On your behalf, I raise various local matters at Full Council, details of which are shown here.
Full Council Meeting 03/04/08
Question No 2
Primary
Rooksdown is a community with a heart but one that desperately needs a home. The staged development of the estate and continued prevarication of developers in releasing land for community use is a shameful situation. Rooksdown has been a community in waiting for more than 12 years - the community needs support to develop a centre where it can facilitate vital social networking and give the residents a voice. This needs to happen now and in spite of the hotch-potch of development deadlines and planned promises that deliver nothing but dashed hopes and frustrated residents. With the trigger point for release of developers funds now set for this summer, can the portfolio holder assure me that he will do everything possible to sanction the advance draw down of S106 contributions to enable the Community Association to engage an architect and explore the possibility of deploying temporary facilities in readiness for the trigger point?
Supplementary
Can he further assure me that officers resources will be made available as a matter of priority, to undertake whatever research and report preparation is necessary to facilitate the decision on the advance draw down of funds?
Response
I fully agree about the need to provide a community facility in the Rooksdown area as soon as possible. I am happy to confirm that preparatory work is already underway and future work is programmed in the Community Development Team's action plan.
Developers contributions of approximately £900k have been secured for a community facility at Rooksdown. At this moment in time the trigger point for developers releasing their contributions is anticipated to be Summer 2008.
The Community Development Team has recently been coordinating consultation on the sort of facility required, and they are keen to take the results of this forward as soon as possible.
The consultation exercise took place later than originally planned, as in December 2007 the Wessex Christian Fellowship submitted an offer to Taylor Woodrow to renovate / refurbish the existing Main Hall, as a community facility. This was unexpected and, working in partnership with the Community Association and Parish Council, it was agreed that a joint consultation should take place to seek the views of residents.
The consultation took place during March 2008, and the results are expected within the next couple of weeks. As soon as this is available officers will put forward recommendations in conjunction with the Rooksdown Community Association on the type of facility required which will enable funds to be released and planning for development work can start. There will be no need to wait for the trigger point for Section 106 monies for this process to begin.
Full Council Meeting 19/07/07
Question 1 - Infrastructure for New Developments
I thank the Member for drawing attention to this issue, which I think needs to be addressed from two perspectives.
First, whether we have the right approach to the forward planning and development control processes that determine whether new housing or other developments require new infrastructure and if not, what infrastructure they do require and on what timescale in relation to the new development and the existing community. By infrastructure I assume she refers not just to roads, water etc but also to community infrastructure such as play areas, village or community halls, sports facilities and the like.
Second we need to be confident that whatever new infrastructure is agreed as necessary will indeed be provided and on a reasonable timetable – or ‘as soon as practical’ as she says in the question.
As regards the planning aspects, we have an opportunity in the new Local Development Framework to make improvements to policies that will influence future judgements and decisions. I hope she and other members will provide clear input on this. But we also need to ensure that on a day to day basis, under both current and future policies, officers have every opportunity to negotiate the best deals possible, members have relevant and up to date information against which to assess the officers’ recommendations, and the council in all its roles is fully equipped to monitor progress and, where necessary, intervene with either the carrot or the big stick as appropriate.
Some months ago I identified a clear weakness in our management of Section 106 contributions, a weakness that I suspect many members may have had concerns about but which had for some years been the subject of much muttering but it appeared no action under the previous administration.
Somewhat to my frustration when I raised this with officers it emerged that there was already a Business Process Improvement review in progress and I’ve waited impatiently for the outcome of this before taking any action. I’m happy to say the review has now completed its work and I’m now expecting an early response from officers regarding one of its key recommendations, namely that all s106 information should be gathered together in a single database so that members as well as officers can readily see what is available, what is coming in, what funds are allocated to what projects and what progress is being made. This is exactly what I wanted before the review started so I have great optimism that it can be brought in quickly.
That won’t of course in itself entirely address the issue of what community infrastructure is delivered and when, but it will at least provide much greater transparency so that members and officers can see who is responsible for what and pressure can be brought to bear appropriately. I hope members will welcome this.
Full Council Meeting 19/07/07
Question 5 – Rooksdown Who Does What
I thank the Member for drawing attention to these issues, which may have been particularly badly felt in Rooksdown but are not in my view at all confined to Rooksdown. In own ward we have an estate that was originally council housing, now partly housing association and partly private following right to buy purchases, where there is still confusion as to who is responsible for which areas of grass, which trees, which footpaths, though I’m glad to say the actual roads are adopted by highways. I had a call only this morning because of an issue over exactly the same division of responsibilities.
I think her proposal of a straightforward way for residents to find out who is responsible for what and to get action taken is an excellent one. In parished areas of the borough the parish clerk often is the local expert and I find that my own parish clerks do an excellent job on this kind of issue for residents. However that doesn’t help non-parished areas and in any case a single point of reference would be helpful to the parish clerks themselves. I will discuss with the Head of Planning and Transport and other officers how this might best be approached.
There may be a need for some system improvements that will enable the information to be readily obtained through the Council’s geographical information systems.
There is already in process a Business Process Improvement review of our Planning Applications operations, due for completion in December; I will ask that the ‘who does what and when’ aspects of information capture and management are considered during the review. When it reports I want to follow that with a close look at qualitative aspects of the planning applications process, in cooperation with the chairman and members of the Development Control Committee.
Meanwhile I will be happy to follow up outside the meeting on the specific issues at Rooksdown.