Agenda item

Discussion paper by Tim Atkins (Managing Director of Place and Economic Development) - no decision required

The Managing Director of Place and Economic Development referred members to the paper which had been circulated with the agenda. 

He has been asked to report on Economic development, tourism and car parking. These were areas that have been neglected over many years. Consequently there were gaps in skills and resources and a need for investment. He considered that his appointment was a confirmation by the council that they now wanted to take some action in these important areas. He contrasted Gloucester where strategies were already in place and were well funded and well-resourced and the town was now seeing real results in relation to tourism, marketing and regeneration. There was no magic solution for Cheltenham and it would take time to make up for this lack of investment in the past.

The following responses were given to member questions;

·         A Member asked what responses had been received from the county council on the proposals from the car parking members working group. The MD advised there had been no actions as yet they would continue to work closely with the county council particularly as this council had no strategic car parking resource and therefore were reliant on the county council expertise. The county council too had resource challenges but they had agreed that a senior member of the GCC team would attend future meetings of the car parking members working group.

·         A Member challenged what timescales and targets for delivery had been set.

·         The MD advised that that he was keen to undertake the whole exercise in a professional way and ensure the car parking strategy was properly scoped and funded from the start. A target had been set to report to Cabinet in May 2017 and this project provided a great opportunity to improve and rationalise car parking facilities and introduce new technology.

·         For the Tourism Strategy there was a limited budget with a one-off payment of £50k but a consultant had been appointed with a view to developing a three-year strategy. This would then need buy in from stakeholders and local businesses and this would take  time. The council had limited resources to support the strategy and therefore local investment was critical and without this it would fail.

·         Regarding Economic Development, his plan was to free up some resource internally to develop the Place strategy which Cabinet had approved in October. Once in place this would be a very important marketing tool for the town to attract both tourists and businesses.

·         Asked to comment on the recent survey which indicated that 80% of new business start-ups in Cheltenham fail, the MD said he had been concerned at these statistics.  He did point out that high failure levels are common for all new business start-ups and the statistics did not include businesses who had been taken over. However, it was important to try and understand the reasons for those failures and he was working with the LEP to investigate further. 

·         Regarding the GCHQ innovation launch of the proposed new cyber accelerator hub in West Cheltenham, he acknowledged that the cyber businesses themselves could be quite small but GCHQ, with its international brand of quality, would attract a supply chain. Indeed they had already been inundated with expressions of interest from consultancies and other specialists who wanted to be involved.

·         Asked whether council officers had the skills to operate commercially, the MD acknowledged that a change of culture was needed. His service managers had already embraced the idea of measuring services on the basis of cost effectiveness rather than time to deliver.  Some staff would need skills training to enable them to be more innovative and staff would need to be encouraged and given freedom to innovate. He believed they had a duty to the council tax payers and businesses to deliver services in the most cost-effective way and that would include examining fees and charges.

·         The working vision set out in 3.26 was a starting point. Cheltenham was in a great position and it needed to develop its brand.

·         Asked for an update on the Cabinet Member’s announcement at the Budget Council that there would be no car parking charges after 6 p.m., the MD advised that this implementation had been deferred due to the current financial pressures and the potential implications needed to be fully reviewed.  

·         The MD confirmed that the consultant appointed to develop the tourism strategy was already meeting with existing stakeholders and a market research company was being used to carry out consultation with local shoppers and businesses. The challenge would be working within the limited budget of £50k.

·         He confirmed that there was a great potential for collaborative working with the BID. He noted that himself and the Leader were directors of the BID so he should declare an interest.

The Chairman thanked the Managing Director of Place and Economic  Development for his attendance and added that the Committee should have an ongoing role in scrutinising progress in these key areas and he asked for future update reports to be brought  back to the committee.