Decision details

Before The Business Portfolio Holder presented the report to Members, the Chairman asked Members to take into consideration Councillor Legrys’ comments and invited Councillor Neilson to speak.

Councillor Neilson addressed the Cabinet

“I welcome this movement towards what looks like a strategy for dealing with some of the more intractable challenges facing North West Leicestershire. A document setting out the districts growth priorities is long overdue, however despite the wait for it this document is, in my view, a missed opportunity.

I believe this will be reflected in the consultation responses of which one of those will be from the Labour Group.

Dealing with the process before I move on to my more general comments on the plan itself. This paper does not set out any time frame for the consultation, neither does it set out how the groups mentioned will be engaged. I believe you must ensure these issues are dealt with in your deliberation.

The second recommendation before you means that once you have consulted you as a cabinet will essentially be ignoring the results. There would be no public discussion on the consultation responses. This will not provide any confidence in the consultation process nor will it encourage buy in from the community into the plan. Therefore I believe it would be wrong for cabinet to make any decision on this until the consultation is over.

Moving on to some of my concerns relating to the subject matter in the report.

Firstly I wish to say that this report highlights a lack of leadership from this executive. The North West Leicestershire Business & People group has absolutely no member involvement in it at present. This cabinet has an important place leadership role to play. A role that you seem to be avoiding completely.

As Ed said in his in his speech earlier today, we work better together, so this plan needs to be more than business and bureaucrats, it needs to include the wider community and workers right across the district.

In my never ending desire to help you make the right decisions, I have a number of questions that I am asking you to consider today.

Where is the democratic accountability in this process, where is the opportunity for local communities to play a guiding role?

When you say increase female participation what is it specifically you are trying to achieve? Why is the target for such a small increase in wage averages for Women? I believe this is an area we need to be far more ambitious.

Cllr Legrys has made a written submission that echoes my concerns about the paragraphs relating to housing growth and the Bardon Sustainable Extension. If this remains in this document the work of the local plan advisory committee could be compromised.

In addition to my earlier point on member representation I strongly believe that Trades Unions have an important role to play on the group that owns this plan.

I was shocked to see that the regeneration of Coalville Town Centre is not one of the Key Priorities in the grey boxes throughout the plan document, surely this should be given greater focus?

I will reserve my remaining observations and suggestions to our response to your consultation, but I ask again that you take this opportunity to ensure that your consultation is not a waste of time and money and that you actually come back to cabinet and consider the consultation responses in public and give the sentiment behind this document the attention it deserves.”

Councillor R Blunt invited the Director of Services to respond to the issues relating to the implementation of the Plan highlighted by Councillor T Neilson.

The Director of Services stated that Councillor T Gillard would explain the public consultation in more detail and advised Members that it would be the decision of the Chief Executive and the Business Portfolio Holder as to whether or not they felt that Cabinet needed to agree any amendments to the action plan following the consultation.

Councillor T Gillard paid thanks to Councillor T Neilson and Councillor J Legrys for expressing their concerns which had been noted. He stated that the Growth Plan was a living document which would be reviewed regularly, and that it would need to reflect ongoing changes such as future targets. He highlighted that the Growth Plan brought together key employers and sectors in North West Leicestershire such as East Midlands Airport to provide opportunities for cross-sector workers and joint bidding.

At this stage Councillor N J Rushton declared a Disclosable Non-Pecuniary Interest in the item as a Board Member of the Leicester and Leicestershire Enterprise Partnership.

Councillor T Gillard went on to remind Members that Cabinet endorsed the Strategic Economic Plan and Growth Plan in March 2014, highlighting that the Plan set out growth priorities for the district and identified business targets including the potential to create 15,000 jobs, halve youth unemployment by 2019 and increase female participation. He added that the Growth Plan did not make planning decisions and that was a matter for the Planning Committee and the Council. He added that all planning judgements on applications would be made in their own right and upon their own merit. He went on to state that Cabinet should be setting their goals high, in order to improve the North West Leicestershire economy, and that the report was now in their hands to endorse. He advised that if Cabinet was to agree the plan today, a period of consultation would follow which would include a six week consultation process that would commence on 1 October 2014 and that steps would be made to publish the plan on the council’s website. Comments sought from businesses, Parish Councils and community groups would help with the implementation of the Growth Plan.

Councillor N J Rushton stated that it had been recognised at a national level that North West Leicestershire had one of the highest growth rates and that the Authority would continue to build on what had already been achieved.

Councillor T J Pendleton stated that he had heard some of the arguments before and that the Local Plan Advisory Committee would address the concerns raised by Councillor J Legrys and that he recognised all the work across the sector.

It was moved by Councillor T Gillard, seconded by Councillor R Blunt and

RESOLVED THAT:

Cabinet

1.         Endorses the North West Leicestershire Growth Plan Action Plan;

2.       Agrees to subject the action plan to a period of consultation;

3.     Delegates authority to the Chief Executive in consultation with the Business Portfolio Holder to make amendments to the action plan as appropriate in response to the consultation; and

4.     Delegates authority to the Chief Executive in consultation with the Business Portfolio Holder to spend the local growth fund (£500k) on delivering the final Growth Plan action plan.

Reason for decision: To authorise consultation on the Growth Plan action plan