Annual Parish Meeting 2021 – Cotswold District Council Report
Ward Member Report to the Parish Council
APRIL 2020 T0 APRIL 2021
The year has of course been dominated by the Covid Pandemic, and whilst I don’t plan to spend much time talking of this, I would like to say how impressed and encouraged I’ve been by the way our villages have pulled together to ensure that everyone was looked after and the needy helped. You might wonder sometimes about the state of our society, but when the chips are down there is always a tremendously heart-warming response – ‘Community’ is alive and active here!
March 2020 saw a change in the refuse and recycling operations with the roll-out of new bins, a weekly food waste collection and a reduction of garden waste collection to every other week. The permit is increasing by 33 percent (£30 to £40). Replacement bins/bags will also be chargeable at £5 per container from now on.
Following on from the previous year’s increase in parking charges (+30%), this year brought the news that the option to pay cash at Cotswolds car parks was to be removed (in stages through this coming year) and payment could only be made through an ‘app’ on a smart phone or by card. Given that some 9,000 adults in the Cotswolds don’t have a smart phone and 72% of all payments in 2019 were cash, this doesn’t seem rational. I have (and will continue to) challenge this decision; so far the only change has been to drop the ‘cost’ argument and replace it with a ‘green’ reason for the change.
During the year there have been major changes in the senior management at the Council, with Nigel Adams (Head of Paid Service with 28 year’s service) and Bhavna Patel (Monitoring Officer and Head of Legal Services) both leaving (at a cost of £330,000) to be replaced with a new Chief Executive – Robert Weaver and an interim Monitoring Officer. An additional 8 people have been recruited to fill various positions to deliver manifesto promises, we will wait to see what is delivered and at what cost before passing judgement.
A number of Strategies and Reports have been proposed at Council, covering:-
- Ecological Emergency declared (July 2020)
- The Climate Emergency (Sept 2020)
- Corporate Strategy and Plan (Sept 2020)
In addition there have been a number of other changes:-
- A number of changes have been made to the Council’s Constitution.
- The Community Grant scheme has been replaced by ‘Spacehive’, a crowd funding platform (costing £30,000 p.a.). Details of this are on the CDC website. I question whether this is as effective and would be interested in any feedback.
- Removal of the Ward Member’s ability to automatically refer planning applications to the Planning Committee where considered appropriate. (This particular decision is causing a considerable amount of annoyance to effected Parishes and is the subject of ongoing discussion.)
- A new additional crest for the Council, designed for use on social media and new road signage including the crest and the parish’s name. These being part of a £200,000 ‘Civic Pride‘ scheme.
- A new fly-tipping reporting tool has made this a much easier process and there has been a substantive increase in the numbers being reported. I presented a motion to Council to increase the spending on this bane and I believe this has been given through the ‘Civic Pride’ scheme (to be confirmed).
In February, the revised budget for 2021/2 was presented to and approved by Council. I was not able to support this vote for various reasons, but mostly due to lack of detail on the £65 million borrowing proposed.
It has been necessary to support the CDC Leisure Centres during the pandemic (circa £650k), some of which we will get back as and when normality resumes.
The Planning Department is currently suffering from large workloads and a lack of Officers – recruitment is currently taking place and I would ask for your patience whilst these matters are being resolved.
You have had a number of contentious planning applications during the year on which I have been deeply involved, sometimes successfully and not on others. Some of these are still in process albeit as different proposals.
I have also been involved in the Neighbourhood Development Plan (NDP)(which I hope you all vote for on the 6th May). My congratulations go to the team responsible for the tremendous effort they put into a successful conclusion.
CDC has organised a joint services working group in an endeavour to resolve some of the ongoing issues at Neigh Bridge, of which I am a part.