Cabinet - Thursday 10 July 2025, 6:00pm - Vote_events Tab - Cotswold District Council Webcasting

Cabinet
Thursday, 10th July 2025 at 6:00pm 

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  1. Councillor Mike Evemy
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  1. Councillor Andrea Pellegram
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  1. 04 To approve the minutes 8 May 2025
    Status: In progress
  2. 04 To approve the minutes 8 May 2025
    Status: Ended
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  1. Councillor Tristan Wilkinson
  2. Councillor Mike Evemy
  3. Councillor Paul Hodgkinson
  4. Councillor Mike Evemy
  5. Councillor Juliet Layton
  6. Councillor Mike Evemy
  7. Councillor Andrea Pellegram
  8. Councillor Patrick Coleman
  9. Councillor Andrea Pellegram
  10. Councillor Andrea Pellegram
  11. Councillor Mike Evemy
  12. 04 To approve the minutes 8 May 2025
    Status: In progress
  13. Councillor Tristan Wilkinson
  14. Councillor Mike Evemy
  15. 09 Achieving corporate Net Zero - APPROVE recommendation 2
    Status: Ended
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  1. Councillor Paul Hodgkinson
  2. Councillor Mike Evemy
  3. Councillor Juliet Layton
  4. Councillor Mike Evemy
  5. Officer
  6. Councillor Mike Evemy
  7. Councillor Tristan Wilkinson
  8. Councillor Mike Evemy
  9. Councillor Paul Hodgkinson
  10. Councillor Mike Evemy
  11. 10 Creative Cotswolds Action Plan - APPROVE recommendation
    Status: In progress
  12. Councillor Mike Evemy
  13. 10 Creative Cotswolds Action Plan - APPROVE recommendation
    Status: Ended
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  1. Councillor Patrick Coleman
  2. Councillor Mike Evemy
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  1. Councillor Juliet Layton
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  4. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  5. Councillor Mike Evemy
  6. Councillor Mike Evemy
  7. Officer
  8. Councillor Mike Evemy
  9. Councillor Tristan Wilkinson
  10. Councillor Mike Evemy
  11. 12 PAS review and Action plan - APPROVE recommendations 1-2 as amended
    Status: In progress
  12. Councillor Mike Evemy
  13. 12 PAS review and Action plan - APPROVE recommendations 1-2 as amended
    Status: Ended
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  1. Councillor Juliet Layton
  2. Councillor Mike Evemy
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  4. Councillor Mike Evemy
  5. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  6. Councillor Mike Evemy
  7. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  8. Councillor Mike Evemy
  9. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  10. Councillor Mike Evemy
  11. Councillor Paul Hodgkinson
  12. Councillor Mike Evemy
  13. Councillor Patrick Coleman
  14. Councillor Mike Evemy
  15. Officer
  16. Officer
  17. Councillor Mike Evemy
  18. Councillor Andrea Pellegram
  19. Councillor Mike Evemy
  20. Councillor Tristan Wilkinson
  21. Councillor Mike Evemy
  22. Councillor Juliet Layton
  23. Councillor Mike Evemy
  24. Councillor Mike Evemy
  25. 13. Local Plan Update - APPROVE recommendation 1
    Status: In progress
  26. 13. Local Plan Update - APPROVE recommendation 1
    Status: Ended
  27. 13 Local Plan update - APPROVE recommendations 2-5
    Status: In progress
  28. Councillor Mike Evemy
  29. 13 Local Plan update - APPROVE recommendations 2-5
    Status: Ended
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  1. Councillor Andrea Pellegram
  2. Councillor Mike Evemy
  3. 14 HMO fee policy and standards - APPROVE recommendations 1-2
    Status: In progress
  4. Councillor Andrea Pellegram
  5. Councillor Mike Evemy
  6. 14 HMO fee policy and standards - APPROVE recommendations 1-2
    Status: Ended
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  1. Councillor Andrea Pellegram
  2. Councillor Paul Hodgkinson
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  4. Councillor Mike Evemy
  5. Councillor Juliet Layton
  6. Councillor Mike Evemy
  7. Councillor Patrick Coleman
  8. Councillor Mike Evemy
  9. Councillor Juliet Layton
  10. Councillor Mike Evemy
  11. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  12. Councillor Paul Hodgkinson
  13. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  14. Councillor Mike Evemy
  15. Councillor Mike Evemy
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  1. David Stanley, Deputy CEO
  2. Councillor Mike Evemy
  3. Councillor Patrick Coleman
  4. Councillor Mike Evemy
  5. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  6. Councillor Mike Evemy
  7. Councillor Paul Hodgkinson
  8. Councillor Gina Blomefield
  9. Councillor Mike Evemy
  10. 16 Financial Perf Report Q4 - APPROVE recommendations 3 & 4
    Status: In progress
  11. 16 Financial Perf Report Q4 - APPROVE recommendations 3 & 4
    Status: Ended
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  1. Webcast Finished

Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:00:05
Good evening colleagues to this meeting of Cotswold District Council's cabinet.
My name is Mike Everny.
I'm the leader chairing my first meeting as leader of the council.
I will start with apologies.
I understand we've got apologies from Mike McEwen and Claire Bloomer.
Okay, so the next item is declarations of interest.

2 Declarations of Interest

Any members have declarations they would wish to make?
Andrea.
Councillor Andrea Pellegram - 0:00:36
Thank you, Chair.
You don't need to stand up.
I don't need to stand up.
Thank you.
I have a declaration of interest with regard to, I believe it's item 16 on HMOs.
Just to let everybody know, I am a landlord and I have three unrelated tenants, which
makes me the owner of an HMO, but it is not a licensable HMO,
and therefore I've spoken to the monitoring officer,
and I am allowed to take part in the decision.
Thank you, Andrea.
Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:01:08
Just for clarity, that's Agenda Item 14, not 16.
All right.
Any other declarations of interest?
No.
Just move on then to my announcements.

3 Leader's Announcements

I'm aware it's rather warm in here so obviously we will be giving due
consideration to all the items of business but I'm conscious that it's
rather warm and so we don't want to be here for a very very long time. So I'll
do my best to move through the agenda and give everything the due diligence
it needs and I'm very conscious it's a long agenda but as colleagues will
recall we didn't have a meeting in June and we don't have one in August so we do
have a heavy agenda this evening. The other announcement I'd like to make is
to welcome Jane Portman sat next to me, newly appointed Chief Executive Officer
to her first meeting of the Cabinet. Welcome Jane. Okay we'll now move on to

4 Minutes

minutes. The minutes are on pages 7 to 14 in the in the agenda pack. I have one
thing I would like to address before we vote on the minutes or discuss them. You
will note our last meeting in May was the day after we had our VE celebrations
here in the council chamber and we were joined on that occasion and it's
referred to in the minutes by Alan McQuillan, a 102 year old D -Day veteran
from Kemble. I have to sadly report for those members and colleagues who haven't
heard that he sadly passed away earlier this week so I wonder if we could just stand for
a minute to pay respects to him.
Thank you, colleagues.
Does anyone have any questions or matters of fact on the minutes of our last meeting
they wish to raise? Otherwise I assume they will work while we are happy with those. I
will move them from the chair. Do I have a seconder for those minutes? Juliet. Okay,
That's four against and two abstentions.
Sorry, four against.
Four in favour and two abstentions.
So the minutes are carried.
Thank you.
Okay.
So the next item on the agenda is public questions.
Do we have any members?

5 Public Questions

I can't see any members of the public at the back of the chamber wishing to ask a question.
There are none.
So we will move to member questions.

6 Member Questions

note that we have no member questions submitted so we will move on to agenda

7 Schedule of Decisions taken by the Leader of the Council and/or Individual Cabinet Members

item 7 pages 15 -16 on hard copy just to note the decisions taken by the cabinet
member communities unfortunately can't be with us this evening about some
telephone boxes in 16 locations across the district. I think we're just noting

8 Issue(s) Arising from Overview and Scrutiny and/or Audit and Governance

that so we'll then move on. Agenda item 8 issues arising from the overview and scrutiny
and or audit and governance. I note that we do have recommendations from overview and
scrutiny committee held two meetings earlier in this week and we're joined this evening
by the chair of the committee, Councillor Bloomfield. What I would like to do Gina is
take your committee's recommendations when we get to the item. So we're dealing with
them directly when the item is to be considered, if that's okay.
Yep, that's good.
Right, so we will note that and we'll come back to those.

9 Achieving Corporate Net Zero

We'll then move on to Agenda Item 9, which is achieving
corporate net zero.
Mike McEwen, unfortunately, couldn't be with us this
evening, as he was...
This was originally scheduled, obviously, to be in the June
meeting so unfortunately he's unable to join us so I will be presenting it on on his behalf.
I'm very pleased to present the report which highlights the fantastic progress we've made
on climate action. Since the last scorecard we've made one of the largest improvements in the country
rising more than 90 places nationally and moving from the lower third to the top six of all
district councils. Our overall score has nearly doubled with some categories like food waste food
of transport and biodiversity, showing the most dramatic leaps.
Cotswold is now among the top 30 councils out of over 160 districts nationally, and
one of the very best in terms of progress made over the last two years.
Our latest climate action scorecard shows a dramatic improvement over 2023.
This is a real testament to the hard work and dedication of our officers, portfolio
leads and partners across CDC.
Thank you to everyone involved.
it really shows what we can achieve when we work together and focus our efforts.
But we all know there's still a long way to go. As the report sets out, we remain committed to our
2030 CO2 reduction goals, but we face big challenges, particularly in tackling our two
largest sources of emissions, the waste fleet, which still runs on diesel, and our council
buildings, especially the main sites like here in Trinity Road, and our leisure centres, which rely
heavily on gas. We do need detailed deliverable plans to address these areas.
And while the council must show leadership we also need to continue
encouraging and supporting our residents and local businesses to take their own
actions. Programs such as Cotswold Home Solar and Home Energy Initiative
Initiative, Home Energy Efficiency Initiative and EV charger deployments are
enabling households and businesses across the district to cut costs and
carbon. The benefits go beyond emissions, warmer, more efficient homes and
businesses, cleaner air, quieter streets in our towns and villages and improved
health that helps take pressure off the NHS. This is a win -win for everyone who
lives and works in the Cotswolds. That's why tonight we're asking Cabinet to
approve the creation of a Council Climate Board. This new board will bring
together Cabinet leads, officers and partners to drive progress and embed
climate action across all our work streams, making sure we stay on track and seize the
opportunities for a greener, more resilient Cotswolds.
I'm looking forward to working with you and of course, Councillor McEwen and all of our
colleagues to deliver on this ambitious agenda.
So that's my introduction.
So I'm therefore proposing the recommendations on page 17 of the hard
copy papers which is to resolve to note the position is set out in the report
Annex A and actions to close the emissions performance gap and agree the
creation of a corporate climate change board to provide accountability for an
emission reduction program. Colleagues, was there anything any officers wish to add? I'm
conscious that the officer that's done most of the work on this couldn't be with us this
evening. But are there any other observations? Tristan, Councillor Wilkinson.
Councillor Tristan Wilkinson - 0:09:44
Well, I will be seconding this and I think that the team's done a remarkable amount of
and made real progress in a very short period of time.
I think it's important we keep going.
So we shouldn't be complacent.
It would be great to get to number one.
So absolutely, I think Mike's, anybody that's met Mike
and had a conversation about this will know this is a genuine passion.
This is not a portfolio that he was never going to take responsibility for.
So it's brilliant.
I think that when you see progress like this, it should absolutely spur us on.
So I hope this new board will take us to the next level.
Thanks, Tristan.
Paul?
Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:10:23
Yeah, I think I just congratulations to Mike
Councillor Paul Hodgkinson - 0:10:26
for everything he's achieved in the two years he's
been on the cabinet.
The progress has been phenomenal already for this council.
But I just wanted to mention the words climate change,
because this is what this report was all about.
And just a few facts.
We're on our third heat wave already this summer.
We're feeling it in this room now.
It was the driest spring on record.
It was the hottest June on record.
We're now in a drought situation.
Anyone with a garden will know just how challenging just
keeping plants alive at the moment are.
We've had the terrible floods in Texas.
I could go on.
We know that, you know, these are desperate sort of things
really, these are record -breaking things.
Every single year we're getting record -breaking things.
something really strong is happening that you know we hope has not gone so
far that we can't reverse some of it but the work that Mike's doing with this
council we're doing our small bit to help alleviate some of the terrible
Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:11:28
things that are going on. Thanks Paul. Julia. Thank you yeah I again I
Councillor Juliet Layton - 0:11:31
echo both
Tristan and Paul there on that but I would just like to draw a bit of attention on
2 .3 in the papers, there's a couple of lines,
four lines, which I'll read out.
The strength of our action on climate change has been assessed
by climate emergency via the council's climate plan
scorecards.
The most recent in 2025 scored us third in place of all
Gloucestershire councils with a score of 45%.
We have changed dramatically to get to that.
It's fantastic.
And I think it is really setting a standard for local government
reorganisation when we become if we become a unitary or whatever is going to
happen to us I think it's a really good standard for the other councils to be
Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:12:20
working the way we are in climate emergency. Thank you. Patrick. Thank
Councillor Andrea Pellegram - 0:12:22
you.
Thank you chair. I very briefly wanted to say how pleased and encouraged I am to
Councillor Patrick Coleman - 0:12:31
see that the corporate climate change board will be ideal in that it will be small and
extremely high powered and obviously extremely knowledgeable in the relevant areas.
Council leader, cabinet member who we've already heard about, chief executive, deputy chief
executive director of committees in place and climate change league.
You couldn't make it any smaller.
You wouldn't want it any bigger.
And the talent there is, I won't say astonishing, but it's very encouraging.
And just in passing, too many outside councils in particular,
corporates, talk about low hanging fruit and quick wins,
which is usually a way of hoping that the individual who says
them will get a quick promotion.
This hasn't been a case of quick wins,
but it is the case that the further we go in tackling
climate change, the tougher it gets.
And I'm sure we're up to the task.
Thank you.
Thank you, Patrick.
Councillor Andrea Pellegram - 0:13:23
Andrea.
Thank you, Chair.
Councillor Andrea Pellegram - 0:13:28
I just wanted to add, I'm brand new to this role on the cabinet, but I'm already working very closely with officers.
We've got a great team in place, really impressive officers, really well, just super knowledgeable.
And we are seriously looking at how we can decarbonize a waste fleet and reduce our emissions and improve our services overall.
So I just wanted to give everyone that reassurance because we're one of the biggest culprits.
Thank you.
Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:13:57
Thanks for that. The current portfolio holder for waste recycling.
It's been proposed by the two former
portfolio holders in the last couple of years, and I think we both know
how significant that is and we've both been in conversations with officers about that.
And as you say, we are looking closely at how we can tackle that because as you can
see from the report, it's 43 % of our emissions are the diesel that's burnt as our vehicles
go around collecting the waste and recycling across our very large district.
Any other members?
No, I think you've all spoken.
So just bringing it back, I think, in terms of thank you for all the comments you've made.
And I think, you know, acknowledgement of the work
and the leadership that Mike McEwen has shown,
and Olivia McGregor is the officer that has led on this,
working with Mike as our climate change
and carbon reduction lead.
And I think I just wanted to add, you know,
essentially Mike looked at this when he took
to the portfolio two years ago,
because this was a new initiative two years ago.
And whilst we had done a lot in that first four years
on climate change, we hadn't done the things
that tick the boxes for this scorecard.
And with Mike was absolutely rigorous in, you know,
we're gonna get ourselves up this scorecard
because, you know, we have done a lot,
but it wasn't coming through in terms of what we had done.
So he had been very focused on looking at how we can
demonstrate that we as a council
were doing what we needed to do.
And it's great that he's been able to deliver this outcome
for us in terms of the scorecard.
And obviously now, as we move forward,
looking at how other councils have driven climate action,
the Climate Board is you know has been used successfully in other councils to
continue to drive action to tackle climate emergency and decarbonize what
we're doing as a council. So with that we proposed it, I propose Tristan
seconded. I'm going to move that we take the vote.
Councillor Tristan Wilkinson - 0:16:05
Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:16:14
Thank you everybody. Six in favour. No against, no abstentions. Thanks very much.

10 Creative Cotswolds Action Plan - Culture Strategy

Now we'll now move on to Agenda Item 10, page 41 for those with hard copies.
Creative Cotswolds, a culture strategy for the Cotswolds district.
This is going to be introduced by Councillor Paul Hodgkinson.
Thank you very much.
Councillor Paul Hodgkinson - 0:16:34
Yeah, so what we're talking about here is Creative Cotswolds.
and really what it's about is celebrating and connecting local culture.
Now I mean I'm sure most of you would agree that Cotswold District is home to a
fantastic mix of cultural gems and I just want to name -check a few from you
know the historic treasures like the Carinha Museum to vibrant newer venues
like the Barn Theatre which has already established itself as a nationally
recognised theatre. The Cider Mill Theatre is a new theatre in Chipping Camden. We've
got festivals like the Phoenix Festival in Syrinsester, the Longborough Opera, which
I went to at the weekend. Galleries, we've got music, creative spaces like the Tepry
Good Shed and Newbury Arts is also at the forefront of arts in Syrinsester too. So all
those things make the area very special, not just for us as residents but also for visitors.
We have radio stations. We have artists. We have music famous musicians living in the Cotswolds
There's so much there now two years ago when I took on this cabinet role. I went around the district
Discovering and rediscovering really all of these things and talking to the many people who offer
cultural
Offerings that we have locally now they all do an amazing job
But one thing that I felt from all the conversations I had that could really help
for them is more promotion, more awareness of the national and
international reputation that they have,
and better connections with each other.
And that definitely came out in all the conversations I had.
So to help our cultural sector thrive,
what we are looking to launch today with your vote in a
second is the Creative Cotswolds Strategy,
which is basically a shared plan to bring local organizations
together, support collaboration and celebrate what makes our area unique.
Now originally before local government reorganisation was on the cards this was going to be a full -blown
strategy for the district but we've got to be realistic about it now.
We know that likely, most likely outcome is this council will not exist anymore in two
to three years time.
So therefore what we've done instead is changed the strategy into an action plan which actually
fits pretty comfortably with me because it's a series of things that we've
either started doing or we're going to do. So what is Creative Cops Rules? Well
basically it's an open partnership where local cultural groups and venues can
work together on events and promotions, share ideas, share data, share success
stories, strengthen funding bids with a united voice and find new ways to reach
and include local people. Well why now? I guess our district already does have a
strong cultural scene as I've described it.
But I think by joining forces together we can
boost the local economy and tourism.
We can make cultural activities more visible
and accessible, boost well -being, and give our
creative organizations more support and influence.
What's planned?
Well, some things have already happened because
one of the things I identified a couple of
years ago that the Cotswolds had no permanent
art exhibition anywhere actually, but already now
in the Sorencestre town council building in Sorencestre, the Bingham Library I think it's called,
that there is now a permanent exhibition space. So that's already happened.
But more practically going forward what we will have is regular meetings between the cultural organisations to coordinate efforts,
using the hashtag, hashtag creativecotswolds to raise awareness online,
featuring culture events more prominently on the website cotswolds .com,
encouraging cross -promotion between organizations, and
finally sharing insights with data to show the impact of
culture on our local economy.
So finally, then, what does this mean for all of us?
Well, if you live in or visit the Cotswolds, you'll see a
much more joined -up promotion of events and festivals.
You'll see new opportunities to get involved in cultural
activities, and you'll see a stronger, more visible
cultural scene that really celebrates our local talent and heritage. So Creative
Co -ops World is about celebrating what makes our district special and making
sure that everyone has the chance to enjoy, create and connect through culture.
I therefore ask you to support this paper today. Thank you. Thank you Paul.
Julia.
Yeah, I'm really happy to second this.
Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:21:16
Councillor Juliet Layton - 0:21:17
It's really exciting and as soon as anybody starts talking about culture or the, you know, that we've got a gallery at the Bingham and I'm thinking,
oh yeah, Laurie Plant is our local artist. He's got an exhibition at the moment. We've got one of his paintings over there.
So as soon as we start talking about it, it makes you think of other things that we've
got in the district or for me, I guess in Siren's system, I don't think you mentioned
the Sundial, which is another theatre and it's used for amateur dramatics and we have
comedians, you know, professionals coming there as well.
So there's lots going on everywhere.
I would like to mention Cotswold Lakes because there is a big website which Chris Jackson,
our tourist officer in tourism, he knows all about that.
And it's run by the Cotswold Lakes Trust with links to lots of events and companies, businesses
within the lakes.
Obviously, there are a lot of them that aren't quite cultural if we're thinking paddleboarding,
except we've got a fab picture. That's pretty cultural, isn't it?
You know, things come from other things, but they also have...
There's a brewery that does comedy. They have comedy nights.
They have music nights, and many of our pubs do the same.
So the culture is out there.
There's lots to be had of such a wide variety,
from Longborough to having a pint and listening to, you know,
somebody pretending to be Freddie Mercury in a pub or whatever.
We have a huge range and that, actually I shouldn't have said Freddie Mercury
because he was pretty operatic, but we have a huge range and I really support
this and I think it's great having this strategy. Thank you Paul.
Before I come to Tristan, there's Joseph at the back who's the report author.
Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:23:20
So Joseph have you got anything that you would like to add to what has been said already?
Officer - 0:23:25
I think Councillor Hodgkinson's introduction was very eloquent and thorough.
The only thing I would note is on the timing in terms of Phase 2 of the public review.
As of the start of the month, we have a Leisure and Culture Manager now in post dedicated
to Cotswold District Council and recruiting a support officer to assist her in that role.
So that gives us the capacity to help kind of service this new network and the work coming
out of it.
Thank you.
Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:23:54
Thanks, Joseph.
Tristan?
Councillor Tristan Wilkinson - 0:23:58
Well, I'm really excited about this.
As a failed artist myself who endeavors to get noticed,
I see this as an opportunity to platform myself.
I'd also like to thank Juliet for my recent Freddie Mercury impersonation
and appreciating that.
On a more serious note, I think this is brilliant.
I would like to make sure that Paul and my portfolios join up
because a lot of the organizations you're talking about are also local businesses.
And I see a real opportunity to celebrate one of the, if not unique,
one of the particularly enduring and special things about our local community.
A lot of businesses across the country are struggling.
If this is a way that we can celebrate both our cultural heritage
and support those local businesses at the same time,
I think we should explore every opportunity to do so.
Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:24:53
Anyone else got anything to add?
Paul, do you want to say anything in summing up?
Just, no, thank you for the comments, everybody.
Councillor Paul Hodgkinson - 0:25:02
And Freddie Mercury came out twice, so now he's been mentioned three times.
You know, there you are. That's how famous he is.
That's about legacy, isn't it? Creative legacy.
No, I'm very excited about it, too. It's been a long time coming.
I think, you know, just to echo your point, Tristan,
is there's so much crossover with the economy and wellbeing,
so there is a definite link from making this happen to boosting the economy not
just for our local businesses but tourism too and boosting well -being
isn't it so all around it's it's a sort of double whammy isn't it it's great to
see it thank you Paul for all the work that you've done and for Joseph and the
Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:25:40
other officers who brought this forward it's exciting to hear yeah that we've
going to be doing even more on culture going forward.
Go to the vote, please.
Thank you.
Six votes in favor.
Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:25:59
There's only six of us, so there's no one against
or abstaining.
So thank you very much for that.
We'll now move on to item 11, Corporate Peer Challenge

11 LGA Corporate Peer Challenge Progress Review

Progress Report.
So those of you who weren't all on the council even, and Councillor Pellegran wasn't a
councillor when we had this visit from the LGA back in November last year.
The original peer challenge was done in October of 2022, but the update and the follow -up
it was delayed in order to be able to accommodate and to look at the changes
following the first stage of the public transition so that's why the review was
done back in November of 2024. You'll see as in having read the report it was a
positive report in terms of what we had done in response to the earlier report
and the changes that we've made, particularly noted in the
governance areas and the strengthening of overview
and scrutiny.
And we said we've got the chair here this evening and the work
that they're doing scrutinizing us, which Gina will be telling
us about shortly.
And in terms of the work that we've done clearly, myself as
the former portfolio holder, together with the deputy chief
executive on our finances, they looked at how we transitioned
the first phase and gave us some thoughts about how to do the second
phase which should note and maybe slightly remiss of me although I did
speak in public to the staff on Monday but to welcome the staff who came back
on the 1st of July or who moved to the council employ on the 1st of July as
part of the the public transition and one of the things that the review group
suggested to us is that we needed to look at that in light of potential
changes that were at that point rumoured about local government reorganisation.
And also we found out in December that potentially we're being abolished. So
clearly officers across the councils then had to think about what that meant
for the public a transition. And so you will recall that at the council meeting
in March we agreed the phase two of the public had transitioned and we discussed that matter
and what was transferring and what maybe was originally planned to but didn't, the staff
didn't end up transferring as a consequence.
There's quite a bit about organisational culture in the report and how we work together.
I'm sure particularly that's something that I will be working on with the new chief executive
that to my left because what we have been doing clearly is setting a new look
working on a new people and culture strategy for the organization so that's
work that's obviously still going on as we stand but this is really here this
evening for completeness because it is going to be considered by council next
week so the opportunity for us to talk about it more then with a wider
selection of members and we're just noting it at the moment so we don't have
to vote on it. Has anybody got anything else to say about it before we move on
Councillor Patrick Coleman - 0:29:37
to the next item? Councillor Coleman. Thank you chair very briefly if one is
to look at the introduction in particular pages 60 and all the positive
points that are made here there is a genuine and very striking contrast with
the way things used to be seven, eight, nine, ten years ago.
Now, the change has been gradual,
but I think it's been particularly well done
in the last few years, and the compliment made
to the chair of scrutiny, the approach of the chair
has seemed to have been absolutely integral
and an element within this is the remit given
through the constitution for the opposition
to hold that position.
That is a form of transformation,
and it has been positive,
and I'd just like to take the opportunity
to also credit the vice chair of that committee,
Gary Selwyn, who had to leave the council
for personal reasons and also because he wants
to get a life, I suspect.
No, I'll withdraw that remark.
Serious point being, they were a great
cross -party leadership team and as I say,
compared with the experiences back in the midst of time,
I would hardly believe that we could have done so well
with Overview and Scrutley.
I even feel a little bit nervous facing them myself.
Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:30:51
Thank you Patrick and as you know I very much enjoy the scrutiny of the ONS
committee and yourself included when you've been subbing on that and yeah I
think it's a culture change isn't it? We made a commitment as an administration
to have the opposition chair, the scrutiny committee, an opposition member
and we've now put that in the Constitution and you know we are doing
the pre -scrutiny and we're going to see the outputs of that shortly and the value of the
pre -scrutiny work that the committee has done will be manifested in the discussion that
we have on the next couple of items.
So yeah, I think we definitely have and as some of you may know, I am a member peer and
I do have been to a few other councils and looked at their processes and I can be very
proud of the way that we have strengthened our overview and scrutiny
and I'm often advising other councils to do the same so which is great to do but
I'm sure we'll have more discussion about that next week so I don't wish to
prolong anything as everybody we're just noting this report so we will then move

12 Planning Advisory Service (PAS) Peer Review and Action Plan

on so to agenda item 12 page 79 this is about the planning service peer
Challenge report.
Just before I hand over to Juliet Layton to just to
introduce this report, I do wish to change the
recommendations slightly.
That might be my caution, but I'm, we changed the word
endorse to welcome, because we welcome the report, and
we then agree the resultant action plan rather than
endorse the action plan, because it's going to be
our action plan.
Once we agree it this evening, obviously been prepared by our officers.
So that's just with those small changes.
That's what I'm asking the cabinet to agree to and I now hand over to Juliet to introduce the report.
Then I will then go to the offices to add anything they wish to to what Juliet said.
Then I will come to Councillor Blumfeld to share with us the overview and scrutiny committee's view on this.
and talk us through their recommendations to us,
which we will then give a response to.
So, Juliet, over to you.
Thank you.
Councillor Juliet Layton - 0:33:16
Well, as Mike said, over you in scrutiny,
I haven't seen this report, and we, and the team of officers
that are here with us today, this evening,
we were in scrutiny.
and they were very thorough in their remarks.
But the report recommends that we, as Mike said,
that we did endorse, but we are going to welcome this report.
And I shouldn't answer a better word, actually.
PAS were invited to run a planning service peer challenge
and they visited us over 25th and the 27th of March.
There were three days, and it was, they met a lot of people
in those three days.
And it was to assess our strengths and identify
areas of improvement.
And I think members reading this report will all be able to
engage with what they've said, because all members are always
engaged in planning in one form or another, whether it's
casework, whether they're on the planning committee.
all members are directly affected by planning and development management.
When they gave us a briefing in this chamber, which everybody was invited to,
our brand new Assistant Director of Planning Services, Geri Le Coint, was here.
It should be like two days, I think, or maybe it was even your first day, I can't remember.
And we had the Director of Communities in Place came in specially.
That was Helen Martin because she hadn't yet started.
And having these two people within our DM team,
I think has given us great stability.
But in spite of that, before that report,
before they were here, the report was written.
And it talks strongly about the strength of the team downstairs,
the way they work together, the community.
And there's some really positive things in here.
We've got, they set out a plan and Jerry has produced an action
plan, which I believe we can meet those actions in those
timescales because of the strength that we have now within
the team.
And having said that, I'm not saying that our, you know,
we had two really good agency interim people who worked very
well with the team and they kept us going.
But they did other sort of work.
And I believe that the plan here is really well worth reading,
if you've not read your action plan.
And I fully support it.
And I've got, if anybody has any questions,
or we've got recommendations from overview and scrutiny.
I don't know whether Gina wants to talk about those,
because they were.
Yeah, I'm going to go to Gina.
You're going to go to Gina?
Anyway.
But I'm going to go to the officer first.
Officers first.
Okay.
So, officers first then.
Thank you.
Officer - 0:36:24
Jerry, if you introduce yourself to the cabinet and to people
watching at home and then add obviously to anything you'd like
to to what Juliet has said.
Thank you.
I am Jerry LeCointe and I am the Assistant Director of Planning
Services now at Cotswold.
And as Juliet has said, I arrived the week of the past
peer review, so I was lucky enough to hear in person all the very positive things that
they had to say about the service. Obviously that includes planning policy, development
management, enforcement, so the whole of the planning service.
We have decided to bring forward all of the 13 actions that they recommended. That is
ambitious but there is a real appetite within the service to address all of
these issues and do our best to improve and for us this is a real springboard to
not only make services better for the residents of the district and all the
customers that we work with the developers and agents town of parish
councils, et cetera.
But I think it also puts us on a good footing for local
government reorganisation as we move forward to that.
So I am very grateful to all the support that members gave
to this peer review.
And just to clarify that we will be looking to update to Juliet
as portfolio holder on a regular basis with all of the actions
that we have set out here and to do our best to meet the time scales which are referred
to against each action in the action plan.
Thank you.
Thank you, Geri.
I'm going to go to Councillor Bloomfield now if you'd like to talk to
Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:38:23
us about ONS's deliberations.
This was Tuesday afternoon, the second stint, wasn't it?
And you can talk to us to the recommendations.
I think we've got three that your committee made.
Yes, well, thank you.
First of all, I want to say for all the reports that we had,
they were fantastic, well -written,
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 0:38:43
easily understood, and much appreciated.
So we felt that that was a very good starting point.
Yes, the recommendations, it was mainly,
there always has been, it's an ongoing concern
at Overview and Scrutiny is enforcement, whether it is resourced sufficiently, and I know one
of the superb, he has been very helpful for me anyway, enforcement officers are leaving
tomorrow, so we do feel that we want to have that properly resourced as an area of importance.
So that was the one thing.
And also that we also mention that I know that sometimes it's sensitive confidentiality
reality and things, the work that enforcement officers are doing, but there are perhaps
more occasions when they could engage with their local ward members, because they can
sometimes give a bit of insight, maybe help it along, maybe help resolve it before it
goes on longer. So in fact what it may do is actually ease their burden, finish that
casework more easily on occasions, and we just feel there are certain occasions when
That would be helpful.
So that was enforcement.
The other thing which we discussed around,
and of course it's a great thing, AI, it's everywhere,
but making better use of the technology available.
And I know this is being looked at in the department anyway,
but we just feel that it's not just making it available.
I understand there has been some software available,
but it hasn't been utilised to its capacity.
And that's all, it's not because anybody wishes to,
but it's the training, the involvement,
the change of process and the support in enabling
planning officers to use that as much as possible
to make maybe writing reports a bit more straightforward
and that sort of thing.
So those are the main things which came out.
I'm not going to let you, I could talk forever about all this.
We had two three -hour meetings earlier this week.
I certainly don't want to make this another three -hour meeting.
If there's any important thing anybody wants to ask me about it, please do.
Thank you.
Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:40:57
I think some of us watched some, if not all, of the online.
Some of us were present at the meeting.
So I just want to come back with the response that I'm going to give on behalf of Cabinet
to the specific recommendations that you your committee made, Councillor
Broomfield. The first one was about ward members and enforcement. What we have
said we would like an all -member briefing to be held on planning
enforcement so that these issues can be discussed in a forum and the officers
can share their constraints which I know they have legalities and things like
that so that members understand that but also I think also that officers
understand sometimes the issues that members are dealing with in their own
wards and the perception that can be can exist that the council isn't doing
anything or isn't doing anything quick enough and I think we need to bring the
officers and the members closer together and we appreciate the the challenges of
recruitment but I think and then the second part of that is that you know we
need to look at how we improve with members of communication to us about
what's going on with the enforcement. That's something we can we can take
forward I think with the officers but it absolutely it's quite a big issue from
members across the whole council. I think we all get contacted by residents about
apparent lack of enforcement. Actually there's a potential reputational risk if
you know, we as a planning authority make decisions on something and then if they're
not seen to be pursued when somebody ignores them, it does damage to our reputation.
So I think from us, you know, we are cognizant of that and we'll hope to get members and
officers together to have a shared understanding of what the challenges and the issues are
and see how we can improve the communication on this between the officers and members.
Recognising that, you know, we recognise there can be confidentiality matters, but we need
to do more and improve that.
The second one was about IT.
We fully support the help of colleagues in ICT to help maximise digital and technological
innovation.
I'm looking here to my right to Councillor Wilkinson, with his portfolio, transformation,
just picking up on what you were saying, Gina, about software, and it's not, as he often
tells me it's not about the software, it's helping people use it. Software is no good
if people don't use it. So I'm looking to, and obviously we are recruiting a transformation
team. We already have one member of that team and we'll have a second one, so that might
be an area we might want to focus on, Tristan, in fairly early days, as the benefits could
be seen from that. And the last one, recruitment opposed to planning enforcement. Clearly it's
been a challenge and we've seen that in recent years and we get people in and
then they move on to something else. It's not necessarily everyone's cup of tea to
work in planning enforcement but what we're saying is that a cabinet is that we
want it to be a priority for the planning team within their existing
resources. My understanding is the issue is not that we don't have the money to
play for planning enforcement officers is that we struggle to keep them. So
that's obviously a matter of looking at officers, chief executive and the Jerry
over there to do what they can obviously to to get the staffing because you know
often I think residents here that you know we don't have enough staff so sorry
we can't enforce and you know we need to come to a point whereby you know we have
enough we have the staff that we need to deliver the service that we're happy
with, and I think we've struggled with that over
recent years.
So, looking in terms of the improvements, Gerry,
and it's great, I really welcome the action plan
that you've put together.
That's one of the things that I know is in there,
in terms of how can we make sure that we can resource
planning enforcement.
Is there anybody else who wants to say anything else
on this, Tristan?
You wanted to come back, and then Tristan.
Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:45:13
Officer - 0:45:16
Just very quickly, I fully endorse the idea of
communicating much better with more members so I'm looking forward to
setting that up. We can help communicate better and help understand
what the difficulties are that we have so I think that's a really good idea and
I'm looking forward to being involved with that. The other thing is to say that
it is nationally difficult to recruit to planning enforcement so Cotswold
is not alone however we have potentially got some leads within the service which
we're very excited to investigate further and if it comes off it would be
a huge asset because we're actually talking about one of the planning
officers who possibly is interested in moving across to enforcement so not only
do they know the district but they also know planning and that is a huge asset
so we are doing everything that we can to try to encourage and build that team
but thank you very much again for your support. Thanks Geri. Tristan. Thank you
Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:46:19
There's not much I get excited about, but I'm really excited about this because I think
Councillor Tristan Wilkinson - 0:46:21
every single parish council meeting I go to, enforcement comes up.
And I've learned a lot in the last two hours about enforcement, probably more than I have
in the last couple of months.
There's clearly a big disconnect between the reality of enforcement and what the public
and most parish councillors think and expect.
I think we can probably help ourselves and help our communities by just explaining things better.
So I'm glad that the officers supports that.
On the use of IT, I think that actually if we create a modern best practice environment,
I think that will help with retention as well.
I suspect one of the things that is quite frustrating is that the workload and everything
can probably sometimes feel a bit overwhelming and I can imagine it grinds people down after a while.
I think if we can help people prioritize, triage the workload,
get through it more rapidly, I think that will be a really
positive contribution.
So I think we should look at these things holistically
and together.
I think that there's no silver bullet here, but I think actually
if we take these measures together, I think they can
really actually start to move us forward.
and if we are able to take planning officers and move
I think this is a really positive step forward and one I think our parish and town councils will really thank us for.
So I think we've started with the first step of let's have a member briefing
Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:48:03
So we as the planning authority members understand what planning enforcement can and can't do and how it operates
And then they think there probably is a job beyond that as you described to our town and parish councils
And certainly I'll pick that up with our head of communications, and I'm sure the comms team will be
supporting working with the officers on this in terms of
What we've just already been talking about in terms of the communications to members as well
Anybody got anything else on this report?
No?
Okay.
So, going back to the report, Juliet has moved the
recommendations.
I'm seconding the recommendations with the
amendment saying, instead of endorsing, we're welcoming
the report and we're agreeing the resulting action plan
for implementation.
And, quite oddly, we're agreeing to publish the plan
on specific pages of the website.
It's not normally something to be in a resolution.
I did query that.
But I think it's so that it's really clear that it's visible
to the community that we, the planning team work with,
isn't it, Jerry, so that developers, applicants,
anyone looking at planning applications can see
and find this easily and they don't have to search
through our meeting agenda.
So those are the resolutions.
I'll move to the vote please now.
Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:49:46
Councillor Coleman is struggling with his voting. What have you done Patrick?
Okay, we now have six votes in favour. Thank you colleagues. Thank you, Julia. And Jerry,
we'll now move on to the next item, which is the local plan update agenda item 30 page

13 Local Plan Update

for those of you on hard copy. Over to you Julia.
Councillor Juliet Layton - 0:50:24
Thank you very much. Yes, this is the Local Plan update. And what we're looking to do
here is that cabinet recommends for council to resolve to merge the two ongoing Local
Plan projects. And that's the partial update of Cotswold District Local Plan 2011 -2031,
which are the policies, and the development strategy
and site allocations plan into one single comprehensive
full local plan in conjunction with incorporating work
with the Gloucestershire strategic plan where appropriate.
And what we're hoping to do, as you've seen,
is to submit the plan in 2026.
Now, I'm going to say once again, which I said a lot
on Tuesday, gratitude to the ONS committee who sat two days
running because time for this is of the essence.
And if we had not had this being seen by local,
by the ONS committee, we wouldn't be looking at it today
and we wouldn't be looking at it at council next week.
So we really are time critical for this.
Interestingly, or not interestingly, but I think fairly obviously, in the PAS report
that we've just looked at, it said frequently that it was absolutely essential that we have
a local plan.
And not only is it essential, actually, I think it's a legal requirement to have a local
plan that's up to date.
At the moment, our adopted local plan runs until 2031, and our policies are extant, but
Our land supply following the government recommendations
for how we were gonna work out our housing,
it changed dramatically on the 12th of December
and it required us to do double the amount
of housing per year and we're looking at trying to do
1 ,036 houses a year, which is almost impossible
in a 16 % of what we've got left of the Cotswold
because as we know 80 % is AOMB or Cotswold National Landscape
and the other 4 % is built on or has its other constraints to it.
So we are working very hard and we need to make sure
that we've got a local plan in place.
If we do not do this and we are changed into a unitary authority,
that unitary authority will have to pick up the pieces and then start a local
plan and that could take five, six, seven years. So the Cotswold District will be
an exceptionally vulnerable place. So to have a CDC to present them with a
local plan that is you know just admitted in 2026 it hopefully will get
adopted in 2027, which is about the time we're looking at changing into government reorganisation.
So it's absolutely essential, I feel, that we do this.
I do commend Jo Simons because, again, another new officer, and she has written a brilliant report.
In our report we have timelines of what we are aiming to do throughout the year.
We have the financial implications and a table of how the money will be spent, what we have
got and what we need to do.
And we're also looking to set up an oversight board, which we will have
members of two members of the cabinet as well as Mike Evermy and myself as
cabinet member and Andrea Pellegram as she has masses of planning experience
and Tristan because he's just great on IT and everything else, you know.
So along with officers and our financial officer.
So there are some things that we want to do on this plan.
If I can find where we're doing it, I can tell you, but I will tell you that later.
We'll go to questions for now and I will find out about the pages for the board.
Councillor Mike Evemy - 0:55:10
So I'm going to second it now and say a few things that you may not need to find
then Juliette depending on what I say. So I think I just want to say you know this
we will be discussing this at Council next week it's a full Council decision
so as Juliette said we're being asked to recommend this to full Council so we
will have a debate next week but I think it's important at this point as the
as the leaders of this authority to recognize how big a decision this is.
It's a massive decision for us. There is risk in this but we've thought about it
very carefully. We've had an excellent report written by our officers as
Juliet has referred to. Juliet acknowledges you know there is a
requirement for us to have a local plan or be working to have a local plan.
But we're in a situation and we thought very carefully because of local government reorganization what that might mean and
the timetable that we need to operate to.
And I note
Joe is at the back in 111 it is an ambitious target and ambitious is quite a scary word
in this regard because
ultimately if we're unable to hit the target to get our local plan to the
inspector by the end of next year, so essentially just under 18 months time, we
go into an unknown world of a new requirement for a new sort of local plan
that we don't know what it's going to be yet and you know we are we will find
ourselves elongating the process to get back control of our development in our
district because we've lost control of the development in our district because
the government have moved the goalposts. They've created a situation where they
say that we should have 1035 homes built every single year in this district.
Far as I'm aware that's never happened, never likely to happen. It's based on an
algorithm that a civil servant in London has produced based on affordability and
we know how expensive houses are here so they say we should have lots more of
them without any regard to the fact that you know 80 % of our district is
Cotswold National Landscape and you know we have had significant amounts of
development and we were managing that well with the targets and the numbers
that we had before. So what this report says is ultimately if we want to decide
where the houses go in our district we need to have a local plan and we need to
spend the money and we need to update the local plan. If we don't want to decide
where the houses go. We can sort of string it out, not have a local plan, have
lots of speculative development with little or no infrastructure like we saw
ten years ago and towns now like Moreton and Tertbury and Fairford are all living
with the consequences of no five -year housing land supply ten years ago.
In the two or three hundred houses the developer puts up on the edge of the
town, says it's sustainable, minimizes the amount of money they have to put in for
infrastructure. That is not what we want. I know there's a lot of debate before I
joined this council and two of you were on the council at the point when
this local plan was adopted but what we do see with the Steddings development is
we see infrastructure first. We see we've got the left -turn lane at the bottom of
the A429 funded by the developers. We see the roundabout which people moan
about in the town because it's clogging stuff up. That is but we need that when
we have the development. We get the infrastructure if we have planned
development. If we have unplanned speculative development we don't get
the infrastructure and that comes back to fundamentally we've got this is a
really clear point I'll be working with Juliette and our officers and we'll be
talking about this more next week but if we want to determine the future of our
district we must have a local plan because we are a very attractive
desirable place for people to build houses and make a lot of money out of it
and they will want to do that.
And it's our incumbent and behalf of our residents
to get the development that is in an appropriate place
with the infrastructure to support it.
And we desperately need more affordable housing
and we need social rented housing.
And we know that and we've been talking about that
for six years since we took over this council.
So for me, this is absolutely critical
and it's the biggest single project.
We've got local government reorganization going on as well,
but in terms of this council and the future of this council the local plan is
absolutely critical that we get this right and that's why we're setting up an
oversight board and it's going to be monthly and I'm going to chair it
because this is the biggest single thing and and you know we are going to you
know basically have put the resources in that we need and I'm going to come to
Gina in a minute to give us her view from the committee and I know they spent
quite a lot of time, because I watched it back late on Tuesday
night, their discussion about this.
But I think, yeah, Juliette's mentioned the oversight board.
So a couple of things on that, and this was in response to a
point raised by, I think, Councillor Turner, and she
queried, I think, around where the one of the points on
strategic management number E, I would like to change the terms
of reference.
So instead of saying requiring member input, it says requiring
cabinet input because as Juliet said this is going to be it's a project that
is going to be the biggest single project that we as a council are running
and it will be driven we are accountable as the cabinet for the delivery of this
project and therefore that the remit of the oversight group is about us driving
that forward on behalf of the cabinet the big decisions will come for full
council to make that will come through here and they will go to council for
decision but essentially it's a cabinet working group. As Juliet has referenced
we will be adding to the list of officers the Deputy Chief Executive
Officer a Section 151 officer because we need to have in terms of project
obviously clearly timescale is critical but also control of the finances is
absolutely critical as well so we want like David's presence there and the
other thing just to change the terms of reference and remove designations about
the political groupings because they're not appropriate we are in their role as
cabinet members on the group and not as members of the political group. I will
stop there and then I will go to Julie. Julie is there anything else that you'd
like to say at this point before I go to the officers? No. Okay so which of the
officers we got Joe and we've got Matt do you want to say something regarding
Officer - 1:02:08
this a very important report. Yes, thank you Councillor Evermy. I think you've covered
most of it really. It's just to say that actually the route we're taking here in
terms of submitting the plan as we propose to do in December 2026, that is
the only option the government is currently giving us. We do not have any
other route. There are no other regulations under the new route they're
proposing, those are yet to be revealed.
And so this is the only route.
And this is also really the only route that we can take if we
want to have a plan in place when we form the new unitary
authority, so it then means that we will have a plan that
is adopted that will guide development in the Cotswolds
and protect it from speculative development.
And lastly, I also wanted to just thank Matt for his
contribution to the report because it wasn't just me. Thank you. Thank you Jo.
I'm going to go to Councillor Bloomfield now, reporting back from ONS.
Councillor Mike Evemy - 1:03:13
Yes thank you. Gosh yes we had a lot of work to do and a lot of reading as has
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:03:21
everybody here tonight and you've got a double meeting really. ONS are
supportive of the recommendations as stated on the front pages of the report
But we would just like to add in the following and that's what we are trying to bring the
attention to and I know you have received these.
It was that ONES would actually like to be involved in the oversight of the local plan
at the key stages of its development.
They also want to see improved communications between officers themselves and members.
And it was good to hear from Harrison Boley that the weekly meetings of the planning department
were of great benefit and they were in person.
And I think that seems to be strengthening and going on.
He sounded very positive and that it was a good thing.
And that's now with perhaps not quite so much working from home.
But I think it's good that they get together.
I can't remember whether it's Tuesdays or Thursdays,
afternoons, but that's excellent.
And then also on the communications,
communications to residents, including hard to reach groups.
That was a sort of note that we had there.
We also, thinking of communications, we would like to see the Council engage with lobbying
the government on the unrealistic housing targets for an area where 80%, as we've already
said, is in the Cotswold national landscape.
Another 4 % is probably undevelopable for other reasons, whether it's SSIs or other reasons.
It really doesn't, it's a struggle for us to deliver this target with the land space we have without making huge changes.
So government lobbying if possible please.
The other one was, yet again, we're very keen on this AI and actually Councillor Layton made an observation that although it's sometimes marvellous,
Occasionally you can put in information and it comes back
with gobbledygook and she said that all the reference numbers
and something else that she put into chat GPT.
Or no, it wasn't chat GPT, it was a different one.
Anyway, but to make sure that in the use of AI,
that the summaries created will be verified and validated.
So check, there's a system of checks and balances on those.
I think I'm very pro -using it, but I'm not using it in a way
which we don't have an uncontrolled result.
Then we wanted the local plan to be disseminated
to town and parish councils to ensure a good two -way dialogue
on proposed site allocations and development priorities.
And I think that would be commencing around June 2026,
so it's next year, on the Regulation 19 consultation.
And then it's been referred to a few times.
this local plan oversight board, which I understand is part of the Cabinet, but we would like
reports or updates or whatever coming back to overview and scrutiny to see how your,
you know, whether there's anything we can help you with or, you know, give you another
insight. So we were keen to do that. We really totally understand the pressures you're under
for the time scale to deliver this local plan.
And what Ovi and Sgrishni were concerned
about whether the resources were there for the planning department to,
both in finance and in staffing, to deliver it in time.
And we were saying to the CFO and to everybody else that if any,
it is such a vital part of our role as a district council to protect
and do the best job we can with planning.
So, you know, the resources for that we felt we should see,
make sure that we can have as much as possible for that.
And the other thing, the same sort of thing, money, money, money.
That in putting more money towards a local plan,
that the rest of the planning department doesn't get starved
of the resources because the money, our people have moved to doing that.
So trying to make sure, because there is the continuing planning going on and we want to
make sure that that's well resourced.
So those are the sort of main observations coming out.
I know they have been captured but that, but the one which wasn't was that we, and we did
discuss it, that we would like to hear, not all the time but every time, local plan oversight
board if there was any chance of us hearing back from you. Thank you.
Councillor Mike Evemy - 1:08:14
Thank You Gina. So we have given consideration I've got some responses to
you that on behalf of the cabinet and thank you for the time that you and your
committee put in and Julia and the officers and it's I think a demonstration
of how overview and scrutiny is working well at this council.
It's, yeah, and the pre -scrutiny work that you and your committee are doing, so it's great.
So you've made quite a lot of recommendations and there is something in writing which I know
the officers have and can be shared online. I don't intend to read all of that out now,
but what I want to give a flavour for those watching who don't necessarily want to read
all of that is a response to the substantive points that you've made.
I think absolutely we recognize that ONS has a role here as does the whole
membership because of the council. There's 34 of us the local plan we
ultimately all way make a decision on the local plan it's a full council
decision. So one thing so obviously communications is absolutely critical
here and I note the very the the thorough recommendation from the former
leader of the council on that and there's a even more thorough response in
written to his recommendation. I suppose what I want to summarize for you is and
acknowledge this is a big piece of work that we as a council as in terms that
are going to be doing, are doing, and we all need to pull together to make this happen.
So your committee, this cabinet, every 34 of us when we meet as the full council, all
of our officers who are working on this, chief executive and deputy chief executive, you
note that in response to your points about finances, we realised there was an omission
that there wasn't a finance person on the oversight board so we've added David
to it in this evening. I think the key thing is you can scrutinize I'm not sure
whether you want to scrutinize a board that's scrutinizing the offices of the
board. You want to scrutinize presumably what's happening so but that might well
be you can bring us in we can work out how we do that probably you and I
probably should have a chat about that because I'm very happy to you know be
sat there while you're sat here with your members and Julia and I to sit there
together with the officers and answer questions about how what we're doing
because that's the value I think that you and your committee can add to the
process. So I think we just need to work out exactly how that works and when we
can talk about when your committee might want to do that in terms of the process
but in principle absolutely you know this is a big project and well I said
it's the single biggest project that we're going to be running so I would
expect and I'm pleased that your committee wants to scrutinize it so
that's great. On the communications we'd already been talking, I'd already had quite a
few discussions with the head of communications about this and there's
quite a long response to the recommendation from your committee
there. I'll just pick up on a couple of points. I think yes absolutely we know
that we need to consult with people, we need to engage, we've got the formal
consultations of the regulation 18 and 19 and we need to look at what
engagement we're able to do in addition to that and build a plan subject to
obviously council agreeing to that next week but absolutely you know we
understand that there's a lot of engagement that we need to do and going
back to what I said at the start or just earlier on we recognise by essentially
defining places where we think that houses should go under these. There'll be
some people, maybe quite a number of people who don't agree with us on that.
But we will have a decision to make and we know that you know people will want
to tell us why they don't like the proposals that we're going to make. So
that is part of the the process and we've got to do that well and you know
I'm very focused, as I know is our head of communications,
on doing the absolutely best job we can through this process,
supporting, leading on that.
And essentially leaving our planning officers
to do their job, because they've got a tough job to do,
and the deadlines are very tight.
And for our communications experts
to focus on the communications, working with us as members.
Absolutely agree about the government. I'm very happy to write a letter to Angela Rayner.
I heard last week at the LGA conference in Liverpool, it's the one and a half million
mantra that the government has new homes by the end of the parliament and they've obviously
divvied all that up and we've got our number and all the other councils have got their
number, some of which are the other way around. They're too small. So it doesn't altogether
that makes sense.
But we did go through a consultation last autumn
and pretty much every council wrote to tell them that
and they decided and went ahead
with the changes in December.
So I'm very happy to write to Angela Rayner
and members of parliament and whatever,
but I think it's very unlikely
that the government is going to change its mind
and we have to deal with the reality of the situation
such that we face.
I think the point about AI, there's a, in the response, there's a bit about the
software that we're going to be using and going to test that, so there's going
to be work done before obviously we put it live to enable to deal with all the
responses that we get. Town and Parish Council, as you mentioned, Councillor
Bloomfield, they're absolutely a key stakeholder audience and we recognise
that. I was on a call last night with, together with Matt Britton, talking to
Patana Parish Councils particularly about the loss of our five -year land
supply and how that has happened and the situation leading into what we're doing
about it which is obviously what we're here discussing this evening but we
absolutely recognize that they are a key stakeholder group as leaders in their
communities as much as we are as leaders in our communities as district
Councillors. So yeah we absolutely need to be, we've talked about here we're going
to have a really thorough engagement program with them in order to make sure
help them understand the process, their place in it, what we're trying to
achieve as a council. Then in terms of the financial bits that you've asked for
We have come back in terms of a response on that.
I think this is largely what the Deputy Chief Executive said
at the ONS committee, I think, on Tuesday afternoon,
that we'll consider having a contingency later
if we feel we need it in the process.
So looking at that in August so that we're not going
to immediately ask for more money.
Because we have allocated what we believe is
sufficient resources.
It is just over a million pounds.
It's a lot of money, but to those people who are not familiar with local plans and don't understand necessarily the intricacies of the process
We have to compile a lot of evidence. Sometimes we have to use specialist consultants for that
and all of this has to stand up to challenge from
barristers well paid by
Developers who might not like the proposals that in our plan, so we have to make sure our evidence is robust
and clearly obviously we are not going to be throwing money at our local plan.
We will properly resource it and we will obviously, David will be keeping a close
eye on that in terms as our CFO. So that's where we are I think in terms of
the finances and also the point I guess around the planning service. So you know
I think obviously we were looking to the officers there. We've got Joe and we've
got Jerry who are managing the different parts of the the planning team and
Helen obviously as overseeing the whole of the planning area will be looking and
making sure that you know we're not we're not robbing Peter to pay Paul you
know we're not saying we're going to stop doing our job in development
management because we've got a local plan to do we have to do both of them
and you know obviously we are the local plan resources is also supplemented by
you know one -off monies to do one of things I think I probably talked long
enough I think that answers but you've got the detailed response here from
Councillor Coleman, David Stanley. So I'll let you come back Gina and then I'll go
to members. No all I was as I was coming back was that I know that there isn't so
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:17:20
much from our first meeting on Monday but there was something I would like to
report back on that at some point so I was just going to notify you of that. Is
that on the items to come in the agenda tonight the other item with the
Councillor Mike Evemy - 1:17:32
performance report and the finance report? Oh sorry some of it comes from
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:17:39
service report so does they but there are there's also the motion on our
farming I know that's not part of the thing is going to full council but I
just wanted to make one or two notes on that and about other subjects that we
wanted to discuss the future which came one of them came out of the financial
Councillor Mike Evemy - 1:17:54
report. I think if you happy for you to talk to us about the finance report I
don't want to take anything about the farming because we haven't had the
papers for that here we're going to be dealing with it at cabinet council next
week, but happy for you to talk to me about it afterwards, if that's okay.
Now I'm going to open it up to other members of the Cabinet who wish to say something.
I've got Paul and then Patrick.
Councillor Paul Hodgkinson - 1:18:17
Yeah, just, I mean, briefly, I think I very much support this.
I think it's absolutely critical.
It's a very pressing need for our area to do, to go ahead full pelt on this.
I agree that it is challenging in terms of the timescale, very challenging, but we've
got to make it happen.
And I think it has to be said in terms of the government's targets
that they are absolutely ridiculous.
I think we need to be really explicit in saying that,
strongly.
You know, they've come out, as you say, Mike,
they've come out with an arbitrary figure,
over 1 ,100 new homes a year every year,
when we can only build in less than 20 % of our district.
That is never going to happen.
It is just, frankly, ridiculous, has to be said.
So ridiculous, I'm saying it four times.
And I think we have to say that loud and clear to the government
because to try and achieve that would just, would take so much.
And so therefore I want to see us really robustly saying that
to the government time and time again.
That's the key message.
So absolutely support what we're going to do.
Thank you, Paul.
Councillor Mike Evemy - 1:19:22
I think the number is 1 ,035 or 36.
1 ,036 embedded in my mind.
I think, yeah, that's part of the communications that we have
to do so not just writing to Angela Rayner but explaining to our residents
you know that this number has been given to us by the government it's not our
number it's totally undeliverable but in order in order to get a lower number
we've got to prove it's undeliverable and that's the work that our officers
are doing on our behalf to get us to a lower number that an inspector might
Councillor Patrick Coleman - 1:19:56
accept. Going to Patrick now. Thank you Chair. First of all putting the finance
hat on pages 156 and 157 which is section 6 powers 6 1 to 610 and onwards
I think these are extremely encouraging and reassuring for two or three reasons
first of all there's this clear change of direction in no longer doing a
twin -track update of the existing plan while preparing the next plan that was
quite a sound idea when it was adopted in a couple years ago because it was a
It was a different government and it was a different set of situations.
So by switching to a full plan local update, we saved three to four hundred thousand pounds,
which is not to be sniffed at.
In the following page, on the power of 65, 66 and 67, you can see at 68, you can see
the extra money we've managed to put towards this, initially half a million and then another
quarter of a million.
And then we got a grant of nearly a quarter of a million from the local plans delivery
fund.
in March this year, not long ago, and a further $70 ,000 in grant funding, which I think is
probably going to be shared over the Greenbelt review.
So if there is a gap financially, I don't think it's going to prove insurmountable,
which is just as well, because I endorse everything, of course, that's been said about the urgency
of getting on with this.
The further criticism I don't think has been made, but deserves to be added, is that the
approach goes directly against trying to combat climate change.
If you want the simple version of how to combat climate change
with your housing program, you build in cities not in
countryside because they are more sustainable for public
transport, walking, facilities closer together,
the most sustainable city in the world has always been said
to be New York.
As an example, you build higher because that way you get more
energy conservation in the buildings,
which again is something is rather better seen in cities.
I can't think of many villages with more than three or four stories,
other than in the remaining big manor houses perhaps.
So it doesn't make any sense at all,
but we will take what we're given and do our best with it.
And I suspect smaller properties.
I would also like to mention that we have in this country
a continuing fall in the birth rate,
which means smaller households and possibly fewer school places.
We know that Southwark has closed had to close or is closing six primary schools full -size primary schools
Because you can't afford to bring kids up in London. And of course they then sell the schools and they don't build houses
But the other point I would like to give notice of because it is mentioned once here is something
That's a little bit mysterious. Although it's been talked about for a long time and that's called the sciences to town center master plan
I am also a member of the sciences to town council
and
I've served on the neighborhood development plan working group and we would like to and we have managed so far as a town council
To develop our neighborhood development plan instead with this council's work on its local plan
We're very able officer almost full -time on this
But the town center master plan is still a little bit wrapped in mystery
And I think it would be worthwhile
if not at the council meeting next week at a suitable time afterwards to give us
some guidance on whether that may end up being delayed rewritten or set aside and
given the priority to I hope on balance hope it doesn't but there is a priority
to get this work through and nobody knows very much about town center must
burn final point is the design guides and how we keep the Cotswold beautiful
Thank you.
Thank you, Patrick.
Councillor Mike Evemy - 1:23:40
I don't know if the officers want to come back on the town centre master plan for Syrinsester.
Does anyone want to say anything about that?
Are we going to follow up with Patrick afterwards?
We can certainly follow up.
There are two issues.
I think that...
You can turn to my phone.
Officer - 1:23:57
I'm sorry.
Sorry.
Officer - 1:23:59
Sorry.
Sorry.
Two issues.
I understand from Joe that a report is going to come to cabinet in September about the
Simon's system master plan.
The other issue is that there has been a change in circumstance in relation to the Waterloo
car park, which was one of the areas that was specifically targeted for potential development.
And that's a result of the change in the environment agency flood maps.
So we are looking at that.
We have got consultants looking at that particular issue.
but that might have an impact on the wider proposals within the plan.
But we will indeed, we can update you, Councillor Coleman, outside this meeting, certainly if you wish,
but there will be a report coming in September. Thank you.
Thank you, Cherry.
Councillor Mike Evemy - 1:24:46
Going to another Sire and Cestor, Councillor, now also a member of the Town Council, Councillor Pellegran.
Thank you, Chair. I'm not going to talk about Sire and Cestor and I
Councillor Andrea Pellegram - 1:24:55
will try to keep my comments very brief.
First of all, I want to commend the officers on writing such a complete report to help
us make our decision. I know that was very difficult. I think, though, that planning
it all out, I'm a planner, too, helps us actually understand the challenges. And I think your
challenges are really significant. And I think this is going to be a very difficult timetable,
but we will do everything we can to help you achieve this.
In paragraph 1 .12, the report outlines some of the risks.
However, it also says that we must have hope.
And I just want to say that even if,
for whatever unforeseen reasons,
and I hope it doesn't happen, that the target isn't met.
Because you just never know what's going to happen.
But if that were to happen, it's still good to do this
because evidence is what is behind every decision
in planning. And as we move forward with no five -year housing land supply, we are going
to be faced with many speculative housing schemes that may possibly be lower quality
than we would like. And the evidence that we are going to be gathering in this local
plan review can be used in aid of those decisions and indeed at appeal. So I think no matter
what we do, this is a win -win and absolutely necessary. And the officers have my full support.
Thank you.
Thank you Andrea. Tristan?
Councillor Mike Evemy - 1:26:25
Councillor Tristan Wilkinson - 1:26:26
Two points. One is I think this is the most important thing that we'll do with the remainder of this Council's time.
There was a moment where it looked like there wasn't a great deal of support to have a new plan for financial reasons.
I think that would have been a disaster.
I think that we're already seeing in some of our towns
and villages speculative planning ideas coming forward.
There was a very furious meeting in Lechelade last night
for a new development that's being proposed.
So I think this is really important.
I completely endorse what Andrea said about kind
of our full support, not only our full support
but our full attention as well
because I think this is really important.
The only point I'd like to make is we haven't had a brief
mention of flooding, and 80 percent of our area is an area
of outstanding natural beauty.
The remaining 20 percent is either built on or prone
to flooding, to some degree.
And we've got the new updated map from the Environment Agency
which actually changes our environment significantly.
I honestly don't know where these houses are going to go,
but wherever they're going to go, I completely endorse Andrea.
they need to be of the highest possible standard and design code and we need the
infrastructure that goes with it so I think it's really important that this
council is really clear about what good looks like and that we hold the line to
make sure we get it. Thank you Justin just to clarify your on your earlier
Councillor Mike Evemy - 1:27:57
comment that there were no barriers to this report coming set by myself or the
Deputy Chief Executive so yeah that's that wasn't yeah you said financial
reasons than they weren't financial reasons. So we are here we are taking
this decision at Cabinet now at Council next week and you know we're
obviously asking the Cabinet to agree to progress with the update of the local
plan. I give the last word to does any officer want to say anything sorry
before I go to Juliet just to sum up the discussion. No okay sorry
Julia.
Thank you.
Councillor Juliet Layton - 1:28:36
Yes, I've always been pushing to go with the local plan.
And we've talked about the two local plans, the two that were emerging back again together.
When we started, people have said, criticism is, oh, you started that in 2020 and we've
got to 2025 and nothing's happening.
We started doing the policies in 2020 because we were caught green to the core and we needed
to look at policies.
So that piece of work was going on.
Then we get closer to the time when our adopted local plan is going to be running out, 2031.
As soon as we reach five years before that, we are in trouble with, or we could be in trouble with our housing land supply.
So we'd already started doing the work on the strategic plan.
So policy part is pretty much completed.
Until we had the change of numbers in December, strategically we were working really hard
on that as well.
So we've got a base.
We're not starting again from the beginning.
We've got a really good strong base of work that the forward planning team have been doing.
So it's not just, oh, we need to do it now.
This has been something thought of.
The knee -jerk reaction is because of the government
in December the 12th, I think it was, last year.
We did think it might come in between Christmas and New Year
because I think that's their normal choice of time
to give us this sort of information,
but they came in early.
But that was one of the reasons.
The other thing I just want to say
is the thing about communication,
we are legally bound to consult and community,
and it's called the Statement of Community Involvement,
and that's out there on the website,
which will tell us exactly who we're going to consult with,
when, how, et cetera.
So that's all there.
We do need to do over and above that as well,
and we're very aware of that.
But I think we've also got to be very aware of the resources
when we're doing that and how we do it
and how much that's going to cost us,
because I think the key thing is to get this plan over the line.
We are not trying to ruin the Cotswolds, we are trying to protect.
And if it has to go to the government saying what we are going to do in the local plan, we have to pay them to do it.
So it's going to cost us deer.
So that's all I have to say really and I thank you for all your support.
Councillor Mike Evemy - 1:31:11
Thank you Juliette. We'll move to the vote now then.
Please if we can open the voting.
Councillor Mike Evemy - 1:31:18
Sorry, we have separate votes on the different agenda item 13.
We have got the partial update, the merging of the partial update and the development
strategy and then if that is approved, we then have more at council.
How are the votes set up?
Are they set up as two separate votes?
Recommendation to Council.
Okay, so we're doing the recommendation to Council vote first and then we'll do the other one.
.
Councillor Mike Evemy - 1:32:44
Thank you. I forgot to put my microphone on. So what we've just voted as a cabinet is to
agree the recommendations which are subject to Council agreeing the recommendation that
we just voted for. In the first vote, if the Council agrees that, then we just agreed the
second set of resolutions at the end there to update the CIL parallel. The Chief Executive
wants to point something out to me and their recommendations over the page 2, 3 and 4 including
the local plan oversight board and confirm the new terms of reference.
Subject to the amendments that you made.
Yes, subject. I made some amendments earlier. Thank you.
All right, all clear about that. So we will now move on. Thank you colleagues. Thank you

14 Licenced HMO fee policy and HMO Amenity Standards policy

for the officers, all the work and I'm sure you want to disappear off to enjoy the rest
the summer evening. So we're now going to move on to Agenda Item 14 to
Councillor Pellegram presenting on this. Thank you Andrea. Thank you chair. I'm
Councillor Andrea Pellegram - 1:33:46
pleased to introduce this report. This item reviews the way the council
enforces its license houses and multiple occupation. In particular the
maximum period a license can run for requesting an increase from three years
years to five years. This is seen to be the fairer way to operate, particularly for good
landlords of the district and provides more time to focus on riskier properties. The second
recommendation deals with the charges for such licenses. The local authority must not make a
surplus but should recover its costs. Fees are in two parts. The initial application and if
approved the license fee. The initial fee is not refundable. The second part of the fee
recovers the cost of undertaking the license and subsequent inspections through the license
period. The changed fee does not lead to any loss of income nor does it represent a
significant increase in cost to the landlord. Where the landlord has a track record of
operating the house in multiple occupation to the council's adopted standards and reapplies
for their license in good time, it is recommended
that they receive a reduction in fee
to reflect the reduced level of work and inspection required.
I move that the recommendations on pages 167 to 178 are approved
and the specific recommendations are one,
to amend the HMO license fees as set out in this report and for them
to apply from the 1st of September 2025 and two,
to approve the HMO license period increases
from three to five years.
In conclusion, I just want to say
that this is my first cabinet meeting
and I'm not that yet familiar with this topic.
So I'm very happy that Paul Lancaster, our officer,
is going to answer any technical questions on this report.
Thank you very much, Chair.
Thank you, Andrea, for doing your first presentation
to cabinet very well.
Councillor Mike Evemy - 1:35:57
I thought Paul sat behind you. Do any... Do we have a seconder for that?
Councillor Coleman I think you might be willing to second it. Yeah. Do any members
have any questions for either Andrea or Paul? No I think it's all fairly
straightforward. No that's good so we'll go straight to the vote on that then.
Councillor Andrea Pellegram - 1:36:22
Councillor Mike Evemy - 1:36:28
Thank you very much Paul for sitting through in the heat and keeping your jacket on. That's
that's some going. Next to me I've got the. Yeah. OK. Great. So now we've got the moving

15 Service Performance Report 2024-25 Quarter 4

on to gender right of 15. We're getting there. So this is the council priority and service
performance report for quarter four. We've got Gemma there to answer any
questions. I don't intend to present this to members. It was, we did a little bit of
a doublet with Alison and myself at the ONS committee on Monday afternoon but
also particularly given the heat. This is probably something for members to ask
questions. Although Gemma did you want to say anything at this point or are you
happy to answer questions? I'll just go for questions that's great. Great okay.
I've got Andrea and then Paul and obviously members also might have
observations and then Juliette so Andrea first. Very short chair. On
Councillor Andrea Pellegram - 1:37:39
page 189
apparently I am the one responsible for the signs replacing the signs so at the
very bottom of the page that says Councillor might get me that should be me.
I spotted that as well because it's Andrea has public realm which means
street signs I think Joe previously Gemma had street signs and I've given
that to Andrea to look after so if you can just get that changed. Thanks Andrea.
Who is next, Paul?
Councillor Paul Hodgkinson - 1:38:18
There we go.
Is that working?
Yeah.
Councillor Paul Hodgkinson - 1:38:21
Yeah, I just wanted to highlight what is a really good thing, actually.
That is over target, the number of gym memberships in our leisure centres and the number of visits
to our leisure centres are way over target.
So given the fact, you know, it's a very fragile economy, this is a really good performance
And this is down to Freedom Leisure, our new provider.
They've been in place for just coming up to two years now.
And they are, Streets Ahead, I think, are the previous provider
in being out there, advertising, getting people through the door.
So that's really good.
Also to point out, one of the things which was stated in the
report as being behind Target was the delivery of the cultural
strategy, well, as you saw today, we're now delivering it.
So actually, that's a good thing.
Thank you, Paul.
Councillor Mike Evemy - 1:39:08
I've got Julia and then I'll come to Gina because you didn't say something I remembered on this item
Councillor Juliet Layton - 1:39:14
Thank you. Well, I have to bring this up every time so I'm not going to make any changes
On page 184 in the paper copies supporting communities
Continue work with Gloucestershire counter council on the creation of safe crossing on the spine road in South Cerny
I mean this is this is critical for leisure and our tourists and
just movement around the district.
So it's a health and safety issue.
It's to do with healthy lifestyles.
And the thing we're getting stuck with continually
is the resolving the issues with the bridge.
Now I think we've resolved issues with bridge
in Cerny Wick with similar issues.
And I was just wondering, I would like an update on this.
Paul James normally goes and gives me an update
because he knows I'm very interested.
But we've also got a sustainable transport officer now.
So I was wondering if they'd be getting involved in that.
Thank you.
I don't expect an answer.
Thank you, Julia.
Councillor Mike Evemy - 1:40:17
And as the ward member for the spine road, or certainly part of it, obviously something
that I'm very interested in as well.
So I'm sure Gemma can take that away and see if you can get an update for Julia and myself
as the local members. Patrick was it about that point or is it something else?
Oh you've got something else?
Councillor Patrick Coleman - 1:40:44
If I may, it's just that people who don't know this think well it's a
crossing not a bridge and then you say no well the bridge is parallel to the
road and say well why do we borrow about the bridge? So just if we could
emphasize that we're not putting the bridge over the road it's a crossing but
where the bridge is is a problem and because it's a historic bridge we can't move it.
Councillor Mike Evemy - 1:41:06
Okay I don't think we want to spend more time discussing this at the hour this evening so
Juliet back to you on your other points. Yeah one other one which is
Councillor Juliet Layton - 1:41:14
on page 190 which was the
electrification of taxes which is to do with climate change but I think it ought to include
Andrea Pellegran because you put taxes and licensing as part of your
remit, your portfolio and therefore if we start telling taxes that you
know you've got to buy electric you'll be the one that's hearing from them. In
Councillor Mike Evemy - 1:41:42
response to that I think we only looking at Gemma we try to have one cabinet
member responsible so I'm happy that Mike is responsible but I think
Obviously, he needs to in discussions of that liaise with
Andrea as the responsible member for licensing, but he will be
looking at how we can essentially encourage cajole,
whatever other word we want to use our licensed taxi drivers to
move across to EVs.
Other questions or points before I just add a little bit?
So I just noted that, oh sorry Gina, bring you in now.
Thank you, Chair.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:42:23
Yes, what it was, you've touched on it, Freedom Leisure,
we felt that it would be good for Freedom Leisure to actually come and attend an ONS.
We haven't heard from them since they've taken over.
There were some issues raised about cleanliness and that was discussed
and I think it would be just useful to have that.
So what I'm really saying is, really would like to hear from them
And that was one of the things.
So, Councillor Hodgson, that would be good.
Yeah, I can just say, yeah, that's absolutely fine.
Councillor Paul Hodgkinson - 1:42:50
And I'm happy to come along, too.
You know, that's good.
I mean, we have regular meetings with Freedom Leisure.
I meet with them regularly and the officers do, too.
Cleanliness has come up
and actually they have done quite a lot to address those things.
So I just want to see that embedded more.
But so we have taken those things on board.
But if we can kind of just liaise in terms of when you'd like us
to come along to a meeting and we'll sort that out.
I'm sure that will come down to Democratic Services.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:43:19
One of the things I also wanted to think was the contract,
and obviously it's my local area, Chipping Camden School,
it needs revising.
It's very old.
It's no longer proper.
It should be looked at again as part of this process.
So I think that would be a useful thing to do.
So I appreciate that.
Thank you.
Thank you, Gina, for that.
I was just going to point out a couple of things
Councillor Mike Evemy - 1:43:40
that I thought were particularly notable.
We've now got 45 households that either have installed
or have signed up to install home solar
off the back of our scheme.
So that's great to see.
And we probably don't talk about enough
Cotswold housing first,
but that first line there says,
it's widely recognized across the county
as an exemplary model for projects of this type.
I remember when we initiated that a few years ago,
and it's great to see that it's continuing to help those people who are
in the most need of our home amongst our homeless people get them in a home and
then help them resolve the challenges that they face. Also noting that you
know we're using the Rural England Prosperity Fund 14 village halls I've
got grants for that so that's excellent that we are facilitating that. The
planning officers have all gone now but and Juliet you didn't mention it but
We are noticing on the service performance that, you know, all
of the targets, they're exceeding all of the targets on
application determination.
Clearly, you know, we've heard earlier there's work to do, but
currently we're receiving the targets.
I note that PAS says that, you know, we shouldn't use as much
extensions of time, but we also note that actually that's what
everybody does, and that's not necessarily a bad thing in the
right circumstances, but, you know, obviously we looked at
that earlier, but the fact that we're achieving well above our
targets and well below in the case of appeals allowed is
really good to see.
And, yeah, I think it was the point about the public realm.
So, no, I thought generally it was really a good report.
Obviously there's some things for us to work on, particularly
where we're off target and those of us with those portfolio responsibilities I'm
sure will be pursuing those with our lead officers so that they're not appearing
in the below target again in future. So we're just asked Gemma have you got
anything you want to say before I would just close this item? No nothing for me
Thank you.
Councillor Mike Evemy - 1:46:05
Okay, so we just asked to note that so we've noted that thank
you very much cabinet and we will move on to I think are we

16 Financial Performance Report 2024-25 Quarter 4

getting towards the end.
Is this the very last one the financial performance report?
Definitely not least gender item 16 hard copy page 255.
I think on this occasion probably we're going to ask
David to introduce this one.
I'm giving Patrick a bye tonight, but next time,
because this is obviously the performance when I was
the portfolio holder.
So, and I've been speaking enough this evening.
So I'm just going to ask David to briefly share this
with us, his report, and obviously we've got some
important recommendations there that he's asking us
to agree.
David.
Thank you, leader.
I'll keep it as brief as possible because this was discussed at length over you and
David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 1:47:00
scrutiny committee.
I mean the short answer is it's a positive out turn that we're including in this report
in terms of revenue budget.
So members might recall that when we set the budget for 24 -25 we are budgeted to put 516 ,000
into the earmarked reserve and that was for financial resilience.
The actual out turn is $778 ,000 positive,
so there is an additional surplus over and above
what was budgeted for.
Report sets out where that has occurred.
I don't intend to cover that.
I would intend to say a couple of things.
One, it would be remiss of me not to remind members
of the motion that Council approved in November 2023
to ensure that the budget being set for 24, 25,
and 2526 put back into the financial resilience reserve a considerable sum because in the
previous two financial years, 2324 and 2223, 1 .852 million was used to balance the budget.
Where we are currently with 2425, out term being 516, and where we might be with a fair
wind for 25 -26 we may be putting back into that reserve 1 .874 million which is
a better position than was assumed at the time that motion was approved by
Council but I think given the financial headwinds that this council would be
facing over the coming two to three financial years that is really positive.
In terms of where the additional surplus of that 262 ,000 over and above the
516 ,000 is proposed in this report to transfer that to a transformation reserve and that
will provide ongoing support for the transformation of the council services but in light of local
government reorganisation and other such reorganisation events that will provide adequate funding.
Finally from me I am just going to give you some information regarding fair funding 2 .0
think is pursuant to this report. So we have been contacted by MHCLG. We have been invited
to a call tomorrow morning, which I shall read from the email that we received a couple
of weeks ago. MHCLG set out in section 9 .3 of that consultation document that whilst
the vast majority of councils will be eligible for a flat cash funding floor, we would engage
with the small number of councils whose new share of funding is furthest from their current
share of funding. And we'd like to talk to those authorities about transitional arrangements
in more detail and understand how they can work or we can work with them to look at offering
some form of alternative funding for our expectation from that call. And there are three districts
across Gloucestershire that are in that call, ourselves, Stroud and Tewkesbury, is the Government
may be proposing a negative cash flow. So in terms of the out -term report, whilst the
out -term report is positive, the financial headwind is negative and I would be encouraging
members in assessing the financial performance of the current financial year to be taking
those opportunities to ensure we are only spending what is absolutely necessary on the
services and taking opportunities to reduce that
financial pressure, because I think 26, 27, and onwards,
is going to be a very, from our perspective,
disappointing settlement.
We will get three years' worth of settlement, and we may not
like the numbers, but that's what we may have to work with.
Thank you, David.
I will come back and comment on that when I sort of sum up this
Councillor Mike Evemy - 1:50:59
discussion, but I'm going to go to Patrick, if he has anything
he would like to say, either in response to what David has said
or in response to what's in the report.
Thank you, Chair.
Councillor Patrick Coleman - 1:51:12
I'll try not to say this in the future,
but there's a famous book called,
about the lad who was certain in three -quarters,
The Secret Diary of Adrian Moll.
Near the beginning, when his parents' marriage
is breaking up, he says to his dad,
Dad, where's mum?
And his dad says, she's out at this assertiveness training
workshop, this is about 30 years ago.
Oh, what's that mean, Dad?
And Dad says, I don't know, but it's bad news for us.
I've always felt that it's bad news for us,
it's always going to be at the result of any of these fair
funding reviews because we're small so we don't count,
because we're rural so they think we're wealthy,
and so on and so forth. And to be fair we've worked for decades I suspect on
that basis and we've had some excellent results in terms of capital receipts
half a million when we sold the the empty social club to the Baptist Church
and so on and so forth like many many others. So from the longer term and we
knew this day was coming and we kind of wished it had come in a little bit
earlier because they kept putting it off and putting it off. But in my limited
time in this portfolio I've been very encouraged to see that our Deputy Chief Executive and
Chief Finance Officer has a really good ear to the ground and early advice, particularly
from those consultants whose name begins with P. PIXEL, yes. And I enjoyed, and I can understand
mostly too, the stuff that we've had from them and as a result when there's a suspicious
gap I noticed that Deputy Chief Executive Chief Finance spotted that and followed it
up right away. So we're going to be nimble and we're going to be efficient and we put
money aside this year as we mentioned earlier. We've got appropriate reserves and the sky
hasn't fallen in yet. But yeah, it's not good news for us, whatever it is, this fair funding
review.
Councillor Mike Evemy - 1:53:20
Thank you, Patrick. Anyone else want to chip in before I do?
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:53:31
Councillor Blinfield. Thank you, Chair. I'm enjoying myself here.
This is very good. It's wonderful to be watching and spewing the cabinet. I should do it more
often. You're absolutely right. I was given a little nudge by Councillor Harris. Does
that surprise you? The one thing which we came out of this survey was concern about
the car parking. A, a lot was to do with the enforcement which has not been effective enough
so we're not collecting as much revenue as we might do on that. And then it was the sort
of annual parking permits that people bought and whether they were actually, whether it
was working well, whether we were actually getting the income that we should out of that
very valuable asset and it was just we would actually like to have that added
to our own S program going into the autumn I think you're looking at it in
October maybe we could be looking ahead of it but it is a very important part
Councillor Mike Evemy - 1:54:31
parking in the Cotswolds. Yeah obviously just I'll let Paul just come in and
respond and clearly obviously if you want to have a look at that I'm sure he
and the officers would be happy to have be asked about it.
But Paul, do you want to respond?
Yeah, I mean, I think in terms of enforcement,
Councillor Paul Hodgkinson - 1:54:47
I have, you know, noticed that we need more enforcement,
and therefore, actually, we've taken some steps to do that.
So, we're in, I think we're in a better place
on that already, actually,
and I hope you will therefore see that coming through.
With regard to permits, I'd like to just delve in a bit more about where you're coming from on that, I think.
Obviously, permits are available in different places. It may be, I mean, we have, for instance, coming to Cavanagh in the autumn, probably October, November time, the new parking strategy.
So we've been working through that with officers. In fact, today I had a session where we were looking at some of the data from the car parks across the district.
So you will see a new strategy coming through in October or November, as I say.
So I think it would be worth, therefore, the committee looking at that topic when that strategy comes to you.
Councillor Gina Blomefield - 1:55:48
Yes, thank you. I mean, I did mention October. It was sort of proposed.
I just think it would be very interesting and it is something which everybody is engaged on their own.
So I am very supportive of that. So, yes, we'd like to see it, please.
Councillor Mike Evemy - 1:56:01
And thank you for raising it because in terms of our income streams it's very significant
as I'm sure you appreciate.
And yeah, with the threatened reduction and I guess David might find out more on that
call tomorrow of what we are going to be told is the likely grant settlements from the government
coming forward and how they compare with what PIXEL have forecast for us.
We will, you know, clearly our own revenue streams that we can control will only
become more important as we can rely less on any funding coming or on the
funding coming from the government. I just wanted to add, yeah, obviously thanks
to David, the finance officers, but more broadly I guess all of the officers
across the council to bringing us in with a surplus on the surplus that we asked for.
And David refers to that motion.
It's very kind of you, David, that's the motion that I wrote, as you probably remember, when
I was a couple of years ago to say to the council, this is what we need to do.
We need to replenish our coffers after the impact of the inflationary years, which we
not properly compensated in terms of by the government certainly in terms of any grant
allocations. So you know we have been filling up the coffers and what that has enabled David to do
and he's recommending that we do now is to to put some of that in some reserves that he can then use
to get the things done still that we want to get done. Stuff around transformation, how we might
want to do that but also to bolster essentially where we are in financial resilience terms
because yeah the the cliff edge has finally arrived Patrick whilst I've been
talking about it when I had the portfolio that you now had for six
years it never arrived your first budget you're gonna have to plan for the cliff
edge actually arriving and you know it's it is as I said before not not gonna be
pretty as Patrick's alluded to the government is seeking to essentially in
the formulas move money from lower higher tax base areas such as ourselves
to lower tax base areas and you know the impact of that on our budget will be
significant. It's possibly not totally coincidental that they're
seeking to abolish district councils in two years time because essentially yeah
the monies that we're going to have to use.
Obviously, what we need to make sure,
and David will remind us,
is that we need to continue to be a going concern.
We continue to need to be able to plan for a five year ahead
until we know we're definitely not going to exist
in five years.
And we're not going to know that
until the legislation has gone through parliament,
probably in 18 months, two years time.
So, yeah, it's definitely what this, I guess, report is telling us is that we've actually
had some favourables, you know, interest rates staying higher for longer has benefited us
because we're, you know, largely we're getting generating income rather than paying for borrowing.
We only have a tiny amount of borrowing.
So that obviously has worked in our favour.
But yeah, the clouds are there on the horizon and it looks like it might be about to rain
finally on us and you know we need that umbrella that Joe and I were pictured
under. I think two or three years back those of you remember that budget
consultation picture weathering the storm I think we talked about it and it
looks like the storm is now finally coming. But yeah we will weather it you
know we are financially resilient and the work that you know I've done over
the last six years and the last three or so of those with David to you know
make sure that we are in a secure financial position as a council.
You know, I'm confident that we will continue to be in that position,
despite the fact that government will look so they'll be stripping large,
large amounts of money away from us.
I will then therefore go back to the recommendations on page 255 and there's
no one else is indicating.
So we're seeking to note the out there financial position in the report.
Nope, the non -treasury prudential indicators in annex B,
But the bit we have to vote on is we're going to approve the transfer to and from reserves
that set out in paragraphs 215 to 218 and 6 .1 to 6 .6 and in Annex C. And to approve the
carry forward of unspent capital budget included in Para 6 .5 of 0 .565 million into the 2526
capital programme and we're also noting the change in provisions as set out in Para 2 .4.
Move to the vote.
Can we open the vote please?
Councillor Coleman, can you vote?
Thank you very much.
That's six votes in favour, none against.

17 Next Meeting

I'm noting the date, item 17, the next meeting, no meeting in August.
We will reconvene on the 4th of September.
Just before I close, I note I haven't quite done the meeting in under two hours, but thank you everybody for your contributions in this very warm room.
Particularly thanks to Gina for joining us coming down from the north of the district.
We very much enjoyed having you here. We'd love to see you again as and when you feel you'd like to be, to come.
And thanks to all the officers and have a safe journey home.
If that's where you're going, some of us might be going somewhere to get a drink.
All right, chairio, meeting closed at 8 .03.

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