Agenda and minutes

A member of the public was in attendance on behalf of Edenham Parish Council where he was a Parish Councillor and the Management of Grimsthorpe Estate where he worked.  His interest in attending the meeting was the presentation on the Broadband update. He gave a brief background to Grimsthorpe Estate which included 20 farms and 200 houses.  By law farmers had to communicate with the government with maps and farming information and they were struggling to meet objectives set due to low level connectivity in the area.  Mr Briggs wished to know when the superfast broadband would be coming and what were the alternative options and whether as custodians of the area they could do something themselves in an alternative way. 

The Group to be notified of any substitute members.

The Group were notified that Councillor Woolley was substituting for Councillor Neilson.

Councillor Westropp was in attendance as a guest.

Apologies were received from the Portfolio Holder for Governance and Communication.

Members are asked to disclose any interests in matters for consideration at the meeting.

None disclosed.

(Enclosure)

Actions notes from the meeting held on 27th November were agreed as a correct record.

The Democratic Officer informed the Group that blind shortlisting as recommended by the Group at their last meeting was going through the necessary processes.

The Business Manager Spatial and Economic Growth informed the Group that monthly briefings had been arranged for Members to attend on the Local Plan.

One Member referred to the timescales that had been raised at the last meeting. Mr Ranson replied that they had now been addressed and programming adjusted accordingly so that comments/recommendations from the PDG could be taken into consideration.

Steve Brooks from On Lincolnshire to give an update.

Mr Steve Brooks, Programme Manager for On Lincolnshire gave a presentation to Members on the progress of the Lincolnshire Broadband Project particularly the BDUK – BT project. Phase one of the project was finished.

It was proposed that by the end of March 2016 90% of the county would have superfast broadband (>24Mb/s). The remainder of the county would get at least 2Mb/s by satellite technology.  The project capital costs were in the region of £40M which was made up of funding from BDUK, Lincolnshire CC and the seven shire District Councils, European Regional Development fund and BT.  The deployment of the project was based around the most cost effective solution for the funding available whilst achieving maximum overall coverage.  In an ideal world having fibre to everybody’s home would be the perfect solution however, the money required was not available to do this. Currently 147,606 homes had been enabled with a further 9,000 still to be done.  Total cabinets completed 692 out of the 801 total cabinets in the programme.  BDUK audited all quarterly claims from BT and were currently in the upper quartile of all UK projects in terms of value for money (VFM).  The Lincolnshire project was the third largest in the UK.  The ongoing collaborative working with the BT Openreach Team continued to deliver efficiencies and VFM.  Expenditure up to September 2015 was £17.22M against a projected target of £26.56M this meant an under spend of £9.34M.  As at the end of the contract the projected under spend was in the region of £10.33M but this would be finalised at the end of August 2016.  Any under spend had to be reinvested in to the project.  The contract projected cost per premises was in the region of £255 however, the actual cost was £116 as at 30th September 2016.  Take up of superfast broadband was the key objective with BT giving £10 back for every premises which was reinvested back into the programme.  The payback was every two years which amounted to £4.6M.  Currently funding for the second phase was in the region

Currently within SK a total of 113 cabinets had been completed. 20,987 premises had been enabled which amounted to 14.21% of the total.  There were 21 cabinets outstanding and take up was in the region of 21½%.  Various communities had been added for further feasibility checks along with a list of postcodes where a number of communities had missed had been passed to BT for further work to be carried out.  The use of the under spend would be used in phase two.  BT were currently doing remodelling work to take account of the under spend and the revised plan should be known by the end of March.  It was hoped that phase 2 should be complete by the end of June 2017 and would deliver an additional 4801 Superfast premises. However, with the additional funding this figure would increase. All the under spend was to be used so BT  ...  view the full minutes text for item 47.

Report LDS165 from the Principal Democracy Officer

(Enclosure)

Members had been circulated with report LDS165 from the Principal Democracy Officer which concerned the review of the electoral arrangements for Lincolnshire County Council’s boundary review.   Any comments which Members had should be directed to the Portfolio Holder for Governance and Communication.   The new divisions were based on electoral projections and within a variance of +/- 10% of the average number of electors per Councillor in 2021.   In 2015 the average number was 7,978 and in 2021 this figure increased to 8,292.  It was proposed that 14 divisions would cover South Kesteven and these included changes to some Parish wardings. It was proposed that there would be four parish wardings within Bourne and seven parish wardings within Stamford as an error had been made with the maps used and an extra parish would be needed in the St George area.  The division warding for Market Deeping had meant that Market Deeping now came under the Deepings and Barholm and Baston.   Three pieces of feedback had been received to date.  The Chairman indicated that it was for individual Members and members of the public to make representation direct. 

Further comments were then made about particular divisions such as the naming of Ancaster and Manthorpe division.  Colsterworth Rural covered villages that included Harlaxton in the west of the District to Thurlby in the south east, what was the community identity in such a diverse division.  Representations had been received from one Member concerning the proposals for Market Deeping and these had been circulated to Members of the PDG in an e-mail. Market Deeping Town Council were in support of the Members proposals as within the boundary commission’s proposal Market Deeping lost its identity due to the split.  A comment was made about the proposed name and it was suggested that Market Deeping and Truesdale would be a more appropriate name for the area covered.  The Chairman reiterated that individuals should make their own representations as everyone had their own views especially when it came to names.  Further comments were made about names and one Member asked if any representations had been received concerning Barrowby as it now included outlying villages and the fringes of Grantham town.   No representations had been received to date.  A further comment was made about Stamford and whether any feedback had been received from the Town Council.  The Principal Democracy Officer replied that nothing had been received to date and the Town Council may have made representation direct to the Boundary Commission. Unfortunately for Stamford there was no other option to the parish warding due to the numbers involved.  Once again Members were advised that if they had a strong view about the proposals they should make representation direct to the commission.

·         Measuring the Economic Impact of Festivals and Cultural Events – Stamford Georgian Festival 2015  - Report ED001/16 from the Economic and Investment Officer

(Enclosure)

Report ED001/16 had been circulated with the agenda and detailed research that had been undertaken by an independent company into the economic impact on the local economy of the recent Georgian Festival in Stamford.

The net visitor expenditure was in the region of £500,000 and with the economic multiplier added (1.8) the cumulative total was just under £1M.  The festival attracted a total of 53,000 visitors over the weekend with an estimated 22,000 additional visitors which contributed to 3,668 overnight stays.  This was an increase of 154% and the highest count since records began in 2009.  The return on the Council’s investment into the festival £70,000 generated £980,935 of economic value to the town which represented a ratio of 1:15; however this figure did not include an estimate of staff time that had been contributed towards the organisation of the festival.  On average day visitors to the town spent £55.23 as opposed to overnight stay visitors whose average spend was £168.42.  Other factors which impacted positively on the local economy but were hard to quantify included increase awareness of the town and increased engagement with different groups from the community.  The overwhelming response to the festival had been positive with one of the main observations for improvement being signage for visitors and coach parking.

The festival had come in within budget with a successful bid from the Big Lottery towards delivering the community programme.   This would be mimicked for the forth coming Gravity Fields festival.

Comments were then made about the festival including publicity, opportunities for weekend package deals, the economic benefit to the town (the festival had been undertaken under the economic development banner), responsibility for the festival in the future and parking issues during the festival.

Members noted the report.

Report SEG016 from the Business Manager Spatial and Economic Growth.

(Enclosure)

Members had been circulated with a draft copy of the Economic Development Strategy to give them a further opportunity to comment on the document.  The Business Manager for Spatial and Economic Growth, Roger Ranson also gave a presentation to Members.  A successful local economy contributed significantly to the achievement of the Council’s corporate priorities especially the priority to grow the economy. Good aspects of the economy included strong business sectors, high levels of average resident earnings, high economic participation and a high quality of life. Some of the areas that could be improved were the workplace earnings which were below average and regional averages and there were high levels of out commuting.  Ambitions for the local economy were to improve skills progression and innovation.  The Council’s role was recognised as a leadership role to help create conditions for growth and development.  The Council working in partnership to focus on a number of key deliverables to help establish Grantham as a sub regional centre and facilitating a business growth network.   Pre consultations had been carried out with various business networks including Grantham Business Club, Stamford Town Team and Deepings Business Club as well as Lincolnshire Chamber of Commerce.  The consultation period had been extended until the end of January.

The document was on the website and there was an on-line survey which was being promoted by press releases as well as direct mailing.  A presentation to Grantham Business Club had been attended and also one to Stamford Chamber had been arranged for January.    Social media was also being used and Facebook advertising.  The delivery plan would be going to Cabinet in April.

One member referred to the interim findings outlined and of the 82% respondents who had agreed that we should work towards establishing Grantham as a sub-regional centre. She would be interested to know the percentage of respondents from Grantham.

The Chairman thanked Mr Ranson for his presentation.

Report SEG017 from the Spatial and Economic Growth Business Manager.

(Enclosure)

Members had been circulated with two documents with the agenda, the revised Local Development Scheme (LDS) and a one page Local Plan (LP) timetable.   It was proposed that the draft LP would be ready for consultation in September and would be sent to the Secretary of State in March 2017.  Member briefings had been arranged and the dates circulated.  The statutory consultation period was six weeks would this be long enough and how could we include difficult to reach groups. These were issues for the Group to discuss.  Dates for the all Member briefings were being held on different times and dates including the full council dates so it was hoped that Members would take the opportunity to keep themselves informed of the LP progress.

Reference was made to the content of the Stamford Capacity Study.  Mr Ranson replied that the content of the document was a technical piece of work that had been carried out to help prepare the LP, no policy decisions had been made. Cabinet had agreed to use the document as a technical piece of work to help support development management decisions.  It defined possible places where development could take place beyond SKDC boundaries, it was border “blind” in that respect.  Stamford was a highly desirable place to live and the capacity study looked at options that were available in the area.  Briefings had taken place in both Grantham and Stamford which Members had been invited to attend.  Contact had been made with Bourne and the Deepings and both currently had declined a briefing.  One Member asked to be sent the e-mail as she felt that perhaps Deepings would be interested in having a briefing.

(12.11pm Cllr Goral left the meeting)

The Chairman thanked Mr Ranson for attending.

For discussion and scoping.

The Chairman indicated that the issue would be discussed after full council.  One Member asked whether it would be worth having a Working Group to look at the issue and the Chairman asked those present if they would be interested in sitting on a Working Group.  All Members present said they would.   

>Action Note

Working Group to be convened to look at Questions at Full Council

The meeting closed at 12.16pm.