Agenda item

The Cabinet Member for Climate Emergency welcomed the Leader back after her recent operation.  She said the carbon footprint report had been taken to Council and received great acclaim and highlighted the meaningful and impressive progress the authority is making, having listened to residents.  She also reported that the Cheltenham Zero partnership is helping small and medium enterprises to understand and reduce their carbon footprint, and make a strong contribution.  In anticipation of his own briefing, she thanked the Cabinet Member for Finance and Assets for his support in claiming a grant for a heat pump at Leisure @, showing that the council is putting in every effort to protect the things that people love.

The Cabinet Member for Customer and Regulatory Services said that there were still small pots of unspent Covid funding, locally under the control of the Director for Public Health in Gloucestershire, and the Public Protection team had applied for permission to use some of this on a project to raise awareness of air quality issues among pupils, families and staff in schools. This dovetails with the Air Quality Action Plan due to come to Cabinet later this year.   It was a neat use of the money, as Covid is a respiratory disease, and poor air quality contributes to hospital admissions.  He congratulated Louis Krog and Bernadette Reed for securing the funding, and also paid tribute to Louis, who is performing brilliantly in his new role as Head of Public Protection, not least producing two reports for tonight’s Cabinet whilst coping with all the additional workload arising from Race Week.

The Cabinet Member for Safety and Communities also wanted to thank officers, for arranging Sunday’s event in Pittville Park, where 560 children enjoyed the day, and a range of events over the coming months which will benefit several thousand children by the end of the summer.  She thanked Tracey Brown and the team for making this happen, and Kelly Patterson for securing £21k to work with three schools in trying to prevent young people from being excluded, thus giving them a better view of themselves and the town, and education to fulfil their potential and dreams.  It is a great feeling to be able to share what Cheltenham is doing with other local authorities across the country, and thanked officers for the unique work being done and help being given to children and the difference it is going to make.  It was important that that all the successes should be evaluated at the end of the year and how this can be built on for the future.

The Leader was pleased to note that children on free school meals were able to apply in advance to have lunch at the Pittville Park event, and Cabinet Member confirmed that this was built into all the events planned for the next six months, to ensure that all the children were able to enjoy the day.

The Cabinet Member for Economic Development, Culture, Tourism and Wellbeing congratulated the CYNAM team for an incredible event at Pittville Pump Room last week.  Having learnt a huge amount about the cyber eco-system, he highly recommended that colleagues should go to any future events organised by CYNAM.  He also congratulated everyone involved from the local cyber eco-system, the LEP at the county council and this authority, who were involved in the recent Canadian cyber delegation, an uplifting event, which demonstrated the importance of Cheltenham putting itself at the centre of the UK cyber industry. He also visited the Cleevely EV Open Day, a really impressive set-up on Lansdown Industrial Estate,  and said we can be proud to have Matt Cleevely, a national expert in EV technology, on our doorstep.  Finally he thanked Richard Johnson and the Gloucestershire-Warwickshire  Steam Railway team for a brilliant open day, saying this is a tourist attraction on the edge of the borough which does a huge amount for our tourism offer.  

The Cabinet Member for Housing was very pleased to have visited Kendrick Homes site just off Shurdington Road, where 12 homes were being built, five of which, through an S106 agreement, will be managed by CBH and affordable, [shared ownership and affordable rent], to be ready in early September.

The Cabinet Member for Cyber, Regeneration and Commercial Income said Members will be aware that not a month goes by without some further progress on the Golden Valley Development and CBC’s cyber ambitions, and this month he and Cabinet Member for Economic Development, Culture, Tourism and Wellbeing were invited by the Department of Trade to an event with the Canadian cyber community, who came to Cheltenham to listen to our plans and look at the town. They were very impressed with what has been done so far and what is being proposed.  It was a great opportunity to promote Cheltenham, as a wonderful place to both now and in the future.

The Leader said she and her grandchildren had also enjoyed the event in Pittville Park on Sunday, which was really well attended, and introduced young children to science and engineering.  She thanked the Cabinet Member for Climate Emergency for her kind words, and everyone for stepping up while she was recovering.

The Cabinet Member for Finance and Assets and the Cabinet Member for Waste, Recycling and Street Services did not have any briefings this month.