Issue - meetings

The report and its two appendices are at item 7 of the agenda (pages 33 to 40) for the Cabinet’s meeting on Tuesday 5 December 2017.

The Cabinet made the following recommendation to the Council:

That the New Homes Bonus (Parish Allocations) Policy and the delegations therein be approved.

The Council considered the recommendation made to it by the Cabinet at its meeting on Tuesday 5 December 2017, as set out on the face of the Council agenda, the details in respect of which were contained in the report and its two appendices on pages 33 to 40 of the Cabinet agenda.

Mrs Lintill (Cabinet Member for Community Services) formally moved the Cabinet’s recommendation and this was seconded by Mr Dignum (Leader of the Cabinet).

Mrs Lintill introduced the report, with particular reference to section 3 and para 7.1. The New Homes Bonus (Parish Allocations) Policy (NHB) was nearing the time for renewal and the Grants and Concessions Panel (GCP), which she chaired, strongly supported its continuation for a further four years from 2018. The revisions in the updated Policy were denoted by bold font in appendix 2. The benefits this commendable scheme brought to Chichester District’s communities, as outlined in section 4 of the report, were self-evident and should continue to be made available.

Members acknowledged the Policy’s achievements to date and were supportive of the Policy being extended. Mrs Lintill, Mr Hyland (Communities and Partnerships Support Manager), Mrs Shepherd and Mr Dignum responded to members’ questions and comments on points of detail with respect to (a) the possible reason(s) for the underspend in 2017 (table in appendix 1 on page 36); (b) the fact that underspends in a given year had not to date been rolled forward (although they were retained in the NHB reserves) did not mean that this could not happen in subsequent years and the request to start doing so was noted and would be considered; (c) the 110% maximum allocation meant that parishes had the facility to use the funds for a variety of projects including those over a wider area; (d) the availability of NHB funds was intended to reward communities which had taken development and the varied range of projects was set out in appendix 1 (page 36); and (e) the GCP viewed projects which were in the Infrastructure Business Plan in the same way as any other project ie in accordance with the rules and criteria.

Decision

On a show of hands members present voted in favour of the Cabinet’s recommendation with none against and no abstentions. 

The Cabinet’s recommendation was, therefore, carried.

RESOLVED

That the New Homes Bonus (Parish Allocations) Policy and the delegations therein be approved.