 Wel, wrth g wedi nhw, fel y byddai'n cael cynnwys unrhyw yng nghylch math yn mynd ymlineg, nad yw yw'r asleugau sy'n rhoi'n cyd-i'n cymhreffon o hollol, roedden i'r pertyn. Mae ni'n cymhreffon, Anna Bradnham, ac mae ymlaen o'r DU Newidau Cyngor. Mae mewn cyfrwag yn cyflaen o'r Peta Ffain. Nid yw'r hynny mae ymlaen o'r yrhaith, mae'n can enghreffol yn ond we also allow recording, filming and photography so long as proceedings at the meeting are not disrupted. We also allow the use of social media during the meeting to bring council issues to the attention of a wider audience. To minimise disturbance to others attending the meeting, please switch your phone or other mobile device to silent or vibrate. For those participating at the meeting who are present in the chamber, your microphone should please be kept switched off unless you are invited to speak. For those participating remotely, when you are invited to address the meeting, please make sure that your microphone and cameras are switched on, and then when you finish addressing the meeting, please turn both off. Please would 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. The chat facility should not be used for any other purposes except where necessary to write down a simple 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 will 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 on the display boards. Officers have confirmed that the meeting is correct and that we can proceed. 1. Apologies. Are there any apologies for absence, Mr Francis? Thank you, Chair. We have apologies from Councillor Stephen Drew, Peter Sanford and William Jackson Wood. Thank you very much. Are there any other apologies from group leaders? No, okay. Are there any members who are participating remotely? No, okay. Thank you very much. Item 2 is declarations of interest. Do any members have any interest to declare in relation to any item of business on the agenda? Thank you. I can see Councillor Stobart, Councillor Heather Williams, Councillor James Hobrow, and did Mark Howell, Councillor Mark Howell put his hand up as well? Okay. So firstly then, Councillor Stobart. Thank you, Chair. I am a director of the two partnerships, South Cambridge Investment Partnership, and South Cambridge of Projects. I've discussed the agenda with the monitoring officer, and we feel that it's best that I leave the council chamber and don't participate in the discussion for all of item 8. So I intend to leave after item 7. Thank you very much. We will miss you for that. So next one, Councillor Heather Williams. Thank you, Chair. So I'm a member of the Greater Cambridge Partnership Assembly, and there is reference to them through the reports of transparency and declaring their interest. Thank you. Councillor Mark Howell. Thank you, Chairman. Chairman, I am a member of Cambridgeshire County Council, and it has a tendency to pop up in the most unexpected of places throughout the agenda. Thank you very much. Can I just point out? If you've got it in registered on your register of interests, there's no need to declare. Councillor Ellington. Thank you, Chair. I'm not a rate payer for Swavesy Byways rates, and therefore it's a non-procurement interest, but I think I just need to say it's Swavesy Byways, my village. Thank you very much. Councillor Fane. Thank you, Chair. Yes, I am a director of Shah Homes, which is a payment of Shah Homes in item 8i, so I will be withdrawing for that item and standing down as Vice-Chair. Thank you very much. Councillor Hobro. Thank you, Chair. So through my membership of this council, I'm a non-executive director of Emond Street Housing, and having discussed with the monitoring officer, I will be stepping out for item 8 as well. Thank you very much. And Councillor Nieto. I will be stepping out of aid, G, the housing review account budget, because it will be, I will be impacted by it. 8G, that was that. Yes. Thank you very much. Okay, I think that's everybody. Have I taken everybody? Good. And can I remind you, members, that you need to keep your register of interests up-to-date, and please inform democratic services of any changes. Just one moment, please. Councillor Van der Veier, when you've had a chance to sit down, do you have any interests that you wish to declare? Okay, thank you very much. Okay, so moving on then, item 4 is the minutes which can be found on pages 7-36 of the agenda. And we would normally seek to approve the minutes, but members, do you have any amendments to the minutes? I'll go through them. There are quite a lot of pages, so I will go through them fairly swiftly, but I'll be lenient about taking pauses. So pages 17, 18, 19, 20, 21. Councillor Heather Williams. Thank you, Chair. In relation to the written answers on page 21 and 27, just to note that we haven't received written answers for those things, I'm just asking if Chair can ensure that we get answers to written questions as quickly as possible for future meetings. Thank you, Councillor Heather Williams. I understood that some of those might have been emailed to you, but perhaps not all. Can we clarify that they will be sent? Thank you. So, moving on. Page 22, 23. Pages 24 and 25. Pages 26 and 27. Pages 20... 27, 28 and 29. 30 and 31. 32 and 33. 34 and 35. So, with that amendment, I propose that we accept the minutes. As recorded, there are no amendments. Do we agree? Can I take that by affirmation? Yeah, perhaps I can second that for you. Oh, thank you. And Councillor Fang has kindly seconded that for me. Thank you. So, by affirmation, Members. So that's the minutes of the 24th of November 2022. As recorded as a correct record by affirmation. Announcements. The first is that I would like to make an announcement, and that is of the death of former Councillor Richard Somfield, who was a district councillor for Milton, from 1995 to 2006 as an independent, and then from 2006 to 2010 as a Liberal Democrat. He served on this council's first cabinet, alongside the first two leaders, Councillor Daphne Spink and then Councillor Sebastian Kingsley, and our officer, Patrick Adams, was kind enough to point out to me. He took a keen interest in financial matters of the council and the then finance director, Greg Harlock, used to assure councillors that the latest financial figures had been summer-fielded, which was nice. So, thank you. Leader, I believe you might have an announcement too. Thank you very much indeed, Chair. This is the first time we've met as a full council since the very sad death of John Lovelock, so I thought it appropriate just to say very few words. Much has been said, all of it lovely, and some of us were able to attend John's funeral quite recently, which was a real celebration of a very full and valued life. It was especially lovely to hear how both he and his family were so proud that he'd become a district councillor in May. That was reiterated again and again. Great sense of pride in him, and his family continued that great sense of pride in what he'd been able to achieve, and all that he had done for his community in the short time that he was a district councillor. I have said it before, and I'll say it again. If I was asked to produce a template of the perfect district councillor, John would have been that template. We could do with more of him, and we will miss him desperately. Members, I'd like to propose a moment of silence to remember councillors' past, and including councillors, some field and Lovelock. Thank you, members. Members, I think we may have another announcement from Councillor Handley. Yes, thank you, Chair. This finally marks the first anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The war, as we all know, continues with a sign that it will end soon. Later in the meeting, I'll be answering a question on the council's response to the Ukraine crisis, but I'd like to put things into context now, if I may. This district has had the largest number of Ukrainian guests of any district, approaching 800, and we're very grateful, not only to the people of South Cambridgeshire who have risen to the challenge of hosting these refugees, but also to the officers of the council who reacted quite magnificently to the challenges of managing the homes for Ukraine scheme. I'm sure that members will join me in thanking them for all their hard work and determination. I understand that there is to be a national minute's silence to be held on this coming Friday, which is the first anniversary at 11 o'clock, and that is certainly something that I will observe. Thank you. Thank you very much, Councillor Handley. So, just checking with the leader of the council. Okay, so moving on to item six, which is questions from the public. We received one request from a member of the public to make a statement which was refused, as it didn't accord with the public speaking scheme. We have also had a question from a member of the public which has been published as a supplementary item to the agenda. Can Mr Nick Burton let us know if he's in attendance? Thank you very much, Mr Burton, and you have three minutes to speak. Do proceed with your question. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for giving me the time. This is in relation to item 16 and 18a on your agenda. The background to the question is on 28 April 2022, Councillor Smith posted a following statement on her Facebook page immediately prior to the local election at which she was a candidate, obviously for the area of gambling gay. A few people have asked me what the arc is as a result of a rather strange fly entitled Stop the Arc being put through some letter boxes in the village. So in a nutshell, this was a government project launched in 2017, which now appears to be completely ditched by Mr Goebb MP. It was never really clear what the scheme was about, but the government did backtrack pretty quickly on discussion of one million new homes to create a UK silicon valley between Oxford and Cambridge when they realised that every council, including South Cambridgeshire, opposed it. You won't be surprised to learn that this is all a nonsense and I'm at loss to understand why this anonymous group thinks it's worthwhile to leave for a gambling game. Councillor Smith was the nominated South Cambridgeshire District Council representative on the Arc Lindus Group and the leader of the Environmental Working Group and remains as part of the Shadow Board. She was therefore part of the management group, directly responsible for deciding what the Arc was about. The original National Infrastructure Commission sponsored 2018 reports, which are included as an extract of the appropriate map, suggested that Cambridgeshire, which in their case excluded Peterburn in Finland, needed 80,000 houses for natural growth but 128,000 additional houses for the transformational growth required to meet the Arc's objective all by 2050. An additional 63,000 were expected to be forced on local authorities by land shortages. The South Cambridgeshire slash Cambridge City, for their joint local plan share of these figures, is 53% based on the 2021 census. Over the 32 years to 2050, that would have been 1,300 houses per annum for natural growth and an additional 2,100 per transformational growth, 3,400 per year. The new local plan from local councils proposes 57,000 by 2041. That's 3,560 per annum and that Councillor Smith and her colleagues would therefore be on target to achieve their share of the 1 million houses allegedly required for the transformation, which she said they do not support. However, there is no government funding in the recently announced Oxford-Cambridge partnership with the vast sum of 2.5 million of the necessary infrastructure, services, water, sewage, GP surges, GP surgeries, I beg your pardon, schools, et cetera, which are already inadequate, as is regularly public stated, for the current level of developments. In view of this background and with the benefit of hindsight, Councillor Smith now consider her Facebook post above to be at least misleading. I'm also explained what development proposed Oxford-Cambridge partnership is seeking to deliver if not the excessive housing her local plan proposes, because at the moment the council seems to be invited to sign quite literally a pig in a poke. You want investment, you want environment in public schools, but for what purpose? Thank you, Mr Burton, the leader. Thank you, I'll stand up so I can see you. Thank you, Mr Burton, for coming all this way, and thank you very much for your question. I'm pleased to be able to clarify some matters. At the time of writing, Mr Gove had indeed indicated that what had been known as the Oxford-Cambridge art would no longer be taken forward by the government. Since then, partly in response to the levelling up white paper which talks about pan-regional partnerships, a more locally led partnership has actually received the government funding you referred to, admittedly only £2.5 million thus far. And that, again as you reference, is set out in item 16 of this agenda. So my involvement in the Oxford-Cambridge partnership is in the environment working group which I lead and I've led on the environment since 2018 since I became council leader. When I became council leader, the environment wasn't a high priority and since my involvement, it's now is a very high priority. So this working group has continued to push for significant environmental improvements across the region at a strategic level, ensuring that we make the most of the opportunities for large-scale environmental improvements and for more joined up working across all the authorities. We're all of us limited by our boundaries but working across boundaries allows us to address some environmental issues at scale. So the Oxford-Cambridge partnership has two key work strands, the economy and the environment. And it aims to harness both the incredible talent and innovation across the region and that's the whole way across. It's not just Oxford and Cambridge, it's Milton Keynes, it's Bedford, it's Bista, it's all the places in between. And so championing, there's an opportunity to champion the region as a world leader in research and innovation in high-tech, high-performance technology and manufacturing and acting to achieve exemplary environmental, sustainable and inclusive group. So you make reference, Mr Burton, to housing numbers and if I could just clarify the situation here. This council has not relied upon the work of others to determine the housing numbers that are going to be required from now into the future in order to ensure that we make sufficient provision for jobs here to encourage our economy to grow but also to make sure that we have sufficient housing for the people working in those jobs and those people are not going to be commuting in vast distances by car further damaging our environment. So we commission our own evidence on housing need and our evidence looks at how the greater Cambridge economy, that's Cambridge City and South Cambridgeer, not the OCP region will grow in the future. And anyone reviewing the evidence that we published a few weeks ago will be able to see the methodology that's been employed and the efforts made by our officers to provide the most accurate forecast possible for what will happen across the, sorry, what will happen to jobs across the area up until 2041. And our recently published evidence concludes that in addition to the 37,200 homes already provided for in the local plan that was adopted in 2018, economic growth in the area means that we need to plan for a further 19,700 additional homes. This area has bucked the trend of COVID. The COVID effect here has actually precipitated growth particularly in pharma and biomed. So in the first proposals consultation in 2021, we've already suggested sites for where some 11,500 of these new homes could be delivered. But we've also identified challenges particularly in respect to future water supply. And this council is absolutely clear that until we can secure greater certainty around the resolution of this matter of water supply, we cannot commit to any more homes beyond those which are in the current local plans. But it's important, as I've already referenced, that we recognise that not providing enough homes to meet the needs of the workforce has serious consequences. We already have greatly inflated rents, greatly inflated house prices, carbon emissions due solely to transport that are 25% above the national average. So we don't want to force people to live elsewhere because of the house prices and the rents and to commute into South Cambridgeshire and Cambridge City doing further damage to our climate and our environment and impacting on our ability to move this area to zero carbon. So, as a responsible council with a good track record of partnership working, we have numerous partnerships and we are considered a good partner. That's why we seek to use every avenue we can, including through this emerging pan regional partnership, to work with other councils, to work with universities, to work with business, and most importantly for these big strategic issues to work with government to identify the infrastructure required in this area to deliver really sustainable growth. And the Oxford-Cainbridge partnership, given much of it, is planned at a scale much greater than district councils, will help us do that. And that allows us to lobby government with one locally represented voice across a large area and to, for us to do that, use that voice to leave a critical funding from government which is required to underpin future sustainable growth in our area. Sorry, that was rather long. Thank you, leader. Mr Burshan, do you have a supplementary question? Would you like to put your microphone on? I think the simple one would be if you find that you cannot sustain the water supplies for the level of growth, which... I wasn't quite sure which local plan, but a local plan would capture that. Are you therefore going to recommend that the investment is moved elsewhere? Sorry, could you just repeat the last bit of that sentence? Am I going to recommend... If you discover that the growth is capped by water supplies particularly in the Cambridge area and I understand you're even considering desalination plans as an option now, would you therefore see you would recommend the investment is made elsewhere? So, we've made it quite clear in a meeting recently of our overview and scrutiny committee and this council that water supply was absolutely critical to being able to deliver any housing over and above that in the current adopted plans for Cambridge City and South Cambridgeer. There has to be a solution. You can't build houses or businesses for which there is not water and we cannot see further damage done to our valuable rivers and chalk streams. So, we've already made that commitment and that's absolutely clear in all the documentation that we've published as part of our local plan. So, it is not in our power alone to solve the water issues. District councils can't build desalination plans. That's for the water companies and for government to track that note. So, we know there are plans for two new reservoirs one of which we think we know where it is, the other we haven't a clue, but also to be piping water down from Lincolnshire. I suspect there isn't a single answer to this. I think it's got to be a menu of solutions in order that we don't have any single points of failure over water, but we've made it quite clear that the water is the biggest issue here that will prevent us meeting the need for growth in this area, but we must not forget that Greater Cambridge, similar with Oxfordshire, this is the engine for growth in the UK. We are net contributors. So, the government, I don't imagine the government want to see anything hindering the growth in this area, but they've got to do their bit. So, you know, this is a call upon government that they've got to step up and help us with either a district council alone or as part of the Oxford-Cambridge partnership, which is where I think we will have more clout to solve these big strategic issues. And as I said to you when we had a chat before, I'm always more than happy to come and talk to your group anytime it would be a pleasure and do my best to answer any questions. Obviously, I think you know by now that the Oxford-Cambridge partnership now has a website. You know, things are going to be far more in the public domain, which I and the other leaders across the area think is very, very important as we move forward. Thank you. Thank you very much, leader. And thank you for your question, Mr Burton. You're welcome to stay if you wish. Thank you. So, moving on to item seven, which is petitions. I understand no petitions have been received. Okay, thank you. Item HA, we start on a number of papers which Councillor John Williams will be responding to. The first of which is the medium term financial strategy 2023 to 2028, which is on page 37 of our agenda. And I'll call on Councillor John Williams, League Cabinet Member for Resources, to present the report and move the recommendation. Thank you. And Councillor Hobart is leaving. Thank you, Chair. I'll just wait for the members to leave the Chamber. Thank you. I moved the recommendations in the report. I would draw members' attention to Appendix B, or on page 63, which lays out the medium term financial strategy in tabular form and gives you the figures for the coming five years. You will, of course, see some good news compared to the previous MTFS that predicted outturn, the prediction of surplus or deficit over those five years has been reduced from just over six million to just under four million. However, that is the good news. We continue, however, to be faced with the possibility of the fair funding review, which we now see has slipped back again to 2025-26. And you'll see in that table a significant reduction in our retained business rates. That's the 40% of business rates that we retain from the business rates we collect on behalf of the government. And you'll see, therefore, that we're looking at some 5. Just over 5.8 million drop in business rate income, which we're predicting as a result of that fair funding review. So although the outturn figure of 3.944 is better than the 6 million that we were predicting six months ago, we are still looking at a deficit situation. And therefore, it is important that we continue to ensure that our council tax income is kept up and that we continue to raise council tax over the next five years in accordance with this plan to ensure that we minimise that deficit as much as we can. Otherwise, you can see there that very much, the rest of it is very much as previously predicted and that, as I say, the change is basically the outcome of the loss that we are going to make. We are going to make less of a loss over those five years, but nevertheless, we are still forecasting a loss. And therefore, we mustn't give up on ensuring that we maximise council tax income and that we continue with our transformation policy where we are looking to improve productivity of the council and we are looking to make savings of at least 2 million pounds in that area to ensure that we save as well as increase our income. Thank you. Thank you very much, Councillor John Williams. Do you have a seconder? Chair, I would like to second. Thank you. Thank you very much. Would you like to speak now or reserve your right? No, thank you, Chair. No, reserve your right. Thank you. Okay, so members, does anybody wish to make a comment? Thank you, Councillor Heather Williams. Thank you, Chair. If I can draw members' attention to page 41, paragraph 25. And particularly to the line in relation to savings and incomes as the leader of the finance has outlined, or resources, sorry, I think you're now known to the 2 million. And I just wanted to recite some of the caution that we've been given in previous years. So four years ago, on page 175 of our then agenda pack, it said whilst the council has a record of identifying delivering savings through service reviews and value for money improvements, many such savings have already been delivered and it is becoming more difficult to identify and deliver further savings and efficiencies. The year after that, three years ago from today, on page 32, paragraph 37, it stated savings. It is inevitably more difficult to continue to reduce costs and put in place savings after an extended period of reduced funding without impact on service provision. Chair, I feel very uncomfortable supporting this in its current form given those warnings that we have had over previous years. And what we see today, it does make me question and challenge and uncomfortable with the assertion that we can make 2 million pounds more savings. So I'm afraid that I have real concerns that if we were to proceed ahead with this, there would be, as was told to us three years ago, a real impact on quality of service for residents, the service they deserve, and inevitably those savings wouldn't be able to be found and that a wider black hole in the budget could be created and therefore I would not see it as responsible for myself to support this proposal. Thank you, Chair. Thank you very much. Are there any other members wishing to speak? I can't see any. So in that case, we'll proceed to a vote. Sorry. Sorry. Councillor John Williams, sorry. I do feel free to sum up. Sorry. Do we need to take the seconder? Sorry. Councillor John Williams, would you like to respond? Thank you, Chair. Well, the world moves on, of course. And what we've found with the use of new technology that we can continue to find productivity improvements using artificial intelligence, using better ways that our residents can make contact with this council, enables us to actually find savings without affecting the quality of our services to our residents. I'm quite confident that we can continue to find savings. We can also continue to find income, additional income, and that as a result we can achieve these figures. As I say, the big unknown, and it's been an unknown now for the last six years, has been government, short-term government policy towards local government. The fact that local government is impossible for local government to plan beyond what's going to happen in the next year. Every year we wait for the settlement in December. We never know exactly what that settlement's going to be. It makes it extremely difficult for us to be able to plan in the medium and long term. Sorry, we have to apply caution, and we have to look at the worst-case scenario, and therefore we have always written into the five-year financial strategy the possibility of a fair funding review that will see our business rate income being significantly reduced. Yes, every year it hasn't happened, and we have to push it back, but every year we are told by government that it is going to happen, so we have to make allowance for it. Clearly, if it wasn't going to happen, then we would end up with a surplus at the end of the five-year period, but it would be very dangerous of us to assume that that is not going to happen, so we have to ensure that we put that in our medium-term financial strategy. But as our officers have demonstrated over the years that with their support we have been able to greatly improve the productivity of this council, and we will continue to improve the productivity of this council whilst delivering a high-quality service to our residents. Thank you, Councillor John Williams. Councillor Peter Macdonald, would you like to... Chair, thank you. Yes, nothing to add in addition to what Councillor Williams already said. I'm sorry. I've just noticed that Councillor Fygott had asked to speak. Would you mind Councillor Macdonald if I... Councillor Fygott, sorry, I haven't seen you. Thank you, Chairman. So on page 41 on paragraph 25 of this item, there is a table showing our future years. Councillor Fygott, could you just speak up a little bit or bring your microphone closer? For the people who are listening. It's a better. So my question is, is this realistic or are we masking the likelihood the budget gap will get even bigger? Thank you. Thank you. Councillor John Williams, do you want to respond? The table in paragraph. Yes, thank you. Well, I would refer you to... I mean, we do test this against various scenarios and that, you know, the worst-case scenario could suggest that we could be over 10 million pounds in the red or we could be under one million pounds in the red. That demonstrates the uncertainty that local government faces because national government does not give us the certainty of being able to probably forecast what will happen not just in ten years' time or five years' time, but next year. And until local government gets that medium to long-term ability to forecast based on what the government is expecting us to do, then no one can say with any certainty what will happen in five years' time or what the deficit or surplus will be over those five years. All we can do is make the best possible assumptions based on the evidence that's before us and that's we've had in the past. So yes, the deficit could be more or the deficit could be less. You know, we are where we are and this is the best forecast that we can make at this moment in time. Thank you very much, Councillor John Williams. Councillor Peter McDonald. Nothing to add, Chair. Thank you. Thank you. Did you have anything further to add, Councillor Williams? No, Chair. Thank you. So, I am going to go to the vote. So, can I ask Erin to set up the voting system, please? We need to look at recommendation 8A on the medium term financial strategy for 2023 to 2028. And this is A, acknowledged that the projected changes in service spending and the overall resources available to the council over the medium term 2025 to 2028. And B, approved the refreshed medium term financial strategy at Appendix A and the updated financial forecast at Appendix B. Members, if you are in favour, firstly, indicate that you are present by pressing the blue button. If you are in favour, press the green button and if you wish to vote against that, press the red button. If you wish to abstain, press the button with an X on it. Thank you. Has everybody successfully voted? Can I just check with Erin if anybody has not been able to? We're up to 37. Thank you. So, you can see from the display that that's 28 in favour, 9 against. So, that is carried. Thank you very much, Erin. So, moving on to item 8B, which is the new build housing strategy for 2020 to 2025. And this is an update. And I call upon Councillor John Batchelor, the lead Cabinet Member for Housing, to present the report and move the recommendation. Councillor Batchelor. Thank you very much, Chair. I'm very pleased to move the recommendation here. What we're looking at is a refresh of the new build housing strategy. This is a five-year strategy up to 2025. I'm pleased to say the reason that this has come into you is that the housing numbers target has already been reached two years early, and we're proposing a new target of 75 houses per year. We're also, the other substantive recommendation is that we increase the modelling period for payback from 35 to 45 years. What this is, is the formula that we apply to test the viability of prospective housing projects that we may wish to buy into. We want to increase this in order to give our officers some more flexibility in their negotiations. The reason for that is that housing associations who we compete for affordable housing mostly use a formula that works on 40 to 50-year paybacks. There's no particular intention to go to anything above 35. Currently, we just want this, so there is flexibility in the system. Other than that, you'll find on paragraph 12 there are a substantial list of minor changes which are also being made. I'm pleased to move the recommendation, which you'll find in paragraph five. Thank you, Chair. Thank you very much, Councillor John Batchelor. Do you have a seconder? Thank you, Councillor Milnes. I thought it was actually going to be... I think Councillor Hawkins. Yes, I thought Councillor Hawkins was going to second it. Councillor Hawkins, are you happy to second this? I am happy to second it, thank you, Chair. Would you like to speak now or reserve your right? I will just say a few words, which is to say thank you to the housing team who have worked extremely hard in finding or getting us to this stage where we've achieved the target earlier than we thought we would and they continue to do an excellent job and, of course, working very well with the planning team to make sure that we do get the best out of size. That's all I have to say. Thank you. Thank you very much, Councillor Dr Hawkins. So, Councillor Mark Howell. Thank you very much indeed, Chairman. I am more than happy to support this. I think that the fact that we've now got up to 45% is sad, but it's a necessary thing that we have to do, especially with regards to competitors. Can I remind us all that we went up to 30 years before we had to go up to 40 years? Sorry, 40 years, not 40%, 45 years. But it's something we have to look at and I think we have to look forward in the future at as much as possible is there any more land out there that we own that we can actually utilise for the future. And I think that we can only keep on praising this and hope it keeps on going down the right track. So, yeah, well done. Thank you very much, Councillor Howell. That's a miln's. And I'd just like to add my thanks to the housing team for some brilliant work in terms of delivering houses to our public. In source to my local ward we've put a development where we've just delivered the last of 60 properties. It's very good for thermal efficiency and the residents tell me they're delighted that they're relatively low utility bills because of that. So we've got mechanical ventilation and heat recovery systems in there that can provide fresh air without losing the heat. So that's one example of their thermal efficiency. They've also got sort of power as well. So Kirstin and the team have done a fantastic job. So I applaud them and thank you for common support across council. Thank you. Thank you very much. Councillor Heather Williams. Thank you, Chair. And along the lines of what I said when this came to Cabinet that I think building more council housing is a passion that's shared across the chamber by us all. And I did reference how lucky we are to have our council housing. I appreciate that decision was taken well before many of us were here. So not everybody may understand the context of what a difficult decision that was for the council to keep their, keep the council stock. So my credit to those that fought to protect it and for those that continue to ensure that we build out to the maximum. Thank you, Chair. Thank you very much. Well, I've only heard people speaking in favour of this. So can I suggest are we happy to take this by affirmation members? Agreed, lovely, thank you. Does anybody wish to vote against or abstain? Thank you, great. So that's by, we agree this motion at 8B which is, I probably should have read this out before but it's the recommendations on page five. Sorry, at paragraph five on page 65. Agreed by affirmation, thank you. So we move on then members to item 8C, the business plan action plan for 2023 to 2024 and it's on pages 79 to 100 of our agendas today. So can I call upon the leader of the council to present the report and move the recommendation? Thank you, thank you very much indeed. So I'd just firstly like to thank all the officers who've contributed this, particularly Kevin Ledger who manages to, like his name, produce something as legible and a very easily read document which quite clearly sets out what it is we want to achieve, how we're going to monitor it but also very gratifyingly lists all the completed actions which is very nice because too often we move on so quickly to do new things that we forget to celebrate all the things that we have achieved as a council. So it continues to be an ambitious business plan, very, very community focused, very responsive to what our communities, our residents and our businesses are telling us that they want and need. So it includes everything from work to enhance the high streets, delivering new markets to making sure that our own council housing is energy efficient which we've already heard about, continuing to give grants to plant trees, to give grants to make sure there's electric vehicle charging in our villages and then some really very big ticket issues at Northstone delivering all the community facilities there, the sports pavilions, the community centre, the civic hub. So there's a lot of stuff here, not going to go through it all but I hope that we all appreciate the work that's gone into this. I believe that it's deliverable and we shall continue forward and obviously this gets updated as things get ticked off and achieved so we fill it up with even more stuff but we continue to be as responsive as we can to what our residents, our businesses are telling us they need. Thank you and do you have a seconder? Yes we have, it's a second nature. Do you wish to speak now or reserve your right? I'll reserve the right, thank you. Does anybody wish to speak to this? Councillor Cohn. Did I see Councillor Williams as well? Thank you chair for letting me speak on this issue. I just wanted to bring up on page 95 where we talk about the introduction of the trial for the four day work in week and essentially ask the leadership of this council whether they think that it is the right thing to do to continue with the trial of the four day work in week given that there's a lot of pressure on our residents in terms of the proposals to put up council tax. Residents are having to often work longer hours because of the cost of living. Do we think it's a fair and right thing to do at this time to be spending council tax payers' money on implementing the trial of a four day work in week? Councillor Cohn. Thank you. If I could ask a question through the chair back to Councillor Cohn did you take part in the briefing that Chief Executive gave on the four day week yesterday? Part of it, yes. Thank you. So I hope that that will have reassured you that this is undoubtedly the right thing to do. It is just a trial. It's a work in progress. We aren't going to make any presumptive assertions around it at the moment. It's going okay so far. I hope that that impetus can be maintained. There's a very interesting article in today's times talking about all the companies, the private companies who have trialled it so far and that's a very upbeat and positive article. It's because we really do care about our residents that we are trialling this because the evidence from elsewhere is that actually it drives productivity. It improves performance. We've already used it as an opportunity to make the contact centre available to people for extended hours over and above what it was before. So if I didn't think it was the right thing to do if we didn't think it was the right thing to do we wouldn't be doing it. And if we get to the point where it no longer seems to be the right thing to do then we will stop it. Thank you, leader. Councillor Heather Williams. Thank you, chair. Just looking to page 85 on opportunities to businesses. There's a couple of places where it's subject to funding and traditionally what would happen is that the budget is there to support the corporate plan, the business plan. So I'm wondering what funding is it that it's subject to because one would think if it's council money it would have been budgeted for. Thank you, chair. Leader, do you like to answer? I'm just trying to find where it says that. What page did you say? Page 85. Top right. Okay, thank you for that. For the detail of that, if you don't mind I'm going to defer to Councillor Macdonald but just to make a more general point back in 2018 when we decided to introduce an economic development work stream to this council there had been, back when I joined 100 years ago now it seems there was an economic development strategy for this council and then it was discontinued and actually much the same time the county council discontinued its work on economic development as well. So it was reintroduced in 2018 and I think our ability as a result of that to respond so well during the pandemic to businesses showed that it was the right thing to do and certainly when I talk to other councils more and more at district level councils are now involving themselves in business support and economic development and it's the district council networks conference this week, Downs and Albans and I think there's going to be a lot of conversation around that but for the detailed answer I'd like to defer to Councillor Macdonald If Councillor Williams doesn't mind I'll come back with a more detailed breakdown apart from what's in here which the largest part of the funding comes from the shared prosperity fund the shared prosperity fund that she will know is part of the levelling up commitments by government and we're pleased that we've been able to benchmark both the amounts and the best practice that we've deployed with other councils East Cambridgeshire to Fenland to the city and to others and for more detailed information I'm happy to supply that Thank you very much So, Councillor Macdonald So you're asking a question for Councillor Macdonald Chairman, I'm referring again to the same page page 85 and the bottom box on that particular table and there's a particular mention of high streets Could somebody tell me with regards to what is happening any further developments of the high street in Cambridgeshire Thank you Chairman Thank you leader, would you like to take that? Yes, with respect could I defer to Councillor Macdonald please who's more up to date than I am Yes So Mark, Councillor Howell, thanks very much So it's part of that shared prosperity fund One portion of the total money of the 1.76 million was we identified as high street development We very much encourage members including yourselves if you want to come along and make proposals because this fund runs all the way through till 2025 had representations from Sourston, from North Stowe and others and they'll be very happy to discuss with them Thank you very much Councillor Macdonald Councillor Modding-Coln Referred to page 97 I'm very glad to see that the work to introduce a producing big cultural strategy is still in the programme and that there's an action plan put forward for the growth of the cultural strategy This has been delayed for year olds over the year now because of the pressures of Covid and the Ukrainian crisis So I'm glad to see that it's been me introduced and I want to commend that at this element of the strategy Thank you very much Councillor Cahn I don't see anybody Just one moment I don't see any other request to speak at the moment but I'm planning to have a break after this so is there anybody what the request was Thank you So with no further requests to speak Can I Does anybody wish to vote against this? So can we go to a vote then these members and Aidan Arryn if you could run the vote for us So just to go back while you're finding your way around it the business action plan recommendation on page 79 is it is recommended that Council A consider and approve the proposed business action plan for 2023-24 at Appendix A and B, authorise the chief executive to make any minor wording changes required to final drafts in consultation with the leader So if you're in agreement with that please press the green button if you object please press the red button and if you abstain please press the X button I think that's 37 is that everybody Thank you very much So that's 27 in favour 10 against and no abstention so that is carried Thank you I'd like to call a 5 minute break for anybody who wishes Sorry Till 10 past Okay Reto, thank you very much We'll be back at 10 past Thank you Thank you very much Okay so we're back to item HD which is the capital strategy on pages 101 to 122 of the agenda and I call on Councillor John Councillor John Williams lead cabinet member for resources to present the report and move the recommendation Thank you Councillor Williams Thank you chair Delighted to move the recommendations on the order paper the revised capital strategy you find in appendix A of the report and the changes that have been made to it are in red and the major change is in paragraphs 7.4 and 7.5 which has been amended because of changes introduced by the the government by a DLUHC Otherwise generally speaking the capital strategy hasn't changed very much and therefore apart from that major revision because of amendment to government policy I move the recommendation Thank you very much Do you have a second? Yes I wish to second I don't wish to speak Thank you very much So Councillor Williams Do you wish to speak? Thank you chair I'll start with something that I'm welcoming which on page 121 the reduced reduction in the capital programme in relation to investment strategy as members will be aware that's something that we've shown a lot of caution over time however I do still find the authorised limits unacceptable to support but that being said there are a couple of areas that I would appreciate some clarification chair Page 115 the red text it says expenditure which although in normal circumstances is a revenue cost is deemed to be capital expenditure and I appreciate that that is a change that you've needed to make but could I please seek reassurance that we will not be using this change to shall we say creatively borrow for revenue expenditure which is not good practice we don't borrow for revenue expenditure and on page 120 it says accept on a short term basis now those of us that attend or sit on audit committee know that we have our debts because of interest rates are currently on a short term basis but really they are long term longer term loans they're not loans to be repaid within 12 months they'll be refinanced so can we have assurances that that caveat of accept on a short term basis will not be used for loans which are intended for refinancing thank you chair Page 13 is it paragraph 3 gross debt and capital financing requirement refers to it being short term cancer John Williams did you want to respond to that first the item on page 121 about the authorised limits and then page 115 yes thank you chair yeah I absolutely agree with you you shouldn't borrow to fund revenue and as the report says we have had no expectation of doing that so I can't say more than that I can't say more than that we have no expectation of doing that and it is not a practice that we ought to be doing in this authority on your second point that suggests that when a loan comes to maturity we would take out another loan to continue it it's not necessarily the case we could well then pay off that loan from our reserves so by no means you cannot say in any definite way what we will do when a loan comes to the end of a term of a loan we will look at the circumstances at the time and we will take a course that is most favourable to the council and that could be that we will then seek if interest rates are such we will seek another short term loan or we may decide to pay that off from our reserves or indeed we may look at a more long term loan but we will make all those decisions at the time where we have to make them in the circumstances that prevail at that time thank you councillor John Williams did you want to come back? Thank you chair, through yourself so just to make sure we're all on the same page the word says wording says will not be exceeded when we're talking about capital finance requirement will not be exceeded except on a short term basis so what I'm and for short term borrowing so I'm just seeking reassurance that that limit will not be breached if it's something that we are intending to refinance I appreciate things can change but I'm asking about the original intention can a lead member for resources reassure me about these That's what he says so I can reassure you that's what we will do Thank you very much Right I can't see anybody else wishing to speak so councillor Macdonald did you wish to say anything further? No thank you chair councillor John Williams did you wish to sum up at all No thank you chair Right so members do I take it that you are not happy with these and you're likely to wish to vote again? Okay so let's take it to a vote then members Aaron if you could set that up please so the recommendation is on page 101 of our agenda for capital strategy the councill is requested to consider the report and is satisfied to approve the updated capital strategy attached to defendix a to the report which sets the policy framework for the development, management and monitoring of capital investment including prudential indicators so members if you're in favour of that please press the blue button and then green for agree red if you are against that and zero x if you wish to have a stain I think it's possible that we have 34 members 4 members voted is that? That's not correct chair Sorry Is that fine? I think that's everybody now chair Okay so Thank you 37 37 Okay So that is 27 in favour 10 against no abstentions that is carried So moving on then to item HE which is the treasury management strategy and it's on pages 123 to 160 of our agenda with the document itself starting at page 129 so can I call upon Councillor John Williams to present the report please? Thank you Thank you chair Once again I'm happy to recommend the I've moved the recommendation on the order paper and the revised treasury management strategy is Appendix A and the changes once again are in red and as you see it takes into account and we review this every year and obviously since last year a lot of change in the financial markets and this has been amended to take account of the changes that we've seen considerable increase in interest rates a considerable increase in inflation and market uncertainties that we now face and one of the upshot of that we are having taken advice we have now included on our roster of counter parties three overseas banks a Canadian bank and two German banks doesn't mean to say that we are going to lend to these banks but it does mean that it gives us a much broader opportunity to seek the best possible return for our money given that UK banks unfortunately have a not such a good credit rating as they used to be because of Brexit Thank you very much Do you have a seconder, Councillor Williams? Yes, Chair, I'm happy to second that. That's Councillor Brian Milne's Would you like to speak now or reserve your rights? Reserve my rights to speak Okay, so does anybody wish to speak on this? Yes, Councillor Ellington Thank you Chairman I remember a time in this council when there was no general fund borrowing and now I find that on this page 147 that external borrowing is going to go up to 350,000 Are we really just investing in vanity projects or are we really buying to improve our financial status? Councillor Ellington That's a John Williams Would you like to respond? Thank you Chair Our biggest loan is from the Public Works Loan Board for our council house rents 205 million pounds which was taken out some years ago which everyone supported because we expected that to happen The other borrowing that we've undertaken is to purchase investments commercial investments such as our properties on the Cambridge Science Park and we have applied very strict rules regarding yield from that investment and I can assure you that the investments the loans that we have taken out to enable us to do those investments bring us an income which is above the cost of that borrowing and contributes to our services contributes to paying for the services that our residents receive and in fact I think next year we're looking at something like 7 million pounds income from our investments most of that is Herman Street but however some 3 million of that is from other investments and some of those investments were done with borrowing so we're not talking about vanity projects at all here what we're talking about is getting the best income so that we can provide the services for our local residents that would otherwise come under pressure if we only allowed for income from council tax and business rates thank you councillor Williams I think councillor Bygot did you wish to speak thank you Chairman I just wanted to ask a question the portfolio holder of finance mentioned a short while ago about Bygot you were addressing your questions to the chair that's right the portfolio holder of finance mentioned a short while ago about two German banks and one Canadian bank so my question was many of us who remember some years ago problems with Icelandic banks when many local authorities invested in those at that time it was considered that Iceland was a very stable economy and a very safe place to put money as indeed we would consider Canada and Germany to be stable economies what guarantees do we have what work has been done to ensure that a situation has happened with Icelandic banks might not happen with other overseas banks thank you thank you councillor Bygot councillor John Williams thank you chair we are actually going to invest in those banks but if we consider that we should be investing in those banks because they provide a better return for our money than UK banks then clearly we will make sure given the experience of the Icelandic banks that we are absolutely you know sure that they are sound investments and that they are banks that are not going to default on their on their borrowing but you know the reason we included them is because at the moment UK banks are not giving the best rate of return and we need to and we would be irresponsible of us if we did not consider all possibilities even though we may not in the end go with them but I have to be on our counter party register thank you very much thank you councillor Williams thank you chair and I am just going to pick up on something through yourself that I think perhaps was misheard and giving benefit the doubt was misheard because councillor Edinton's question was about general fund not about the HRA borrowing so just to clarify that it was general fund and what the answer given was in relation to housing funding part what I would say in the current climate and actually has been said about interest rates being difficult economies being difficult around the world not just in the UK I think the external borrowing that's on page 147 is of great concern to us and I would stress that different choices could have different outcomes this isn't the only way to go about securing the finances Irmond Street has been referred to and you know we we're not against investment and getting investment income but I don't think in the current proposals that it's a safe enough thing for us to be extending our borrowing at this time chair so I won't be supporting it thank you councillor hella Williams councillor John Williams did you want to come back on that? I only to say I think Street has been an enormous success given that you know it has met its targets and has actually delivered more than just an investment a commercial investment for us which is what it was originally intended to be under the previous administration and we've boldened that it is now part of the housing mix for this council and it is doing extremely well and we should congratulate those people in Irmond Street for what they've done and the fact that it now brings us in something like £5 million worth of income a year which helps us with our local services so you know and as a result of Irmond Street and some of that towards the end we've borrowed money for that but we've also borrowed money for purchasing properties on the Science Park for example which again are bringing in a yield which even though you take out the cost of that borrowing is bringing in an income for this council that we wouldn't otherwise have so I would not agree that our investments and our borrowing for those investments has been very careful I think we've been congratulated on how astute we have been in our investments and that we will continue to do that Thank you very much Councillor John Williams Councillor Mark Howell Just with regards to Irmond Street housing I just want to say thank you Good, thank you very much So Councillor I'll just say briefly I think this discussion about investments gives us an opportunity to correct the accusation that they're vanity projects for such that they've been turned into very valuable schemes under their poor sanity projects with that I shall end my supporting statement Neatly put Thank you very much So let's go I can't see anybody else wishing to make a comment so let's go to the vote members So the recommendation is on page one, two, three of our agenda for item A to E and the recommendation is that council is requested to consider the report and if satisfied to approve the updated Treasury management strategy attached to Dependix A to the report which sets the policy framework for the council's Treasury management activity including one the Treasury management policy statement two, the minimum revenue provision policy and I amend on the hoof three Treasury indicators Members, can we take the vote on that? Thank you Members, if you approve of that please press the blue button and then the green indicator If you object press the red light and if you wish to abstain press the yellow one I think we might still be missing somebody Just one Great So we have 37 votes 28 are in favour 9 are against and there are no abstentions so that is carried Thank you So we move on to item 8F which is on pages 161 to 170 of our agenda I note that at the beginning of the agenda this is referred to as the review of revenue reserves and provisions so members can we proceed with that and I call upon council of John Williams to present the report and move the recommendations The recommendation is singular Thank you chair I propose the recommendations of our agenda If you look at paragraph 11 you will see the changes that are being proposed Every year we look at our earmark reserves to see whether they continue to be necessary and you will see that as a result of these current years reserves the following on paragraph 11 has been decided that they can be released back into the general fund as they no longer require Thank you very much councillor Do you have a seconder? Thank you So whenever you would like to speak to this councillor Heather Williams Thank you chair Some of what's in here is things that we would support We noticed that the GCP which was set up a long time ago and that money coming through and other things However, I won't labour the point chair but we have expressed our concerns in relation to the investment strategy and one of the reliefs is for that reserve so we will be voting against this as a whole Thank you very much Does anybody else, sorry councillor John Williams do you want to respond? No Thank you I can't see anybody else wishing to speak so I'm going to go to the vote and that will be Aaron if you can set that up it's on the Oh sorry Don't you speak So the discussions are on page 161 that the councill is requested to consider the report and is satisfied to approve A that the reserves are summarised at paragraph 11 of the report be released to the general fund or transferred to other earmarked reserves as shown on the 31st of March 2023 B that the IT software and hardware reserves be amalgamated at 31st of March to provide necessary flexibility and C that the movement in reserves 2022-23 is set out in appendix A and the estimated balance of reserves of 29.830 million be noted Thank you So if you're in favour of that members press the blue button and then the green if you wish to object press the red and if you wish to abstain press the yellow so that I think is a body so that is 28 in favour 9 against and no abstention so that is carried thank you Moving on We come to Oh hang on I've gone over two pages I think Item 8G on pages 171-180 the capital program for 2023-24 to 2027-28 Councillor John Williams Thank you chair It is as it is I move the recommendations on the agenda paper and obviously I'm happy to answer any questions on it Thank you very much and do you have a seconder? Yes chair, I have a second and I don't plan to speak Thank you very much Okay so we have a seconded motion Did anybody wish to speak? Councillor Heather Williams Thank you chair Just drawing members' attention to page 172 power 10 for reasons that we said before but I will re-emphasise that is included there is something that is current time we will not agree to getting the council into any more debt and we will vote against Thank you very much Councillor John Williams did you wish to respond? No I think we've gone over this in the previous record Thank you very much Does anybody else wish to speak? Okay so we'll go to the vote on this members Actually no we could Aaron could you go to the vote please? Thank you So if you wish to support that press the green button if you are against press the red and if you wish to abstain press the yellow Thank you, I think that's all So that would be one missing One missing I think it's calm, yeah okay So thank you very much We that is 28 in favour 9 against and no abstentions and that is carried Thank you So moving on to item 8 8 Localised council Localised council tax support called 2023-24 on pages 181 to 186 on our agenda Thank you So I'll call on Councillor John Williams to propose the motion Present the report and propose the motion Thank you chair Well I hope this is one matter that we can all agree on We as you may remember last year as part of our cost of living crisis policy we decided to look at our localised council tax support scheme and to see how we can widen it so that more people can apply for it and we there were three options which we put to consultation for Christmas and as a result of that consultation one option the first option was by far the one that those who responded supported and this paper recommends that you support that option so that we can amend localised council tax support scheme to enable it to reach more people and also to enable it to be automated so that we can make it more efficient in its delivery so I do hope you can support this recommendation Very much Councillor John Williams and I believe Councillor John Batchelor is seconding. Do you wish to speak now John? Yes thank you chair I'm very happy to support the recommendation here it's aimed at those just above the level of benefits who don't qualify because they're working the ones who are really struggling at the moment and so I very much welcome this help for that particular group Thank you very much Councillor John Batchelor would anybody wish to speak Councillor Heather Williams Thank you chair and yes we normally traditionally agree on and we will I'm pleased to say be agreeing today I've even seconded it for councillor John Williams I'm glad you asked nicely but yes I think this is something that I've spoken of before but actually we had a real in 2018 we had a workshop and it was a real opportunity to bring in the banding scheme so I'm pleased that that's said because one thing we wanted for people was continuity and for people to really know where they were at but the current climate does require a change and so happy to support it chair Thank you very much so the recommendation on page 181 is that council approves scheme option 1 which comprising the localised council tax support band scheme currently in operation in operation and increases working age scheme to a maximum 100% reduction for all working age clients historic claimants with an upgrading of calculation annually in line with CPI in September adjustment to earnings disregard disregard increasing support to those who are working and I don't know when you listen to that that's made as much sense as it did when I read it but if you are any adjustment in wording that maintains the spirit of this makes it a bit more sensible that would be great can I just check John Williams as I read it it did not seem to flow very well but are you happy that it does actually make the sense that we understand the gist of it are we happy that we go ahead on that basis even though the wording may be slightly muddled we understand the spirit of it Okay it may be because I'm too close to it but I understand it but if you're suggesting that it should be perhaps in more plain English I can only Sometimes you're happy with it I'm happy with it but yeah I think it does cover what it's supposed to do It's the point at where it says adjustment to earnings disregard increasing support to those who are working that's the bit that confused me at the end it's just I think we understand what it means but if there's any slight adjustment in wording that makes it a bit easier to implement Yes Ah okay Righto okay Right so are we happy to take that back by information or are Great thank you very much and at this point Councillor Williams has said that he needs to step out Sorry not Milms, thanks Thank you and I've asked if I would like to those Councillor Sally-Anne Hart to take up the position of Vice-Chair just for the purposes of this Are you happy with that? Can I have a seconder for that? Bridget Smith, thank you Thank you very much So Councillor Hart Thank you so we now turn our attention to item 8 of Roman I No it's letter I The general fund budget for 2023 and it's on pages 187 234 of our agenda The recommendations Proceed over items A through to I Can I just call on Councillor John Williams, the lead cabinet member for resources to present the report and move the recommendation please Thank you chair Any move the recommendations on the agenda paper I think basically if you look at appendix A this really explains why it is that we are proposing to do what we are and that is basically broadly speaking to raise council tax by around 3.1% so that for band D property that would mean a council tax demand of £165.31 should be taken into context that we currently consumer price index is at 10.1% and salary wage wages are rising at an average 10.9% so in actual terms this is a reduction it is something though because I think in an earlier report when we looked at the medium term financial strategy it's clear that was based on the continuing increase in council tax by this authority of £5 a year or £10 a week and even with that increase you could see that we were predicting a shortfall of around £3.9 million at the end of the five-year period so obviously not to increase council tax would make that worse and as was said by the opposition in that debate that actually it could be even worse than that that 3.9 million could be as much as if you take the most pessimistic scenario could be over 10 million so it's really important that we do increase council tax because it is part of the mix to enable us to fund our essential services but again I stress that 3.1% well below the current rate of inflation and remember inflation affects this council as well as people out there we have to buy goods and services and you know that it's a 10.1% average retail price index is much higher than that and it's obviously goods and services that this council buys in so we're paying more than on average 10.1% increase and yet only composed until council tax up by 3.1% so I hope that members take that into account and the fact that in reality for a band D property it's a 10p a week increase for those on low incomes that by and large actually being smaller properties it's less than 10p a week so I do hope that we agree that we do need to put council tax up and that we are putting it up by an amount that you know is well below what inflation is and what we are having what we are facing as a council because of that inflation I think it's interesting to note you know the scale of these things we haven't in the only very recently have we actually given members the full gross expenditure and gross income of this council I think in the past we were very much you know only given the net operational cost of this council which gave a very distorted figure so if you look up a pending sale you can see that the amount that we need from government funds and local tax payers is 32.9 million and that's made up of 18.6 million from business rates 11.2 million from council tax and 3.1 million from government grants you know so we need that increase if we don't get that increase then we will not be able to bear down on that deficit that we are at the end of the you know the medium term financial strategy thanks Thank you very much councillor John Williams I believe the leader is seconding this Thank you, I'd just like to endorse what councillor Williams has said but I'd also like to thank Peter Maddux and Rosanna Armed for producing reports that are not only comprehensive because concise but intelligible so thank you very much to them Thank you very much I believe the Conservatives are likely to wish to submit an amendment Thank you, do you want to go ahead councillor Heather Williams Thank you chair and councillor Cohn is seconding our budget amendments So first of all I'd like to draw members' attention actually not to the proposal itself but to page 39 of our agenda pack today where it says there is however a significant impact on households on the prevailing economic situation and the council needs to be responsible in budget setting thus minimizing the inflationary increase and to wherever possible absorb cost increases Then if we look at page 43 because reference has been made to Government grants we can see that Royal Service Grant is increasing Revenue Support Grant increasing and Service Grant a new grant and others that are increasing and so I think at this period of time there may be things in the future but right now we are receiving increased grants from Government on those I've referenced When we look back to our meeting on the 22nd of December September we had a motion in the name of councillor Bill Handley about the cost of living crisis it said our country is in the grips of a cost of living emergency it then went on to state that we will be mindful of the cost of living crisis in the setting of next year's council tax and that was again a time when we seemed to agree on most things even in everything so I would stress that our proposal to freeze council tax and taking that first chair is actually in the spirit of what is in this agenda and the motion that councillor supported a few months ago it was explicitly in that motion it said about we would take into consideration in the budget setting process so to see the maximum increase I personally do not consider that to be taken into full consideration we have other things in our budget proposal chair particularly in relation to planning enforcement we think that that needs strengthening and we've seen what happens when we don't enforce planning applications in places such as Northstone we also know that unfortunately in these times there will potentially be an increase in fraud and that's why we feel that it is benefited to provide some more funding there and I would think that when it came through scrutiny there were questions around the fraud and I hope you can see councillor Van der Veer your comments and more information that you reference at scrutiny we have taken that on board through that process and amended it accordingly I'd also stress that where we're taking the money from is things that we could go without we don't need to have a magazine four times a year to have two special responsibility allowances and there are other choices that we can make and what we'll go on to I'm sure talk about later is that we all want the same things it's just how we get there where we differ so I would strongly ask members to take themselves back to the 22nd of September a few months ago to their reasoning for supporting councillor Bill Handley's motion and I would just repeat those words again be mindful of the cost of living crisis in the setting of next year's council tax to increase it the maximum just cannot be in mind with that so I hope that you will look at our proposals I hope you will bear that in mind because we know that it isn't just people on low incomes that are in smaller houses chair council tax is not something that is on income brackets it's based on property values a long time ago and for some people they have grown older in their homes and perhaps retired whose income is limited they are not going to necessarily be in the smaller brackets and I don't think that we can make those assumptions that if you're struggling and financially struggling there's council tax brackets £5 may not be enough but it would pay for a meal a week for an adult and for some people they are counting every penny and we're seeing that in our villages so I'll implore again if you felt that way in September there is no reason why you should change your mind now so please do support our amendment thank you chair Thank you councillor Heather Williams the Conservative group budget proposal is on page 233 of our agenda can be read there so the first thing I need to check is you've said it the second did by councillor Coe can I check with councillor John Williams if you accept that amendment no I don't accept it councillor Coe did you want to speak now or do you want to reserve your right I'm happy to reserve my right to speak at the end so councillor John Williams would you like to come back yes I'll pick up on a few things first of all yes the government has given us grants it gave us a grant for example to to help us to ensure that we can increase our spend by 3% unfortunately it gave us that money and then took money away from some other sources but overall yes it's given us more money but it's not enough secondly I was on the mindful yes we were mindful and we did consider what the increase in council tax should be but when we have inflation that over 10% a 3% increase in council tax and can I, there's some misunderstanding here I believe you said that 5 pounds would mean an adult having a meal a week and that's 5 pounds a year not 5 pounds a week that's 10p a week do you accept that interruption councillor Williams I stand by for 5 pound a year an adult can be fed for one meal a week thank you very much councillor John Williams so you can someone could feed themselves on 10p a week thank you thank you finished with our internal discussions did you wish, sorry councillor Bridget Smith thank you just a couple of points I'd like to pick up from councillor Heather Williams so though we in this chamber may not need a South Hampshire magazine four times a year I have no doubt at all that our residents, particularly our elderly residents or those who don't have access to the internet actually do need it four times a year so we know whenever we've consulted on the future of the magazine that there's a massive outcry people really value it for far more than just telling them when the bins are going to be collected so it's all very well that we all have internet access here but I think we all know that the villages of our residents don't have the sort of access that we have and actually the magazine is a really important source of information to them as well as some entertainment as well and it's also a way of promoting all the good stuff that goes on in all our villages and just to pick up on the issue of the cost of living crisis so what this crisis is meaning is that many more people are going to need much more help than they've paid for unfortunately and many people who are going to need help at a cost that greatly exceeds £5 so this is about the greater good for benefitting those people who have started off disadvantaged but whose disadvantage is just increasing day on day as fuel prices accelerate as food prices go up as salaries fail to keep pace with inflation so it's a sad fact that we constantly have to do more with less but actually we step in as we stepped in during Covid as we've stepped in to help our Ukrainian guests as we're stepping in in the cost of living crisis to do ever more for ever more people and we have to have the money to do it but this is the right decision in this case thank you we're debating the amendment Councillor Tom Beigorch thank you chair so councillor Heather Williams opened off by mentioning the cost of living crisis that many people are suffering from and so that is one very important reason why this council should consider our budget proposal but there are four things that are listed on page 233 I wanted to just sort of pick up on third of those which is in having an additional planning enforcement officer so this is something that we discussed at the last meeting in terms of motion and we agreed there that our staff in that area are doing a good job but really we need to have more resources put into that area as a policy decision so councils should where they have certain core responsibilities to put enough resources into those areas so for example the county council with responsibility for roads should be doing more for filling potholes and things because we have responsibility for planning we have to ensure that our planning system is fair and that people are not getting away with doing the wrong thing in terms of illegal planning activities and if you look at for example what's been going on in north stone we have a responsibility for keeping an eye on major developers that have a lot of resources and I've got a question on later today about the long stand around water which is seen by some as being a mysterious unexplained phenomenon that we might not get to the bottom of we need to have resources to look into planning issues I mentioned also in November the signs on the roundabouts on the 8th 1307 directing people's way to the hot tub superstore which I noticed yesterday at least one of those is still in place so I think there are plenty of things that could be looked at if we had an additional one planning enforcement officer can I just point out that advertising on the highway is a county matter is it not but can I ask Councillor Johnman do you wish to respond to that not at this stage thank you so Councillor Mark Howell thank you Chairman Chairman I listened to the member for resources speech very carefully and I commented to my colleague here that this speech could easily be made by any previous member of resources because the central government never give us enough money they always give with one hand and take with the other and indeed it is nice to see now at least they give us the rules before we set the council tax where before we could set the council tax and then a couple of weeks later they tell us what the rules were so we've made progress but slowly however we are at the moment going to cost a living crisis and we should make a stand and I believe that stand is by not increasing our council tax and the reason I believe that is that we have to show an example we have to show an example to others that putting prices up and leading to this inflation has to stop and therefore I will be back in the obviously the conservatory budget primarily for the freeze in the council tax primarily to say that sometimes we have to take the hit now I appreciate what has been said earlier on and that AI and other forms will be used to actually bring that deficit down but at the same time we have to show an example to our residents that we do think about them we do care and that we are going to be the one that stands up and fights for them package on. Thank you very much. Does anybody else wish to speak to the amendment? Councillor Wilkins. Thank you chair. I'm just going to speak on the compliance issue that's been raised. We don't call it enforcement anymore it's now compliance and I'm sorry I wasn't here for the motion that was discussed at the last council meeting but bearing that in mind I thought it would be useful actually to let you know of what exactly is going on with compliance so please bear with me chair. We have reviewed the ICT system that was used and we've migrated all the complaints to the central database and what this means is it allows improved performance management and reporting. We've also reviewed, updated and we actually consulted on the compliance policy that we created last year and of course that is due to be reported to Cabinet in March and also we have introduced an enhanced online process for reporting which is of control. You can go on the Greater Cambridge planning website and report what you might think is something that is not right but also on that website we have put a video that says what really is a planning problem and what needs to be complied with and what is compliance and what isn't. So I would actually refer you to that councillor by God to have a look at what we've done so far and at the time I think yes there was a we had a vacancy which has now been filled and you'll be happy to hear that we have now recruited an experienced and a permanent compliance team manager who will continue to lead this transformation and performance project for the service. The other thing was on your mention of increased reports. Actually funnily enough year on year since 2020 cases have dropped. 2020 we had 679 cases 2021 we had 633 and 2022 we had 540 cases. So I'm happy to give you those numbers in writing if you want it. Yes we're building more but then we are making sure that what we're doing now in terms of compliance actually meets the current standards is up to date and is as efficient as possible. I'll leave it at that for now but what I know is that we have enough officers at this point in time who I think the case load is about 58 cases per officer and actually generally officers can carry 60 to 80 cases at any one time so we have enough officers at this point in time. Thank you. Thank you very much. Right okay and councillor Dan Lentaw if you wish to speak. I think councillor Ripeth was ahead of me. I'll just remind members that we have three minutes. So I didn't see councillor Ripeth. councillor Ripeth, where are you before? Okay go ahead. Okay thanks I I want to feel stressed as you have been stressed already but it is 10p a week for band D and yes slightly higher for the higher level of properties like E onwards if we don't do this if we don't increase not as the maximum amount of what's been presented by councillor John Williams that will compound year on year cuts and we will have to face cuts to our services and I don't think we can rely on national government to be filling those gaps and it's something where you feel as a society that you pay into that to support those when they can't pay so you have to provide services and another thing is we've just all agreed on the local council tax support for those who are really in need and it is principally people of working age who are often holding down jobs and still visiting food banks they cannot make ends meet and they need that support which we have just voted to provide for their families and I'm happy as somebody who's fortunately not personally in that position at the moment to be part of that contribution and so it should be a sense of pride because then he has a local council can provide the services needed and I feel just really passionately about that that it is a small amount and if we don't provide services there will be a far worse situation we won't be able to continue with things like warm hubs and it's an absolute disgrace that we are in a country which is wealthy where people cannot afford but thank you very much for that contribution can I just remind members we're still voting we're still debating the Conservative budget amendment at the moment can I just check with councillor Dunlentel that is the aspect you wish to speak on thank you do you go ahead thank you chair I'm inclined to vote in favour of this on the basis that all across our crazy paving landscape of disjointed local authority we are seeing tax bills go up we're seeing the proposed Peterborough combined authority putting a tax out there we're seeing council tax from the county council going up to the absolute amount before the threshold for a public referendum we're seeing the congestion charge which is a tax on going to work and nobody can possibly believe that we cannot that we can continue to tax and to spend in the ways that we did when the economy was looking healthier than it is now and where I think this administration in this council has gone right is by identifying areas for investment areas that can provide revenue streams other than tax and that's why I was very happy to vote and support for them but as has been said by council somebody has to say enough stop and this inflationary spiral that we're in and I don't just mean about government I mean about individuals of overconsumption overspending under investing if it doesn't stop with us it's never going to stop and therefore yeah in the in the absolute perfect world everybody as council would have said would be able to support vital services and to make sure that those services are healthy and functioning and doing the job that we as a society need to do we're in a cost of living crisis and I think what we said only a few months ago was right we should not be adding to the burden of people who cannot afford to eat their home we should not be doing that in this context so I will be supporting the amendment in this instance thank you thank you very much councillor Lentel and councillor Sally-Ann Hart I think I'm coming up as councillor Peter Fain but I'm hoping that that's okay with everyone I just really wanted to come back to the suggestion in the amendment to withdraw the hard copy of the South Cambridge District Council magazine and to share a story that we had recently in two of our villages in our ward where we were I want to use the term inundated really by one particular road a long road in a village where they were not getting the hard copy of the magazine and they sent through many addresses for us and we'd passed it on like to thank officers at council for taking it on and we've had somebody who was very remained unconvinced I think they've used the word they wouldn't hold their breath but they did contact us to say we've now got a hard copy we have one other long road in another village that we're working on at the moment and I just really want to reinforce that hard copy of the magazine is a connection to the council for a lot of people in our villages thank you very much and I can't see anybody else wishing to speak so councillor Cone did you wish to come back a second time? to be reserved you're right to speak thank you chair, yeah I'll just be very brief so I agree with these amendments that we've made mainly because I think it's what my residents want I don't think they want to be taxed more at this time I accept actually a lot of the points that councillor Richard made around the support that we've given to residents but actually our amendment does not take any of that away at all and in response to councillor Hart and story around the magazines we're not proposing to remove the magazines completely it's just a reduction in those we've tried to be sensitive in how we've put that forward so I think we should support this amendment I think it's actually quite a modest amendment it's been costed and it's not huge money so I think we should support it thank you very much so I can't see anybody else we should speak to the amendment so I'm going to put the amendment to the vote please Erin could you yeah exactly sorry by my eyes asked councillor John Williams if you wish to come back and he indicated no so we go to the vote then on the amendment which is on page 233 of our agenda if you wish to support the Conservative budget amendment press the blue button and press the green and if you wish to object the amendment press the red button and if you wish to add stain press the yellow button councillor Hart councillor Hart is going back to her own microphone to vote sensibly we are still missing some votes can I just check we're missing Peter Fane because he's out of the room you have one councillor Williams has voted we're up to 35 does that make sense okay so members that means we have 10 in favour of the amendment 24 against and one abstention so that means the amendment falls thank you if you wish to come back to the substantive doesn't be wish to speak to the substantive motion which is the recommendations on page 187 items A2 I can I just check councillor Smith did you wish to speak no councillor John Williams did you wish to speak and I think I'm summing up aren't I because I spoke at the start yes that's what I mean oh right okay if there's no one I was expecting I was expecting I was expecting just one moment councillor sorry councillor Richard Williams you did check I wanted to ask a question if that's possible so I wanted to ask a question about planning and the proposed reduction that's detailed on page 193 and I think in fact that takes the total expenditure to the general fund on planning for 23-24 below the level that actually was in 2021-22 sorry councillor Richard Williams I think I might mean something you said at the very beginning we're on page 193 you said something took the saving to raise ask a question about the reduction in planning detailed on that page I was making the point chair that as a result of that proposed planning if we look at the table on page 215 it looks like the net expenditure on planning for 23-24 will drop below what it was in 21-22 so my question was whether it's wise to reduce expenditure on planning in that way given the process we're going through with the local plan and the fact that we continue to rely quite heavily on extensions of time in planning applications a large proportion of planning applications are not decided within the statutory periods can I ask councillor John Williams if you are able to respond to that I'm happy to respond but I'm obviously councillor Hawkins is the lead cabinet member she may wish to take this councillor Dr Tumi Hawkins so you're happy to respond I would need to look into this in more detail but what I remember was we were looking at this is the fact that part of the transformation cost was actually allocated to planning and I think that's part of why I'm happy to look into that in more detail and send you the information so councillor Tumi Hawkins will go into detail and send you a response by email councillor Richard Williams is that acceptable thank you JS that's exactly very much okay sorry to interrupt you earlier councillor John Williams did you wish to sum up I just sum up I think we've had a pretty good debate with the amendment and it's covered most of the points but all I can do is emphasise the fact that with inflation running over 10% this council like everybody else is having to pay more before it puts in services and therefore it costs more for us to deliver services to our residents and the pressure on us to do more by our residents because of the cost of living crisis means we're having to do more so we're having to do more and it's costing us more and so at the end of the day that has to be paid for and while we we are increasing councill tax and I must emphasise this by 10p a week and there is further on in the paper it shows you what other bans is I think in the next paper there is a paper here it shows what each ban will pay but even at higher bans we are not talking about a huge amount of money given that we have inflation running at 10% and given that wage inflation is running at 6% and therefore what we are proposing is actually a cut in councill tax Thank you very much Councillor John Williams so I'm going to take this to the vote then members this is we're looking at the recommendation thank you very much that's so hot the recommendations on paragraph 3 on pages 187 and 188 and this is items A to I so members can I ask if you are in favour of those to press the green button if you wish to object press the red button and if you abstain press the yellow button can I just check if everybody who thinks ah Councillor Garvey I think 35 35 so the result of that vote is 25 in favour 10 against and no abstentions so that our recommendation is carried thank you very much member and I'm going to call a 10 minute break perhaps a little longer no 10 minutes so we'll be back here at 4.36 please thank you thank you so members we return after a short break to item 8J on the agenda which is the housing revenue account budget for 2023-24 and it's on pages 235 to 262 of the agenda so Councillor John Williams lead cabinet member for resources would you like to present the report thank you chair I recommend the I move the recommendations on the agenda paper I just need to remind you that when you put your hands up like this it blocks the microphone this was a very difficult and challenging HRA for this year because as everyone knows we should know what we spend on our council housing is wind fenced and therefore basically what we receive in council rents and other income connected with council rents has to be used to invest in existing housing stock it has to build new affordable housing it has to obviously be spent on the management of that housing and also has to be used to repay any loan on that housing so we receive 32 million from council rents plus another 2 million from other income and if you want to build more council houses while we have inflation over 10% on goods and services we have to make a decision and it's a balance do we continue with what in council rents up by 7% by the maximum that we can or not because if we don't put them up by 7% then the effect it will have an effect on those 4 things an effect on us being able to invest in our existing stock it will have an effect on us being able to build more affordable homes it will have an effect on the way we manage our housing stock and you know we have to obviously have the money to repay our loans so I think the decision was a difficult one to take but at the end of the day given inflation at 10% given wage inflation at 6% given that I think over 40% of our tenants on housing benefit at the end of the day we have no choice but to increase council rents by 7% and that was very very difficult on the actual increase in council houses I just want to point out that we have just this year got back to where we were in 2010 we've managed in the last 6 years to build more council houses and to more than offset the loss of council houses to right to buy and that has enabled us to come from between 2012 and 2017 there was a net loss of 99 council homes since 2018 there's been 108 net increase in council homes so we've got on top of it but we've still got a long way to go and it means that why we've got 2,000 people on our waiting list there's a big demand out there for us to continue with our new build council house programme and therefore unfortunately we have to go with the 7% rent increase Thank you very much Councillor John Williams and your recommendation is seconded I imagine by leader of Councillor John bachelor sorry thank you Do you wish to speak now John? Yes thank you chair Do you wish to speak now Councillor Williams has very eloquently made the basic argument just like to put a bit of flesh on that possibly so the situation with housing as has been said is that where the rent pays for all the housing activity and if we look at what it actually pays for 25% of our total income has to go to maintain the 205 million pound loan that we have to take out in order to keep our housing stock from the hands of the government we then spend 46% of the money on repairs and maintenance and a further 15% on new build those two items over 60% of our income is the one subject to the inflation pressures obviously building materials staff payment or reflect on that and certainly new build the increase in land values is also a task so we are attempting to get back on track members may recall that not so long ago the government imposed a minus 1% reduction on our rent for a period of four years this meant obviously that is inflation plus 1% that undermined our financial position fortunately we have significant reserves which has managed to cover that but you will have seen from the budget figures that we are anticipating a deficit this year a deficit of something on the order of 2 million pounds and we have deficits for the next two years as well we don't expect to be able to come back into balance until 2526 so we would all like to not increase rents but there is really no choice whatsoever if we are maintaining the quality of this housing and we move forward with the ambitious project to refit our housing stock to come up to zero carbon standards that in itself is a 400 million pound project over the next 30 years so I am happy to second the recommendations as they stand thank you so would anybody like to speak on this as I heard Williams thank you chair I am going to revert back to the September 22 meeting I appreciate that maybe getting more and more current in people's minds but at that time we proposed an amendment to try and have council housing rents included in that mindset given the current climate that wasn't supported that amendment was voted down and I just wanted to just looking at the minutes here in front of me and one of the things that was said was it was government policy setting of the rent and it wasn't controlled by the local authority I just want to make it absolutely clear that is not the case council housing rents are at our discretion they are capped by government so we cannot increase beyond that but it is our discretion as to how much we charge tenants for our council housing now we believe that different choices mean that we could build those much needed I completely agree council housing and I said earlier how passionate I think we all are about increasing our council housing stock but we do not believe that that means that we have to burden our tenants at this time with further increases to their rents so chair, while I am more than happy to support recommendations G to I and will vote to support recommendations G, H and I I am not and will not vote to increase the burden of the rent on our tenants at this time I think even though it wasn't included in that motion on cost of living surely that is the biggest part of the sentiment of it we've heard earlier about different as if council tax was done on on income banding which it's not so council tax up council rents up we've got a garage that's going up shared ownership going up it's just enough is enough and I really do fear for those people that are really struggling at the moment that will just see this and it's yet another blow so as council housing earlier we will be taking a stand and it is with a heavy heart because the HRA has normally been something that we've been able to agree on and we've been very positive to but I think the administration is going the wrong way here we should not be increasing increasing the council rents and charges at this time so chair I'd move that we take them separately and that we vote as I've said that's fine I'm proposing to take the recommendations separately in two tranches but is there anybody I believe councillor for Pahalings Thanks very much and through you chair I think the Williams has said there's been agreement on HRA in the Puzzle I'm privileged to be on the national board for housing for local government it's a cross party board and I would just like to point members to the fact that there's been a long discussion cross party discussion representing all councils in the country about the impact of both the cost of living crisis to residents in social housing but also the implications of this cap at 7% which was seen cross party basis that that should be there should not be a cap and if there was a cap 7% should be the minimum and I'd like to quote the words of the chairman of the local government association conservative councillor James Jameson who said we're very concerned about the situation facing residents but we are very concerned that this cap on social housing rent increases will significantly impact on housing providers ability including our councils to provide the critical services necessary to maintain proper conditions for residents and invest in the vitally important new and existing homes and what was agreed cross party by the board and that's why it's a little bit disappointing to hear this is that if the government the proposal and recommendations to the government work if that cap comes in then to enable us to support residents government to fund the gap between that because it has to be recognized that those critical services to maintain healthy conditions in our social housing stock and be able to provide critical council housing and social housing rent housing going forward these are key so I'd just again like to bring in the nuance the importance and the complexity of the kind of decisions that we're making at the moment but across the board this was saying that that seventh event should be considered as a minimum thank you thank you very much councillor Mark thank you chairman, chairman, thank you very much and I'd also like to thank councillor bachelor for what he said with regards to housing outlining some of the issues that the HRA account has faced over the years I think one of the things we have to remember is that when the coalition and let's not forget the coalition government give us the £205.5 million debt that we was the second highest debt per capital of house 33,000 in the country so we took on a hell of a lot but at the same time we have got an outstanding housing stock it's been excellently managed over the years and praised to the officers and all members alike what I'm going to do is not ask councillor bachelor about the actual housing increases but asking now should we now take the bull by the horn so to speak with regards to our garages we don't make much money of them any money we do spend on them takes an extraordinary amount of time to get back even the most minor repair and we should be looking at all our garage stock and I would ask councillor bachelor to consider this in the future to look at our garage stock and maybe convert it over for land for future council housing and even the street housing thank you thank you councillor howl councillor Darlan Lentel just to echo what councillor howl has said there are other options other than putting up rents for social housing tenants and I absolutely hear what councillor Pipp Halies has said in terms of this is part of a national picture this is part of a much bigger economic process but ultimately it comes down to this room and our vote and I simply cannot vote in the current climate to put council house renting up by the maximum allowed 7% I just don't think that's the right thing to do so I won't be doing it very much and I'll take councillor Bridget Smith next can I just remind members we've got a lot to go through so if other members have already raised the point that you were going to raise please leave it at that but thank you councillor Smith so just so just remind members of one of our key principal core principles in running the council is that that's the provision of housing affordable for everyone to live in and we need to continue to invest in our housing stock and thank you councillor Hal for saying how well maintained it's been over the years and it has been we're now installing triple glazing in those houses we are transferring them from gas and electric heat transferring them from gas heating to either electric or air source heating so if we continue to do that if we continue a program of rapid improvements to our council housing stock actually we then start to have a positive effect on people's bank balance because even though their rents have gone up actually their cost of living in their houses then starts going down but if we don't have the money to do that upgrade and those improvements then you know they will still be giving large percentages of their income to the utility companies and possibly not being warm enough anyway thank you very much and councillor Sue Ellington thank you Chairman I want to just move on for one little moment because I looking through the figures was most concerned on page 259 to find the communal heating in Elm Port which is a care home with independent living I believe my memory serves me correctly the heating is going up from 7.69 to 42 pounds 89 per week that sort of weekly increase for people who are on fixed incomes is just out of this world what are we doing about it and how are we helping the residents who will be in a state of shock 557% increase is quite a lot page 259 page 259, appendix D and about halfway down the general sheltered schemes can I come back to councillor John Williams sorry if that's because I can't see anybody else requesting to speak I read also because clearly clearly can't give a answer in such a detail right away here but obviously we'll let you have an explanation for that councillor that's all I can say at this moment thank you very much this is by way of can I draw councill's attention there is an asterisk that marks a note further in the document on page 260 which says the increase is a consequence of a three year fixed gas tariff ending and energy costs have obviously then significantly risen over that period and that's something that's very familiar with many of us who are on similar fixed term and have had any work shock on less advantageous rates yes and there's further narrative on page 260 about that so my understanding is that there are no further wishes to speak on that item before coming to a vote on it I don't wish to speak further on it thank you okay so I'm going to bring that to a vote I think just with the observation councillor Ellington that obviously that explanation is given on page 260 thank you so the recommendations are going to be taken in two parts they're on page 235 and 236 I'll be taking the a vote for items A through to F first we'll deal with that first these are the rents and charges so members can I ask if you are in favour of items A through to F please would you press the green button if you object to those please press the red button and if you are staying please press the yellow button you that gives us 34 voters is that correct okay thank you so that is 25 in favour nine against and no abstentions so parts A to I are carried and then moving on to HRA capital elements that is on page 236 items G to I is she part of this vote I thought she didn't want to take part in this vote I don't think she can split it like that by item well she wasn't here for the debate no she wasn't here for the debate so members so Erin can you set up the vote for items G to I if you are in favour of G to I please press the green button if you object please press the red button and if you wish to have staying press the yellow button we have 33 voters does that make sense Erin I thought we had 34 at the last one yes four was a moment while we checked that's good we're up to 34 thank you so that's you none of us and in favour of G to I thank you members and anybody who felt they had to stay out for that may now return and take part in the rest of the meeting Rory's just gone to get the other people Rory's gone so so members good to welcome back councillors Dovart and Hoveray thank you and councillor Mieto so we're now on to item 9 the council tax resolution this is on pages 263 to 284 of our agendas so I'll call on councillor John Williams to present the report and move the recommendation thank you John thank you chair I just formally moved this sorry is that all you're going to say okay right so is it seconded yes thank you by councillor Bridget Smith do you wish to speak does anybody wish to speak to this councillor Heather Williams I think given what we've said before about not supporting the increases then we're not going to support the resolution and the increases so I assume that was a comical effect what councillor John Williams was saying about hoping it would be controversial yeah absolutely not going to support it anybody else wish to speak so I'll go to a vote, thank you she's asked, I've asked her and she said no did you, you didn't want to speak did you you do? I don't want to speak there's nothing to talk about, let's move on okay so can we go to a vote then please Erin so if you wish to vote for the council tax resolution as on page 263 press green if you object, press red if you wish to abstain press yellow thank you I think we're there not quite oh we also got two extras I think it's actually easier on this right we're up to 37 that's good, okay so that's 27 in favour 10 objections and no abstentions so that is carried, thank you members with that we move on to item 10 which is the sway of the sea byways rate for the financial year 2023-24 and it's on pages 285 288 of our agenda so I call on Councillor Henry Bachelor, League Cabinet Member for Waste and Environmental Services to present the report and move the recommendation Councillor Henry Bachelor thank you chair and hopefully this is a genuinely uncontentious item so I will try and be as swift as I possibly can be so this is an item that comes to us annually whereby we're asking council to agree a rate for local landowners in and around the sway of the byways to essentially pay the district council a very small fee in return for which the district council provides materials and support for maintenance of said byways two thank yous I'd like to make first of all one to officers who I know do a sterling job every year on this and also huge thanks to the local member Councillor Sue Ellington who I know is very pivotal in this whole process getting landowners together and getting agreement for this particular rate and given the conversations we've had so far today chair the rate isn't actually proposed to increase at all so hopefully that is a positive news story from today I believe also councillor Eington will be seconding this item and I think that is probably all I need to say at this stage chair thank you very much Councillor Sue Ellington do you confirm your seconding? Would you like to speak now or later? I'm absolutely delighted to second this I have to say the officers have gone above and beyond and been very helpful and supportive to myself and the whole process and I am very happy that we have come to a sensible conclusion that I think all farmers and that's something are in agreement with thank you I suspect we are may all be in agreement can I take this by affirmation members? Aran, thank you thank you very much so moving on to item 11 this is the report of the independent remuneration panel the members allowance scheme for 2022-23 and it's on pages 289 to 304 of our agenda and I call on the Elections and Democratic Services Manager Mr Andrew Francis to present the report thank you thank you chair members will know that the IRP met in October last year and did make a recommendation to council to increase allowances by 1.4% council in November did a request that the IRP look at that again and they did that earlier this month and reconsidered their previous position so they reflected on the sustained inflationary picture and decided that it would be appropriate to recommend 4.25% increase across all allowances including SRAs which is the recommendation that members can see on page 289 thank you very much thank you Andrew we have the recommendations which are set out at page 289 of the pack and I shall propose the recommendation and I believe that council I could second that recommendation chair thank you very much would anybody like to speak to this councillor Heather Williams councillor Dan Lentell thank you chair now when we discussed this last time part of the reason that we asked this to be deferred was so that members could be contacted like we had done previously and submit it was sort of like a time sheet as it were that we sort of showed how much time we were spending and that's very much what I think I myself assumed would happen again and that was reference in the meeting and happen so I was surprised to see this back here so soon in the absence of that being done which I think we all agreed needed to be done and it hasn't been I would like to propose on page 290 that we actually take option B and then further work can be done for next year but in the current climate when we just put up other people's council tax and rents I think it would be very poor of us to then put it up without having that in depth view and I do have a seconder for my suggestion of option B chair if required thank you who is your seconder yeah I'm having a seconder chair councillor Williams the effect of that would be to negate what's on the paper so would it not have been the same effect to have simply voted against chair I'm trying to give others opportunity to that was one of the options that was presented that's how you want to take it obviously we'll vote against it since I'm the proposer sorry does anybody else I think I noticed counciller Lentell wish to speak to it does anybody else wish to speak to this councillor wait just a moment can I clarify have we rejected the amendment because it negates the primary no I haven't decided yet oh you haven't okay so I'm allowing the debate to happen okay so councillor Lentell did you wish to speak on this yes I do want to speak on the issue of remunerations for councillors we play a very important role in our community and in our society and of course that needs to be reflected in the remuneration so that people can participate in the system but we've just voted or rather the Lib Dem supermajority in this room have just voted through as councillor Heather Williams has said an increase to everybody else's council tax and an increase to council rents even though no other options were apparently available how can you guys bear excuse me through the chair how can anybody bear to vote to make council tax go up in the current climate and council rents go up in the current climate and then put a single penny piece into our own pockets this is wrong we should not do this thank you just one minute councillor Lentell thank you councillor Milnes would you like to comment yes I think first of all I'd like to comment on councillor Williams councillor Heather Williams question over the process we did actually reflect in our last council meeting a desire to have the IRP revisit this in some depth and I think all that's happened is that we've run out of time we've got less than we've got around two months left to the end of the financial year so we don't have another council meeting until after that time and then we'd be working not only in dating this stuff but we'd have to go through different financial years and the response of the IRP is to have done a relatively if I said superficial that might sound but they've done a quick review of this and that's what's before us today and I would very much be supportive of getting the IRP to do a significant review of this we're in an invidious position aren't we having to vote on our own allowances this happened in the houses of parliament decades ago when they finally got round to assigning that process to somebody independent we've got a record actually since certainly I took my position here in 2018 of either taking less than the recommendations and significantly in the first year of office and we have not gone against the IRP in principle since that time so we're actually paying ourselves unfortunately significantly less than we were I mean I did a few calculations to check how much that was so we have been very modest in the increases that we've taken and I suggest that the simple route right now today is to accept this recommendation and then have the whole system reviewed in depth as mentioned before including reconsideration of how much we pay the members of the IRP which is a pitifully small amount thank you thank you Councillor Mills Councillor Bridgesmith in France there is a formula set by government sets what local councillors are paid and the amount is dependent on the number of people they represent and that means it's fair and equal regardless of where you are in France so we're working with a deeply flawed system and at LGA this has brought up time and time again and one hopes that one day government will sort this out because there's serious inequalities across the country in the remuneration that councillors councillors achieve we have councils where there's been a history of freezing remuneration they end up then with a deficit like we have here others where people are earning well council some council leaders can be on 60,000 pounds a year which actually for the amount of work involved in the job is probably quite fair but that's not what we get here so we've got to work with what we've got the consequences of not remunerating people fairly is that we lose diversity in local government and so the only people who become councillors are wealthy people either people with pensions or people who can be supported by their spouses or who have independent incomes or who have part-time jobs that pay them enough that they can be councillors and we lack diversity we need people in this chamber who represent those from every income level and the current system simply does not allow that because it does not compensate people adequately for loss of income for doing their job and the time this job takes it's a heavy demand being a district councillor and it needs sorting out by government but in the meantime we have to do our best with the poor tools we have Thank you councillor Smith Councillor Locke-Hull Thank you Chairman Chairman I never forget many years ago when we were told that Huntington was going to have an executive leader not a leader when we asked what is the difference between an executive leader and a leader we were told £15,000 a year we are in a situation where no matter what we do we cannot win on this this is something that needs to be done completely independently and we are told that's it but at this moment we are not there and we have to vote I can't vote for this on this year not only for the reasons that we have outlined with regards to the cost of living but also the fact that we have not been asked or I have not been asked I normally have something come through and I have to fill it out but when we have not been asked what we are actually doing maybe our work has decreased I doubt it but that is something that could have happened so there is no support for this there is no foundation for it so at the moment I cannot vote for it Thank you Chairman Thank you councillor Howell I can't see anybody else who we should speak so I'm going to hand over to Rory to speak on this Thank you Chair That should be voted upon now the proposal that was put forward by councillor Heather Williams in my opinion wouldn't get the motion and so if the motion that's on the table didn't pass then we would pass over to councillor Williams to vote on the alternative which was to reject the panel's recommendations but I would go to the vote now Thank you Rory so we vote on the recommendation as it is on our paper Members you set us up for the vote Thank you so the recommendation is as at paragraph 2 on page 289 of the agenda if you wish to support that please vote green if you object to it please vote red and if you wish to abstain vote yellow Right we're up to 37 Is that the number in the room? 38 Okay thank you So that is 28 votes in favour 10 votes against and no abstentions so that is carried Thank you Members We move on to the calendar of meetings for 2023-24 administrative year and that's on pages 305-310 and I will hand over to Minister Francis to the Elections and Democratic Services Manager to present the report please Thank you chair this is just to put out to members proposed dates of meetings for 2023-24 in Appendix A items wallet starting at page 305 Thank you very much Do any Members note any problems with that agenda? That calendar? Nope? Okay great So Can I just assume that we take that by affirmation Members? Great thank you We have item 13 There is no agenda paper This is membership of committees and outside bodies The purpose of this item is to note and endorse any changes in the membership of committees which have been made in accordance with the wishes of the leader of the political group to which the seat has been allocated as well as to agree any changes required in the membership of outside bodies So the council is asked to note following changes in respect of the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough combined authority housing committee to note the appointment of Councillor Bridget Smith in place of Councillor John Batchelor and Councillor Peter Sanford as substitute in respect of the employment and staffing committee to note the appointment of Councillor Bridget Smith as a substitute and that is simply to note Members So we move on to item 14 which is the report from the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough combined authority on pages 311 to 376 council is invited to note the report on the work of the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough combined authority as outlined in the agenda Do our representatives on the combined authority have any other comment that they wish to make So our representatives are on audit and governance Councillor Jeff Harvey Jeff is not indicating any wish to speak Overview and Scrygineer Aiden van der Veier and Councillor Jeff Harvey No, and combined authority board Councillor Bridget Smith So Members, do you have any questions for our representatives Thank you Councillor Heather Williams Thank you chair Through yourself I'll ask probably the leaders the persons at the meetings predominantly Previously we've asked about given the sort of bad pressure we say that the authority to receive was the leader confident that the staffing changes that have been made were robust enough to deliver what was needed Subsequently to that we've seen further a letter from government and other issues So I'm just wondering whether the leader is still confident in that and what assurances can as our representative she give us in relation to what is going on there Thank you very much Councillor Bridget Smith, leader So there's been a senior level restructure of staffing there I've got an email today confirming the appointment of two new executive directors when I was involved in the interviewing for both of them that leaves a third executive director to be found We still have an interim chief executive and I think there's going to be interviewing in I don't quite think when March, April for the new chief executive The improvement board is now in place, chaired by Lord Curslake, and there's representatives on that from each of the political parties The improvement board is a bunch of competent people so I'm sure they will do their up most but the combined authority is a supertanker that needs to be turned round and it takes a lot of time to turn a supertank around and it takes the will of the politicians involved in order to do that so I can't give firm assurances as I think I said last time the one thing that does give me confidence that we're moving in the right direction and certainly there are quite a lot of tangible improvements, notable already but as the involvement of the chief executives of all the partner councils is the thing that makes me think this is potentially in good hands and that good work is underway and that's been a complete and utter game changer but there is an element of keeping our fingers crossed but at the end of the day there has to be the will of all of the political leadership to make the combined authority work Thank you very much I think the analogy to a stricken vessel is rather apt the titanic one springs to mind might be possible to turn the titanic round but I think it's sinking without a trace Will the people representing this council to the combined authority say whether or not they have spoken up or against the proposed precept creation I believe the figure being muted was about 15 pounds a year for the wonder that is the combined authority Thank you I didn't say a stricken vessel and I didn't say it was sinking I said it was a large vessel and large vessels take some time to turn round There was a previous paper that referenced the mayoral precept which was 12 pounds that was approved by I voted for it because as you will recall the stagecoach withdrew 18 bus services about three months before Christmas which we all of us voiced grave concerns about number 18 particularly affected my ward and the combined authority stepped in with some reserves to keep those 18 bus services running for a six month period but on the understanding that when that six months ran out that an alternative source of funding would need to be secured and that is what the 12 pound precept £1 a month is allocated towards 18 bus services serving thousands and thousands of people in hundreds of different communities over really quite a large area Thank you very much Can I ask members to remember to address the questions to me and to do so curtain sleep Thank you Thank you chair In relation to the new precept that the leader has already confirmed that she supported when I was at one of my parish council meetings a bus went past and I kid you not everyone in the room stopped instead at it because they're not a common occurrence so there has been some I'm trying to put this delicately chair but there has been some unrest as to why the precept is coming in for many residents aren't served by buses and the like so can I ask when the leader made the decision through your self-chair to impose another precept on our residents is there any security that ring fences the money that is provided from self-cams residents to be spent in South Cambridgeshire so even if it's not for their particular parish at least a neighbouring parish is it a big pot with nowhere of knowing where it's getting spent Thank you My understanding is that the vote is taken by more than just one person Thank you So the vote was taken by the voting members of the board and went through on a majority the vote was taken on the understanding that the precept was for buses particularly those bus services that had been axed the precept is for not just residents of South Cambridge to the whole of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough so and you know when those bus services were axed my inbox was full of really very very sad pleas from people living in villages in South Cambridgeshire who were going to be marooned and I had letters from inspiring from mainly elderly ladies just saying that number 18 bus in particular was the only way they had to getting out of their communities so if I had voted against that precept I would have been voting for the axing of 18 bus services affecting largely residents in South Cambridgeshire and I wasn't prepared to do that but again we've talked at length about council tax exemptions and so on you know we're having I know we are in a cost living crisis but in a cost living crisis provision of public transport becomes ever ever more important particularly to those on low incomes and those people who might well have to stop using their cars because they can no longer afford the fuel or the maintenance costs of those cars point of information chair just that I'm sure there are elderly gentlemen as well as ladies that use the bus service we don't want any more accusations no the letters I received were exclusively from women the letters I received were what I was saying I'm sure thank you we understand what we're talking about thank you I'd just like to like to report that last week I attended the Rural Bus Summit for Cambridgeshire in Brisbane and at that summit we were presented by the combined authority lead officer on bus services Tim Bellamy and we had a days worth of consultation and discussion about how we could best cope with a changing scenario and particularly with this loss of confidence that the actions of stagecoach took by deregistring their services re-registering some of them to get more money it really seems as though they look like they're gaming the system in many respects putting up the bus fares in January when the cap the government's cap of £2 a journey came in so that they would be more more money and it's not exclusive then they're answerable to their shareholders so this ongoing issue that we have with managing our bus services can really only lie with the combined authority we're hopefully going to move to as quickly as possible to a franchising scheme because that holds up the best prospect of giving our rural communities the best service that is likely to be possible but that's not a quick process. Thank you Thank you very much Councillor Bill Handley Yes thank you I'm really pleased that the combined authority took the decision they did because one of the services that is going to underpin is the city five service which serves my villages over in Willingham and which calls a huge furory when stagecoach elected to discontinue it so thank you combined authority Thank you very much Councillor Tim Hawkins Thank you Chair, just very quickly my ward faced having both his bus services removed city 4 was re-routed away from my villages and number 18 faced the axe and people were already asking the question what's going to happen in March so seeing this I can report back to them to say something is going on and the buses will still be available Thank you very much Members, Councillor Ewington I'm sorry to cast dispersions on this back slapping but yes the buses stopped in Swayce the buses used to go one hour that way and one the next hour they came back that way so if you wanted to go to over surgery you could go to over surgery and you could catch the next bus back now they go in a circle so it takes over two hours if you want to go to doctor's surgery and every single bus I have seen in the last fortnight is empty because they are not run in a way which is compatible with what the residents need and I believe the message should go back to Cambridge and Peterborough combined authority that they need to put somebody in charge of them who knows what they're doing when they're putting bus services on sorry I'm in a problem The operator is still currently stagecoach so I don't think we've done anything so thank you Councillor Ellington that's an extremely strong argument for bus franchising and that's what the combined authority is looking at because you're absolutely right some of the services we have and not the services we need we have the GCP working towards doubling the bus network thank goodness because it's an adequate and it doesn't go where it needs to go and fortunately the combined authority are also now talking about introducing franchising in a quite short period of years which is ambitious but that means that we will then have a strong voice in determining what those routes are what those buses are how frequently they run and where they go thank you very much I'm going to call Holt there as indeed there are no further hands up so this item is noted thank you so we move on to item 15 the Greater Cambridge Partnership which is pages 377 to 380 in our agendas and this is feedback from the joint assembly meeting on the 23rd of November our representatives on the executive board of what is Councillor Bridget Smith does anybody wish to raise anything thank you Councillor Fygott and Councillor Cohn thank you Chairman so on page 378 in paragraph 3.2 there's a mention of the issues of design quality and LTN 120 and my question is does this cover the question of safety what safety measures is the GCP going to put in place following the recent fatality on the cycle way between Gert and Okington and should the GCP continue to design routes for cyclists or horse riders immediately adjacent to busy roads thank you thank you Councillor Fygott so our representative is Councillor Bridget Smith thank you very much indeed so this was obviously the meeting of the assembly not the board and we do have Councillor Baer Park here who is there I wonder whether Councillor Baer Park would like to respond rather than me because I think he's probably had that very discussion Councillor Baer Park would you like to respond? yes I'm very happy to respond to that and at the most recent GCP meeting where we were discussing the Melbourne Barton Horningsea and sorry Sorstyn, Greenway, thank you I also raised this and I have been asking the GCP to look at ensuring that there is separation between the NNU routes and the roads wherever possible thank you and Councillor Cone thank you chair my was just a quick request to give an update on the full born to Cambridge cycle greenway just it seems to have gone a little bit quiet again it doesn't have to be today but if I could have a written update on that from the members that would be great, thank you noted, thank you, right I'm sure that will come back to you so members this item is noted then we move on to item 16 which is the Oxford Cambridge regional partnership pages 381 to 388 in our agenda packs and I invite Councillor Bridget Smith to speak to that so I think I've probably said everything that I need to say in answer to the question from the member of public on this so I won't say any more but if there's any questions I'm happy to do my best to answer them so members do you have any questions so Councillor Heather Williams there's not much questions but focusing on the recommendations I think the Ops cam arc I remember Councillor Nick Wright one of the first meetings I attended asking the leader what the vision was that the council was sending in relation to the arc and how I think we asked nearly every meeting on the track and we still felt no further forward now I do appreciate there are benefits to that and I can see why it's something that the Government are supportive of promoting however I am concerned about the lack of scrutiny that's been available for us to hold the administration to account on this previously and I am concerned that our previous concerns have always sort of been battered away and not really taken as seriously as we would like so with that in mind we are minded to not support what Cabinet wishes to do and therefore the appointment of anybody I think we have seen what has come out in the way that this has been represented at this council and there are other councils where this may be beneficial I'm not against the whole principle but I think right now can I be certain that what is happening will be as a result of what happens here in this council our views represented there that's not our experience and I will not support something that I don't know what's going to happen and I think that's how very much I feel at the moment due to the lack of information and responses we've had previously thank you chair we are only being asked to note this report this is in fact a recommendation for which is on page 381 paragraph 2 so we'll take it as a vote sorry I need your proposal for this recommendation thank you councillor Smith and a seconder councillor Brian Milms thank you so does anybody wish to have any further discussion on this yes sure so councillor Milms absolutely agree with you over the frustration on the lack of transparency over the last five years and your views have been reiterated at numerous meetings by myself and leaders of all other political persuasions time and time again and the block was government government did not approve meetings being in public genders and minutes being published or the creation of a website so it was a massive frustration to us all so you know this is a cross party partnership across a large number of councils and it is a government served of government sponsored sponsored scheme so you know all of the leaders of all political persuasions when we were discussing the possibility of a pan regional partnership and these came out of the levelling up white paper we all of us said one of our red lines was that it had to be in public because we were all of us getting battered by the oppositions in our councils about it and it was really really difficult and you know if we could have shared stuff with you we would have shared stuff with you there was nothing terribly contentious and actually we all of us get on well and we all see what the opportunities are here so there is now a website there's now there's various governments documents and constitution there's now a shadow board genders and meetings and minutes and everything will be on this website so you can go on it now so that was a red line for all of us and we would I think without failing we would all have just said no if government didn't agree that so you know this is embryonic but we all of us know that there is only a certain amount that we can achieve in isolation as a relatively small district council but there's an awful lot we can achieve in partnership and that's why we have a combined authority because you know the previous administration when they signed up the combined authority acknowledged that we are much more powerful and much stronger voice working in partnership and this is like a bigger combined authority but actually without the constraints of the combined authority so yes but you know if things if things go wrong then then we'll stop doing it but if we're not in the room we're not involved in the conversation and we don't have the opportunity to influence things and we don't get the opportunity to benefit benefit from it so this is the early days of this and as I say I think it's important to be around the table with everybody else and I'd just like to reiterate cross party the chair is councillor Barry Wood of Chirwell council and Chirwell is the accountable body as well but anyway so I think it's a good thing for us to be doing but we'll keep it under review and hopefully there'll be a lot more information for you to scrutinise moving forward thank you councillor Don Lentel not if it goes wrong when it goes wrong because the problem about these regional partnerships is that they're trying to plug a hole in a failure of the 1990s to deliver meaningful devolution to England and the problem that we've got is that these partnerships start out with the best of intentions he said with a large pinch of soul but they're not accountable and so we've now got a situation where the leader of this council is going to the combined authority with Peterborough and saying yeah yeah go on tax us more, tax us more we love it, we love our bosses can we guarantee that there will be no tax implications that Oxcamark will never be able a transregional partnership lefi on people's council tax bills councillor Don Lentel thank you, I just thank you for moderating your language councillor Smith so in responding to councillor Don Lentel I'm going to be very mindful of the joint motion about debate not hate and curts in public life that we're going to be discussing at the end of this meeting so it's quite clear that this partnership has no powers can't precept you can't make planning decisions it's a consultative body to work in partnership to identify projects and there's a nice list of projects there on page 382 which by working together we can hopefully attract government funding and funding from elsewhere so it's quite clear that it's not going to be a precepting body to take away any of our powers so it's not about devolution thank you very much I can't see any other councillor Martin Cohn I've got a comment here in terms of the comments of councillor Lentel Chairman about the situation in France where the situation is that you have lots of small local authorities which are stuck in AXBIC because the senate which is half made up of local authority mayors would be needed to improve any changes in the local authority structure and where as a result you have many intercommunal interlocal authority structures like you've got here so this is a pragmatic response to a difficulty in the structure that the Liberal Democrats have always been favour of devolution to England I absolutely agree with councillor Lentel on that but the situation at present I can't see that the situation is much more logical in Wales and Scotland where local authority has been restructed to a devolution settlement it's absolutely needed in London I agree but we are where we are and we have to work with what we have and this is the pragmatic solution we have got available and we have to it's important that we are participating in it so that's where we are the fact that the situation isn't satisfactory is a matter for government we can't change it so I'm going to go to the recommendation on page 381 paragraph 2 it's recommended that council support South Cambridgeshire District Council cabinet's intention to confirm its membership of the Oxford to Cambridge partnership as it becomes formally recognised and funded by government as a pan regional partnership and the appointment of the leader as the council's representative on the pan regional partnership if you are in favour of that can I ask that you vote with the green button if you object vote with the red button and if you wish to abstain vote with the yellow button if you have voted there will be two blank buttons and one showing the colour that you have voted if you're not in that situation please let us know 35 ok so that is six in favour nine objections and no abstainers so that is carried right because we have such a long agenda I am proposing to continue now unless there is a wild request to stop and to go to the questions which are on item 17 actually I will also take a vote that we continue because we have been going for four hours members so can I ask that we are have approval to continue agreed thank you so much right ok chairman chairman very very quickly I know all the questions are very important and I don't speak that but you might be about to pre-empt something I'm going to say I might just ask if we could have the notice of motion first because I think that's very important let's have the notice of motion then if people have got to go the notice of motion has been done which is very important I believe I can only say my opinion it's in your discretion have you got a second to council howl a cloud of them ok so with that can I just all in favour of that would you like to raise your hands so let's do that we'll bring wait for council Heather Williams because she was seconding that motion so we'll just pause on that until she returns we'll take five minutes I'm going to wait for her to come back she's done it yes exactly so I'm not going to wait Heather won't go back she's just could you take the boat down please could you take the boat down no no I'm just please don't we haven't stopped the meeting the meeting is still ongoing so members we have it's been proposed and seconded that we bring forward the motion which is currently at number 18 but out of courtesy since you are the seconder council Heather Williams I'm 18 can I just are we all in agreement that we bring it forward ok thank you so you are reminded that a maximum period of 30 minutes is allowed for each motion to be moved seconded and debated including dealing with any amendments at the expiry of the 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 this substantive motion will have the right of reply before the motion or amendment is put to the vote so we have councillor Bridget Smith would you there's a motion standing in the name of councillor Bridget Smith and councillor Heather Williams councillor Bridget Smith would you like to move the motion thank you the key issue here is the normalisation of abuse for those of us in local government and that abuse can be in person it can be written it can be online it happens in many ways and it's a situation that's getting worse and worse and the abuse can be member on member public on member public on officer member on officer MP on member so many ways but those of us and I'm speaking on behalf of officers as well as members are on the receiving end of abuse on a daily basis and I have no doubt that this toxicity is getting worse and worse and very regrettably and that's what the work we were doing at the local government association the threshold for intervention is getting higher and higher and the number of times people say to me oh you've got to have a thick skin to do this job why do you have to have a thick skin that's not right so I'm going to give you three examples so some of I met quite recently somebody who used to be a district councillor I'm not going to mention them by name because some of you know them and when I talk to this person for the first time they said to me the reason I stopped doing this was this person left about six seven years ago was because the what went on in this council chamber they found so unpleasant that it made them really unhappy and really depressed and really ill and this was a super councillor who contributed so much to the life of this council and actually sowed quite a lot of the seeds to some of the good stuff that we're doing now and I was really sad actually that I didn't know about it at the time because I think I fell into the pit assuming that everybody had a thick skin and actually there was somebody here who didn't have a thick skin who was really really suffering so we lost somebody who would have been an asset to us and who I wish was here today I've got a friend who is a councillor who is a young woman of colour and she's not a lived-in and she receives death threats on a daily basis and she has received photographs which have been manipulated to show her family members being mutilated so just about as bad as it can be I'm very good friends with the leader of Stevenage council she was attacked physically attacked on her doorstep about two years ago and then last week I was walking my dog in the village and somebody just suddenly decided to verbally attack me I won't repeat the words which were used and spat at me that's the first time in 15 years that's ever happened to me but so things are getting worse now I've been around for 15 years and I am tough and I do have a thick skin but if that had happened to me back when I was new actually I would probably have been really really upset by it and it would probably really have played on my mind and actually I might have thought I don't want to do this job anymore so the worry is that somebody shouting at you on the street and spitting on your feet it's a small step for that becoming physical violence and it's very very wrong that any of us should be in fear of physical violence against us because we're doing a job that is public service and we're all doing it because we want to make people's lives better none of us are doing this we have huge great political ambitions we're doing it because we care about our communities and we want to make life better for the people we care about and we all know we've already had a conversation today about the need for local government to be more diverse and more representative of the people in our communities but how do you sell to a potential candidate being a district councillor being a county councillor even being a parish councillor if this is possibly what happens if they're going to receive horrendous abuse on social media people spreading lies and misinformation about them and the problem with that is there are so many lies out there from so many sources and it can be member on member MP on member parish councillor on member member of the public on member and most horribly of all people attacking officers and so on so how do we sell this job which is a great job it's the best job in the world how do we sell it to people unless we get on top of this so there's five recommendations here which I hope you'll find it easy easy to support the most important thing we can do though is to lead by example so you know conduct ourselves in this chamber to set an example for everybody of the standards that we want to be treated by and we're very fortunate in our current chair and our previous chair that they are sticklers for the best conduct within public life so I'm sure others of you have similar stories but let's put a stop to these stories by supporting this motion and leading by example ourselves thank you very much thank you very much thank you chair so I'd like to say it was 15 years before I got my first but I think it was not as I've not been a counciller that long and chair I'm going to choose my words very carefully today because I have no doubt that in supporting this we will actually almost inspire some to do exactly what we're trying to stop inevitably that is a consequence it's not right but we do have to be careful and like the leader I reflect on some things that happened to numerous elected members of this council in the time that I've been here they've been threatened to be shot told they should be pinned up against the wall and exterminated threatened to be stabbed had their pets threatened to be stabbed been called scum been threatened with sexual assault and been told evil now I agree with the leader that we must conduct ourselves in this chamber in a way that is respectful although disagree and sometimes with humour but actually it goes beyond the walls of this council chamber I think every one of us has been told toughen up and that is because that is the reality of where we're at so it's not bad advice and I'd stress it's really not bad advice but it is regressible that it's necessary and for myself I think the real issue is how quickly people can be dehumanised and that's not inside this chamber that happens outside and I've put that while our differences of opinion and robust debate is natural and healthy and I do believe it's healthy in politics we all want the same thing it's just the method in which we get there that differs it's a responsibility of us as politicians but residents alike that they see strength in our differences do not belittle or dismiss others for having a different view and if we were to take the word politics out or put political beliefs out and replace it with many other things it would be protected but for some unknown reason because we hold particular political values it makes us fair game we must always remember that councillers are not names in front of us they're not pictures on a website they are human beings and with their families as well because the anxiety that some of these threats some are political, some are physical some are not meant to be intent some are does have an impact not just on ourselves but the families and the people around us we must never forget or attempt to dehumanise those who put themselves forward to serve their communities and I think there is a big onus on that for us outside this chamber if you put literature out there that suggests that because somebody has a particular view that they are somehow evil they are scum they are not worthy of your time then the consequences will be threats and unfortunately it's something that we have had to deal with we shouldn't and we will continue to deal with it I have no doubt for quite some time yet so while I'm happy to support this motion I am realistic about the outcomes of it and this will not be a quick fix we've seen sometimes and I've sort of referenced it earlier that we've put pen to paper and that's very easy for us all to agree on but the implications of that are harder to achieve thank you very much okay so I'll give it a speak on this council now ons I'd just like to add my support to this motion and I'm interested in the differentiation between what goes on in this chamber I've got to say, I think it's actually improved I remember very strident arguments between chair and opposition leader previously perfectly reasonable generally but not really an illustration of what we would be proposing to act as an example of no no no, not you a predecessor of yours and so what I'm saying chair is that this principle of civil disagreement is absolutely a requirement of us in this chamber but out in the wider world and I was pleased to be directed to read the Nolan Principles before I took my place on the parish council many years ago and it's something that I think that we should just remind ourselves in this context there are guidelines for showing respect to each other unfortunately the public feel that we're fair game I've been criticised of being useless that's an opinion, that's fair enough but when I get told I'm lining my pockets I'm still waiting for the brown envelope he's lying but then the office of violence in the street for suggesting somebody's parking badly is not acceptable and so I'm very much in sport of this motion, thank you I note both councillor John Williams and councillor Sally Ann Hart but first I've got councillor Mark Howell Thank you chairman it's a very motive subject isn't it on already we're moderating our language we're already doing that people don't, people will say anything and everything and they give the most vile disgusting terms so I've no members here to have letters saying I'm going to reap your ars and that's what they said because of a planning meeting I don't know what helped them in the planning meeting I have no idea but I tell you this now that's the type of thing that they went home to that night and it's absolutely vile I was walking alongside an elected member the other day after they give a talk in a public meeting and as they were walking along there was a guy who was just walking on just shouting abuse and horrible abuse and he agreed with what the person said in a public meeting but because they were a politician they believed that they had the right to abuse them and these are people who let's be honest, we are local people the national politicians of what Diana Abbott has put up with is absolutely disgusting and I think here it gets a bit rumb but it used to be years ago a bit more when you went over it over the top you were to apologise and that was it but now the fact of the matter is you're getting these emails and it could be from anywhere in the world from people who don't even know you they've just picked on you and just having a go and the problem is if it is somebody who has a go at you face to face you know what they look like but when it's an email or a letter it could be anybody you could be walking down the street you could be in the shop and you don't know the only thing we can do is protect each other that's it, it comes down to that we've got to protect each other as much as we possibly can all politics aside, no matter what the issue is whether you agree with the issue or not you have to protect each other and that's the biggest thing we've got to do I wholeheartedly support this and we have been called scum I'm sorry, we are not a scum the people who write this in this vile, disgusting stuff, they are scum I'll say it, 99.9% those who are in people are wonderful they have a bit of fun at your expense they'll say some things that laugh it off but there are some real scum out there and it is nothing we can do but protect each other thank you very much thank you thank you I think the leaders made really quite a good point earlier when she was talking about people having thick skins and I think if 30us people and nice people and sensible people and normal people and people who represent the community are driven out of politics because of a very toxic environment then that is not going to be good for democracy and people are not going to get the leadership that they are asking for there are plenty of narcissistic people psychopathic people who have very thick skins and who don't mind at all being insulted or getting death threats as long as that leads to power and I think if we want to protect our democracy and if we want to have political representation that represents people and that is made up of people who are like us then we have to take us down and we have to make sure that we don't drive and dump like people out of politics thank you thank you very much councillor John Williams thank you chair I can remember 30 years ago when in council chambers it was pretty rowdy and we were pretty rude to each other and then we all went down the pub and had a drink and at the time you thought that's okay we gave it as good as we got what does it matter because we all got thick skins we could all be rude to each other but we all knew that it was a game and at the end of the day you all made this, you all went down in particular in Waltham Forest we all ran Prince of Wales and we made sure the meetings finished at 10 o'clock so we could get there before closing time I'm looking back I think that was not the way to do it and we are now reaping the outcome of that behaviour it still goes on in Parliament you know people cry to shout other people down so they can't be heard and so I think in some ways we brought the supply ourselves because it's different between then and now because in those days the public only saw that if they could be bothered to go to the council meeting nowadays they've got social media we've got Twitter we've got people copying that sort of behaviour now they think it's okay they think it's okay to bully and belittle and insult other politicians because that's the way the politicians behave isn't it I've seen it, I'll tell you I've seen it in Parliament I've heard about it I now see it on social media so in some ways we've only got ourselves to blame I remember this council meeting when I first came to this council there was a certain person who sat at the back making chicken noises bleat it was absolutely a make rude remarks about certain people he was allowed to do it so now we're saying please we don't want it done anymore that's fine it shouldn't be done but we have to remember that it's our behaviour that counts it's our behaviour in this room it's our behaviour elsewhere that you know we've got to be absolutely correct in the way that we treat each other otherwise you can't complain if it comes back at you and unfortunately as I say looking back 30 years to those meetings in Wolfson Forest we've got pretty rowdy sometimes you know we deliberately made meetings go on till 3am in the morning because we knew the toys would have fallen asleep by then I mean it was you know it was it was pretty tough in the 80s in local politics but as I say I support this and I hope that everyone supports this and that we behave the way we want people to behave to us so John Williams we have Councillor Sally Ann Hart and Councillor Bill Handley and I will say something at the end to go ahead thank you, thank you chair it's no coincidence that I'm sitting here with a pen that reminds me that we all have a right to feel safe all the time and you know with that right comes a responsibility to observe other people's right to feel safe I've not been in the council chamber for very long and I think it's got better for me I feel safer I think the challenge is more elegant and I take on board what you say Councillor Hale about looking out for each other and also holding each other to account for me it's you know if somebody is going to apologise for making a mistake we all make mistakes but that's sorry is a feeling people need to feel sorry for mistakes to say I made a mistake I'm mindful that some people who we share our world with don't have the privilege that perhaps we have their experiences of growing up mean that they don't they're not able to respond they don't have that responsibility maybe because of what's happened to them if you've never been empathised with how in else can you empathise so I try my hardest to not have a thick skin to feel safe have people I can talk with that help me and this idea of remaining curious about why somebody might behave in a particular way rather than furious about it because people can change and I think you're spot on in terms of we need to be those role models and to challenge each other if people aren't respecting each other's right to feel safe Thank you very much Thank you Thank you I've seen some pretty bad behaviour at parish council meetings it's not just us it goes right down to the lowest tier it's actually got better for me I think as time has gone on but I do know I've seen it with my own eyes a fellow councillor county councillor getting pretty badly treated by parish councils and I do think that I hope we can sort of persuade them to modify their behaviour as well as far as my experiencers so far the worst is that people thrust their finger in your face and having a pint and you say you're in favour of this bloody congestion charge aren't you mate? As about as far as it's got so far finger in the face a couple of people I thought were friends have stopped talking to me I guess that's part of the course of being a counciller but it's very sad isn't it and I just think that we need to all of us think carefully before we say stuff that we say and particularly on social media Thank you councillor Handley Very quickly Councillor Ellington I'm going to call a halt after Councillor Ellington because I think we run the risk of running out of time Councillor Ellington I'm standing because I do think this is a really really important thing that we're discussing but perhaps my plea is that when I ring the doctor's surgery and it says abuse will not be tolerated it makes me think is that because you're not providing the service that I want or that fellow phone people that phone up are not getting the service they want or is it that there is an increase in people who are abusive over the phone and I just feel that sometimes emotions do overspill and but we have the knowledge as intelligent group of people to know that if we calm the situation if we help somebody see that they're being unreasonable in some way I agree with you that somebody spitting at you is really not something you want to start a conversation with but I do feel that sometimes people do get worked up about things and we shouldn't then charge them with being abusive we need to just cool it okay Councillor Ellington, very quickly please Thank you chair and I just want to say one of the last meetings I went to was Councillor Hart's very good non-violent language presentation and I have to say through you chair that's why when I resigned the Lib Demwit I was so incredibly hurt by the behaviour of former colleagues on social media telling me that I was a labour plant and that I hadn't been sincere in joining the Lib Dems to run to represent the residents of Over and Willingham I have a serious moral issue with the congestion charge and I accept that not everyone sees it in exactly that way it's called policy definition it's central to how we provide solutions to the problems that we face so if I have offended I beg your pardon I hope that other people particularly people who are reported in the newspapers as having bullied council members out of this chamber will also take a moment to take up Councillor Hart's invitation and to say yeah this should be a safer space where we can say yep I got it wrong I got that tone wrong I put that the wrong way and I repeatedly say to you I am sorry if my tone crosses a line however let's not confuse it with the threats of actual physical violence and the actual intimidation that happens even to a member in this chamber today and she got up and did her job while her abuser was in this building and I just want to recognise that as something really special thank you Councillor Lentol I'm not going to take any more comments because I'm going to make one myself and no more I just wanted to say that as chair of this council I absolutely applaud this motion I think it is the core of what we're trying to do here in this council I'm very aware that when when people are passionate about something they're very often inclined to express themselves with that passion and I have no objection to that and obviously the whole purpose my purpose here is to enable debate and so I'm very pleased and I thank you for respecting the mood and tone that I have endeavoured to achieve in this council because I think the best decisions come out of measured, equal, challenge and debate and I thank you for the way that you have responded to me as chair on that so thank you I'm going to call that to a close oh sorry there is one moment Councillor Hansraj if you wanted to say something quickly sorry which is we've got one minute before we have to complete the debate only to say that we also have to be responsible for our personal safety and it isn't on that somebody spits at someone that could be Covid-19 giving I personally feel that putting our addresses in public view is not safe we don't have to put our addresses in public view ok sorry I didn't realise people just told me it's changed so thank you I just wanted to make that point thank you very much so did you want to just come back no we can't right stop we'll go to the vote thank you members if you're in favour of this motion please would you indicate on the green button oh ok by affirmation are we agreed fantastic right members I'm going to carry on because I know no exactly so what I'm proposing is we move back then to item 17 with questions from councillors you'll appreciate those 30 minutes maximum for all of those questions to be asked and answered can I ask that we do this as swiftly and efficiently just referring to the question as written would be helpful any members who put questions but are no longer present I propose that their answers should be given in writing ok Brito so let's make a start then so we're starting our 30 minutes from now so the first question is from councillor Daniel Lentell to the leader of the council thank you thank you for your question I hope councillor Lentell will note that this question has actually been addressed earlier in the agenda with a report on the OCP which will now go to cabinet for formal approval this has never been about one person deciding things councillor Lentell did you have a supplementary I just wonder whether the leader thinks that it might have been better to have had the debate before the decision was taken I'm not quite sure what you mean actually sorry Lentell the decision to participate in Oxcamarch has been taken before we've ever debated it in this chamber we debated it tonight no it hasn't there was a shadow board the decision we took today was to continue to make sure continue to nominate me as a representative on the board proper currently it's just a shadow board so that decision to pursue that was taken today after proper debate the chief executive would like to speak thank you and through you chair I'm sorry to just make a slight correction the decision the recommendation today was to support cabinet to decide to continue with the OCP it's actually a decision of cabinet and so rather than just go straight into cabinet Councillor Lentell we felt it was right and proper to bring the paper here so that council could have a debate and then it has provided its support to cabinet and a report will now go to cabinet in March for cabinet to formally take that decision to continue with the OCP partnership thank you very much okay the question from Councillor Carla Hoffman can we just confirm on the line but I think she has now no okay so we'll move on and her question will be answered in writing 17C Councillor Sally-Anne Hart as written on the papers so Councillor John bachelor thank you very much for the question as you imagine I've got a very long list here wonders of the housing department and what they have delivered we've already touched on that in earlier debates so I just see a few highlights such as we now have a dedicated team to make sure there's meaningful tenant engagement we recognize the beacon of national good practice in terms of domestic abuse and safeguarding we've got ambitious plans as we heard earlier for climate emergency improvements of our housing we are working hard to prevent homelessness and we continue to deliver new high quality homes but the real thing so the question was believe if I can find the question for you and that's right but it was to feel that you believe that there are any particular risks that the council currently faces in relation to council housing so the real reason for that all those good things simply don't happen by chance the reason we should feel confident in our housing department is because we've got a first class management team and that's backed up by our professional and dedicated workforce so well done them thank you very much was your supplementary question answered yes thank you okay I can't oh yes so 17D from councillor Natalie Warren Green I think part of my question has already been answered earlier in the meeting in terms of the scale the support for South Cambridgeshire for the Ukrainian programme so the key question I've got now is what the council's main focus is at the moment to ensure hosts and guests get the support they need thank you I believe this leader will that go to the lead member for communities councillor Bill Handley it will be me I think thank you for the question as I said right at the beginning South Cambridgeshire has seen the highest number of visas granted by any local authority district in the country almost 800 and of those 500 over 500 are still with us so I can't really overstate the huge amount of work that our officers have had to put in to make the homes for Ukraine scheme work in South Cams with numerous checks what's that some of these bags is chiming it's not a fire alarm at least okay so yeah I can't overstate the huge amount of work that's gone in to make the homes for Ukraine scheme work in South Cams numerous checks, welfare visits payments to be made and actually they've gone further providing community support initiatives such as the free bike scheme which we're running in partnership with Al Bikes Cantrust and Papworth Trust they've done a fantastic job considered exemplary actually by other local authority responses indeed the homes for Ukraine work has become embedded in work programs now and we can think of that as one really of the council's response and the question from councillor on green was what are we doing now or what are we going to do forward so let's think of that as phase two the next steps for the guests and that's to do with thinking how we can help them into more independent living communications is key and we've started with an information pack that has been sent out so that our guests know their options accessing private rented accommodation in our district is just a huge challenge the significant gap between the nationally set local housing allowance and the cost of renting a home in South Cams however with the clever use of available home for Europe funding the council is putting in place mitigation in the form of rent deposit schemes, rent in advance support for essential white goods and furniture, hardship funds and more another creative way to help is to make the families share accommodation or suggest that the families share accommodation really makes rent more affordable makes it more viable hasn't been a particularly straightforward nut to crack but it's taken a lot of officer time and we feel we're there now so it's just a case of watch this space and you'll see what we're what we're proposing we can't imagine what our Ukrainian guests have gone through being away from their homes and loved ones and in some cases their loved ones to the war the council is going to continue to play its part in making life as good as it can possibly be for our Ukrainian guests at this terrible time our homes for Ukraine team climbed a mountain in phase one in the scheme but there's an even bigger one to climb in phase two but there are a dedicated and capable bunch and I'm absolutely confident that this is a great once again rise to the challenge I'd just like to thank them wholeheartedly for what they've done Thank you very much Councillor Henry I'm sure we agree with you I think councillor Susan Van Dr Susan Van Davern has left so so 17f is from councillor Corin Garvey Do you go ahead a real live councillor Corin Garvey in front of me Do you go ahead with your question Thank you chair How might the newly formed Oxford-Cambridge partnership benefit self in return Thank you councillor Garvey so we've already discussed this actually quite some length today so base just to reiterate what I've said before it will allow us to work on a regional scale to deliver environmentally sustainable growth, the benefits, communities across the district I could just give you an example of one of the environmental projects that I'd like to see rolled out further I went up to Oo's Fenn to see the work the RSPB have been doing on a massive aggregate extraction site and as that site is extracting so the RSPB are doing restorative work there to recreate wetlands and there was four species of birds they were aiming to attract there bitons, marsh harriers reed warblers and one other and when I got up there the far side of the site there was massive diggers extracting all this stuff, the bit where they'd done the work was full of these birds and I saw a marsh harrier which I'd never seen before and I wasn't there early enough to hear the bitons but I saw the reed warblers there so that's a fantastic project which could be rolled out arc-wide and particularly if things like east west rail happen there will be more and more of these major extraction sites along there so we could end up with an Oxford to Cambridge wetland project which will do a massive amount so that's the kind of vision that's what it's about, that can't be done on a smaller scale thank you very much yes, sorry what will you do if government rysins on its promise that the OCP is focused on the economy and the environment and starts to talk about large scale housing developments so that's a very smart question I think the difference now is that when it was the arc it was top down government led this is now firmly locally led and as I said earlier today there's no appetite at all to deliver large scale housing they were talking about the NIC report of 2017 talked about a necklace of new developments the whole way along it so there's no appetite from that certainly at the local level and I don't actually think there is in government anymore but if they suddenly came back and started talking about 1 million homes I'd be first on the line to object to it that we'd pull out of it and refuse to play ball thank you very much so moving on to item 17G a question from councillor Paul Berfock my question is for the lead member of finance and it's Hazred thank you chair well we discussed a lot of this today already but just to recap how we're responding there are five things that we're doing first of all be on top of expenditure and for that we have an extremely good leadership team at this council and it is extremely good at identifying value for money and where we can make savings the second thing is that of course we've introduced a transformation project and we set aside a transformation fund and we are using that to drive forward productivity across the council particularly using automation and artificial intelligence and as I say again that is driving value for money third thing we're doing is we've made some very shrewd investments over the last three or four years that is bringing in very good yields for us that are supporting our more traditional income streams of council tax and business rates the fourth thing is that we need to target and we are targeting our support on those that need it rather than a blunderbust approach we are identifying people for our cost of living crisis identifying people that need our support the food banks and the warm hubs etc and finally the fifth area is that we have through our business support team been making sure that our local businesses are supported and are given every opportunity to grow because it's our businesses that provide the jobs that give our residents the money to be able to spend and support other services in south camps Thank you Councillor Williams Did you have a supplementary? I do yes I'd like to ask the lead member for finance what he thinks the most significant challenges will be over the next three years I think as it becomes clearer what the government is going to do with a fair funding review then obviously the next three years is going to be all about countering the negative impacts of that to make sure that we are able to continue to provide good quality services and to meet the needs of those most in need in our district Thank you very much Councillor Graham Cohn Would you like to go with your question? Just as on the order paper chair Thank you That is directed to the leader Could Councillor Henry Baxter answer please on my behalf Thank you chair The answer I had prepared was quite lengthy I'm going to edit it down for speed So the answer comes in two parts Firstly what we're doing in our own housing stock and two what we're doing in private accommodation as well So in terms of what we're doing with our own housing stock regarding the mould issue we have instructed our repairs contractors to ask every single person who reports a repair of any kind if there are any other issues specifically mould in their properties so regardless of what the repair contractor is in there to do they will also be asking specifically about mould We've also issued guidance to all non-technical staff who may be in people's houses to do other types of work and the guidance revolves around how to identify mould and how to ensure it's properly reported This guidance has also been sent to all of us as councillors too We've also been asked our repairs contractor to ensure that all mould issues are reported correctly as well The big one that we're doing so we're carrying out a stock condition survey this year and we will instruct the surveyors to report any signs or reports of mould back to the council Finally if we identify a property that is high risk of developing mould we will then fit it with sensors to record the environment that may lead to a growth of mould for example high temperatures and humidity This will then help us to inform a tailored solution for each property I will now move on to private sector housing and what we're doing here We have slightly less control over this chair but obviously it's a matter for environmental health which is within my portfolio The steps we're taking here are we're reviewing our website to ensure the private tenants can readily find information on what they should do if they have poor housing conditions A landlord forum will be held in the next few months and a specific section on mould will be and how to identify and treat it will be raised there The private sector stock conditions survey will be completed by September of this year So that is the heavily edited version of my answer Thank you very much for that summary I'm rather hesitating Do you have a supplementary? I don't chair I just wanted to thank the lead member for that answer I know it's something that residents are very concerned about and I'm very reassured by the information that he has given to the council and residents Thank you very much Councillor Tom Bygott Thank you so much So this is to leader I'm going to ask to defer to Councillor Tewin Hawkins but just to say that I did attend Longstanton Parish Council meeting and I'm pleased to see that in their question they say Longstanton residents are pleased that the loss of their groundwater has now been taken seriously by SCDZ because I wasn't quite sure that was the case last night but I'm going to ask Councillor Hawkins to give some more detail which I didn't have at my fingertips last night Thank you Councillor Hawkins Thank you for your question Councillor Bygott I think I should say first of all that this administration has taken the groundwater issue very seriously since May 2018 when it was first brought to our attention by previous councillors John Johnson and Marian and that is why the HR well-informed et cetera process began and of course the meeting you referred to took place on the 26th of January so yeah just over three weeks but in that time we've been focusing on getting the actions that were agreed through and basically as of this week we've now received correspondence from the leg chair with the notes of the meeting secondly officers from the council just to let you know we've not received anything yet from leg on their engagement with HR well-informed is one of the things that was discussed but officers have made contact directly with HR well-informed and hopefully if they respond we can provide an update before the meeting which is scheduled for this Friday and also lastly the planning service we have actually contacted LNQ and Homes England with respect to obtaining the CCTV information in relation to phase one and the data for the groundwater on phase one and two again as was discussed at that meeting so really what we're doing or what we've been doing in the last three weeks is making sure that all that information that was talked about we can get it and then any action we need to take will follow on from that Thank you very much Did you have a supplementary and if you could keep it for me? Yes, Chair What has the council learnt from the long standard groundwater problem and what steps has it taken to ensure that something similar doesn't happen at Water Beach New Town or any other future New Town council plans? Thank you Thank you Chair Interesting What have we learnt? Things happen that you don't plan to happen then we still don't know why what's happened that's why we're still investigating as to trying to prevent that happening again in the future until we know why it happened I can't give you any assurances of what we can do to prevent it happening I don't know what we're preventing Thank you very much Sue Ellington Thank you, Chair I saw on the paper Thank you very much Sorry, I'll keep passing them on I'll pass it on to Councillor Electricity Milnes here knows all things electricity I look forward to hearing from Councillor Electricity Milnes Useless with Councillor Electricity Okay Thank you for your question Sue referencing our solar farm and micro grid in Water Beach Clearly this was part of an extended programme of decarbonising the refuse fleet which included the proposition to buy several electric refuse vehicles which we're already doing as you're aware including my favourite the rotating one The Archimedes screw Very noisy Very sorry about that So that REN project will create a solar array and a micro grid of electricity that includes battery storage and clearly that is the opportunity for us to generate green power or renewable energy and it will have the capacity of supporting around 20 refuse vehicles Each year you asked I think previously or within there about what the difference between winter and summer usage so there will be a significant difference so in the winter probably about 50 kilowatt hours to be generated whereas in the summer in the mid-summer we're talking about maybe 79 1000 kilowatt production and obviously that will vary the amount of electric vehicles we can support without going back to the grid and then that itself is going to be an issue because the local network provider UKPN have to providers with more electricity than previously was available so that's part of the project is to get them to move ahead with effectively being able to provide more power did you have a supplementary the whole thing goes belly up and we have a really cloudy or snowy period like 63 when we were sort of there for about three months without any sign of sun thank you we've had a conversation briefly about the snow effect and clearly if you get 63 levels of snow which I remember well because I was very excited to not be able to get out of my house because of the snow against the door so clearly those are exceptional circumstances and we'll have to make provision to make sure that we can clear the solar arrays from being blocked by heavy snow normally that wouldn't be a particular problem because as I said there was solar arrays generate some heat so that snow falls it's likely to melt and therefore slip off the solar panels but there's clearly an issue and we clearly won't be able to take on more electric vehicles than we can charge even with using the batteries as a supplemental power source which will allow us to continue operating those more evenly not only through the year but day by day great thank you very much indeed Councillor Mark Howell how's on the order people great thank you the sign of good leaders there was delegates so Councillor Henry Batchelor please thank you chair so very briefly so essentially the items commonly known as POPs or for assistant organic pollutants which more commonly known are things that are essentially upholstered like sofas chairs etc which now have to be disposed of in a very specific way now also have to be collected separately from other bulky items as well meaning that the service has had to essentially hire a separate van and deploy this van on its own round to solely collect these items has meant that service has had to be reduced the service for collecting these items has started up again albeit on a much reduced scale given the fact the separate van issue so the collection method has to have been assessed and it will continue to be assessed if the demand continues to rise the service will look at getting another van thank you very much and Councillor Howell did you have a supplementary? thank you very much so moving swiftly on I just wanted to draw your attention to the chair's engagements and to add to that that I attended the opening of the South Cambridgeshire Christmas Market at Camborn on the 11th of December and also the groundbreaking at Oakington Recreation Ground on the 2nd of February and that brings our formal business to a close but I would just like to say a special thank you to Angie Francis for this his first full council meeting and for keeping the timing so beautifully thank you very much indeed okay, members at 1855 I'll call the meeting to a close