Agenda item

To provide a review of the performance of the Growth & Enterprise department for 2021-22 working to the priorities and actions within the Council’s Corporate Plan 2021-25.

The Committee considered the 2021/2022 Annual Performance Review report for the Economy and Enterprise Department.

The report detailed the performance against the key priorities and key performance indicators of services in Housing, Estates, Rural & Cultural Economy and Economic Development.

The Director of Growth and Enterprise highlighted the following achievements:

• the Housing Team had been at the forefront of the Council’s response to support Afghan and Ukrainian refugees.
• the Estates Team continued to support the Council’s Medium Term Financial Strategy, surpassing the annual capital receipts target of £1m by achieving a year-end total of £1.3m.
• the Rural and Cultural Economy Team had been ensuring that the country parks and paths were available for use by residents and visitors and that Tatton Park had been awarded a number of awards including ‘Green Flag’ and ‘Green Heritage site’ and a Sandford Award for the  Excellence in Heritage Education.
• the Economic Development Team had been at the forefront of the covid response and had administered the discretionary grant for support for business in the retail, leisure and hospitality sector. Development of  Crewe Market Hall and Castle Street, Macclesfield had been completed and the Team was leading on the levelling-up programme with the production of business cases for submission for funding.     Following submission of a bid by the Team for Crewe to be the new GG Rail Headquarters it had successfully made the shortlist of six towns and cities in the competition out of 41 bids.

The Committee commented and asked questions on the following:

• Energy efficiency in homes in Cheshire East and availability of government grants -  it was reported that the Council had a number of programmes at the moment which were aimed at people in low incomes and off gas.  The Team was working closely with social housing providers in connection with the Social Housing Decarbonising Fund and future work would include working with the private renting market to make changes.   Funding would also be available to help rural resident move away from reliance on solid fuel to provide for alternative such as heat source pumps.
• Footfall in town centres and how it was measured – it was explained that the Council had been monitoring the data in all the key services centres and had commissioned the use of mobile phone data, which showed where people had travel from to the town centres.
• Progress on the Gypsy traveller transit site – it was reported that work was ongoing to progress the discharge of planning conditions. An application had been submitted to Homes England for additional funding toward development costs which had been successful.  The Council was awaiting the Homes England contract, and if agreed, could progress to the construction stage and start tendering for the work.
• Community Asset Transfer framework – it was stated that consultation had been carried out and a call for site with Parish Councils.  The uptake had not been as significant as anticipated.

The Committee congratulated officers on their hard work during the year and the positive results across the department.

RESOLVED:

That the performance of the Growth and Enterprise Department be noted.