Agenda and minutes

Councillor Laura Crane – Cabinet Member for  Highways and Waste

Council Sam Corcoran – Leader of the Council

Frank Jordan - Executive Director - Place

Paul Bayley - Director of Environment and Neighbourhood Services

Peter Skates - Director of Growth & Enterprise

Karen Carsberg - Head of Housing

Councillor Michael Beanland

Councillor Lesley Smetham

Councillor Rachel Bailey

Councillor Janet Clowes

To approve the minutes of the previous meeting held on 16 March 2020.

It was noted that the minutes of the meeting held on 13 March 2020 were incomplete.

RESOLVED -That the minutes of the meeting held on 16 March 2020 be re-submitted to the next meeting of the committee for formal approval, subject to the following amendments:

Councillor Suzanne Brookfield’s apologies be listed

Councillor Steve Hogben being listed as a substitute member

Paragraph (iv) of minute 72 being amended to read:

‘A consultation with members will be undertaken as agreed prior to the publication of the Bus Strategy’

To provide an opportunity for Members and Officers to declare any disclosable pecuniary and non-pecuniary interests in any item on the agenda.

There were no declarations of interest.

To provide an opportunity for Members to declare the existence of a party whip in relation to any item on the agenda.

There were no declarations of the existence of a party whip.

A total period of 15 minutes is allocated for members of the public to make a statement(s) on any matter that falls within the remit of the Committee. Individual members of the public may speak for up to 5 minutes, but the Chairman will decide how the period of time allocated for public speaking will be apportioned, where there are a number of speakers.

Members of the public wishing to make a statement should provide notice in writing at least three clear working days before the meeting takes place.

Sue Helliwell from Alsager attended the meeting and made a statement regarding item 7 on the agenda regarding the procurement of a housing framework and informed the committee that the document had omitted any reference to surplus land and local plan.

She stated that following the recent Cabinet decision, the responsibility for the strategy now rested with the Portfolio holder and officers and suggested that the matter should have been considered by this committee prior to the Cabinet decision.

To consider the report as considered by Cabinet on 9 June 2020.

Note: Visiting Member Councillor Lesley Smetham attended the meeting and addressed the Committee in respect of this matter.

The Committee considered a report of the Chief Executive which had been considered previously by Cabinet at its meeting held on 9 June 2020 which provided a summary of the Council’s work in response to the current national and international public health emergency on COVID-19.

Frank Jordan Executive Director Place gave an additional presentation providing information specific to Environment and Regeneration Committee in terms of the work undertaken by the Council to maintain services, provide business support, support to transport and town centres and steps regarding recovery.

The Council had maintained many front-line services during lockdown such as waste collection services. Household waste recycling centres had been closed for a period but following government advice, these had now re-opened.

Elsewhere, Crematoria and cemeteries had remained open albeit with restrictions placed on the number of people allowed to attend services.

Parks and Recreational spaces had remained open except for Queens Park on the advice of the police. Tatton Park had also remained closed as this was designated a destination attraction and social distancing could not be guaranteed.

Libraries and leisure centres had remained closed.

The Council had distributed 80% of business grants allocated to the Council by HM Government which for Cheshire East amounted to £4.287 million.

Today’s meeting had coincided with the re-opening of high streets. The Council had worked closely with all town and parish councils to install new signage in each town offering advice about social distancing etc.

The Council was now entering the recovery stage and planning to begin to open facilities such as libraries and leisure centres. In the longer term, the Council would play a leading role in supporting economic recovery.

The Council would also wish to take advantage of the benefits attributed to reductions in traffic during lockdown   and the environmental gains from reduced carbon footprint and reduced use of buildings etc.

RESOLVED That the thanks and appreciation of this committee be placed on record for the efforts of staff within the place directorate and this be conveyed to the staff concerned.

To consider the report as was considered by Cabinet on 5 May 2020.

Note: Visiting Members Councillor Rachel Bailey, Janet Clowes, Michael Beanland Brian Puddicombe and Lesley Smetham attended the meeting and addressed the committee in respect of this matter.

The Committee considered a report of the Executive Director of Place which had been considered by Cabinet on 5 May 2020 which proposed the procurement of a Housing Development Framework.

Peter Skates Director of Growth & Enterprise and Karen Carsberg Head of Housing supplemented the report by providing a presentation

The Committee was informed that the Framework would applied to  land in the ownership of Cheshire East Council. It did not apply to land in Private or Third-party ownership and sought to provide a mechanism to flexibly bring forward development that met local need.

The framework related to land which was already owned by the Council and allocated in the local plan but would still require full planning permission.

The procurement of the Framework would take six to eight months to complete.

The committee raised concern that the report had not been submitted to this committee for scrutiny prior to the Cabinet decision in May 20202.

RESOLVED -That In view of the concerns expressed by this committee about the production of the Housing Development Framework, a further report be brought back to this committee to explain how the document will be developed for implementation.

Meeting adjourned for five minutes and reconvened at 12.20pm

To consider a presentation.

Note:The Leader of the Council, Councillor Sam Corcoran and visiting Member Councillor Janet Clowes, attended the meeting and addressed the committee in respect of this matter.

Paul Bayley, Director of Environment and Neighbourhood Services gave a presentation on the business improvement project initiated in Crewe in December 2019 to review waste management issues in specified neighbourhoods in Crewe. The project emanated from an original task and finish group initiated by this committee to investigate fly tipping in Crewe.

A monitoring group set up by the portfolio Holder for Environment had identified that 70% of fly tipping incidents occurred in Crewe and of those, 75% were attributed to 14 specific streets.

RESOLVED – That the presentation be received and noted.

Meeting adjourned for 2 minutes and reconvened at 12.55pm

To review the council’s forward plan.

The Committee considered the current forward plan.

To review the committee’s work programme

Visiting Member Councillor Michael Beanland, attended the meeting and addressed the committee in respect of this matter.

Councillor Beanland suggested that flooding should feature in the Committee’s work programme to review recent flooding events in Poynton. He also sought clarification as to when a report on CCTV in Adlington would be available.

The Executive Director of Place undertook to provide a written response to the question regarding CCTV in Adlington.

REWSOLVED –

(a)  That the report be received;

(b)  (b) That the annual review of flood risk management be added to the work programme with a view to a report being considered in September 2020.