Agenda item

Paper No: COU/SE/18/001

(Council Procedure Rules 8.1 – 8.3)  Members may ask the Leader questions on the content of both his introductory remarks and the written statement itself.

A total of 30 minutes will be allowed for questions and responses. There will be a limit of five minutes for each question to be asked and answered. A supplementary question arising from the reply may be asked so long as the five minute limit is not exceeded.

In the absence of Councillor John Griffiths, Leader of the Council, Councillor Sara Mildmay-White, Deputy Leader presented the Leader’s Statement contained as Paper No: COU/SE/18/001.

In addition to the written statement, Councillor Mildmay-White drew attention to the following:

(a)     Former Councillor Bob Cockle and St Olaves Ward

That in times of conflicting demands, St Edmundsbury Borough Council had always risen to the challenge and she was sure that former Councillor Cockle, who had recently resigned from the Council and to whom she gave her personal thanks, would agree that St Edmundsbury had much to be proud of, particularly in helping to bring communities together.

For example, in St Olaves, which was former Councillor Cockle’s ward, it had been announced that the community had been successful in securing £670,000 from the One Public Estate and Land Release Fund Programme.  The Land Release Fund was targeted at unlocking housing units on council-owned sites, through a contribution to remediation and infrastructure costs. This grant was specifically for the St Olaves Road scheme to provide 79 units and replace the Newbury Community Centre.  In their response, the Government had praised the community involvement and ambition of the joint project between the Newbury Community Association, St Edmundsbury Borough and Suffolk County Councils, with local support in the early stages from Havebury Housing Partnership.

(b)     West Suffolk Growth Investment Strategy

That the development of the West Suffolk Growth Investment Strategy was to help the Council meet financial challenges, protect services and invest in communities. Investing and managing growth would not only provide income but also social and economic benefits for West Suffolk’s communities and businesses. Recent statistics in the press indicated that St Edmundsbury was thriving across the board (see further details in (d) below) with 659 new businesses formed in St Edmundsbury almost a quarter of those were in Haverhill. 

(c)     Gender Pay Gap

That a report would shortly be presented to Cabinet, which would present that there was no gender pay gap within the West Suffolk organisation.  Whilst commended at the last meeting of Council for her work, special thanks were again given to Karen Points, Assistant Director (HR, Legal and Democratic Services) who was shortly leaving the organisation to take up the post of Strategic Director for Abbeycroft Lesiure.

(d)     West Suffolk Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

Recognition was given to West Suffolk Hospital’s NHS Foundation Trust recent rating of ‘Outstanding’  by the Care Quality Commission. This was a fantastic achievement which again, was an excellent indicator of the many successes of St Edmundsbury. The Borough had featured in a new survey linking literacy levels to life expectancy.  Great Barton was rated top in Suffolk for life expectancy for men and ranked second for women. 

The following questions were asked:

(a)     Councillor David Nettleton asked a question in connection with future warding proposals for West Suffolk as part of the process for creating the new single council, in respect of why 500 homes that had been earmarked to be retained in the parish of Rushbrooke with Rougham when the last Community Governance Review was undertaken in 2016, would these homes now be proposed to be within the neighbouring Moreton Hall ward within the parish of Bury St Edmunds.

In response, Councillor Sara Mildmay-White stated that parish boundaries were not sought to be changed as part of the future District warding process.  Consultation proposals on future West Suffolk wards would be developed over the forthcoming weeks that all Members, Parish Councils, community groups etc could consider before Forest Heath District and St Edmundsbury Borough Councils made their joint recommendations to the Local Government Boundary Commission for England (LGBCE) in April 2018. 

(b)     Councillor Julia Wakelam asked for details regarding the amount of business rates contributed by St Edmundsbury to the Suffolk Public Sector Leaders’ (SPSL) Group in the past four years, and the projects in St Edmundsbury that had been funded by these pooled rates.

In response, Councillor Sara Mildmay-White stated that the Borough Council had not ‘contributed’ any business rates to SPSL Group. On creation of the Suffolk pool in 2013, the additional benefit retained by Suffolk (rather than paying it to central government) as part of being a Business Rates pool included a share of that additional ‘benefit’ going to SPSL Group for them to determine how it would be best spent across the Suffolk System. This encouraged collaborative working across local authorities, rather than constraining activity within administrative boundaries

The Group was aiming to achieve benefits across Suffolk by working together and collaboratively, however if projects/initiatives were to be singled out that had or would either directly or indirectly benefit St Edmundsbury and West Suffolk, the A14 Capacity Improvement Study, Destination Management Organisation for Bury St Edmunds, and Suffolk Film Office Establishment were specific examples.

(c)     Councillor John Burns asked a question in connection with a request for information on how many meetings officers had attended with the Cambridge Partnership regarding the transport study [the study was assumed to be the Cambridge South East Transport Study], and Cambridge Ahead (Cambridge City Deal) before that, and what were the outcome of the meetings on the A1307?

In response, Councillor Sara Mildmay-White stated that she would obtain a written reply, and in accordance with the Constitution, this would be circulated to all Members and published on the website.