Agenda item

The Leader invited Members to share their briefings on events and progress since the last meeting.

The Cabinet Member for Major Developments and Housing Delivery:

-       thanked CyNam for their generous invitation to a networking event before Nick Clegg’s talk at the recent Literature Festival.  It was good to speak with small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), start-ups, and people in the tech industry who are already established locally or thinking of moving to Cheltenham.  People are excited by the Golden Valley proposals, and really see opportunities to build in Cheltenham.  She is grateful to CyNam for making this happen;

-       it is fantastic that ten new homes are fully finished at Regents Village, and will be ready to be moved into by Christmas.  She praised the speed and quality of the homes, with solar panels, EV charging, ground source heat pumps, and important accessibility features such as level access and wider corridors and doors.  This is a great investment and she looked forward to welcoming the new residents;

-       the Swindon Road development is also progressing, with residents getting a second newsletter soon to keep them updated, and she looked forward to attending the ground-breaking at that site soon.

The Cabinet Member for Safety and Communities said that she had also attended an inspiring event at the Literature Festival, at which the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Team, together with their partners (the Children’s Society, The Rock, and Springbank Community Resource Centre) talked about the work they have done this year as part of a Youth Voice activity, giving young people a voice.  She was proud of the young people who were brave enough to stand up and speak about some tough subjects, including online bullying and harm in schools, and thanked NCLB for inviting her to their workshop where she made a bracelet.

The Cabinet Member for Economic Development, Culture, Wellbeing and Public Realm had had a busy month:

-       he attended the launch of the Everyman’s Grove Street Appeal, which hopes to raise £1m for a creative arts and educational community centre, to open in Spring 2026.  This will offer outreach activities in an excellent location, and provide an accessible way into the arts;

-       he spoke at the launch of The Wilson’s new free exhibition, Material Worlds, which together with the Hayward Gallery is displaying art created from everyday articles.  The exhibition is proof that Cheltenham punches above its weight in the world of culture and arts, and is a real testament to the work of Lisa Edgar and her team;

-       the Lions At Large trail has now ended; it increased footfall in Cheltenham and Gloucester, thus supporting local businesses, and sale of the lions raised £370k for the Big Space Cancer Appeal.  Thanks to Cheltenham BID  and Visit Cheltenham for supporting the project, and helping Cheltenham and Gloucester Hospitals;

-       he attended a Marketing Cheltenham meeting at Whaddon Road, where local businesses got together to share insight, and included a showcase of the new Visit Cheltenham website, which is now the top search result when looking for events in Cheltenham;

-       the Literature Festival was a great success, with over 400 events; festivals are essential to our town, and the continued success of the literature festival is to be celebrated;

-       outside culture, he attended a meeting with Gloucestershire County Council last week, to discuss the High Street and the Promenade.  It is important to work together to ensure a better future and vision for Cheltenham, to bring in different organisations to consult and improve the town centre and public realm and get things back on track;

-       he encouraged businesses to support the BID ballot – BID does a lot of good work in the town, and will hopefully continue to do so in the future;

-       and finally, with Christmas fast approaching, the Everyman and Playhouse theatres will both be presenting pantomimes, and the ice rink in Imperial Gardens will return on 21 November.

The Cabinet Member for Housing and Customer Services reported on the following:

-       Cheltenham’s Citizen of Honour David Bath is in the process of collecting selection boxes and funding for deprived children in Cheltenham.  Last year, he collected just under 900 and is already well on the way to that this year.  She thanked Dave for all his hard work;

-       work on the St Peters and Moors Hub starts with ground analysis on 02 November, and it is anticipated that the new premises will be complete by April 2026;

-       she has been talking about housing for veterans and how the council can help, with a meeting to take place tomorrow; thanks to Councillor Harvey for his interest and involvement in this;

-       she attended an interesting meeting 10 days ago, where representatives from European cities met to discuss housing across Europe; all are facing similar problems - not enough, too expensive, insufficient funding to build, compliance with green agendas.  She has been asked the join a task group to consider these issues, which could be extremely useful, particularly as it has been suggested that investment and other international banks will be asked what they can do to help;

-       she has also attended a conference in Leeds with the Housing Ombudsman, who is responsible for local authority and social housing complaints.  One question concerned private sector tenants’ complaints which the Ombudsman said would continue to come to local authorities until secondary legislation goes through – until then we are working in the dark.  The Ombudsman also went through the complaints process, providing those present with the opportunity to see how it works, hear what they think is good and on what we need to concentrate. When reports come in, they want us to challenge, to make sure everything is being done properly, and it was great to be able to say that is the norm in Cheltenham where tenants, leaseholders and Members have the right and the opportunity to ask questions and receive responses.

The Cabinet Member for Waste, Recycling, Parks, Gardens and Public Greenspace shared the following:

-       he and the Cabinet Member for Planning and Building Control attended a briefing with officers about the new Cheltenham Trees Strategy, which will be out for consultation soon.  This is a brilliant piece of work, setting out how the council will manage and protect its thousands of trees, including many TPO’d and veteran trees, as well as a strategy for new planting. Cheltenham is regarded as a ‘town within a park’ but some parts of the borough are devoid of trees and canopy, particularly on the west side.  This document really looks to how this imbalance can be addressed.  Trees are a valuable commodity for many reasons:  improving people’s mental health, providing shade, increasing biodiversity and much more;

-       another evolving policy concerns Suitable Alternative Natural Greenspace (SANGs), which will require planning applicants to make a contribution, in an attempt to generate alternative areas the Cotswold Beechwoods.  Money from planning applications will be used to make areas of Cheltenham more attractive, and this is a good opportunity to invest in our parks;

-       regarding recycling, the council continues to work towards expanding kerbside recycling, to include flexi-plastic and tetra packs, hopefully to be rolled out in the new year, once one or two issues have been finalised;

-       conversations continue in positive way with Gloucestershire County Council about the future of the Household Recycling Centre – this is not altogether straightforward but there are some common goals .

The Cabinet Member for Climate Emergency reported on the following items:

-       he recently attended a Climate Leadership Gloucestershire meeting, which take place six times a year, to review the climate risk and vulnerability assessment.  Comments raised provide evidence for further action on the climate.  This should be ready in the next few months, and made quite scary reading.  Also discussed was the Local Area Energy Plan, which plans how the electricity grid is going to be managed now that we have the new organisation, Great British Energy, and how electricity will get to businesses and houses up until 2040-50.  Documents on this will be shared soon, and today a business summit is being held – the first collaboration with all our business partners - and it will be interesting to hear how this went;

-       we are recruiting a new resident engagement officer, but until then he is still attending events to discuss low carbon technologies.  He spoke at an Energy Smart event on 04 October, set up by our partner Furbnow, for home-owners who can pay for their own retrofitting.  It was very positive and attended by 70 people;

-       we are just finishing the Social Housing  Decarbonisation Fund Wave 2.1, for insulating Council housing, and have signed grant funding for Wave 3, which will provide £3.1m towards bringing all housing stock to EPC C or better;

-       he recently toured Prestbury and Warden Hill, looking at SuDs and other flood prevention schemes, and considering where these could be placed to help with localised flooding in his own ward, St Mark’s.  He added that the council is always looking for volunteer flood wardens, and said the Emergency Planning Team has received some funding for flood protection equipment, which will allow it to make better preparation to help residents during flood events;

-       finally, he reported that volunteers have cleared 4km of Himalayan Balsam from the River Chelt, and as a result their hard work we are beginning to see lasting results and can think that the river might eventually be free of it altogether.

The Cabinet Member for Finance and Assets said his was a difficult portfolio to brief on, as most of it concerned confidential matters.  He therefore had nothing to add. 

The Leader shared the following:

-       earlier today she met with the treasurer of  Whaddon United Football Club, who has taken on the lease at the resource centre in Clyde Crescent.  The club has existed since the 1970s but never had its own clubhouse, so is very excited to have the opportunity now and will be applying for a rent support grant to help finance it.  Some of the club’s pitches are not brilliant, but now they have a club house and three teams, they can apply to the Football Association for funding and help to improve the pitch quality.  She is delighted that the council is helping to make this happen;

-       on Saturday she attended a concert at the Pittville Pump Room, to mark the 50^th anniversary of the Oriel Singers.  This group raises a lot of money for local communities, and inspires composers to write music especially for it, including a jubilee piece composed for the occasion;

-       she was asked to give a closing speech at Tech Cyber Week, and was pleased to note the growth of CyNam over the last two years, from a relatively small, Cheltenham-focussed organisation to one of 7,000 members and a reach and network far beyond Cheltenham.  Huge congratulations to Holly Wakefield and the team for making this happen – it was great to see such a well-attended event, and to hear what opportunities are coming forward in the cyber tech and security world;

-       the Cheltenham BID renewal ballot is coming to an end, and she encouraged any businesses who have not yet voted to do so.  She said the council couldn’t do much of what it does without BID, and offered massive thanks to the entire BID board – all of whom are volunteers and most of whom run a local business and care passionately the town and its business.   A networking event at The Bottle of Sauce was well attended, and BID has decided to extend its area, bringing in new people and small businesses.