To receive such announcements as may be made by the Leader.
Minutes:
In the absence of the Leader of the Council, who had submitted apologies, the Deputy Leader wished all those present a Happy Christmas and made a number of announcements as follows:-
1. He gave the Leader’s apologies for absence from the morning’s Special Meeting of the Council and from this meeting and reported that the Leader was engaged in negotiations with local businesses. He hoped that everyone was very impressed to be meeting in the Crewe Lifestyle Centre. Council staff and contractors had worked tirelessly over the past two-three years to bring this, Cheshire East’s first Lifestyle Centre, into being. It had brought together several Council services under one roof, serving the residents of Crewe and helping them to live healthier lifestyles. Over 350,000 people had visited the Lifestyle Centre, which was a tremendous achievement. Part of the success of the Lifestyle Centre was its location in the heart of Crewe town centre, making it easy to reach, whether visitors come by bus, car, bike or on foot. Bringing the Lifestyle Centre into Crewe town centre was a key part of our Regeneration Plans for Crewe. The Lifestyle Centre was the first part of the Council’s approach in regenerating Crewe town centre and in making sure it was well placed to benefit from future growth linked to the new HS2 hub station.
2. Another part of the town centre’s transformation had also commenced in the current year, with the new University Technical College opening its doors on West Street. The UTC, through a strong partnership which included key local employers such as Bentley, had taken its first intake of 200 14-19 year olds, all keen on developing vocational skills in design and engineering, to meet the future needs of those employers. Next year its new building would be fully open and the number of students would grow towards its capacity of 800.
3. He reported that the Regeneration team was well advanced in the procurement of a development partner for the Royal Arcade, at the heart of Crewe town centre. The plans included a brand-new bus station, multi-storey car park, cinema and a mix of other leisure and retail uses, which would help transform both the town’s day and night-time economy. More detailed plans would be announced in the coming months. The Council was also working closely with a number of other landowners and developers in the town centre who, whilst recognising the challenges facing town centres, agreed that Crewe was now ideally-placed to start “punching above its weight”. With over half a million people living within 30 minutes’ drive of Crewe, including significantly more ‘affluent achievers’ than the GB average, investors were now realising the opportunities presented by Crewe and its wider catchment, including its rural hinterland. Indeed, just a few months ago, Property Week magazine had ranked Crewe as the “Best residential location in the UK”, taking account of a number of factors including the area’s quality of life, connectivity, employment levels, and education.
4. He concluded his comments on regeneration by stating that the recent announcement of the preferred location of the HS2 Hub Station in Crewe was the news that the Council had been working towards over the past five years or more and delivered the message that Cheshire East was truly open for business. He also stated that the strong collaboration with partners in the Northern Gateway Development Zone was crucial to ensuring that the expected growth associated with HS2 will help to take families out of poverty, provide wide-ranging social benefits for residents and produce a new generation of skilled young people. The huge economic benefits to be had from HS2 must be harnessed for future generations, so that the children and young people of today and their children and grandchildren could seize the enormous opportunities that HS2 would deliver.
5. He then referred to a number of health-related matters and reported that, in recent times, the Mid-Cheshire Hospital Trust had made some great achievements. He provided a short summary as follows:
CQC rated ‘good’ in 2015 – in the top 10% of Trusts
National Awards – to name a few:
Midwifery Service of the Year 2015
Trust named by Health Service Journal (HSJ), Nursing Times & NHS Employers as one of the top 120 places to work in the NHS (top 20%) 2015
Excellence award for the Lung Cancer Pathway - 2015
CHKS Top 40 hospital
HSJ medical e-handover
CHKS Most Improved Trust in the Country
Year on year improvements in the national staff survey – in the best performance for staff recommending the hospital as a place to work, a place to receive treatment, viewing quality & safety as a priority and staff engagement
Year on year improvements on national survey and excellent Friends and Family test result with over 95% of our patients recommending the hospital as a place to receive treatment
Consistent high performer – one of only a few Trusts achieving ALL cancer targets and standards re the 18 week referral to treatment time and time for patients to access diagnostic tests. The Trust has worked hard to ensure patients with suspected cancer receive their tests within one week instead of the national target of two weeks
Conclusion of significant estate developments:
Main entrance
Installed a second MRI scanner
Hospital Corridors,
2 wards a year
New signage
Critical Care and Theatres and Maternity Unit as outlined below
Refurbished Day Treatment Centre.
Although the Trust was running with a deficit position an investigation by its regulator had revealed the Trust was financially well managed and governed, was efficient and productive and that the deficit position was not of its own making and required a health economy solution.
In 2015 the Maternity service had received a national award from the Royal College of Midwives ‘Midwifery Service of the Year’ and in the same year achieved the highest UNICEF Baby Friendly Initiative Award – Level 3. The midwifery unit had been extensively refurbished over 2014/15 and has a dedicated midwifery led unit as well as a consultant unit for more complex care. The Midwives also provide extensive birthing choices such as home birth, birthing pools, aromatherapy etc.. and deliver just under 3000 births a year. The services also had the second best national maternity patient survey results in the Country and is consistently scores highly of the Friends and Family test with between 95 – 100% of Mothers recommending the service. To support the unit a brand new neonatal facility was built to support our most poorly babies and provides excellent support services for parents including on site accommodation.
Intensive care/theatres – In 2013 the had Trust built its brand new, £23M, theatres and critical care unit. This was not just a project about bricks and mortar but significant effort went in to ensuring the facilities supported improved outcomes by introducing proven methods such as lighting, décor, noise reduction etc. These are state of the art facilities provided to the Borough’s citizens and have been instrumental in attracting staff to come and work at the Trust. Currently the theatres have the lowest number of vacancies ever. The critical care unit was further enhanced through the provision of a beautiful garden which is a place of reflection and well used by staff, relatives and patients.
6. He also referred to the recent appointment of a Director of Public Health and reported that, following a robust recruitment process, led by the Staffing Committee and also involving three Health Professionals, he was pleased to announce that Fiona Reynolds was to be appointed as the new Director of Public Health. Fiona was a health professional, working in health and social care for over 15 years. She currently held the position of Interim Director of Public Health at Cheshire West and Chester Council.
7. With regard to the Council’s parks, he was sure all would agree that these were some of the very best in the UK. He reported Cheshire East had been awarded Green Flags for its outstanding parks. The Green Flag award was given to authorities that delivered a parks service to an international standard. Significant investment in Queens Park, Crewe meant that it now joined Congleton and Sandbach parks along with the Moor in Knutsford, Bollington recreation ground, Brereton Heath local nature reserve, Tegg’s Nose country park and Tatton Park as having been awarded the Green Flag standard. Tatton Park had also received the Green Heritage Award, which was given to places that achieved a high standard in management and interpretation of a site with local or national historic importance. These awards, including the award for Queen’s Park recognised the outstanding partnership working both with other local authorities and community groups. These awards were deserved recognition for a lot of hard work and dedication, not just from the Council’s own teams, but also the army of volunteers and community groups that made achievements like this possible.
8. To conclude he announced, on behalf of the Leader of the Council, the most recent changes to Portfolio Holder responsibilities.
He stated that the last 10 months of the Leader’s term of office had passed very quickly. Much had been achieved in that time and he said that Cabinet had performed excellently and delivered for the residents, businesses and visitors to this Borough, as highlighted by customer satisfaction ratings which had increased across the Borough. This had also been a period of consolidation and focus and a time to prepare for exciting, but challenging times ahead and so, having had that period to establish how best to align Cabinet member responsibilities, the Leader had made some changes as follows:-
Responsibility for Car Parking would move over to Cllr David Brown, becoming part of the Highways and Infrastructure Portfolio, with Cllr Brown taking over from Cllr Paul Bates and would allow Cllr Bates to focus clearly on the health agenda.
This would allow the Leader to take over Communications and Media Relations, freeing up Cllr Peter Groves to concentrate upon finance and asset sales and acquisitions. The Leader intended to retain the help of Councillor Chris Andrew, who would work with her on Communications and Media Relations issues.
The Leader would hand-over responsibility for Rural Affairs to Councillor Janet Clowes, who would promote this area of work in shaping the Council’s place strategy.
Cabinet members were thanked for their work over the past year.
The Deputy Leader then handed over to Cllr Ainsley Arnold, Housing and Planning Portfolio Holder, to provide update in respect of the Local Plan.
9. Cllr Arnold confirmed that a note had been received from the Local Plan Inspector, Stephen Pratt, which had now been made public.
The Inspector’s final conclusions on the wide range of matters and issues raised in these representations and discussed at the hearing sessions would be set out in his final report to the Council, which would be received following the forthcoming public consultation exercise on the Main Modifications.
This note, which was a culmination of nearly three years of public comments and submissions, set out his views on what modifications were needed to the Plan to ensure that it was legally compliant and sound.
Overall his note was good news for Cheshire East, endorsing the amendments already made and, apart from a list of minor comments and queries, he had suggested just two additional modifications:
1. The inclusion of a windfall allowance to provide flexibility and
2. The adjustment of the boundary of a safeguarded site in N West Macclesfield (CS32) to exclude Cock Wood and leave it in the Green Belt
The Headlines of his note were:
· Confirmation that nothing he heard in the recent hearings had changed his conclusions regarding housing and Job numbers, settlement hierarchy, spatial distribution and the Council’s approach to green belt.
· Endorsement for the deliverability and viability of all of the sites
· Endorsement for the development strategy for each of the towns and villages and the rural area, saying that the locations and extent of development proposed seemed ‘appropriate, justified, effective, deliverable and soundly based’.
· Endorsement of the Cheshire East approach to 5 year supply (known as Sedgepool 8).
· Support for the principle of the Green Gap around Crewe
· Confirmation that there was no need for any other sites to be considered at this stage and no need for early review.
· Apart from the NW Macclesfield safeguarded land, no other sites were recommended for change or deletion
It would now be necessary to complete the technical process of preparing modifications which, given the lengthy Examination, was legally complex, but it was hoped to commence formal consultation before the end of January to keep the Plan on track for adoption.
Cllr Arnold congratulated Adrian Fisher and all of the Spatial Plan Team who had worked tirelessly from when the Plan went into suspension in late 2014. They had shown considerable dedication and tenacity against a huge amount of pressure, including more than 60,000 representations received from the various consultation exercises. He noted that the Inspector had commented that ‘this has been the most complex and challenging Local Plan I have ever examined”.
He also paid testament to the Leader of the Council, who had picked up this portfolio in 2015, to lead the team through a difficult time and bring the Plan out of suspension.