Agenda item

Cabinet Member Sustainability

Cabinet Member Built Environment

The Cabinet Member Sustainability, in light of the public question, started his update with news on Imperial and Montpellier Gardens.  The matter was discussed at Council on the 27 June and the principle message had been the importance of good maintenance and restoration of turf.  At the end of the season the Council would assess what restorative work was necessary and Cheltenham Festivals (CF) would pay any costs.  Although a number of alternative design ideas had been suggested, he was confident that the proposed design was the right one.  This sentiment had been reaffirmed by the endorsement given to the design by Friends of Imperial Square and Gardens, who had commended officers on the design.  The spotlight had now been turned on Montpellier Gardens in a bid to avoid reproducing issues there and discussions were ongoing with CF.  Drill seeding was the topic of much debate but this had to be undertaken at a suitable time of year and for the best results it needed to be done on good quality turf and as such some areas would need to be replaced. 

The Cabinet Member Sustainability gave the following responses to questions from members of the committee;

• All relationships, as with that between the Council and CF, needed to be based on a level of trust and if the Council were reasonable in their assessment of the restorative work required he could see no reason why CF wouldn’t agree. 
• The use of existing notice boards in and around the gardens to communicate to the public on the usage of the gardens and detail any restoration work to be undertaken was a good one and this would be raised with officers.

The Chair reminded members that the committee were scheduled to consider the final design of Imperial Gardens at the next meeting (14 September) and agreed to schedule a review of the remedial issues after the next Festival season.

There was little update to offer in relation to the new waste scheme, which the Cabinet Member Sustainability felt was going well.  Issues were being worked through, the garden scheme take-up would be reviewed and the working group would be providing an update at the next meeting.  The Local Authority Company was in the initial administrative stage and despite Tewkesbury Borough Council not having signed up to the agreement, joint working at the depot continued.  A proposal to form a Joint Waste Board, joining waste authorities under a single committee would be tabled with the committee prior to Cabinet in October. 

The Cabinet Member Sustainability and the Director of Operations gave the following responses to questions from members of the committee;

• Various teams at the council were working together, along with the University to trial a new approach to addressing the annual waste issue in St. Pauls which occurred when the large number of students residing in the area, vacated for the summer. 
• Benches had been removed from Lansdown following discussions with the Police and local PCSO’s.  A high volume of anti-social behaviour where the benches were located had caused local residents a great deal of disturbance and since their removal this had ceased.  Officer did recognise that this created an issue for those that had put the benches to good use and were looking at relocating them in the near vicinity. 

Councillor Wheeldon had reported large scale fly tipping in St. Pauls at 9.30am on Monday (11 July) and it was cleared by 12 noon the very same day, for which he thanked those involved.

There were three items on which the Cabinet Member Built Environment wished to brief the committee, North Place and Portland Street, parking and environmental improvements. 

A North Place member seminar was held last Friday (8 July) for which there was good attendance by members.  The four initial proposals had been evaluated by the panel and the scores would be reported to the Development Task Force on Friday (15 July) and subsequently Cabinet.  The four schemes were all very different and he was confident that there were at least two credible candidates, a decision on which would be fairly swift.  The two short listed schemes would be asked to draw-up their final proposals and Cabinet would make their decision on the preferred developer in October.  Progress to date had been encouraging and he could see no reason for any movement within the current schedule.

The Cabinet Member Built Environment gave the following responses to questions from members of the committee;

• Constitutionally the preferred developer decision was a Cabinet decision but regardless of the legalities the Cabinet Member Built Environment considered that given the gravity of the decision, it should be debated at Council.  He would discuss this with his Development Task Force and Cabinet colleagues, suggesting that a special council meeting in October would be a sensible approach.
• A high profile, 3 week, public consultation would give residents and local businesses the opportunity to consider the proposals.
• The Development Task Force were aware that there was a need for almost 800 spaces on the site given the additional pressure that the loss of North Place and Portland Street would create in St. Pauls. 

Parking issues had come to a head with the start of the ‘Town Hall zone’ statutory consultation by Gloucestershire County Council (GCC).  A wider issue was the need for CBC and GCC to agree a joint parking strategy and perhaps there was a need to establish a CBC working group. 

County Councillors Garnham and Noble had met with GCC officers who had assured them that the concerns that were being raised had been taken on board and whilst the consultation was ongoing, there was flexibility to amend the proposals.  Councillor Garnham felt the meeting had been a positive step forward and hoped that rather than merely addressing parking and increasing revenue, the space would be managed and improved.  The Cabinet Member was grateful to County Councillors Garnham and Noble for having taken this action.  He felt this reiterated the need for a joint parking strategy and endorsed the formation of a working group on which CBC members were involved.

In response to a member question, the Head of Integrated Transport and Sustainability suggested that the joint parking strategy would need to be completed by Autumn 2011.

The Chair was concerned by the current level of working groups and invited those members that felt they were able, to form part of the Joint Parking Strategy Working Group.  Councillors Hall, McCloskey and Garnham volunteered. 

Councillor Stewart voiced concerns that GCC were pushing resident parking proposals too hard and too fast to provide residents with sufficient opportunity to voice their concerns. 

The final item the Cabinet Member Built Environment raised was environmental improvements, for which £160k had been earmarked in the budget outturn report.  Given that the monies were to be put to a practical use his hope was that a flexible approach could be taken to the application process for the funding.  Rather than set a funding limit the suggestion was that an indicative figure could be £20k, with a level of flexibility on this.  He advocated that a discussion paper be presented to the committee at the September meeting.