(i) To answer questions from members of the public pursuant to Procedure Rule No. 10.
(ii) To answer questions from members of the Council pursuant to Procedure Rule No. 11
Minutes:
QUESTIONS FROM MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC NO. 1
Under Procedure Rule No 10, Paul Sharman of Tamworth will ask the Leader of the Council, Councillor D Cook the following question:-
“Councillor Peaple asked for an information update on the acquisition of the Police Station at the October Council Meeting. He was in essence informed that negotiations were ongoing. What progress has been made in the intervening period and how much longer is our Council prepared to protract the negotiations, rather than simply issue a Compulsory Purchase Order so that its plans can be implemented in timely fashion and not be subject to the indeterminate delays created by the current owner?”
Councillor D Cook gave the following reply:-
“Thank you Madam Mayor,
Thank you for the question. There have been a number of meetings between the Police and the Borough Council since October in relation to the potential acquisition and future regeneration/development of their site.
You may be aware that the Police Station site has been marketed on the open market to enable its disposal. So far, purposeful discussions have been held to support the police in this process and to ensure that the Council’s aspirations for the site are reflected in any decisions taken by the Police for the future purpose of this site
At this point in time it is not felt that using CPO powers are helpful, especially as there are positive and proactive discussions underway. The Council is working with the current owners, their agent and potential purchasers in an attempt to arrive an outcome that is beneficial to all parties without the need to resort to using any process.
Making use of Compulsory Purchase Order powers is not something to be taken lightly and where possible other mechanisms to either acquire a site or achieve the desired outcomes for the site are preferable. A Compulsory Purchase Order always remains an option open to the Council but there are no guarantees that it will be granted and the process itself can be both time consuming and costly.
In fact one of the tests for a successful CPO application is all parties have exhausted every avenue of negotiation and discussion – Clearly at this point in time we have not. Further, if we can facilitate and influence regeneration without acquisition it provides a more sustainable position for the wider site.
To deliver regeneration across the Gungate site will require a high level of investment. If we as a Council can get another party to deliver part of the plan and finance it that would take some pressure from us. We just need to ensure it all dovetails with our aspirations for the whole piece of regeneration that our town desperately needs.”
QUESTIONS FROM MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC NO. 2
Under Procedure Rule No 10, Mark Hopkins of Tamworth will ask the Leader of the Council, Councillor D Cook, the following question:-
“Under what circumstances might Council consider it appropriate for Councillors to promote non-Council events or business activities and use the "Councillor" title before their name?”
Councillor D Cook gave the following reply:-
“As Councillor’s we have many different roles to balance. While our primary role is to represent our wards and the people who live in them, we are also community leaders who work in partnership with local communities and organisations, including the public, voluntary, community and private sectors, to develop a vision for our local area, working collaboratively to improve services and quality of life for our citizens. These are appropriate circumstances for us to use the title Councillor in undertaking legitimate council business.”
Mr M Hopkins asked the following supplementary question-
“Thank you for the response Councillor,what is the Councillors opinion on the wisdom of Councillors promoting a festival during a pandemic/ Tier 3 situation noting that there has been no public statement of whether or not the regulations in the future time are being permitted unless of course the Councillors have or Councillor has prior knowledge of the future regulatory position.”
Councillor D Cook gave the following reply:-
“Thank you Madam Mayor, I understand where Mr Hopkins is coming from, however what a Councillor chooses to do in their own personal time to promote any event is entirely their own business as long as it is compliant with legislation. Thank you Madam Mayor.”
QUESTIONS FROM MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC NO. 3
Under Procedure Rule No 10, Ron Brown, of Tamworth will ask the Mayor, Councillor Rosey Claymore the following question:-
“Independent studies - including evaluations with multiple participants - reveal that removal of the Speaker video component from a Teams event must be invoked, as a deliberate act. (None of our neighbouring Local or County Authorities do that.)
Which elected Council Representatives, by name please, have authorised this “Speaker-video-removed” regime of information limitation, imposed upon all Public Viewers, over the last 6 months?”
Councillor R Claymore gave the following reply:-
“New regulations (The Local Authorities and Police and Crime Panels (Coronavirus) (Flexibility of local Authority and Police and Crime Panel Meetings) (England and Wales) Regulations 2020) came into force in April 2020 to allow Councils to re-commence Council and Committee meetings safely and remotely during the pandemic. These Regulations addressed the previous condition of Schedule 12 of the Local Government Act 1972, which required that Councillors must be present at a meeting in ‘one place’ (i.e. Marmion House or the Town Hall) for Council and Committee meetings. The minimum requirement of the Regulations is that a person participating in such meetings remotely, must be able to hear and be heard (and where practicable, see and be seen) by the other members in attendance at the meeting. The same conditions apply where members of the public attend remotely.
This Council uses Teams Live Events to publically live stream our meetings as this meets the requirements of the Regulations. The current arrangements were implemented following the advice and support of officers from Governance, IT and Democratic Services and was the choice for many other local authorities, and government bodies. The Cabinet were kept appraised of the situation during implementation.”
QUESTIONS FROM MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC NO. 4
Under Procedure Rule No 10, Ron Brown, of Tamworth will ask the Leader of the Council, Councillor D Cook, the following question:-
“What documented steps has our Council taken to produce a regularly-updated, and timely record of Town footfall and traffic flows made from specifically-planned sampling operations, from our Town’s existent multiple-CCTV camera recordings?”
Councillor D Cook gave the following reply:-
“Thank for your question. I can confirm that the Council entered into a shared CCTV service with West Midlands Combined authority on the 31st March 2020, which not only provided significant savings to the councils operating costs but has improved the service offer through increased and accelerated investment in the camera infrastructure of over £150k in its first year. The shared service has continued uninterrupted during COVID due to the organisational resilience with its dedicated operators and our staff.
The cameras are there for public safety, reassurance and prevention of crime. They are not installed for traffic flow/footfall monitoring - this type of monitoring remains a Staffordshire County Council Highways function. Recordings are not reviewed unless required by the Police investigating crime and subject to strict data control and audit arrangements to ensure data breaches or collateral intrusion is mitigated.
It has been agreed that Officers together with WMCA will attend IS&G scrutiny committee in February 2021 to discuss performance and outcomes from the new services as always we welcome that debate and any service improvement can be built into the future plan.
To be fair, the data we have we get from town centre businesses as trend analysis, but the data does not belong to us so is commercially sensitive. But we do have it.
Subject to award of Future High Streets Fund, we must monitor and evaluate the success and impact of the project and its components, and the wider medium term change in the Town Centre. This will result in the purchase and ongoing costs of digital footfall counters (one off purchase funded through existing budget) and the tender and award of a specialist evaluation consultant to monitor and evaluate the impact of the FHSF project. The proposal results in a 6 years revenue fund of £20k per annum to cover day to day costs of footfall monitoring and the cost of the contract for the monitoring and evaluation service.
The FHSF requires footfall monitoring as part of the evaluation of the project. We have tendered and have chosen a preferred supplier, but have not awarded – waiting instead for the FHSF announcement (due imminently).The approach of the preferred supplier is to use a data based approach, there’s no physical infrastructure, cameras, monitoring etc. Real world location behaviour insight is captured by tracking the anonymised GPS events captured from GDPR compliant 3rd party mobile apps. The GPS data is used to get patterns and trends.
In short the monitoring will not be undertaken via CCTV camera.”
QUESTIONS FROM MEMBERS OF THE COUNCIL NO.1
Under Procedure Rule No 11, Councillor Dr S Peaple will ask the Portfolio Holder for Assets and Finance, Councillor R Pritchard, the following question:-
“In conducting casework on behalf of a self-employed person, it has now been confirmed to me that the pot of money allocated to those asked to self-isolate by Track and Trace, has run out. Does the Portfolio Holder agree with me that this demonstrates that having let down councils by not fully funding the cost of covid measures; the government is now letting down those individuals who are trying to do the right thing? Will the Portfolio Holder raise this issue with his colleagues on the local outbreak control board as this will only further discourage people from getting tested?”
Councillor R Pritchard gave the following reply:-
“Thank you Madam Mayor. Thank you Councillor Peaple for your question. Tamworth Borough Council and other local Councils have been at the forefront of the national response to the pandemic providing invaluable support to communities, businesses and vulnerable people. The spread of the virus has placed unprecedented demands on local services and I’m proud of our key and public sector workers. You could not accuse the Government of being insensitive to the needs of individual businesses and organisations. The UK Government has introduced some of the most generous support schemes in the world. An unprecedented package of financial support has been made available. Since March, £7.2 billion pounds worth in funding has been made available to Councils to relieve local pressure and help vulnerable people, this includes 4.6 billion in un ringed funding, 1.1 billion for care homes, 300, Million to support test and trace as well as funding allocated to Councils from local alert level systems and a number of grants to support businesses, communities and vulnerable people. Funding to address homelessness people during this crisis and rough sleeping has been raised by over 750 million alongside 1.3 billion towards adults and children’s social care. 220 million is been allocated to help local areas prepare for the shared prosperity fund. I’m encouraged because this additional funding will provide local authorities with resources they need to recover from the outbreak. The Government has being nothing but generous to Local Government during this pandemic. Is the funding system perfect? No!, I myself have been helping people who had issues claiming some of the available support grants and benefits available. No system is perfect but the one thing you can’t complain about is the funds being made available to Local Government. The funding available to local authorities is not an issue I would raise with the local control board so I’m not sure why the Leader of the opposition is asking this. I believe this is an issue that should be raised with the Government and it has being raised with the Government who are aware of the situation that Local Government faces. The Leader of the opposition has said that this particular scheme does not have enough funds allocated, perhaps you can provide me with the amount that should be allocated for this scheme. Thank you.”
Councillor Dr S Peaple asked the following supplementary question-
“Thank you Madam Mayor and yes as usual the answers given are long and largely not directed at the question. I specifically said that I’d sent this question into Councillor Oates and therefore asked him to raise it with the control board members, so I regard it particularly as a cheap shot from Councillor Prichard that he should’ve responded in that manner to that particular point. With regards to this particular fund it has been exhausted, that was sent in writing to a Constituent and then confirmed by the Officers concerned. So my point stands the fact that Councillor Prichard feels the need to defend the Government is fine it’s perfectly understandable and is his political role. My question to him is does he really expect the people will continue to listen when they don’t get their genuine concerns answered. Thank you.”
Councillor R Pritchard gave the following reply:-
“Thank you Madam Mayor. Any shortfall in the support available to Local Authorities and Communities, is been raised with the Government. Nobody is working harder than this Council to ensure our residents are having everything they need. Thank him for the supplementary Madame Mayor.”
QUESTIONS FROM MEMBERS OF THE COUNCIL NO.2
Under Procedure Rule No 11, Councillor R Bilcliff will ask the Leader of the Council, Councillor D Cook, the following question:-
“New Planning Laws with “fundamental changes” are about to be introduced by the government to accelerate the delivery of new homes by streamlining planning applications which by-pass planning committees and introduce locally-produced design codes. Many believe this faster approach to decision making will affect the quality of determinations. Can the Leader of the Council please inform Council how he feels about these new sweeping changes and where the funding is coming from to produce our local design codes?”
Councillor D Cook gave the following reply:-
“Thank you Madam Mayor,
On the 6th August 2020, Government published the Planning White Paper: Planning for the future for a 12-week consultation. This set out the Government’s proposals to reform the planning system in England.
The reforms aim to “streamline and modernise the planning process, bring a new focus to design and sustainability, improve the system of developer contributions to infrastructure and to ensure more land is available where it is needed.”
Officers drafted responses to the specific questions in the White Paper and consulted with Members on the proposed responses. Once the responses had been agreed by all parties, a report was taken to Cabinet for final approval on 22nd October.
The consultation contained 26 specific questions relating to 24 proposals. The proposals related to a wide spectrum of ‘planning’ matters, including policymaking, decision taking and planning enforcement.
In response to the specific point raised relating to the funding of design codes, no specific details are included within the White Paper clarifying such. To this end, TBC, within their consultation response raised similar concerns and requested that more details be provided on this specifically, and more generally in relation to the overall funding strategy proposed.
Overall TBC raised significant concerns to the White Paper Consultation in regards to the potential impacts on Tamworth. On the basis of the suggested proposals, it would appear that planning system reform would result in a more ‘top down’ approach, thus reducing power and influence at a local level.
At the current time, Government is considering the consultation responses received. No further clarity has yet been provided in regards to timescale or whether the reform will be pursued and if so, in what guise.
Therefore, to summarise, we have collectively raised concerns with government through the consultation process and I have made my concerns known to our MP as well. The proposals went through a cross party working group and a members seminar before going to cabinet.
We await a final decision from government with fuller clarifications. Thank you”
Councillor R Bilcliff asked the following supplementary question-
“Thank you Madam Mayor, But I think Danny has hinted at the answer but I will ask it anyway. These radical new planning changes will eliminate democratic oversight of future developments in our town many people including planning officers and architects are concerned it will lead to slum dwellings and could kill off affordable housing does the Leader of the Council share the same concerns?”
Councillor D Cook gave the following reply:-
“Thank you Madam Mayor. I am not sure if I share the exact same concerns because I want to see what comes out the other side of the consultation I think a lot of Councils, a lot of architects and even a lot of property developers have raised concerns about how these proposals are unfolding. The Government is currently considering them and this Council is not done fighting to ensure we get the very best for our residents I fundamentally appreciate where Councillor Bilcliff is coming from and happy to speak to him offline. I think we have got to wait and see what comes from the other side Madam Mayor but yes I understand where the question is coming from.”