To receive any announcements from the Leader.
Minutes:
The Leader made the following announcements:
This Council would like to put on record its expression of sympathy to Her Majesty The Queen and the Royal Family following the sad passing of the Duke of Edinburgh on Friday 9th April.
This Borough, along with the rest of England is slowly emerging from the recent lockdown, with non-essential retail shops and outdoor hospitality opening on 12 April. I know this continues to be a very difficult time for many of our residents and businesses in the Borough. It has been 13 and a half months since Spelthorne was the first Surrey council to declare a Borough-wide emergency and, during this time, we have made over 17,000 welfare calls, visits and checks to vulnerable residents, made over 28,500 phone calls to residents through our community helpline and delivered over 39,000 meals on wheels. Neighbourhood Services have collected over 31,500 tonnes of waste and recycling and cleared over 2,000 fly-tips. The Council continues to support business in Spelthorne and to date and have provided nearly £40million in relief and grants during the pandemic so far. A new walk-through coronavirus testing facility has opened for those with symptoms to book appointments at Kingston Road Car Park with residents encouraged to get twice weekly tests.
Spelthorne Borough Council can continue to pride itself on its strong financial performance and is able to report that its commercial investment portfolio remains robust and is performing well ahead of the wider national average. Furthermore, for the 12-month period from March 2020, despite the UK experiencing the worst economic downturn for more than three hundred years, it has only written off 0.02% of the commercial rent due for 2020-21.
A further 55 homes will become available in the Borough from April with the delivery of the first phase of Spelthorne Council's new housing development in Sunbury. 44 homes will be affordable with 11 of these also dedicated to key workers. The project is part of the Council's plans to relieve housing pressure in the local area by providing good quality and affordable housing. The development converted disused commercial offices at Benwell House in Green Street into 55 one and two-bedroom apartments. The Council have also approved their new key worker policy, which can be viewed on our website.
To-date, Spelthorne has received over 100 emails from residents and of these 90% were in support of Spelthorne to remain as an independent Borough. Additionally, and as part of the Leader's residents’ forums, many concerns have been raised on what it would mean for the Borough if the unitary proposals went ahead.
Spelthorne Borough Council is refreshing and realigning its corporate plan which will earmark four 'CARE' priorities; Community wellbeing, Affordable homes provision, Recovery and Environment for delivering services and supporting residents in the Borough. The proposals will refocus the Council's priorities overseen by the administration in tandem with the management team, reinforcing the strength of relationship between Councillors and Officers.
The swimming pools at Sunbury Leisure Centre were closed last year when a problem was identified with some of the pool tiles. The work at Sunbury Pool is expected to be completed in July and residents will be kept updated regarding the progress of these works on our website and social media channels.
Spelthorne Borough Council has now honoured 91 children as Spelthorne Litter Heroes for taking part in litter picks across the Borough. We have also been engaging with the public through our #NoRubbishExcuses social media campaign to try and bring about behavioural change in Spelthorne. Our video also features on the digital screens at the Elmsleigh Centre. We are continuing to encourage our residents to take pride in their surroundings and hope to honour further children with the title of Spelthorne Litter Hero.
Spelthorne Borough Council has launched a new commercial waste collection service, Spelthorne Direct Services Limited, as part of its drive to become carbon neutral by 2050.
Last month, the Spring edition of the Bulletin was delivered to residents. This edition is dedicated to the environment and details just some of the work Spelthorne Borough Council has done to help combat climate change. The middle eight pages focus on our green initiatives and how residents can 'be the change' by adapting how they deal with food, transportation and energy usage.
Spelthorne Borough Council will be eliminating 5.7 tonnes of annual carbon dioxide emissions with the installation of solar panels at the Council's depot in Ashford. The works, which have been supported by an £11,000 grant by the Enterprise M3 Clean Growth Programme, will be taking place in Spring.
The Council has opened entries for the 2021 Spelthorne Business Awards and Capture Spelthorne 2021. Details about these competitions are on our website.
We are pleased to announce that for this year we will be instigating a one-off increase of £1,000 per Councillor in their Better Neighbourhood Grants. This money will be ring fenced for green and climate change activities and projects within Councillors’ wards. This proposal provides a chance for ‘bottom up’ initiatives from residents to tackle climate change and allows for the development of a wider set of proposals at grassroot level to meet carbon reduction targets. Funding for this initiative will come from the Climate Change Initiatives Fund.
On Tuesday 20th April, the UK government announced it was setting the world’s most ambitious climate change target into law, to reduce UK emissions by 78% by 2035 compared to 1990 levels. This is a significant step by a Conservative Government ahead of the 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26) meeting, which is due to be held in Glasgow in November this year.
As this Council has declared a Climate Emergency and aligned our policies to the Government’s targets, the imperative now is to accelerate the development of our own list of further practical actions to undertake our move towards significantly reducing Spelthorne’s carbon emissions, and to fully play our part in delivering these new national targets.
To assist in this process, I am therefore pleased to announce that any unallocated balance in the Council’s special projects fund which will be identified in our 2020/21 out-turn report going to Cabinet in May, will be added to the Council’s Climate Change Initiatives Fund budget provision, specifically to implement projects to reduce the Council’s carbon footprint and assist with us in our aim of meeting the Government’s new target by 2035. I would propose that these funds come under the auspices of the new Environment and Sustainability Committee, when the Council’s committee system of governance is implemented.
This reinforces this administration’s firm commitment to tackling climate change as demonstrated in our new CARE priorities, which include the environment (in particular climate change) as one of the four key areas we will be focussing on. I am sure that this initiative will be supported by all corners of this virtual chamber.
Finally, I am delighted to announce that Spelthorne is the happiest place to live in Surrey, according to official data based on personal well-being from the Office for National Statistics. The ONS broke down the average ratings of four factors, which included life satisfaction, the feeling that the things done in life are worthwhile, happiness and anxiety, in order to measure personal well-being across the UK.