(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 COUNCIL NO. 1
Under Procedure Rule No 11, Councillor T Madge will ask the Leader of the Council, Councillor D Cook, the following question:-
“With the concerns over Lichfield planning to build a 1000 houses on the northern borders of Tamworth at Arkall Farm and the potential for North Warwickshire’s Meaningful Gap project that could see another 1500 homes built on our Eastern borders, what are the Leader of the Council’s plans to stop our town being throttled by neighbouring authorities that will see us gain nothing from these developments other than adding misery and stress to our already struggling infrastructure?”
Councillor D Cook gave the following reply:
I will try and take it in two parts, basically to the North and to the East, but first we must recall that the land available within Tamworth’s political boundary cannot meet our professionally calculated housing need until 2031 as demonstrated in the recently adopted local plan. Therefore we are reliant through duty to co-operate on LDC and NWBC to meet some of this need so we need to ensure we approach this correctly. Those two authorities need to go through due process to ensure that any development is suitably mitigated.
Officers following requests from Cllr Steve Claymore have already been playing hardball with colleagues in NWBC and it would appear that in NWBC’s latest considerations for the next iteration of their plan include options for development away from Tamworth’s borders. Already some areas of “Meaningless Gap” (no pun intended) have been removed from consideration after challenge by TBC officers.
We have already objected to the Lichfield Local Plan and the Arkall Farm development. As we know the BWB report demonstrated what was sustainable through the Gungate corridor traffic wise. The 500 plus at Anker Valley and the 165 at Browns lane have already moped up this capacity and any additional created by the Pinch Point works. Keep in mind that the report was commissioned and paid for by TBC, LDC and the County Council so we hope they will continue to support the findings.
Already Councillor John Chesworth and Councillor Rob Pritchard and delivering updates to residents and encouraging them to join the fight against the Arkall Farm development. Myself, Councillor Richard Kingstone, Councillor John Chesworth and Councillor Richard Pritchard are already engaged in a fight about who gets to go and object direct to Lichfield’s planning committee should it reach them.
So to sum up, we need to work with NWBC to fully understand the “Meaningless Gap” intentions and how it affects Tamworth’s infrastructure and residents. If it has negative impacts we will fight it tooth and nail. The Controlling Group, thus this Council is opposed to Arkall Farm completely and I don’t see this changing in the near future. We will fight it as far as we can and hope to win.
We are continuing to meet with both authorities to encourage them to work with us to identify the most appropriate locations to deliver growth to meet Tamworth’s needs.
From a personal perspective, and it will come as no surprise to those present, I am pro-house building. But it must be done legally, professionally and in the correct places. If it is not, we fight it.
Councillor T Madge asked the following supplementary question:-
“Does the leader of the council agree with me that the failings of our Local Plan has in fact created this mess by asking neighbouring authorities to build houses for Tamworth? They are naturally going to put them right on our borders and we can do little about it, we have created this awful scenario by creating a Local Plan based on greed not need?”
Councillor D Cook gave the following reply:-
A fundamental truth that those that have been Councillors will understand! Property developers can be the most ruthless business people you will ever come across in your life. They know the cost of a brick, a tap, a sink before they even go and look at a site. They are absolutely ruthless in their business calculations. I can not wrap my head round that Councillor Madge believes property developers build houses round us that no one is going to buy. The world just simply doesn’t work that way. They wouldn’t build them if no one was going to buy them. So in answer to his question no I do not rubbish the hard work of the offices of Tamworth Borough Council.
QUESTIONS FROM MEMBERS OF THE COUNCIL NO. 2
Under Procedure Rule No 11, Councillor T Madge will ask the Leader of the Council, Councillor D Cook, the following question:-
“You informed the Council in December 2014 that you were reducing the size of your cabinet from 6 members to 5. The Cabinet it would seem has now gone back to 6 members, this will add a further £5,000 plus, to the cost that the council taxpayer of Tamworth will have to pay. Can you inform the Council the reasoning behind this increase?”
Councillor D Cook gave the following reply:-
Thank you Councillor Madge, I am happy to explain my thinking in Agenda item 10 on tonight’s meeting. That is entirely the point of the item, for the newly elected Leader to set out his/her Cabinet, roles and responsibilities.
As there is a return to, NOT an addition, I will cover this at that point in the meeting.
Councillor T Madge asked the following supplementary question:-
“Why is it that for over 12 months we cope yet now we can’t? Was this not a cost saving exercise that has failed which makes me consider how much credence we can place on the rest of your policies and plans?”
Councillor D Cook gave the following reply:-
Another demonstration of not understanding the agenda on this Council’s table at the minute!
QUESTIONS FROM MEMBERS OF THE COUNCIL NO. 3
Under Procedure Rule No 11, Councillor R Bilcliff will ask the Leader of the Councillor, Councillor D Cook, the following question:-
“Could the Leader of Tamworth Council clarify what he meant by his email reply to my Supplementary question on the 15th March 2016 with regards to the amount of land being laid aside for Tamworth’s Flexi-care requirements for the elderly when he said “Tamworth will need to prepare harder than ever to ensure this demographic population shift is catered for correctly long term. I intend a large part of discussions for the preparation of the next local plan to focus on this aspect”.
Does this mean we will have to wait 15 years before anything is done to cater for this most urgent need?”
Councillor D Cook gave the following reply:-
Simple answer, No it does not.
Councillor R Bilcliff asked the following question:-
“Staffordshire County Council has already failed to meet the current needs for Flexi-care clearly highlighted in there Flexi-care Housing Strategy 2010-15 document. Planned increases for this type of housing here in Tamworth during the term of this local plan are woefully insufficient and in the case of Leasehold and Shared ownership actually non-existent. Does the Leader not agree that this is totally unacceptable and that it should be redressed immediately by laying aside land for partners willing to supply this need before this council fails to provide the right type of housing for the needs of Tamworth’s elderly residents?”
Councillor D Cook gave the following reply:-
Councillor Bilcliff, congratulations on your election victory, strap yourself in for a big learning curve. We all went through it.
Infrastructure planning for a Town through Local Plans, Infrastructure Delivery Plans and many other means are complex and ever changing.
We will shortly start work on the next local plan that we re-calculate Housing numbers, retail, office space etc. We do not wait until 2031. We will begin budgetary discussions shortly to pay for the construction of the next plan.
Needs change, shopping habits change, population demographics can change. To fully tie us into a plan for the next 15 years would be pure madness. It needs to be fluid to allow for change.
Policy HG2 in adopted plan “The inclusion of Flexi-care schemes for older people should be considered as part of the development where feasible”, so we can already consider the needs of older people based on existing policies.
We could potentially bring forward supplementary planning guidance to deal with this, although new evidence will be needed, but this can be done. We could review part of the plan early if needed – this would probably require us to review all of the housing policies and need new evidence – risk here is that the housing numbers may go up, wouldn’t you be popular?
I stand by my point, in the next Local Plan (hopefully before the end of the decade) I will push for real focus on an elderly population.
I hope now you are elected you will start to understand exactly how Local Plan’s function because I am concerned at present you do not correctly understand it or its function, don’t panic because neither does your group leader.