So we are welcome this motion. I invite Councillor Williams to apply his own enthusiasm to this and to join me in fighting for resources to fight this corner and undertake all these tasks. Thank you, Councillor Carn. And Councillor Richard Williams, you've got three minutes to respond if you wish to. Thank you very much, certainly very happy to accept that from Councillor John and thank Councillor Carn for seconding the motion. I do just want to say that this is not meant to be an attack, it's not meant to be a criticism of what the council is doing. I could emphasize that even though it comes from the opposition, it isn't meant to be an attack. In a sense, though, when I say this in a friendly and constructive way, some of the contributions from Councillor Smith and Councillor Toomey Hawking's kind of show what I'm getting at. There's lots of different information in lots of different places. Councillor Hawking's referred to in the pages 26 and 27, I think he said, of the doubling nature strategy. This is about just putting it in a central place so that parish councils know exactly where to look because we do have a lot of information there. It is in slightly different places, so this is pulling it together in a single source, organising it slightly differently, presenting it in a particular way. And as I say, I have been talking to natural Cambridge and they said, yeah, we can see the gap and, you know, we can put this together. Now a lot of it could be signposting to this policy, that policy, the other policy, but it is in a place where it says parish cuts specifically addressed to parish councils and how they might go about fulfilling their legal obligations. So it really is to fill that gap and make a bridge not intended as an attack on anybody. Thank you, Councillor Williams. So we'll go to the vote on this. Sorry, Councillor. May I just refer to the monitoring officer for a point of clarification, please? So Councillor Williams has just, I think, made it clear that this is about collating what's already there and making sure that it's accessible and available and that we're signposting. Are we confident that this motion isn't committing us to further expenditure, which I don't think a motion can do? Are we confident about that, please? I'm hoping it isn't. I'm hoping that it is just pulling everything together in the right place and making it easier to access. I'm going to slightly struggle to answer that question because I'm not the person who's going to have to put this all together. Now it will depend on what is actually required to do that there. If there was going to be an expenditure involved, then I would probably recommend that this motion has to be a cabinet for that to be considered. But if we think that we can produce this guidance without doing that there to say we could, and I'll put this out to members, you could amend the wording of the motion. So it does say, and just bear with me, in the last paragraph of the motion, it does talk about producing guidance. If that were changed to providing guidance, then I think that might solve the problem. So that makes sense. I think it's all there. I'm sorry, through you, Chair. I think it's there, or it is a work in progress, either us or partners. It's up to Councillor Williams whether he's happy with that slight word change. So your proposal is to change the wording in the third line of the final paragraph. Sorry, recommendation, thank you. The recommendation would be if Councillor Richard Williams accepted it to change the wording in the middle and to say, as some other councils have done, to provide guidance for parish and town councils, et cetera. I'm perfectly happy to accept that change. So with the amendment of that word producing to providing, shall we move to a vote? We're happy with that. Councillor Cahn is indicating that he's happy with that wording as well. Good. Okay, so that's a result. And Councillor Williams, you've already summed up, so I think we move to a vote at this point. Chair, we don't currently have a seconder for the amendment, but I'll second the amendment by Councillor Smith just to make sure we are sticking to where we are. We can't. So technically, the amendment was suggested by the monitoring officer, but perhaps Councillor Bridget Smith is happy to. Well, I think Councillor Williams was happy to propose it himself, and I'm happy to second it. Is that? No, no, it was being proposed by the... Just tell me what I need to do. So just be clear, hang on folks, don't get carried away. It's proposed, if you like, by me and seconded by Councillor Heather Williams and accepted as a reasonable amendment by the mover of the motion. Perhaps I can't. I just agreed. Okay, so this is now part of the amendment. This amendment is part of the motion that we're now voting on. Are we okay with that? Agreed. Okay, everybody's happy with that. Right, so we'll go to a vote then. Surely a motion is agreed by yourself, Chair, to be acceptable before the meeting. It was acceptable, but it was acceptable in the terms that it was something we could decide about. But if the members don't have to agree that, it's for the members to discuss that in debate, which is what we've done. I thought the point was that it wasn't acceptable because we couldn't... That's a different point. It was acceptable in the terms of our standing orders. But if the members choose to debate and feel that wasn't acceptable to them, that's a different thing. That's why we take debate and that's why we have it. So it's been accepted by the proposer of the motion, so all is hunky-dory. So shall we go to a vote then? Actually no, if we're all in agreement, let's do it by affirmation folks. Lovely. We'll do it by affirmation. So does anybody wish to object or abstain? No hands up. Great. So we'll do it by affirmation. Thank you. Lovely. So moving on to 18B, this is the motion from Councillor Heather Williams that this council opposes congestion charging. Thank you, Chair. It's one sentence. So hopefully there won't need to be an amendment to it. There are no budget requirements for it. So hopefully we'll be able to just debate the motion. So congestion charging at the moment I think would be the wrong move for us in Great Cambridge. It is being discussed at the moment, which I think is why it's topical to be brought forward at this time. We are looking at ever rising costs. We've debated that very fully today. But also there is a real and members of the GCP will know I've raised this before. There is a real equalities issue and argument for me with this. We don't currently have the local transport infrastructure that means if you're working a night shift as a porter in Edinburgh that you can get in and out with reliable, affordable public transport. So I think until we're at a situation where that is possible and people have a real opportunity to get out of cars and onto public transport not like one of my villages where several of them don't have buses at all and one of them very usefully has a bus to Royston but not from or vice versa. So you can get somewhere but you can't get back and vice versa. So until that really is sorted up and running and we've had some change this just can't happen yet and we do have a board member on the Great Cambridge partnership and they are looking at these things. So I would really encourage people to support this and oppose congestion charging especially at the moment. I think that's just all you're going to do is stretch that divide further and further on equalities grounds because by its nature and the cost of living lots of people that work in the city have to move out of the city because they can't afford it. They might not have compliant vehicles because of the cost of them. So if we introduce congestion charging we'll be penalising people for their financial position overall in my view because there is not the alternatives in place. Thank you chair. Thank you councillor. Do you have a seconder? So councillor by God. Thank you. Do you wish to speak now or reserve? Yes please. Do you wish to speak now? Yes. Okay do go ahead. Thank you chair. South Cambridge is comprised of 103 villages in two towns. We are an overwhelmingly rural area and it is a responsibility of this council to stand up for the countryside and the people living on our farms in our villages. Every proposed scheme for congestion charging Cambridge has included the rule that South Cambridge chair residents pay full price while those in Cambridge City are exempt. In the countryside driving is a necessity whereas for many city dwellers it's a luxury. Cambridge residents have buses and trains, they can walk or cycle and they have lots of services nearby. Meanwhile villages like Lowworth, Gravely and Patworths and Agnes have no scheduled public bus service and others like Connington have only two buses to Cambridge per day. How is it fair that these are the people who pay? How is it fair that trades people who have to pay in order to do their jobs? Some jobs can only be done from a van. Have you ever seen a tile carrying ten boxes of bathroom tiles on a bus? Most of the plumbing and electrical supplies shops are in Cambridge. Do we expect these shops to close down or to move elsewhere? Cities like Singapore, London and Stockholm already had amongst the best metro systems in the world before they introduced congestion charging. We don't have that level of infrastructure but we should. The only way to solve congestion in Cambridge is with an underground metro system. Now, if Cambridgeshire residents are to be punished for not using the public transport that hasn't been provided for us, we need to solve the underlying cause of congestion by improving public transport rather than punishing people with unfair taxes. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else want to speak? There are mills, I can see. Councillor Gough first, sorry, thank you. I've come to you in a minute, Councillor Mills. Councillor Gough, would you go ahead? Thank you, Chair. A number of options have been outlined by the GCP to free up road space to ensure that any improvements to public transportation are not negated by congestion. At the same time raise revenue to fund those very improvements in public transportation, including lower fares that, as the leader of opposition said, are obviously key to benefitting those on lower incomes and disadvantages and those who live in rural areas. At the GCP joint assembly and board, it was pretty unanimous, and I believe the opposition leader spoke on this, about the support for better public transportation for our area. But then there is also a requirement to fund it on an ongoing basis and simultaneously to tackle congestion. Better public transportation, including lower fares, in options such as pollution charging, flexible pricing, workplace parking levees, are linked, one follows the other. That linkage between better transportation and funding mechanisms and reducing congestion is critical. There was a key issue which the citizens assembly addressed, and that was followed up by the making connections consultation initiated by the GCP at the end of 2021. We should support evidence-based policymaking as we've done in presenting real policy options to residents and businesses who do recognise this linkage and its importance and who have engaged in the consultation. I'll just note that many of the assertions that Chancellor Beigot made about what form any charging should be are absolutely not present in the consultation, which reveals that he didn't participate in it. And it would be really advantageous if these views were conducted through that consultation process. Consequently, we should certainly wait to hear what the public have to say in response to the GCP consultation or taking any view on the best mix of measures. In this motion seems to be a very odd attempt to pre-empt that public input, and for that reason we should reject it. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Goff. Councillor Brian Mills. Thank you, Chair. Just in response to Councillor Beigot, Boris Johnson's best-better plan in Tatters is Treasury Funding by... Councillor Mills. Councillor Cohn. Thanks very much, Chair. I'll be brief. I support this motion. I can't support congestion charge, which I think will affect the very poorest people within my ward. I just don't think it's fair that people that can't afford to live in the city that are commuting in or lobbied with a tax, these are the same people whose rent are going up and they're having to pay more on their council tax. You know, I think there's only so much we can hit people, you know, on low incomes. Thank you very much, Councillor Cohn. Would you like to close the debate, Councillor? Heather Williams. Thank you, Chair. You know, this is obviously for this council, not going to be a unanimous decision. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't stop talking about it. The consultation that was referred to, some of my parishes, the parish councils didn't respond to the consultation. I have raised this with the Chief Executive, because of the format of the consultation process itself. It wasn't designed for parish councils to respond in and such like. So I think that some of, I think we'll find that some of the consultation responses aren't really reflective 100% of our communities. When I've spoken with people in my community and asked them, they're very much opposed to congestion charging. Some say maybe in the future if there's a better option and alternative, but not now. And I think it's really important that, as Councillor Cohn said, we cannot keep putting more and more funds. And we're just keeping people in diesel and fossil fuel vehicles. If they're never going to be able to get out of that position, to be able to afford an electric van or anything else, if they're going to be getting hit with a congestion charge to go to and from work along with everything else. So I would really say on equality grounds, we should not be looking to bring in congestion charging at this time. It will affect those poorest in society. Thank you very much, Councillor Williams. So I'm going to go to the vote now. So those people who wish to agree with the vote, with the motion, those green, those who wish to object the motion, press red. Those who wish to abstain, press yellow. I check if everybody has voted successfully. But just as a matter of interest, you can tell what your vote is by the bar at the bottom. It shows you what your vote, the vote that was recorded for you. Okay, so it looks like everybody has voted. That gives 17 voting against, six voting in favour. That means that the vote, look at the motion falls. Thank you. So should I say more correctly that the motion is lost. Moving on to 18C, standing in the name of Councillor Mark Howell. Councillor Howell, would you like to move your motion? Thank you, Chairman. Chairman, you'll be glad to know that I'm not going to be speaking for long on this, mainly because the battery's gone on my tablet with all my notes on. Would you like a cable to plug in there? Thank you, Chairman. Chairman, four and a half hours ago, do you want to speak now, Councillor Mills, or this is not later? Four and a half hours ago. Councillor Brian Mills might be offering you a cable. No, no, no, fine. Let's start again. So four and a half hours ago, we had a public question from Mr Littlewood, where he outlined his concerns with regards to C-set. So I'm here now with regards to my concerns. And they are basically that things have changed, to the extent that the current proposals are no longer valid and no longer workable. And therefore what we ask really, or what I am asking really, is for the GCP to re-look at what they are doing under the new proposals, especially with the fact that they could be turning up good prime, what I would call agricultural land. I will leave that there, and I'm happy to respond to at the end, then Chairman, should there be any questions, especially from Councillor Mills. Thank you, Councillor Hull. Is your motion seconded? I hope so, and I hope it's be right for Councillor Corme. Yeah, I'm happy to second the motion. You wish to speak now, or reserve your own? I'm happy to reserve the right, yeah. Okay, thank you. So we've got a request to speak from Councillor Fane. Councillor Fane, are you still there online? I am indeed, thank you. Yes, I would just point out that this motion relating to Seaset, Seaset is of course more than just the busway, which is Phase 2. It also includes Phase 1, some important safety work going on on the 1307. But I'm going to assume this motion is not intended to deal with that. I think it's well known that as councillors for the Great Shelford and Stapletford for the Shelfords Ward, both an example and I share many of the concerns that were expressed this morning about the proposal for a bus road through the edge of the Gogmogog Chalk Hill's landscape character area, i.e. through some of the finest countryside in the Cambridge Green Belt. Now, however, I want to speak more about the process than the merits of this or otherwise, because it is quite clear that following the findings of the inspector in the Stapletford Retirement Village appeal, the exact route will have to be reviewed, yes will, not may, will have to be reviewed in the light of that decision. And I understand the GCP may put a revised route to the assembly possibly in June. The assembly is, of course, as is the GCP itself, able to consider new factors under the DFT Department for Transport guidance on the procedure that was referred to earlier. And it will be up to GCP members what new factors to consider, whether they can find themselves to the exact route and look at the impact of that appeal decision or whether they consider other factors. Bearing in mind that at that stage, the Mayor's Local Transport and Communications Plan will be probably about to go out to consultation. Now, we don't know whether the outcome of that consultation will be relevant to the route, but we can't prejudge it and assume that it will not be relevant. So it is important that the assembly is able to consider all of these factors and that the Board is able to consider the views of the assembly. And I'm not keen on us, as a council seeking to mandate our GCP Board representative, it is very important that that person is a representative, not delegate, and is able to consider all of these additional factors, whether they will remains to be seen. Thank you, Councillor Fane. I'm going to take the next one from Councillor Neil Goff online, but I've online followed people in the room too. Councillor Goff. Thank you, Chair. So as the current representative on the GCP Board, I happily respond to this motion. No transportation scheme is ever going to be universally welcomed. There is a balance that has to be struck between the benefits of the scheme, the positive and negative effects on the environment, cost, deliverability and so forth, and the GCP is charged with doing that. And the Board has continually challenged the GCP organisation to ensure that any trade-offs are made in the best interests of everyone in the mitigation measures of industries wherever possible. And as I answered in the question to Mr Little this morning, that is an ongoing process. The Board has and will continue to push the GCP officers to deliver a scheme that delivers the strategic outcome required while minimizing environmental impacts. The scheme ultimately will be tested thoroughly and independently during the planning inquiry. But as at the current time, I see absolutely no evidence that the C-set scheme is anything other than essential to cope with the growth in this corridor and to simply oppose the scheme at this stage is inappropriate and wrong and therefore we should reject the motion. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Goff. Right, I'm just going to clarify who I've got on my list to speak because I'm getting all sorts of semaphore from people in the room. So, I have to speak. Firstly, Councillor Milnes, is that correct? Then Councillor Bygott, Councillor Richard Williams and Councillor John Bachelor. Was there anybody else who wished to and Councillor Heather Williams, okay? Right, that's fine. And Councillor Khan, okay. So, Councillor Milnes, do you go ahead? I've really used the British version then, but I still have my notes because I've brought paper because of that. I'm just really disappointed about the political opportunism received from the opposition because if we go back, we have various... Milnes, can you address your points to me please? Yes, I can. I'm happy to do so. So, the opposition really perhaps might remember their offices that were involved in this project who until very recently all supported the routes that they are now trying to object to. So, we had Tony Orgy who chaired the local liaison forum through years of consultation exercises, which I accompanied on all the time. We had a Councillor Roger Hickford. You may remember he was a county councillor, I think, for the sailing district that I'm division on. I now represent. He was a member for the GCP that actually approved of this proposal. James Palmer, the former mayor, is very much in favour of it. But yet we see them all now planning up to object to their own plan. And I just find that really quite awkward. Thank you, Councillor Milnes. Councillor Bygott. Thank you, Chairman. So, as you mentioned, James Palmer, in the previous motion I talked about the fact that we need to build a metro system in Cambridge until we design a proper system that will solve the problem properly rather than tinkering around the edges. We need to know what that system is going to be like and how it's going to be built. Anything that we build now, without that knowledge, could end up being a white elephant and not being able to connect properly. Now, Cambridgeshire used to have a very good public transport system, part of which it no longer has, until someone called Dr Beeching turned up. And one of the problems with Dr Beeching's legacy is that we now have a whole lot of disused railways, and it seems that we are happily building all over them. So, Trumbligdon meadows built over the top of one, and we lost one after some eyes, and now we're planning to build on top of another on the Haverhill railway. And in addition to that, we're also allowing blocks of flats, like the ones at Shelford, to be built right next to the railway line. So, we've been allowing blocks of flats in Great Shelford to be built right next to the railway line, and that means that we can now no longer widen that line, and it means that we can no longer have another type of transport come alongside the station at Great Shelford, and what that means is that we need to now sweep round through the countryside and lose more of our green fields because we're not planning with a proper long-term system. We have chaotic and haphazard development that is progressively making transport planning more and more difficult. So, for these reasons, I support the railway line being rebuilt to Linton Haverhill along its original route past Grand Park, and I feel if we build the Seaset proposal or any other strange hybrid bus, something like that, then we will lose for the long term the ability to rebuild our proper railway network. Thank you. Councillor Richard Williams. Thank you very much, Chair. Obviously, my ward, this doesn't touch my ward, but it's very, very close to my ward. There is something that's changed since these plans were first developed, and that's COVID, and that has changed travelling and commuting patterns and the number of people who actually travel to work. We don't fully know yet what the impact will be, how long-term the shift of home working, or rather how long the shift to home working will endure, but I think there is good evidence that it will have a permanent effect, and this will have substantially changed travel patterns. So, I don't think it is unreasonable. In fact, I think it is essential that plans like this that predate COVID are reviewed and reassessed. Now, Councillor Fane, I understand the difficult position Councillor Fane is in here, but, you know, Councillor Fane, I think, give a very good summary of the environmental impact of this proposal, which does cut through some of the best. I would agree with his comment, some of the best green belt countryside that we have. It's very intrusive. Now, it makes sense to review and to see if, given the changes that are likely in travel patterns, that another route might in fact be a better route, could be an on-road route, which would be less environmentally damaging, basically the cost-benefit analysis changes. So, I do support this motion, and I will just add a small point of local interest, although not directly relevant to CSAP. There is also or has been a travel hub proposed in my ward at Wittlesford, which seems to be kind of going nowhere at the moment, because it's waiting on the outcome of the A505 study, and, you know, the A505 and the GCP are sort of waiting for one or the other of them to move. A question I often get asked is, well, has the GCP taken account of travel patterns, changes in travel patterns because of COVID, will this affect their plans? It's a perfectly reasonable point. It's a point that many residents make to me, and, therefore, I think it is perfectly reasonable of us to say, actually, we're not sure that this is the right route now, the costs and benefits may have changed, and it should be reviewed, and I will be supporting this motion. Thank you, Councillor Williams. Councillor John Batchelor. Thank you, Chair. Through you. As a member for Linton, and living within sight of the A1307, I'm more than aware of the issues on this corridor. There's major problems, major problems of congestion, of pollution, and most importantly, serious safety concerns. We need to provide an option so that people can get around without getting into their cars. Although there are people with concerns, and understandable concerns about seaset, there are also many people, such as those who work at the biomedical campus, who think that seaset offers a chance of a real improvement in their lives. I'm talking about people who can't work from home, essential workers who work long shifts, nurses, cleaners, porters, and admin staff. The people at Adambrooks Hospital who book you in, ensure the hospitals clean, will patients down to theatre. High property prices have forced many to live some distance from Cambridge, in Linton, in Haverhill, and even further afield. 24% of people working at Adambrooks approach using the SC southeast corridor, and 21% of patients do so. There are very few reliable public transport options. Most of these people have to drive to work, only to get stuck in traffic and pay higher parking charges. What they need is a reliable, quick transportation, and this is what seaset offers. This motion dismisses the need for those residents, and I don't feel that is right, so I will be voting against. Thank you. Thank you, councillor. Councillor Heather Williams. I just want to point out the last person I'm taking questions from is Councillor Conn. Councillor Heather Williams. Thank you, Chair. And, like Councillor Howe, the I've had has now given up, so I'm referring back to written notes. So, I think on listening chair to some of what's been said by the debate, I think we just need to realise that circumstances change, and we need to reflect those. Reference has been made to other councillors or other party members that I represent the same party. We're talking about the longest political party in history. Things will have changed and will have moved on, that what we do today will not necessarily match what we did 10, 15 or 20 years ago or 100 years ago. And I think if we work on this basis that we're bound forever and never allowed to change our mind, what's the point? What's the point of us being here? We need to listen to people and we need to reflect that. And sometimes we need to say, do you know what, we have an idea and we need to change it because it's not working. I don't think there's any embarrassment about that. I think it's a pragmatic and sensible approach. And I think that's exactly what's happening here with C-set circumstances have changed. Councillor Fane listed many ways that it has. There are other options available now. It doesn't need to be segregated because the metro is gone. We could have it on-road. We can open up the railway line. I agree that there is a need for something in this area. I don't think any of us disagree with that. But what's currently being proposed is not right at this time in that area. And a lot of reference in this debate by some has been made around party politics. I would just remind people that residents really will not be looking today at what party brought a motion. They'll be looking at the wording of the motion and what that means for them. So I would encourage members to look at the words of it, not just the party of which the motion is written because residents won't thank you for it if you just take it on that basis. Thank you, Councillor Williams. To correct what I said before, I will take questions at the points from Councillor Cahn and from Councillor Frederick Smith. So Councillor Cahn. When I saw this motion was coming up, I thought, how much do I know about the area and what it's going to, even though many years ago I did live in sources, and generally the area. And I thought, well, I'd better have a look at the map. So I got out my 21 to 25,000 map, tried to look at the alignment that was proposed, looked at alternative alignments to see whether this was better or worse what was the opportunity. And as has been commented, it's very difficult to find a good alignment that brings in the Shelfords and Sauston and Linton and all the different communities on the route and it's in a suitable location. Criticisms of the Coventry alignment that goes around the communities, it's on the edge of the communities and that one perhaps is justified, but I didn't see anything very much better than alternative. What this motion proposes, it says it does not support the Coventry proposals. Now it may be that these are not the best proposals, but this is actually rejecting them. It may not be the best, but it may be that they are, in fact, the best compromise that you could get. This proposal says we don't support them, we on no account support the existing line. I think that is tying ourselves for the future until we know more about what the future situation is going to be in terms of employment. We do what is certain is we need fast good access with public transport to the south. We could have any hope of having the necessary mode changed to reduce congestion in the city. Therefore, I think we just need to keep an open mind on this. I think this one ties us far too much. It may be that this isn't the one when it comes to a public inquiry about a proposal that people can show a better alternative, but at this stage, I don't think we should tie ourselves to the future. Thank you very much, Councillor Carn. And Councillor Bridget-Smith, because we have Bridget-Smith. It's bad, actually. Councillor Carn has made such a good point, and it's so flippin' late that I will hold my own counciller and we'll get to a vote. Thank you very much. In that case, members, we'll come back to Councillor Mark Howell. Thank you, Chairman. Much appreciated. Oh, sorry. Just one moment. We'll come back to Councillor Coe and then Councillor Howell. Yeah, I mean, I think all the points, you know, have been raised as to why, you know, I would support this motion. I think, you know, there's many, many reasons and things that have changed that, you know, illustrate why we should hit the pause button on this project and avoid carving up very, very beautiful green bell unnecessarily, potentially. So that's why I support the motion. Thank you, Councillor Coe. Councillor Howell. Thank you once again, Chairman. Chairman, I am not trying to stop CSAT in far from it. I just believe that the current proposals and now the new circumstances will be coming up. We've now known with regards to is or be mentioned with regards to the pandemic and also the Cambridge Astronomous Network, I don't think at the moment the current proposals are correct. With regards to the previous councillors in that particular patch, Councillor Orgy was four years ago and I think Councillor Hitchford, I think I've thought my head was eight years ago. Things changed quickly and things have changed over that particular time. But I've listened very carefully to what other people have said, very carefully to me, but the one phrase that I will now remember that I will take away from you isn't something that was said here. It was something by Councillor Finne when he says that I'm paraphrasing this is some of the best green belt land in Cambridge. And that is the reason that I will be voting for this motion. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you very much, Councillor Howell. So we're going to move to a vote. So members, if you wish to support the motion, indicate with the green button, if you object to the motion, indicate with the red button and if you wish to have staying with the yellow. I think there's one person who has not yet voted. Can the Democratic Services tell me whether that's good? Okay, we've now got all 23 voted. There are six in favour and 17 against, so that motion falls. Thank you, members. The final item on the agenda is on page Roman 8 of the agenda and indicates the chair's engagements. I simply wanted to add that in addition to those listed there, I also attended on the 3rd of October with justice service for the county of Cambridgeshire at Ely Cathedral. Thank you, members. Thank you very much for staying with us to the end and we've finished now at 19.20. Thank you very much. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Vice-Chair.