Agenda and minutes

APOLOGIES

 

Apologies were received from Councillor Reid, Sarris and Saunders.

Councillor Herbert had given apologies for lateness

 

COUNCIL PROCEDURE RULES

 

The Mayor reminded Councillors that the changes to the Council Procedure Rules regarding consideration of motions would not apply during the Extraordinary Council meeting but would come into effect for the April Council meeting.

 

MEMBER BRIEFING CITY DEAL

 

Councillors were reminded about the member briefing on the City Deal on Tuesday 29^th March 2016 at 6pm.

 

DECLARATIONS OF INTEREST

 

Name	Item	Reason
Councillor Ashton	16/13/CNLa	Personal: Chair of Cherry Hinton Residents Association

 

 

MINUTE SILENCE FOLLOWING TERRORIST ATTACK IN BRUSSELS AND BOMBINGS IN TURKEY.

 

Councillors observed a minute’s silence for those who were injured and lost their lives as part of the attacks in Brussels and Turkey.

 

 

Members of the public asked a number of questions as set out below.

 

1.           Mr Rodgers raised the following points:

 

ii.    When did the Council become aware that this year’s Midsummer Fair was seriously threatened?

iii.   Why was it not possible to complete the necessary safety work in the time between the accident in November and the date of Midsummer Fair?

iv.  What tasks still remained to be completed to ensure safety at public events with Fairgrounds in Cambridge, and how long did the Council expect them to take?

The Executive Councillor for Communities responded:

 

       i.       The Council were notified of the improvement notice served on Cambridge Live on 28 January 2016. A series of meetings between Cambridge Live, senior officers and safety advisers explored the options for going forward on the basis of the requirements to meet the improvement notice. The options considered included running the fair as in previous years, a scaled down version of the funfair plus the traders fair, just the trader’s fair, and a fallow year. The strong professional advice was that in the interests of public safety, the Council should not have the funfair this year.

     ii.       Arrangements for the funfair were complex and involved 80 separate contracts with showman. The fair came on to the site over several days to set up rides and supporting vehicles took up considerable space on the common with families living alongside the funfair. There was no single overall provider of rides. Reconfiguring the fair to ensure that vehicles were separated from pedestrians and cyclists over the 10 day period of the event would be challenging, particularly given that Midsummer Common was a major through route to the City and it was not feasible to close footpaths for the whole period of the fair. The future contractual arrangements, the footprint of the funfair, footpath closures, and the safe movement of vehicles including the very large lorries that brought on rides, all need to be looked at. The Council will work with the Showman’s Guild and providers of rides on future arrangements, and also consult with users of the Common and other local interest groups.

    iii.       All public events, including those with funfairs will be assessed to ensure they meet safety and other requirements. The Council fully expect major events to continue to take place in Cambridge including those with funfairs. The range of events on Council open spaces vary in size, and have different footprints, so do not all conflict with major through routes in the same way.  It was the complexity of Midsummer Fair, which required a longer lead in time to ensure that it was a safe public event.  The Council conducted its own internal review of outdoor event health and safety management systems/ processes, following the accident at the Bonfire Night event on 4 November 2015 on Midsummer Common and guidance from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). This review resulted in the adoption of a new generic risk assessment for the use of vehicles on outdoor spaces; and a new event risk management matrix for the assessment of the levels of risk and associated Council resource requirements to ensure the events were safely managed.  The matrix would also be used as a means to identify which forthcoming events, due to the assessed levels of associated risk, required assessment by the Cambridge Safety Advisory Group (SAG).  This group is a multi-agency group including the Council, Police and Fire representatives who will specify and review the required health and safety plans, including risk assessments and vehicle management arrangements; and based on their findings provide advice to the Council on whether or not the plans were satisfactory. 

Mr Rodgers raised the following supplementary point:

 

    i.          Despite the accident taking place 33 weeks prior to Midsummer Fair it was disappointing that Midsummer Fair could not take place.  He asked whether Strawberry Fair would need to go through the same safety review processes that Midsummer Fair had been through and whether it would be modified. 

The Executive Councillor for Communities responded:

 

    i.          He confirmed that Strawberry Fair would need to go through the same safety review process, however this event was different as it did not have a fun fair and it was expected that this event would be able to take place. 

 

2.        Mr Carpen raised the following points:

 

i.          Noted that Cambridgeshire County Council had rejected the devolution proposal. 

ii.         Questioned if another Mayor was required as Cambridge City already had a Mayor. Also questioned where the devolution proposals came from and if they had been through a due process.

iii.       Noted the public protest against the devolution proposals prior to the Council meeting.

iv.       Referred Councillors to the precedent set in 2004 when voters in the North East had rejected plans for a regional assembly. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3984387.stm

v.        It was noted that in the Devolution document that the Greater Cambridge Greater Peterborough Local Enterprise Partnership had also not signed up to the plan, although its sister Local Enterprise Partnership for Norfolk and Suffolk had.

vi.       Asked if the City Council were aware of any arrangements for a referendum on the Government's plans for a regional assembly and also asked if the Government had responded to criticisms from the Greater Cambridge Greater Peterborough Local Enterprise Partnership?

The Executive Councillor for Housing responded:

 

    i.          Thanked Mr Carpen for his question and expressed his surprise for both the scale of the devolution proposal and the timescale presented by government for such an important issue. When he attended the first meeting with the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Greg Clarke, and Lord Heseltine, he reminded them of the words of their colleague, Eric Pickles, in 2010 when he said: “We do not believe the arbitrary government regions to be a tier of administration that is efficient, effective or popular. Citizens across England identify with their county, their city, their town, their borough and their neighbourhood. We should recognise that the case for elected regional government was overwhelmingly rejected by the people in the 2004 North East Referendum. Unelected regional government equally lacks democratic legitimacy, and its continuing existence has created a democratic deficit.”

  ii.          Questioned why Central Government wanted to reintroduce regional government which had less accountability to residents.  The Government had not explained why they thought East Anglia was the right footprint for devolution and confirmed that he had not seen any formal response from them regarding the issues raised by the Greater Cambridge Greater Peterborough Local Enterprise Partnership.  

 iii.          Referendums on elected Mayors have been held in other areas and the Council would want to be involved in any discussions that impacted on either Greater Cambridge and/or Cambridgeshire and Peterborough.

Mr Carpen raised the following supplementary points:

 

    i.          Urged Councillors to have a debate about what the Council thought any further devolution deal should include.

  ii.          Raised the issue about the secrecy of public documents.

 iii.          Took on board the comments made by Councillor Price.

 

3.           Mr Osbourn raised the following points:

 

    i.          Did not approve of regional government.

  ii.          Took issue with the lack of affordable housing and the unaffordability of housing.

The Executive Councillor for Housing responded:

 

i.          The Council agreed that any devolution deal had to include the control of housing policy.

ii.         ​The Council was only too aware of the housing affordability crisis that faced the City’s residents and was determined to do all that it could to tackle it. Housing was a key element of the City’s requests in response to the Government devolution talks. The decision was taken to take housing requests through the March Housing Scrutiny Committee to gain a consensus with all parties on the Council, as well as with the Council’s tenant representatives.   

iii.       The requests the Council made were included in the Housing Market Statement on the Housing Scrutiny Committee agenda.  The requests would have given the Council the freedom and funding needed to build new council homes in Cambridge and to protect those new council homes from national policies like Right to Buy and the Compulsory Sales Levy for 30 years, and also would have ensured that other councils in the Deal could have provided new council homes. The requests were moderate ones because the most the Council would have achieved, over time, would have been to replace the hundreds of council homes that would be lost to the Council and ​those in need of housing in ​Cambridge and South Cambridgeshire over the next five years through this Government's national policies.

iv.       The Council would continue to insist that any deal​ on devolution, regardless of geography, recognised that social housing was vital for this area and the deal would need to assist the Council to build them.

 

Mr Osbourn raised the following supplementary point:

 

i.          He thanked Councillor Price for his answer and commented that Cambridge was the key in the Deal and that it had a strong bargaining position.

 

4.           Mr Bridge raised the following points:

 

i.          His comments were made on behalf of business partners and on behalf of the Greater Cambridge Greater Peterborough Local Enterprise Partnership.

ii.         Expressed concern regarding the short time during which the deal was discussed and developed. 

iii.       The devolution deal was meant to use a bottom up approach however Central Government appeared to promote a top down approach.

iv.       Did not believe that the devolution deal covered the correct geographical area (e.g. to include Norfolk and Suffolk). 

v.        An elected Mayor would create an additional layer of bureaucracy and seemed contrary to what devolution meant.

vi.       The issue of housing had not been dealt with adequately.

vii.     The devolution document itself had not been drafted particularly well.

viii.    Requested that the Council rejected the current proposal and worked with the business community to get the right solution.

The Executive Councillor for Housing responded:

 

             i.          Thanked Mr Bridge for outlining his response on the devolution deal.

            ii.          Agreed that the approach from Central Government appeared to be a top down deal and stated that he had been told that the devolution deal would not be forced on the Councils, despite the enormous pressure to support the deal.  He welcomed the business community’s support.

          iii.          Despite 22 signatures from Council leaders to the devolution deal, there was one notable absence being Cambridge City Council. 

Mr Bridge raised the following supplementary points:

 

          i.             The business community were appreciative of the work being done by Cambridge City Council and the Leader of the Council.

         ii.             No devolution deal could proceed without the support of the business community and the Local Enterprise Partnership.

       iii.             The devolution deal had raised a difficult conversation regarding the future purpose of the Local Enterprise Partnership.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Appendices separate to this agenda are as follows:

 

Appendix A: Proposed Modifications - Report on Consultation  March 2016

 

Supplement to Appendix Ai

 

Appendix B: Cambridge Local Plan Proposed Modifications (March 2016)

 

Appendix C: South Cambridgeshire Local Plan Proposed Modifications (March 2016) 

 

Appendix D: Summaries of Representations to the Consultation on Proposed Modifications - December 2015,

Online Only

 

Supplement to Appendix Di

Online Only

 

Appendix E: Supplement to the Sustainability Appraisal Addendum - November 2015 (March 2016) 

 

Appendix F: Supplement to Objectively Assessed Housing Need: Further Evidence - November 2015 (March 2016)

Online Only

 

Appendix G: Supplement to Cambridge Inner Green Belt Boundary Study - November 2015 (March 2016)

Online Only.

 

Appendix H: City Deal and the Cambridge and South Cambridgeshire Local Plans (RD/MC/110)

Online Only

 

Appendix I: A428 Constraints Report (March 2016) (RD/MC/073), Online Only

 

Appendix J: A10(N) Corridor Constraints Study (March 2016) (RD/MC/074)

Online Only

 

 

 

Resolved Unanimously to:

 

     i.        Approve the Report on Consultation (Appendix A and the Supplement to Appendix A (i)), the Proposed Modifications (Appendix B), and the Supplement to the Sustainability Appraisal Addendum (Appendix E) for submission to the Inspectors examining the Local Plan.

    ii.        Note the documents attached to the Officer’s report as Appendices F to J and submit these as part of the evidence base for the Local Plan.

   iii.        Delegate authority to the Director of Environment to make any subsequent minor amendments and editing changes, in consultation with the Executive Councillor for Planning Policy and Transport, the Chair and Spokesperson of the Development Plan Scrutiny Sub-Committee.

The following recommendation was put forward by the Leader of the Council, Councillor Herbert:

 

That the Council:

 

     i.        Endorses the response by the Leader and confirms that the Council does not agree to the proposed Three County Devolution Deal in the Government Offer Document;

    ii.        Confirms it is committed to continuing discussions on devolution with Cambridgeshire and Peterborough councils, our two city MPs, the Government, and others including Cambridge businesses to seek devolution that meets the needs of Cambridge, the Greater Cambridge economy, and Cambridgeshire and Peterborough;

   iii.        Undertakes a formal consultation with residents, employees, employers, community and business organisations in Cambridge, as well as with the Greater Cambridge Greater Peterborough Enterprise Partnership, to put forward the Council’s view on the Government proposals for a Combined Authority and Mayor covering Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and Suffolk and to enable responses to inform the Council’s decisions;

  iv.        Continues to press Government for the funding and flexibilities set out in the Housing Statement report unanimously endorsed by Housing Scrutiny Committee on 8 March, to enable the City Council to replace the estimated 850 social homes lost in the City (1350 in the Greater Cambridge area) through Right to Buy and High Value Sales over the next five years, to at least maintain the number of council and other social rent properties in Cambridge until 2020 and beyond;

   v.        Agrees to commission detailed independent analysis, building on the Housing Statement approved by Housing Scrutiny Committee on 8 March, on the current and projected housing affordability crisis experienced by Cambridge households on median and lower incomes in the social, intermediate and private rented sectors, and on the housing measures, policies and investment needed to address their needs and prevent damage to the Cambridge economy and its national contribution.

 

 

Councillor Bick proposed and Councillor Pitt seconded the following amendment to the motion (additional text underlined):

 

That the Council:

 

     i.        Endorses the response by the Leader and confirms that the Council does not agree to the proposed Three County Devolution Deal in the Government Offer Document;

    ii.        Confirms it  is committed to continuing discussions on devolution with Cambridgeshire and Peterborough councils, our two city MPs, the Government, and others including Cambridge businesses to seek devolution that meets the needs of Cambridge, the Greater Cambridge economy, and Cambridgeshire and Peterborough;

   iii.        Undertakes a formal consultation with residents, employees, employers, community and business organisations in Cambridge, as well as with the Greater Cambridge Greater Peterborough Enterprise Partnership, to put forward the Council’s view on the Government proposals for a Combined Authority and Mayor covering Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and Suffolk and to enable responses to inform the Council’s decisions;

  iv.        Continues to press Government for the funding and flexibilities set out in the Housing Statement report unanimously endorsed by Housing Scrutiny Committee on 8 March, to enable the City Council to replace the estimated 850 social homes lost in the City (1350 in the Greater Cambridge area) through Right to Buy and High Value Sales over the next five years, to at least maintain the number of council and other social rent properties in Cambridge until 2020 and beyond;

   v.        Agrees to commission detailed independent analysis, building on the Housing Statement approved by Housing Scrutiny Committee on 8 March, on the current and projected housing affordability crisis experienced by Cambridge households on median and lower incomes in the social, intermediate and private rented sectors, and on the housing measures, policies and investment needed to address their needs and prevent damage to the Cambridge economy and its national contribution.

  vi.        Continues to press Government to honour its existing commitment under the City Deal to strengthen the governance of Greater Cambridge over strategic planning and transport in our area by enabling its progression into a Greater Cambridge Combined Authority, noting that under current legislation this would be precluded by the creation of a combined authority at a regional level.

 

Councillor Herbert proposed the following change to the amended recommendation regarding paragraph vi (deleted text struck through and additional text underlined):

 

 vii.        Continue to press Government to honour its existing commitment under the City Deal to strengthen the governance of Greater Cambridge over strategic planning and transport in our area by enabling not precluding its progression into a Greater Cambridge Combined Authority, noting that under current legislation this would be precluded by the creation of a combined authority at a regional level.

 

On a show of hands this was agreed unanimously.

 

Resolved Unanimously to:

 

    i.          Endorse the response by the Leader and confirms that the Council does not agree to the proposed Three County Devolution Deal in the Government Offer Document;

  ii.          Confirm the Council was committed to continuing discussions on devolution with Cambridgeshire and Peterborough councils, our two city MPs, the Government, and others including Cambridge businesses to seek devolution that meets the needs of Cambridge, the Greater Cambridge economy, and Cambridgeshire and Peterborough;

 iii.          Undertake a formal consultation with residents, employees, employers, community and business organisations in Cambridge, as well as with the Greater Cambridge Greater Peterborough Enterprise Partnership, to put forward the Council’s view on the Government proposals for a Combined Authority and Mayor covering Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and Suffolk and to enable responses to inform the Council’s decisions;

iv.          Continue to press Government for the funding and flexibilities set out in the Housing Statement report unanimously endorsed by Housing Scrutiny Committee on 8 March, to enable the City Council to replace the estimated 850 social homes lost in the City (1350 in the Greater Cambridge area) through Right to Buy and High Value Sales over the next five years, to at least maintain the number of council and other social rent properties in Cambridge until 2020 and beyond;

  v.          Agree to commission detailed independent analysis, building on the Housing Statement approved by Housing Scrutiny Committee on 8 March, on the current and projected housing affordability crisis experienced by Cambridge households on median and lower incomes in the social, intermediate and private rented sectors, and on the housing measures, policies and investment needed to address their needs and prevent damage to the Cambridge economy and its national contribution.

vi.          Continue to press Government to honour its existing commitment under the City Deal to strengthen the governance of Greater Cambridge over strategic planning and transport in our area by not precluding its progression into a Greater Cambridge Combined Authority, noting that under current legislation this would be precluded by the creation of a combined authority at a regional level.