Issue - meetings

Report of the Leader

The Leader introduced the report and explained that a range of partners had come together to start a conversation, called Gloucestershire 2050, to identify key challenges and explore ambitions and ideas that could shape the county’s long-term future. The consultation on this was open until the end of July 2018. Given the potential significance to Cheltenham’s future, and the fact that Council agreed a place vision for Cheltenham in March, Council was being asked to consider submitting a formal response to the consultation following agreement by the council’s political group leaders.

The Leader went on to say that it was important young people were included in the process and they had limited involvement to date. The projected net loss of young people from the county represented a risk and this risk should be assessed in any projects coming forward. Two reports were expected beyond 31 July, namely feedback from the consultation and the proposed delivery options. He believed it was essential that Gloucestershire 2050 partners spend more time on developing strategic outcomes prior to focussing on delivery vehicles.

He added that two Member seminars had taken place at CBC and partners around the town were being encouraged to feed in their thoughts to the process, including the Wilson Collective.

He very much welcomed the debate but believed that the ambitions should be turned into a wider vision for the county and then key projects should be identified with links to communities, not just infrastructure.

In terms of the specific proposals the Leader made the following comments :

·         Cyberpark- it was important that Cheltenham Borough Council helped make this happen

·         Supercity-this was a confusing name, what exactly was it? Rather than creating the idea of urban sprawl the idea of a green corridor separating the two urban areas should be pursued preserving the unique identities of communities within them albeit connected by transport and digital infrastructure facilitated by collaborative working.

·         Views of young people- affordable housing, fulfilling jobs and an exciting cultural offer. The Joint Core Strategy aimed to tackle affordable housing and jobs up until 2031 but improved transport infrastructure to include ideas such as light rail and better links to Bristol, London and Oxford as well as green corridors were also necessary

·         Cotswold international airport-a new airport was not really achievable and better linkages to the regional airports of Birmingham and Bristol should be investigated; Gloucestershire Airport should continue to be supported

Finally, the Leader explained that the aim was to achieve a broad consensus on how to take this forward and the intention was to agree the final wording of the draft with Group Leaders by the deadline of 31 July.

Members made the following points :

·         Young People- should be listened to as they may not say what is expected; concern over retaining them should not be so strong as living in a mobile society provides them with life experience which they could bring back to the area

·         Supercity- rather than merging the urban  ...  view the full minutes text for item 13