Agenda and minutes

Reverend Tim Mayfield invited members to take a moment of reflection.

Councillors Wheeler, Cooper, Coleman and Smith had given their apologies.

The Chief Executive had given his apologies and therefore the Executive Director, Pat Pratley, had attended in his place and likewise, the Head of Financial Services was in the place of the Director of Resources.

No interests were declared.

The minutes of the last meeting had been circulated with the agenda. 

Upon a vote it was unanimously

RESOLVED that the minutes of the meeting held on the 10 February 2012 be agreed and signed as an accurate record.

The Mayor was pleased to see the number of public questions that had been received, given that she was a keen advocate of public participation.

The following responses were given to the 18 questions received from members of the public;

In the week prior to this meeting, the Mayor had put forward a request to Members that this meeting be held later in the day.  This proposal had not proved convenient for some Members and as such her decision had been to go forward with the 2.30pm start.  She wondered whether consideration should be given to arranging Council meetings in an evening, given the difficulty that a 2.30pm start posed to those Members in employment,

The Leader had no communications.

No Member questions had been received.

Joint report of the Cabinet Member Finance & Community Development and the Director of Resources

The Mayor referred Members to the appendix that had been circulated at the start of the meeting.  The appendix contained the total council tax to be paid by residents of Cheltenham in 2012-13 by council tax band and included the precepting authorities (Gloucestershire County Council and Gloucestershire Police Authority).

The Cabinet Member Finance & Community Development had nothing further to add and formally moved the resolutions.

Upon a vote it was unanimously

RESOLVED that the council tax resolution at Appendix 2 be approved. 

Report of the Cabinet Member Built Environment

The Cabinet Member Built Environment reminded Members that at the June 2011 meeting, Council had asked for a working group to be established to review the working of the SPD on Garden Land and Infill sites.  What was before Members was the result of discussions by the working group on 2 November and the Planning Committee on 17 November, at which the recommendations of the working group were endorsed by a large majority. Members on all sides of the Chamber, in Council and Planning Committee had agreed that the SPD was a valuable addition to the Councils defence of garden land, with benefits including, aiding Officers and the Planning Committee to oppose garden land development, plans being withdrawn, recommendations being changed from approval to refusal and in numerous cases where pre-application advice had been sought by prospective developers and resulting plans had been improved.  There was no way of knowing how many schemes it had prevented from being put forward.

The SPD’s role in planning appeals had undoubtedly been a positive one, a sentiment supported by Councillor Godwin at Planning Committee on 21 July when he said “Since the SPD was introduced, most inspectors considered it a document of material value which carried weight when making decisions”.

At Council in June 2011 Members raised a number of concerns, the first of which was that there was some confusion about the Council’s interpretation of Local Plan Policies HS1 and HS2, in light of changes to national policy statement PPS3.  This has now been clarified and both the working group and the Planning Committee were of the view that this should be subject to further clarification.  

The second concern was the SPD would require revision when the Localism Bill and the final version of the National Planning Policy Framework were passed. The Localism Act had received Royal Assent in November 2011 and the publication of the NPPF was imminent.  Both the working group and Planning Committee agreed that once passed, the working group would need to meet again to consider any implications and this was incorporated in the recommendations of this report.

The third and most contentious issue was the question of whether the document was too flexible.  The document allowed flexibility in certain areas whereby it stated that certain developments ‘would not normally be permitted’.   Whilst some Members felt that this flexibility should be taken away, large majorities of the working group and Planning Committee disagreed.  He urged Members not to forget that the SPD was not and never could be, a guaranteed way of preventing any garden land development.  The guidance was a material consideration in planning decisions but it did not have the status of policy and even if it were, it could not have the effect of stopping all garden land development.  Government policy was clear, although garden land was no longer regarded as brownfield land, it could be developed in appropriate circumstances.

He suggested that in order to resist garden land development the Council would need  ...  view the full minutes text for item 10.

Proposed by: Councillor Wheeldon

Seconded by: Councillor Walklett

This council is fully committed to reduce its output of greenhouse gases and therefore resolves that;

Our current target of a 30% reduction by 2015 should be brought in line with other public bodies and changed to a 40% reduction target by 2020.

Councillor Wheeldon, seconded by Councillor Walklett, proposed the following motion:

This council is fully committed to reduce its output of greenhouse gases and therefore resolves that;

Our current target of a 30% reduction by 2015 should be brought in line with other public bodies and changed to a 40% reduction target by 2020.

In proposing the motion, Councillor Wheeldon first reminded Members of some of the extreme weather events Cheltenham had seen over the part 15 years. 

He confirmed it was his intention to stand down in the upcoming Borough Elections and spoke of his plans to work in The Gambia, a country which generates less carbon emissions than the town of Cheltenham.

Friends of the Earth had invited the Council to sign up to their pledge to reduce Co2 emissions across the borough by 40% by 2020, but this wasn’t something he felt the Council could commit to given that it was not in a position to influence external organisations.  He did however, consider that the Council could commit itself to this target and lead from the front by setting an example for the rest of the town. 

The current corporate policy set out the Council’s commitment to a 30% reduction to the 2005 figures for emissions by 2015.  The issue was that this target was not comparable to other public bodies whose target reduction was 40% by 2020.

He was confident that this new target was achievable.  Members had recently demonstrated unanimous support for the purchase of zero carbon electricity and even a low carbon option would realise the current 30% reduction figure, but next year rather than by 2015.  He felt that it was actually the final 10% which would be more difficult to achieve and that was why he considered it necessary for the Council to adopt a longer term commitment to reach the higher target. 

He regularly heard Members complain about the heat in the public rooms and proposed that reducing heating costs would not only save the environment but also tax payer’s money.

He took this opportunity to thank Transition Towns and Vision 21 for the vital environmental work they did in the town and thanked residents of St. Paul’s, Officers and Members of the Council for their support in his role as a Borough Councillor.  He hoped that Members would support his motion.

As seconder, Councillor Walklett reserved his right to speak in support of the motion until later in the debate.

A number of Members took the opportunity to thank Councillor Wheeldon for the work he had undertaken in his Ward of St. Pauls and his commitment to reducing carbon emissions and wished him well in his future endeavours. 

Members who voiced concerns about the motion did so because there was no business case which set out the costs associated with achieving the proposed target reduction.  Whilst the aspiration was welcomed, Members felt unable to commit the Council to a course of action without this information and asked  ...  view the full minutes text for item 11.

No petitions had been received since the last meeting, nor were any presented at the meeting.

There were no urgent items for discussion.