 o'r ffarsidol i'r gael ystafell, argyffredig y dyfodol. Felly lly fydd yn cael y bydd i chi, oherwydd y byddai'n gwneud eich rhaid o'r mwyafol, ac nid o'r llawl o'r cyfrifith o'r cyfrifith o'r cyfrifith o'r cyfrifith. Eo'r gweithio, mae'r gweithio ymlaen, yn ysgolwyr Richard Smith, ac rwy'n ei wneud o'r Gweithbeth Cymru, ac rwy'n ei wneud o'r cyfrifithy. Wych chi'n amlwg Cymru, gan bethfynwch maciadau a unigwyr Ynav. Adferneidol lostail. Addyr y maes gwrs barat gyda'r sectoretau ac y diseiladau'r rŷn ymblwn y maes gwrs. Cos E cledffaen, boxinge, net operating y canfodol ond dros f Cyfrifoldd ynLL wedi eu earnsguを ddaed, for councils major policies and strategies which are then considered by full council which consist of 45 people. So I won't introduce蒙iatra blank members when they speak, you'll get a notification of who they are. So I can confirm that the meeting is quiet. Some lot of notes here just try to see which ones are worth saying. So, public speakers o'r cyfnodau, oherwydd oedden nhw'n deimlo i'r bobach yn y byddwch yn y cwmbaidd neu'r chyfnod mewn bod yn cyfnod i'r bidwig oedd yn gyfudd y webcast. Felly, rydym wedi bod yn ddiolch yn sylwg wedi cyfrifiadğau ond rwy'n gweinio y byddai'n mynd ymwybodol, ac rydym wedi'u sy'n dechrau teimlo ar gyfer y rotation, sy'n argyglunio'r bethau o ddoedd yn cyfciaddau ar gyfit mae'n ei fod yn gallu bod yn cyfciedd y byddwch yn cyfciadd a'r A'r fawr hon i'r fawr yr ydych chi i ddisigwydur yn gweithio. Dyn ni'n cymdeithas ydw i ddisigwydur yn fawr yn fawr, a ni'n ddwy'r fawr yw ddwych. Felly, rydych chi'n meddwlod yllud yn gweithio g'i ddag olai i gwybod i'r disigwaith, ac mae'n gweithio chi'n geit warnio i gael gwir ymarfffyrdd, sy'n gyffredig i'r fawr i'r gweithio o gwir o ddweud o deall. Ond, ydych yn gallu'n meddwl i'w golygu'n dysgu, rydyn ni fydd Ielodraeth Cynllian penohonio gêmillion i gynghoddd chi'n gwneud i gynghoddiadau yn y trafodi. Felly, byddwn i'n meddwl i gynhyrchu gynghwyl Cynllian, hyd ble ther lleioni'r gynghwyl Cynllian ym ddweud i gydag'i gynnwci. Maen nhw'n amlifio ar gyfer ar y gwn, ond byddai nhw'n rhoi fod yn amlifio ar gyhoedd ym Yn Llyfrg, Can I also check whether we've got Councillor Pippa Haillings and Councillor Jeff Harvey present, who are the chair and vice-chair of the Climate Environment Committee? Are they present, please? No, they're probably going to join later in the meeting because the item they're going to speak on is later on a new agenda. So we have a number of officers from our senior leadership team present and we'll introduce them when they speak. Ie ذe mlynedd Llywodraeth, 2, gyda fficnogol Johnathan. Gwyddo i ddweud ddim yn ffifolig. Rhaid i ddim yn ffifolig o'u fficnogol Cymru, ac nid y byddiau tîm y Llywodraeth,りu'r Cywethaf. D должныwys. Cyngorol ym Mhwylfidog Ffain, oherwydd mae'r ffifolig o'r cyfnodau sy'n gweithio, mae'n gawin i'r gwni'n gweithio'n cael ei wneud. Yn ystafell hynny ddiw i fynd i'r bobl o'r gweithio'r anghylcholion yn y brwysig? Nodd. Ddweud. Rwy'n gweithio ar ymdill, ar 3 yw diechrau'r gweithio. Yn y gweithio'r gweithio, yna'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio? If an interest is subsequently becomes apparent later in the meeting would you raise it at that point? So, I will kick off I need to declare an interest in item nine as I am a landlord. I let out a property. Counselor John William. Thank you very much. If you could activate your microphone when you speak that would be great. So, there is been noted. Any other declarations of interest? Counselor Bill Handley. Chairman, can we point out to you that those of us taking part online can not hear Roedd gwybod i, rhai ydych chi'n gweithio, yw dechrau. Er fawr, maen nhw'n cael ei chweithio Y Don Williams. Yn gweithio, mae'n cymdeithasio'r ddweud o ddweud i, ond ar awfulu ac y gwael, ond ar eich syniad o'r rhai ar y cyfnod yw'r aelod. Mae'r cyfnod Leodraeth yn fawr, a'r cyfnod ddweud hyn i canw'r Llywodraeth yn gyffredin. yng Nghymru. If you want to speak please and you're not physically in the meeting, what are we doing? Are we doing people putting... How are we notifying? So we've got quite a lot of people, we can only see some people. If you would put it in the chat please and Councillor Bill Handley will monitor the chat and he will notify me of who wishes to speak in the order in which they have indicated they wish to speak. So if you wish to speak, but I understand Councillor Bradlin that needed to be brought to our attention urgently. So if you could just put in the chat and Councillor Bill Handley will wave at me from in front of me here and tell me that somebody wishes to speak. Okay all right thank you very much. So we've noted the declarations of interest Jonathan. Yes we have. Okay so moving on to the minutes of the previous meeting. Members are asked to approve the minutes of the meeting which was held on the 24th of May. I move the approval of those minutes as a correct record. Is there a seconder for that please? I think it's Councillor Bill Handley off his seconding. I will second that. Are there any issues arising from those minutes that any body wishes to, any cabinet member wishes to raise? Does anybody else wish to raise any issues of clarification or accuracy of the minutes? No. In which case do members agree to approve the minutes? Sorry Councillor Bradlin. Sorry we missed, it was slow arriving in chat that you wish to speak. Would you like to speak now? Thank you sorry I apologise. I was slow in typing. I just wanted to check whether DEM services could check whether Councillor Jeff Harvey was in attendance in the council meeting at last cabinet. Cos I thought he possibly was taking part online but I might be mistaken so I just wanted to check. Could they check that? Kind of think he was here in person but we will double check that. So do members agree to approve the minutes? Thank you. Anybody wish to vote against? And anyone wish to abstain? Okay so cabinet therefore agrees to approve the minutes as a correct record by affirmation. And moving on to item five public questions. I'm not aware that we've received any public questions. Jonathan can you confirm that please? Thank you. No public questions we have received ahead of the meeting. Thank you very much. And moving on to item six which is issues arising from scrutiny over your committee. Councillor Chamberlain do you want to speak now or do you want to speak within the body of the meeting? Leader if I may I prefer it to speak now if I may as I have to leave home shortly for another commitment. So my comments will be brief. The summary that's been put together by young Mr Senior is extremely comprehensive but I would just draw your attention to a couple of points. On page 700.3 the second bullet point we do believe that the ministry of housing communities and local government should be urged to clarify against which standard performance should be measured just to ensure consistency and comparison of like with like. Now the use of extension of extensions of time to ensure quality of application should be taken as evidence of officers being as thorough as possible. Under the private sector housing policy I think the main point that I'd like to draw to cabinet's attention is that the with the potential workload it would be important for staffing levels and expertise those sufficient now to be reviewed from time to time. And then finally under quarter for performance we're delighted to hear that a new telephony system will allow a call back enabling more efficient access of residents to the service. And I'm happy to take any questions leader but with your permission I will end there and leave you in due course thank you. Thank you very much indeed and they are indeed very comprehensive minutes from Mr Senior and we're very grateful for those. Would any cabinet member like to ask any questions clarification of Councillor Chamberlain? Else in the meeting like to question Councillor Chamberlain? No thank you, thank you very much. We'll take those are very important points you've raised. We will take those forward and as always we thank the scrutiny of overview of the committee for the considerable effort that they put in to their roles much appreciated and thank you for attending Councillor Chamberlain. Thank you leader. Right so we're now moving on to number seven actions taken under the chief executive delegated powers and we're just asked to note this report. So moving on from noting to item eight which is the quarter for performance report and Councillor Neil Goff the deputy is going to report on this in the first instance. Thank you leader. I'm going to be very very brief because Councillor Chamberlain is well aware we had a very good discussion on this scrutiny and oversight and what I'm going to do I'll just make a couple of points relating to areas of performance which fall into my area of responsibility and then I expect that sort of other cabinet members may wish to either say something or respond to any questions that arise. So as Councillor Chamberlain said one of the obvious points in the report was the performance of the contact centre particularly the length of time that was taking to answer calls. We had a good discussion scrutiny and oversight this is really a function of demand in that the call centre can really cope if calls are of the order of 600 calls a day that staff is sufficient to deal with that but as soon as the calls start to increase as is often the case around certain times of the year for example council tax received council tax statements and so forth as soon as the calls go above 700, 800 calls a day it's very difficult to staff to cope and you get back up in terms of the answer time. As Councillor Chamberlain said one of the things we're looking at and it is one of the things we're looking at is the introduction of call back service which is apparently enabled by the new technology. That's good. Mr Membury will be looking at this it's not quite as simple as it seems because even though you have a call back facility you've still got to find the time within the system to call people back so it needs a bit of process associated with that and that will be looked at in parallel with things other things we talked on like online chat capability which increases the ability of call centre staff to deal with a number of calls so there's a number of things there which will be looked at. So I will stop there I don't know whether any other cabinet members wish to pick up anything. Thank you very much indeed Councillor Doff so you're going to move the recommendation I believe that Councillor John Batchelor is going to second the recommendation. Would you like to speak on this Councillor Batchelor? Yes please chair. I'd just like to speak to the housing report elements in my role as a lead member for housing. This is on page 21 and there are three items of concern there. The first one was the spend on bed and breakfast accommodation which in the year came out just under 260,000 pounds as against the target of 124,000. This is all COVID related and the good news here is that the government did actually provide grant support in this area and it should also be noted that most people in this category qualify for benefits which come to us as well so in fact over the year the cost to south camps was 27,800 pounds. We are obviously keeping this under review in that numbers are still remaining high relative to this district and we will report back on that later. The second item is responsive repairs and attendance satisfaction. This has been a concern to us for some time because the system has been up till now for the contractor to ask for the satisfaction from the client when he finishes the job and in many cases this is called to be oppressive so we are reviewing this to come up with a different system of actually gathering satisfaction. Underlying this of course we have had concerns that satisfaction numbers coming back from contractors didn't seem to reflect the level of complaints that we are actually receiving from tenants on the quality of work so again that is under review. On the third item which is the average time to re-let a housing stock is really the most concerning area and this comes back to the amount of time that voids are taking to be billed. So the first thing to say is that this was January, February and March and we are at the height of the lockdown which caused considerable issues for contractors getting on with the work. Another side effect of Covid was that we weren't able to carry out the usual handover procedures on quite a number of properties that were received back in very poor condition so we have many more major works required than we normally do. The contractor has had difficulty with staffing and in view of this we have taken the steps to take away all the major void work from them and given them to other contractors so that they can concentrate on the minor works and start to get the stock as quickly as possible back into circulation. There are various other steps being taken which includes a weekly meeting of senior staff with contractors to review every single void property to see exactly where they are on them and to deal with any issues that might be occurring. So I hope I can give some reassurance of these matters are in hand. Thank you. Thank you very much indeed. Right, councillor Brian Mills. Thank you, I'll leave it. I think a couple of things about the reportage that doesn't really acknowledge the difficulty of individual cases and the impact that we have on residents, for example. So speaking to what councillor Bachelor said about voids and so on or responses from contractors that let our residents down occasionally. So although there might be a figure in the KPIs understanding the difficulty over several weeks, for example, in my case of a piece of case work where somebody was let down, they didn't make the first appointments, they stopped in and took a half a day off work to be there, didn't turn up. And it's that sort of episode that's very difficult to monitor in here but really impacts individuals but also puts us at risk of reputational damage. And so I'm very pleased to hear that councillor Bachelor is on the case in that regard. The other thing that I think that I'm conscious of in the report is cases of handover from one call centre number to another. So after 4.30 or 5.30 or whatever the time is, you're asked to go to another number or so I think in our case we've got Penland or no, East Cams I think looks after our call services and sometimes there's a gap between those two so you can't get one or the other to answer. So there were, as I said, that may be in here but the impact on somebody who's got something of an emergency is significant. The other thing that I wanted to mention because it was raised at full council earlier in the year was the LED programme and I'm pleased to be able to say that the snagging work is almost complete on that. So we had some issues with UK power networks who plastered the electricity supply at risk so it was unsafe to connect new. We've also had some concrete pillars alongside new ones that hadn't been removed so they're in hand now and out of the 1600 I think we're down to about 30 snagging and that will get resolved very soon. Thank you. Excellent, thank you very much indeed. Any other cabinet member want to comment? Councillor Hanley, do we have any questions for anyone else? So I'm really pleased with this. I think it's nothing short of a miracle that we've maintained our performance as well as we had in the face of a pandemic and actually we've done it all the way through. I think the council's been extraordinarily successful in keeping business as usual going and where things are red it's very understandable why they're red but it's very reassuring to hear from Councillor Batchelor and Councillor Mills that we're not just saying there's a problem there's absolutely a fast and furious piece of work in place to resolve problems. So I think my congratulations to our chief executive and to all her colleagues for actually managing to improve performance in the face of a pandemic and I don't imagine there's many councils that have managed to achieve that. So thank you very much indeed from all of us. So we are asked to let me just find my paperwork. So the recommendation is set out at paragraph four of the report and cabinet is recommended to review the KPI results and comments at appendix A and progress against the business plan actions at appendix D which is very nicely set out. Thank you very much officers for that and we're appropriate any actions required to address any issues identified. So do members agree with the proposal? Anyone wish to vote against and anyone wish to abstain? Thank you so cabinet therefore agrees the proposals by affirmation and moving on to a pretty major piece of work the private sector housing policy and councillor Brian Milms is going to introduce this and I believe councillor John Bachelor is going to second it. So over to you again councillor Milms thank you. Thank you leader. So this is a piece of work that was left required by government legislation that we had a policy for the private housing sector and to make sure that tenants in that sector were protected from inappropriate activities by landlords and you'll see before you and again this got a very good airing at scrutiny and overview so I don't particularly want to go through all of that again and in that respect we did take accommodation of the suggestions that were made for example by councillor Richard Williams in terms of some of the work that was some of the wording excuse me and also the formatting so we're asking today to have delegation to make further minor changes to that so that the layout and so on is well done and I'll thank particularly the officer Leslie Bevers for producing this document which is very comprehensive it's based largely on work that has been done at Nottingham City Council so we have got a system that is tested and has been successfully deployed there so I'm very happy to recommend this report to you and happy to answer any questions that you may have. Thank you very much. Would you like to respond to councillor Chamberlain's question about making sure that there's the staffing and the expertise for you know for this to be implemented really well? Actually the manifestation of this document before you is there as demonstration that we've got more resources to put into place so we have vacancies that needed to be filled before we were able to bring this forward to you so I'm more than happy that we have the resources in place to manage this process. Excellent, thank you very much indeed. Are there any questions or points from members of cabinet? Councillor Handley, have we got any questions for anybody else? Right, okay so Councillor John Batchelor did you want to speak on this? No thank you chair, very good report, happy to endorse it. Thank you very much. I mean I have in the past had to ask the council to intervene over a private housing matter and they did so brilliantly and I had some very very happy family as a result of it but it's very good to see this embedded in this very very clear way so a huge thanks to the officers responsible for it because it is an excellent piece of work. Thank you also to Nottingham City Council who I gather have been hugely influential in this it's good to hear that they've tested this out so we know that this is a model that works. Thank you, so the recommendation set out at paragraph three of the report which is on page 46 and cabinet's recommended to a approve the private sector housing policy to ensure the council follows guidance from the ministry of housing, communities and local government to tackle substandard conditions in the private rented sector and b delegate authority to the head of shared waste and environment to make minor amendments in consultation with the lead cabinet member for environment services and licensing. So do you members agree with the proposal? Does anyone wish to vote against? And does anyone wish to abstain? Good, so cabinet therefore agrees the proposal by affirmation. So moving swiftly on to item 10 officer delegations for infrastructure projects and we are just asked to note this so that it doesn't need to be seconded but Councillor Tumie Hawkins is going to introduce the report. Thank you leader. As we all know our district is facing a number of new national infrastructure projects over the coming years. Most recent example we have consultation on was East West Rail but whilst we are not the body that's responsible for giving consent we are nevertheless consultees and we will be participating in the processes leading up to the consent by government through either development consent orders or transport work orders. And of course this matters do not follow our normal planning processes as we have set out in the paper that you have before you. It's therefore important for us to have in place a proper process whereby the council can respond within the timeframes which sometimes are usually tight and not within our control. And what we propose to do is that some of those issues obviously will be down to Cabinet to determine as you say in paragraph 3.11 and others of the more professional nature will be determined we propose by the Joint Director of Planning and Economic Development as in paragraph 3.22. Obviously the overall approval of matters still fall to the council. However I guess really all I'm asking is that you approve the proposal we set out given the Director of Joint, the Joint Director of Planning and Economic Development the authority delegated from Cabinet to respond to specific stages in the matters associated with infrastructure delivery in our district. Thank you Councillor Hawkins. As I said we're just being asked to note this any Cabinet member would like to comment on this. No anybody outside of Cabinet? Oh sorry Councillor Bradman would you like to speak? I'm sorry thank you leader. I just wanted to check I'm sorry it was to do with the previous item and I just wanted to check that under the item we were not only you were not only approving the housing element but also the penalties element which were appendices A and B because there were two separate documents in the scrutiny and overview papers and we've actually in the I have a printed copy of the agenda and the housing element was printed twice but I think you received the penalties as a separate item and I just wanted to check that both A and B are included in your previous approval. Councillor Brian Mills. Yes actually I think the duplication did you say penalties was duplicated? It was the um just bear with me it was the it was the penalties that were duplicated and we didn't have the appendix A we got two copies. That's right we remedied that Councillor Bradman. Okay so one of the things I wanted to just ask about that was whether it would be wise to make the naming of those two documents clear because they are confusing enough to have confused the people producing the agenda. Do you see what I mean? They're both called private sector housing policy um so one's called the private sector housing policy but the second one was called the civil penalties procedure and but the documents looked very similar and I just wanted to check that the civil penalties procedure didn't only cover housing policy it covered all sorts of other things as well so you need to be sure that that is also approved. I think if I can say that it was clarified before the cabinet meeting with cabinet members that there have been that duplication of appendices that you've mentioned and it is clear in the the motion or whatever we should propose or that both of these policies were included so I'm content that we have done this properly if anybody else wants to make an alternative suggestion I'm happy to take that on board and I'm pleased that they looked very similar documents because that was one of the suggestions from scrutiny that we get the formatting properly done. Thank you. Can I just bring in Leslie who's the officer who's been leading on this please? Thank you. I was just going to say that the they are two separate documents that were all included in the one report to cabinet. The civil penalties pick up if we have to take enforcement action on private sector housing thing. The civil penalty referred to in this document is purely for private sector housing. Thank you. Thank you very much for that Clarif. So moving back on to where we were which was agenda item 10 which was the officer delegations for infrastructure projects. Are there any to cabinet members have already indicated that they've nothing else to add here? Is there anybody else who would like to ask a question? Okay so I think this is a very useful paper actually because it absolutely highlights how complicated things are in South Cambridgeshire and that we are dealing with some really really big and significant issues and I imagine more so than any other district of comparable size in the country quite honestly and I've had various conversations with parish councils recently where you know they are some parish councils are finding this overwhelming and we're having conversations about how we can keep our parish council better informed about what our role as the district council is because obviously an awful lot of this stuff we are merely consultees you know we don't have ultimate control over them but I think we need to get we need to be clearer still about what our role is and what we're actually doing so it's a helpful paper on many levels. So we're just noting this so oh sorry so Councillor Bradlam you want to come back in on this one? Thank you sorry leader it takes a while there's a delay on the line. I just wanted to be clear that in this paper we are recommending at point 2.1 on page 118 that the joint director of planning and economic development has the authority for providing responses at specific stages of these consultation processes and I just wanted to be clear whether the members have an opportunity to understand what that response will be before it is made. In other words for example it would be at the very least useful for members to know whether for example the joint director of planning and economic development was going to give a response that favoured one part of the district over another. Now that might be by necessity but members need to know whether that's going to happen. I'm going to bring in Stephen Kelly the director of shared planning. Thank you I think the the it certainly isn't an intention that we favour one part of the district or another in any in any response there would be a record of the decision that's made not least in terms of the matter of public record in the submission that the council makes to the process. If local members as you've noticed in the report the consultation period for some of these responses and the statutory requirement to respond or effectively face a scenario where our response is not recognised that is quite tight and obviously as these projects progress what I would hope is that local members and the planning service and officers would continue to engage in ensuring that your understanding or your issues raised by anything that you see coming forward are captured in our in our response but this is a practical approach that we're seeking to note to ensure that South Cambridgeshire district councils voices heard throughout the process and my intention and my team's intention would always be to try and understand local members' perspectives in framing those responses in the normal way. Thank you very much Mr Kelly. Yes, Councillor Bradley. So thank you leader. So I take that to mean that if for example the joint director of planning felt it was necessary to make a recommendation that might influence precisely where you know up until now the responses have been very neutral and but if in the future a response was felt necessary that might see a piece of infrastructure being put in a particular location would he I understand him to mean that he would always consult with the local members first. So thank you Councillor Bradley. I'm going to bring in our Chief Executive Ms Wirtz. And sorry I didn't see Stephen Tander's back up but I know what Stephen is going to say is that if you look at 3.12 what we are noting is that the joint director of planning has quite a lot of process responsibility to making sure that the any consultation gets through the process and that we can do that in a timely way. Of course any content in terms of our response to anybody would certainly be informed by members in the usual way as it has been so far. Thank you. Thank you. So I hope you know Councillor Bradlin that we bend over backwards to consult with all members on all key issues and we do that through formal meetings, through informal meetings, through presentations, through workshops and I think we probably do far more than very many other councils do in order to keep all of our membership and our parish councils extremely well informed and to make sure that we are reflecting their voices. One example of this is our response on East West Rail contained a huge appendix which was all the emails and there were many of them which I had received from residents and parish councils and lobby groups and so on you know on what their views were on East West Rail and we included that appendix so that it could be cross referenced to make sure so that people would see that we had clearly represented their views in our response to East West Rail so you know we absolutely go more than the extra mile on this and we'll continue to do so. Okay so moving on we're just asked to note that and we move on to item 11 which is the conservation area review program including the approach to Longstanton conservation area and this is going to be introduced and recommended by Councillor Tumie Hawkins and I am very pleased to second it. Councillor Hawkins. Thank you chair. Many people might not know but here in South Gams we have 84 conservation areas and currently of these 22 appraisals covering 24 conservation areas have been adopted so there's still some way to go. Conservation areas are all areas of special either architectural or historic interests and the purpose of specifying them is not to prevent all development but rather to enable careful management of those qualities that make them special so each conservation area should have an appraisal which is a set of key documents that defines what is special about the area and will help decision makers when considering planning applications. As a local plan authority we have a statutory duty to review conservation areas from time to time and that time to time period is generally approximately five years because it's not expected that the catarysic of such an area will change rapidly. However hope to now for us these reviews have been done as and when resources have permitted. We recognise that we need to get on top of these and the shared planning service is now proposing a rolling programme of appraisals. You've seen in the paper that there are three criteria to enable the service prioritise how these reviews are done. Conservation areas where there is potential for significant development comes top of the list. Areas that are at risk meaning that they appear on the Historic England's Heritage at Risk Register and the third criteria is those areas with no appraisal or where the appraisal was conducted some years ago. So on the basis of this we have set out a planned programme for the next five years as you will see in Appendix 1 in crunches and the plan is to review that programme every two years to make sure that it's on track and is still relevant. So for the period of 2021 to 2026 there'll be 23 conservation area reviews which cover 22 villages as you see in the report. I will note specifically the long-standing conservation area because that has come up in their requests. Now that was reviewed back in 2005 when the new town of Nostal was being considered and was making its way through the local plan process and as we have a number of other conservation areas that are much older or don't even have appraisal at all we therefore consider that we should not review the long standing conservation area as a priority at this time. We have you'll be pleased to know discussed and sought the views of the parish council, the historic England and both local members about this proposal not to review long-standing conservation area now and all of them are happy with our approach. So we propose to leave it for now. I just want to thank the officers for the work that has gone into this and I propose the recommendations in paragraphs 5 and 6 and ask the cabinet to endorse the programme of conservation area appraisals. Thank you. Thank you very much indeed Councillor Hawkins. Any cabinet members want to comment on this? No, anybody else? Anybody in chat? Give me a moment. No, okay. I've got nothing to add to Councillor Tumey Hawkins' introduction. Cabinet's recommended to endorse the criteria and approach for the rolling programme of conservation area appraisals and management plan reviews with the programme to be reviewed by annually and be confirmed that it will not prioritise a review of long-standing conservation area at this time. Do you members agree with the proposal? Does anyone wish to vote against? And anyone wish to abstain? I said I would second. Oh sorry. Yes, in the introduction. Thank you. That's all right. Cabinet therefore agrees the proposal by affirmation. And moving on to item 12 which is the biodiversity supplementary planning document and that is again is Councillor Tumey Hawkins is going to introduce it and make the move the recommendation and I am very happy to second it. So over to you again Councillor Hawkins. Thank you, leader. You wait for one and you get three. Or is it four? Right. This is an SPD that I am excited to bring to you today. Our current Board of ST SPD actually dates back to 2009 and that's even before I became a councillor and this is my going on 12 years so it is a long time. As you know, SPDs provide more detailed guidance on policies in the adopted local plan and this council adopted a new local plan in 2018 and we also know that there are key changes that were made to the national planning policy framework also in 2018 so it is important that we bring our biodiversity SPD up to date. We have as a council committed to doubling nature and we adopted our doubling nature strategy back in February of this year which we are very excited about and as you also know the new local plan we are working on has biodiversity and green spaces and climate change as you know themes you know two of the themes that govern the plan. Now I would like to mention that one of the big changes we have in the MPPF is the reference to measurable biodiversity net gain and that's quite important as it's the metric for measuring the overall diversity that you get after developing a site. So we need to incorporate this as well as one of the big themes in our SPD and it is I think a clear steer to developers that biodiversity and ecology must be considered right at the start of a project it's not an add-on it's got to be considered from the start of the project. Now our aim is towards 20% as suggested as best practice obviously if we can get more we'd be happy for more but we also need to be reasonable and practical. I'm sure I mean I'll leave this here for now because I'm sure that the chair of the climate and environment advisory committee will very rightly say quite a lot about this but obviously we want to now take this document out to our communities to engage with them and get their views on it and before I stop let me just say a big thank you to the built natural environment team for the excellent work that we've done and for the input that the climate advisory committee has had into this it's been very very helpful indeed and without further ado I will move the recommendation in paragraph three and ask the cabinet to please accept this document and agree that we can take it to public consultation and we'll come back after we've gone through that process. Thank you leader. Thank you very much Councillor Hawkins. I'm going to invite Councillor Pippa Halings who's chair of the climate and environment advisory committee to speak at this point. Thank you very much and through you chair and thank you very much to Councillor Tumi Hawkins who's cabinet lead member for planning and whom has worked very closely and been extremely supportive of this SPD and don't want to duplicate what Councillor Hawkins has said but we are very very supportive of this version of the biodiversity supplementary planning document that you have before you and that should go out to consultation. It has been worked on incredibly by the built natural environment team and it has come to the climate change and environment advisory committee and we've looked at it in detail. What this does and we have to be very very realistic what this supplementary planning document does is to bring us up to date with the national planning policy framework. We were one of the few councils you know in England to have a biodiversity supplementary planning document which is in 2009 and our local plan that we adopted back in 2018 does echo some of the things that are in that supplementary planning document but in no way does our current local plan nor the existing supplementary planning document reach our ambitions and aspirations or those of our residents and of many of the developers well and those who are going to live in new developments and sometimes were challenged. We brought forward the doubling nature strategy. We adopted it as a sister document to our zero carbon strategy and it lays out it sets out our ambition and aspirations but often were challenged that in development difficult developments that finally get through planning why those ambitions are not met and the reason is the bottom line is because we don't have the policy teeth to make sure that this is obligatory and so this supplementary planning document still doesn't get us there because we have to wait one for the environment built past and two for our new local plan to be adopted in which we are very very much putting out higher ambition levels but what this document does do is it sets out the store it makes very very clear what our aspirations ambitions are for those who want to join with us and it says it gives examples of some of the great stuff that's already happening and it invites everybody to say we want to meet those aspirations and ambitions but they are non binding targets which are within this supplementary planning document because as yet we cannot make them binding but this supplementary planning document will make sure that we explain our interpretation of existing legislation it brings us up to date with biodiversity net gain and not no net loss and it ensures that everybody understands our interpretations so I just wanted to make that that very very clear what it does bring forward are the key roles that local nature recovery networks play the key roles that neighborhood plans and local area plans in this and the key role that working together with communities with our planners and with developers that given that the evidence commissioned for our new local plan shows us that Cambridge is one of the poorest areas in terms of land managed for wildlife and tree canopy cover we have to be doing better at this we have we can't just wait for the local plan which will come you know in probably around two years we need something to bridge us from where the current local plan is clearly set out our stolen aspirations and clearly set out what our ambition for the new local plan is that's what policy messages do and this is what this supplementary planning document does it brings in sustainable urban drainage the suds it brings in issues around water and biodiversity brings in local green spaces in the nature recovery network and it clearly clearly sets out why we think that we are not facing only a climate emergency but an ecological and climate emergency and what we aim to do about it as far as we can in terms of planning policy and so this needs to go out to consultation with the clarity of that understanding thank you so much thank you there's nothing I can add to that because that was marvellous thank you very much any cabinet members want to make any comment on this that councillor Milms just a very quick comment over public awareness and we saw just last week with conversations about biodiversity net gain and for example the unintended consequences of some of the developments that we do to lots of species for example and so this is a it's a complimentary to the climate change conversation and I'm really happy as a council if we are thought leaders in this regard and push to your agenda forward thank you thank you as well said any other cabinet members councillor Bradnham thank you leader um yes I just wanted to welcome this strategy coming forward and welcome the fact that as councillor Haling says it bridges the gap between now and what we aspire to and in particular I'm minded that you know doubling nature is a really important aspiration but if the starting point is something that's got very little biodiversity which sometimes is the case with arable land which we might be building on then actually doubling it doesn't take us to a very high target and so I'm really pleased that this um that the chair of our climate change committee is so committed to really improving our performance in this and actually bringing us up to a level where we can be proud of our approach to nature and I'm really pleased with all of that and I'm pleased that this supplementary planning document brings us closer um to uh making that clear to the public what what we care about and what we're trying to do so good to see it thank you thank you thank you thank you very much indeed are there any other speakers okay so I think this is an outstanding piece of work um and I so it's now going out to consultation and will come back to us the end of the year um what I'm very keen on is that we get maximum um maximum impact we make the most of the consultation opportunities now I know that people in south cambridge and cambridge city who are going to be uh the focus of consultation are very very engaged with us and we've got no end of um environmental groups and bodies so I'd like us to do some sort of targeted work getting this out to the people whose um feedback we will we will value on this and it can certainly go out through the local nature partnership um and all those other bodies and I think generally speaking people are going to be very very pleased and the sense a very strong message about the level of our our ambition um so thank you very much indeed um as I'll be talking to our comms team about what they can do as of today to start raising the profile of this so cabinet is recommended to support the passage of this supplementary planning document through this process for the next phase which is public consultation prior to its return to this committee for a view and adoption in late 2021 uh the members agree with that proposal please anyone wish to vote against and anyone wish to abstain so cabinet therefore agrees the proposal by affirmation and thank you very much councillor Hayling for your contribution which is invaluable so moving on to the last item which is item 13 which is the review of the duct design review service and this is councillor Tumi Hawkins again and I believe councillor Brian Milne is going to second this so councillor Hawkins sorry just something has appeared on here thank you um yeah with technology review process the design review process that we've carried out um is something that we we need to do as you know with the advice we get is part of um a very important part of how we manage development in the district um our design enabling panel here in South Cams was set up in 2014 and it's never been reviewed and there is as some of you might know a minimum charge to use the service the equivalent in Cambridge City is called the design and conservation panel set up in 2006 last review 2013 and is a free service so what we have now is a service a joint service that's got two types of design review processes and we thought it was best to bring them down um to harmonize uh since we have a joint planning service what the report you see before you does is presents the finding of the independent independent review of both panels and it proposes to replace them with a single panel for the Greater Cambridge area that aligns with best practice and provides a consistent approach across the Greater Cambridge area now this review was carried out last year um and the reviewers observed the meetings of both the design and the panel as well as the the city version of it and also the quality panel run by the county council although that is not part of this review and also the reviewers interviewed some of those who have brought schemes to our design panel in the last 12 months as well as plan officers planning committee members residence associations and parish councils so pretty much talk to everyone who has anything to do with um the panel or the news of the panel I just want to note that the feedback you would have seen in the report of the south camps design panel was quite positive um but yes there's always improvements to be made now out of all that review work that was done um in you know there were free strategic trade changes that have been proposed the first is to create a single design review service with specialist soft panels uh the second is to refresh and improve how the service is delivered I mean clean update in the terms of reference and the third is to integrate the design review with a wider design planning work that we do in the service which is fair enough um the full report obviously is in appendix a and the revised or the proposed revised terms of reference uh is in appendix b there's a lot in there um but it's still be good to note that you know it should become a pay as you use service um cover its costs and perhaps have a bigger panel um of between 20 and 30 members that you can then choose your soft panels from et cetera et cetera as well as an independent advisory group to govern the panel as part of the recommendations now the plan is that this new service will be cost neutral wash its face um and to be funded from charges paid by applicants and there's potential to generate surplus which can be reinvested back into the service um just to let you know that this proposal was considered by the Cambridge scrutiny and transport committee and agreed by its executive council I think also a week ago so to close this I just want to thank the reviewer from the urban design learning for their excellent work and to everyone who has given of their time for the interviews and discussions but I also want to say a special thanks to all of the current members of our south comes designing panel for the service they have given to us over the years um letting us the expertise and knowledge to get high quality design outcomes in our projects and I hope I will see some of them in that new panel but I must also mention our urban design team especially uh Dr Cwok Anton Davies who have administered at EMP very well indeed I therefore move to recommendation in paragraph 3 on page 239 of our papers thank you thank you very much I'm just going to ask Stephen Ken if he wants to add anything to that thank you leader no obviously um your ambition for high quality outcomes uh is is paramel in what what the planning service is trying to do and this review is is timely I think in trying to bring together best practice across the country we're already one of the leaders in terms of quality places that we deliver but it's important that we keep this under review and hopefully the recommendations that council Hawkins have set out can can be supported and see the service move forward further thank you right any questions from cabinet councillor goff councillor Williams first thank you leader um well as you know in south camp we have parish councils and um parish councils give their views on planning applications and in a lot of cases parish councils have concerns about the design of developments and um I think we have made great efforts and we have come a long way in the last three years in in helping parish councils to understand the planning process and to recognise and try and take on board the comments that are made by parish councils in the planning process I do hope that um that the IAG will take into account the views of parish councils when they are looking at designs and involve parish councils in their deliberations um and it doesn't just become um a place of professionals which exclude those who you know have to live with the eventual development so I do hope that and we talk about in paragraph 5.20 that there will be an annual report of the panel's activities and I hope part of that report will be feedback and comments from parish councils on their work thank you points well made I'm just going to take other questions and I will ask Mr Kelly's come back back in um councillor yeah I actually um I went through the uh and read the urban design uh learning report which I thought was was was very good and it's it contains quite a few recommendations um to address the process of uh how the the panel works and and I just wanted to check that in the recommendations we also intend to pick up those recommendations from the urban design living report so so some of them were around process as councillor William said in terms of the annual report seems seemed to me very sensible um proposals to address some of the the the sort of weaknesses which they identified in the current operation so I just wanted to check that that was incorporated into the recommendations not I don't think it's explicit but I just want to make sure thank you um councillor bachelor thank you chair I very much welcome this report and the revisions that it proposes my concern is that this is still a voluntary thing as far as developers are concerned as next chair of the planning committee I would very much like to see that the planning committee could actually have the power to direct developers to go to the design panel when that committee has particular concerns about what is actually putting in front of them I quite appreciate this presumably requires legislation um but I'm going to hope that this government will appear who apparently want to everything to be lovely would actually feel that the design panels could actually have a role in lobliness point point well made any other questions will I go to just from cabinet I'm going to go to Mr Kelly first and then I'll take questions from people outside of cabinet thank you leader in response to council Williams points I think it's important to bear in mind that the design review is just part of the process of securing good development so absolutely it's important to hear from parishes in that in that process but certainly the annual report and the accountability of the of the design review chairs for the advice that they provide together with some picking up on council golf's point some of the recommendations about how we can ensure effective feedback and effective curating of the process so that it adds value to the ultimately planning committee decisions and assists the planning committee it is important that there was some consideration as to whether or not a you know representatives of the local community could or should be part of the design review process but I think one needs to see this as I said in the context of the whole process in which applicants are encouraged by the NPPF picking up on council bachelor's point they're not compelled but they're encouraged by the NPPF to engage in early consultation with parishes and communities as we move forward in looking at the new local plan certainly it's our expectation to try and seek to embody in policy in that document a much more strident position in terms of the requirement for design review and indeed to strengthen the committee and the council's arm where applicants simply fail to demonstrate how they've taken on board the really important elements of the community voice but also the understanding from the design review process in decision making to try and empower the council and communities to if the government won't do it to secure a very positive participation from everybody in that development process. So just a clarification Mr Kelly so obviously you know the last thing we want to do is slow down planning applications so obviously at the point at which we publish them they go to the parish councils for comment and out to the general public as well at what point do the design enabling panel or whatever they're going to be called get to do their bit of work is it before or is it at that same point or is it prior to that? The design enabling panel routinely get involved at the pre application phase at the scheme development because particularly with larger projects trying to establish a quality scheme right at the beginning saves both huge amounts of time and indeed avoids wasting public consultation and the huge energy that communities put into responding to that on schemes that are fundamentally flawed or poorly developed but that process of as I think councillor Williams highlighted fundamentally professional and specialist engagement needs to be seen as sitting alongside the important community engagement that should also be happening at the same time ahead of the application phase and one of the things that we will want to do probably as we move forward is to revisit the advice in our statement of community involvement to capture amongst other things these types of really important matters for the local authority so that developers can be left as we've discussed with the previous item in no doubt about the council's expectations for early and fulsome community participation because sometimes it's very tokenistic but also so that as we progress towards the new local plan we can have more effective policies that make circumstances where people do not properly participate in that early scheme development more disadvantageous to the development community in other words that they are encouraged strongly and indeed their failure to engage proactively has a black mark against it in terms of planning policy so it's one part of a process but it sits alongside in that pre-application phase primarily other engagement avenues. Thank you very much so it will be good if we are being clearer about the needs for really high quality community engagement at the pre-app stage I've seen the good the bad and the ugly of it and the best of it actually means that applications are very very well accepted by communities because they think it's reflecting what they've said they're saying and that is important that I think we need to nevy some weight on developers to make sure that they are doing that well. Councillor Milne's. I don't know whether you want to invite me to speak as a seconder of this but the situation Stephen Kelly describes is pertinent to an example I have in Soughton at the moment with 280 new housing a new house estate and they're going through pre-application and consultation exercise they've been incorporated village design guide work in that and I see this very much as a kaizen continuous improvement of an existing system and the review process that's incorporated in here speaks very well to that. We've got you know in many respects precious assets of precious environment to look after in this wider Gredd Cambridge area and if this can add to the way that we protect that we've got some award-winning designs already in the area we want to continue that and cope with those dilemmas that we often face in planning terms with conflicting interests so I recommend this to the to the cabinet. Thank you that's very helpful so if there's no more questions from cabinet I'll go to other other speakers. Councillor Bradlin first please. Thank you leader so I hope you'll bear with me I've got a few points I wanted to make firstly I have actually had the privilege of observing a couple of design enabling panels for Southcams in process which was a very interesting experience and I wanted to thank Bonnie Kwok for her work in running those in a very professional way that attracts influential design people with expertise in design to sit on those panels so that's really important. Also I am this year chair of joint development control committee which looks at developments across the boundary between the city and Southcams and so I'm very mindful of the sometimes differing requirements of developments in the urban area in the fringe and in the rural area and I'll just come on to that in a minute but I also wanted to endorse Councillor John Batchell's point about will it be voluntary because I do note that there are some even small developments which I think would benefit enormously from attending the design enabling panel or having them thinking about it because actually sometimes small developments can be very influential when they're in the middle of a small village and so actually I think it would be very nice if we could encourage all sizes of developers to actually go through the design enabling panel and perhaps with costs proportionate to the time involved in looking at their developments but certainly I would like to be in a position where we could encourage them more to take part in that. I can think of one particular example of a singularly ugly development that was one on its own which is a complete blot on the landscape and I am astonished that nobody ever stopped it but anyway I won't embarrass the religion question with that one but the last item is this point about it being sympathetic to the different needs of the urban and fringe and rural development so whilst we had separate panels they were mindful of the needs of for us in our situation a broadly rural community whereas I'm aware that the design plans and the design culture for the city of Cambridge is really very urban and it has become increasingly high tall and quite dense of necessity and many of those developments have been excellent and are well appreciated and liked and are good places to live and they work really well but I just want to be for our design enabling panel and as you say whatever it is called to be mindful of the slightly differing needs when we're looking at rural developments you know edges of villages or between our villages to be clear that there are different requirements there and I'm hoping that they can take into account the previous paper we've talked about with the the biodiversity supplementary planning document that they can also have been mindful of that those needs can be brought into these designs as well so I'm just it's just a plea that those panels be mindful of the differing needs of the urban and the rural environment thank you thank you so I think we've we know we've heard that the utmost to encourage developers to engage with this that we can't mandate it and my take from the presentation originally was that the reason for there being a large pool of experts from which to draw which will include far more people with an environmental background will mean that the actual panels will will reflect the needs of each application much better so that's the reason not to have a small you know pool that's very focused on urban it's to have a much bigger pool with considerable expertise and therefore you know it will meet all of all of our needs do you want to add anything to that Mr Kelly thank you leader well just to say I mean as you see the one of the decisions that we are making is rather than have this independently manages is to manage it in house with our own staff to help curate the process of ensuring as the leader highlighted the right range of professionals are in the room for that design review other things important to know is of course the design review panel is not the planning committee and you know sovereignty over decisions rests with officers and the planning committee for the outcomes but absolutely the whole point of broadening out and indeed re-appointing panel members is to grain that broad church of expertise but to make sure that the right people are deployed for the right project whether that's a city project or a southcams or fringe project thank you very much moving on to councillor dawnton now thank you leader I have two comments and a question my first comment is a paragraph 5.25 on page 249 and I'm delighted to see the suggestion that fees may be reduced by up to 50 where the service wants to support community organisations charities and small businesses I'm I think that's a very good move and I hope that that will be will indeed be adopted and then on page 251 at 5.31 I would add visibility to that paragraph because I think a really important move forward would be to make the panel more visible both the membership and the terms of reference I see that there will be a dedicated web page and I hope that attention will be drawn to the membership of the panel and the work that it does and then my question is 5.32 I'm delighted to see that there will be a sorry no it's not it's paragraph 13 on page 253 under equality and diversity I'm really glad to see that recruitment will encourage applications from people with protected characteristics I'm also hoping that people who are younger in the professions concerned might be given a chance to be involved I think it would be really good to hear younger voices and also to give younger people in the professions the opportunity to be exposed to the work in detail the work of the design panels and so maybe that could be taken into account thank you so I'm particularly interested in your last point I was at a presentation some time ago on zoom by the sort of the younger age range of Cambridge ahead which represents I think the top 40 50 businesses in Cambridge and this was a presentation from young professional people about what what they wanted in housing and places and quality of life and it was extremely interesting and very very very high caliber piece of work so I think we might go and talk to Cambridge ahead possibly and to that that younger person's arm to see what what you know what they suggest there but it's an excellent point because at the end of the day we are planning for the future of our young our young people okay mr Kelly do you want to add anything before we wind this up thank you Lidl I mean we can certainly take on board and as you can see the team are very mindful of the ambition of attracting a range of panel members rather than perhaps a single kind of more traditional cohort where we might expect to draw resources so the team you'll see there is an appointment process that we're planning on going through and certainly we can take on board all all of your comments whether or not we'll approach Cambridge ahead I think we will what we will be doing is seeking to talk to the professions themselves directly landscape institute rtpi and so on who all have young member chapters and perhaps see if we can start to tease out and invite applications from those people with that broader perspective but who may well not only have protective characteristics but but others who may well be younger super that's right that's very reassuring thank you very much for bringing that up councillor dormton okay so I back in 2014 I was I worked with Bonnie Cook to recruit an outstanding chair of the design enabling panel at that time so it's it's very exciting that this is getting a really really major refresh so the recommendations are at page two three nine I'm not going to read them all out because they're quite long do members agree with the proposal anyone voting against anyone abstaining so cabinet therefore agrees the proposals by affirmation so we've now reached the end of the agenda thank you ever so much to those people who've joined remotely and in person and just to note that the next meeting of cabinet is scheduled to take place on Friday the 30th of july at 10 o'clock thank you very much indeed and if we could stop the live stream