EVESHAM TOWN COUNCIL
Minutes of the Meeting of EVESHAM TOWN COUNCIL held at 6.30 pm on MONDAY 9 OCTOBER 2017 in the Council Chamber, Town Hall, Evesham.
Those present:
Chairman: Cllr R S W Jones (Town Mayor)
Vice Chairman: Cllr M S Goodge (Deputy Mayor)
Councillors: Cllr Mrs S Amor, Cllr A Barlow, Cllr A P Booth, Cllr J Bulman,
Cllr P Boyd, Cllr M D Elliman, Cllr G Hale, Cllr Mrs L Jakeman,
Cllr Mrs J Johnson, Cllr F Kaler, Cllr Mrs D R Raphael, Cllr R W Raphael, Cllr Mrs M Sale, Cllr Mrs J E Sandalls, Cllr Mrs F S Smith, Cllr J H Smith OBE, Cllr Mrs J Tucker, Cllr N S Tucker, Cllr C Tether
Officers: Mr S D Carter – Town Clerk
Also present: Ms R Lemich (NHS, Ms S Harris (NHS), Mr S Riley (WDC Inward Investment Manager), Rev Andrew Spurr, one member of public and one member of the press.
78. Apologies for Absence
Apologies for absence were received from Cllr R Bowers and Cllr Miss E Haynes
79. Declarations of pecuniary or other interest (if any)
Cllr J H Smith OBE declared a non-pecuniary interest in minute 82 as he is the Cabinet Member for Health and Wellbeing at Worcestershire County Council.
Cllr Bulman declared a non-pecuniary interest in minute 82 as he is associated with the Worcestershire Health & Care Trust.
Cllr Mrs J Sandalls declared a non-pecuniary interest in minute 88, the Planning Application, as she is on Wychavon District Council’s planning committee.
80. Announcements by the Town Mayor
A list of the Mayor and Deputy Mayor’s engagements over the past month was circulated to members and is detailed below.
List of Mayoral/Deputy Mayoral Engagements for September 2017
3rd Mayor attended Evesham's Cycle Fest
8th Mayor attended the Mayor of Worcester’s Inaugural Banquet at the Guildhall
10th Mayor attended the Mayor of Pershore’s Civic Service at Pershore Abbey
14th Mayor travelled to Warwick Castle for the Britain in Bloom Presentation
15th Mayor attended the Battle of Britain Memorial Service at Waterside Cemetery
17th Mayor attend Tewkesbury Town Civic Service at Tewkesbury Abbey
21st Mayor attended the launch of the new look Morrisons Supermarket
24th Mayor of Evesham's Civic Service at All Saints Church
The Mayor thanked Rev Spurr for a organising a wonderful Civic Service. The Mayor advised that, upon being Mayor, his eyes had been opened to so much that goes on in Evesham which he had not known before. Highlighting Wallace House, the Mayor explained that so much hard work had been put into the centre in the past 12 months and there were now massive improvements and how he had previously not realised what went on at the centre. Similarly with regards to twinning, the Mayor had just returned from the twin town of Dreux having previously been unaware of what twinning comprised of. He commented what a beautiful town Dreux was, how he and his family had been so well looked after and about how much work goes on building relationships with these towns and the positives this has.
81. It was RESOLVED to change the order of business in accordance with Standing Order no.
10(a) vi.
82. Herefordshire and Worcestershire’s Sustainability and Transformation Partnership (NHS Care Trust)
Susan Harris (Director of Strategy and Partnerships for NHS Worcs Health and Care Trust) and Ruth Lemich (Strategy Director for Worcs CCGs) gave a presentation on the Sustainability and Transformation Partnerships (STP).
It was explained that STPs are an umbrella plan for all the organisations. Their aim is to improve health outcomes across the population including addressing health inequalities. Improve care and quality by addressing areas where this is unwarranted variation, ensuring access to the safest care possible and securing performance improvements. Delivering financial sustainability by getting better value in terms of how resources are utilised and deployed and optimising performance across the whole system.
They explained that they were focusing on a number of key areas to help deliver these outcomes, including looking at back office and infrastructure, prevention and self care, extended primary and community services and reshaping specialist hospital care.
As part of the process they had conducted various community engagement events at places such as shopping centres around the counties. Many people had expressed their concerns about travel and transport, community beds, and about these plans putting too much strain on community carers. There was also confusion about the A&E service, when should one go, when is it open, which hospitals have an A&E service, etcetera.
It was explained that the STP was evolving into an accountable care system and was about working together in a joined up way.
Going forward the STP planned more staff dialogue, continued stakeholder engagement, targeted discussion with under represented groups, more detailed work around travel and transport challenges, a greater understanding of technology options and topic specific engagement.
In response to a question about prevention it was explained that this was an area of focus. It could be shown for example that if people were more active over the years they cost significantly less to the NHS. The out of hospital model with planned care was much more cost effective.
With regards to a question over the workforce, which was central to delivery, it was stated that GP and district nurse retirement was high. The plan was looking at recruiting different roles which gave a degree of flexibility and the ability to carry out varied duties. On the number of non EU staff, this was not known but was estimated to be a fifth of the nursing staff.
It was explained that this plan was at the beginning of the partnership stage and it was planned to be in place for the next 10 years.
It was commented that there was concern that social care and the NHS do not work together and that in fact clinical commissioners seem to compete against each other. In response, the presenters agreed with this view and stated they were looking to resolve this by aligning the commissioning groups and working to bring these two elements together.
Ms Harris and Ms Lemiech were thanked for their presentation.
Ms Harris and Ms Lemiech left the meeting.
83. Minutes of the Previous Meetings
The Clerk had circulated with the agenda the Minutes of the Meetings held on 11 September 2017, it was RESOLVED that the Minutes be adopted as a true record.
84. Committee Minutes
a) Planning and Estates Committee – 25 September 2017.
The Chairman, Cllr M S Goodge, made reference to minute 41 regarding the cemetery lodge and minute 42 the Hampton cemetery extension and their respective recommendations which the Council would be voting on. Regarding the lodge it was confirmed that council had already agreed to a 6 month let of the lodge and this was in near completion pending the works to be done. It was RESOLVED that the recommendations contained within these minutes be approved.
85. Update from Worcestershire County Council (WCC) and Wychavon District Council (WDC) Councillors if present
Cllr Bob Bank from WCC had given his apologies for not being able to attend the meeting and give an update.
Cllr R Raphael gave a brief update from WDC.
He informed the Council that Robin Walker, who is involved in the Evesham Town Plan, and former town councillor Andrew Dyke had been appointed to WDC’ s Localism Panel. The panel’s remit amongst many other things included the consideration of New Homes Bonus applications.
Cllr Raphael informed the Council that this week (beginning 9 October) was Wychavon’s wellbeing week and that a number of events and promotions were planned. This included an event at the Town hall. Further information was available online.
Finally, Cllr Raphael informed members that WDC were tendering to become one of the pilot authorities to receive 100% of business rates. The previous Chancellor had set out public finance reforms back in 2015, one of which was the opportunity for councils to retain 100% of business rates, these were now coming to fruition and WDC hoped to be one of the first authorities to pilot the changes.
Cllr Raphael was thanked for his update.
86. Finance – payments and receipts for September 2017
Evesham Town Council’s payments and receipts and bank for the month of September 2017 were circulated with the agenda.
It was RESOLVED that the Town Council payments for the month of September 2017, as attached at appendix A, amounting to £78,425.36 (NET) be approved and the receipts be NOTED.
87. Wychavon District Council Inward Investment Manager’s annual report and request for funding
Mr Shawn Riley presented his report to members –Appendix B. Mr Riley advised that the money
ETC had awarded him last year was spent in 3 specific areas:
Business Support and Development Grants £3000
Local Distinctiveness/Events £9000
Attracting Inward Investment £3000
Wychavon District Council had also allocated a budget of £22,000 making £37,000 and this money was used as an enabling resource to lever in addition sources from elsewhere. Mr Riley advised that in the year 2017/18 this money had generated approx. £4,820,000 for Evesham most of this £3,500,000 was advertising value equivalent received from publicity generated by Evesham’s unique array of events. Mr Riley was asked how this was calculated and he advised that it was calculated by media people who worked out how much it would cost to advertise in a national newspaper so for example if an advert was put in the Telegraph then that would be a certain cost. With reference to 1.4 of Mr Riley’s report, a question was asked about the business support grants: how many of those businesses in receipt of grant had continued to trade and how many had gone out of business. Mr Riley stated that on average one third of new businesses fail in their first year however out of the 54 businesses that had received a grant only 3 or 4 had failed. He stated that the process that the businesses go through before they are awarded a grant are very strict and they only awarded a grant if there was a good chance of the business succeeding. He also added that the money was linked to training and business support and if it was felt that the business was not going to proceed then they wouldn’t encourage them to carry on.
Moving onto events that the £9,000 local distinctiveness contributed to. Highlighted were the South Midlands Bike Nights road closures. Mr Riley was asked why we were paying towards it. In response Mr Riley stated that he had been asked a long time ago to set up bike nights and he had agreed to pay for the road closure for 12 months. A member asked Mr Riley if he knew if there was going to be another Polish Day in 2018 and he said he would be delighted to support it as it was a great success. Members commented that they were delighted with the new tourist signs and were looking forward to seeing the “welcome to Evesham” signs too.
It was proposed by Cllr Mrs Smith and seconded by Cllr Raphael and RESOLVED that £15,000 be included in the budget for 2018/19.
88. Planning Applications
a) 17/01395/OUT – Active Technologies Ltd – Land Crab Apple Way Evesham
The proposed Development of B1, B2 and B8 Units with strategic road access, associated attenuation and perimeter landscape buffers at land to the East of Crab Apple Way
https://plan.wychavon.gov.uk/plandisp.aspx?recno=91776
It was RESOLVED to recommend that this application be approved.
b) 17/01643/FUL – Commercial Buildings Bromsgrove Ltd – Land Adjacent Woodlands Generators Limited, Plot 3 Crab Apple Way
Erection of three new industrial units under the use categories B1, B2 and B8
https://plan.wychavon.gov.uk/plandisp.aspx?recno=92023
It was RESOLVED to recommend that this application be approved.
c) 17/01942/HP – Mr & Mrs J Townsend – 16 Evendene Road
Proposed replacement garage
https://plan.wychavon.gov.uk/plandisp.aspx?recno=92322
It was RESOLVED to recommend that this application be approved subject to the proposal not adversely affecting neighbouring properties.
89. Conclusion of the annual audit
A report was circulated with the agenda detailing that the council’s annual audit had been signed off by the external auditor.
A couple of points had been raised. One was regarding petty cash which we were resolving by phasing out petty cash. The second was the amount of time the notice to inspect was displayed.
Members NOTED the report.
90. Reports from Council’s Representatives
The Mayor informed members that there was to be a “Poundland Trolley Dash” at the new Poundland store on 10th October at 9.15am in aid of Wallace House. He encouraged members of the council to support it.
91. Matters of urgency raised, for information only, at the discretion of the Town Mayor
It was highlighted that the planning application by Hallam Management Company was to be put to the planning committee at Wychavon District Council and that a representative from the Town Council should attend the meeting to reinforce the council’s opposition to the development as it stood. It was RESOLVED that Cllr Richard Jones, Mayor of Evesham, should attend the meeting at WDC to affirm the town councils opposition to this application.
There being no further business, the meeting closed at 7.55pm
COUNCILLOR R S W JONES
TOWN MAYOR