Agenda item

The report is at item 5 of the agenda for the Cabinet’s meeting on Tuesday 11 July 2017 and its three appendices are in the first (main) agenda supplement.

The Cabinet made the following recommendations to the Council at this meeting.

RECOMMENDATION TO THE COUNCIL

(1)  That the final text for the Chichester Vision document be approved.

(2)  That authority be delegated to the Economic Development Manager following consultation with the Leader of the Council to enable minor amendments to be made to the document after any further comments from project partners.

The Council considered the recommendations made to it by the Cabinet at its meeting on 11 July 2017 as set out on the face of the agenda (copy attached to the official minutes), the details in respect of which were contained in the report on pages 11 to 15 of the agenda for that meeting and also in the three appendices to the report on pages 1 to 38 of the first agenda supplement. All Chichester District Council (CDC) members had received a copy of the Cabinet agenda and the first agenda supplement. 

A second agenda supplement had been published which circulated in electronic format for online viewing only the current draft version of the Vision for Chichester Centre (Vision) document (copy attached to the official minutes).  As stated on the front cover of the draft document, the layout and illustrations had yet to be finalised and so were subject to amendment and change.  The draft version was indicative of how the text would appear in the context of the document as a whole.  

Mr Dignum (the Leader of the Council) formally moved the recommendations of the Cabinet and this was seconded by Mrs Taylor (the Cabinet Member for Planning Services). 

Mr Dignum said that members had agreed in discussion with officers on the need for a vison for the future of the city of Chichester. It was essential that such a vision was supported by the city’s stakeholders, the three local authorities based in the city, businesses and residents. Accordingly a steering group had been established by a Project Partners Group, developed with many stakeholders and with a number of surveys. This collaborative work had culminated in a six-week public consultation, the results of which revealed overwhelming support for the Vision. The aims were to agree a clear definition of ‘what do we want Chichester City Centre to be’ ie what is to be the future form and function of the city centre. This would include (1) defining  Chichester city centre’s offer as a vibrant and attractive commercial and cultural focal point serving residents, workers and visitors, across all demographics; (2) identifying development opportunities realisable without damaging the heritage and in partnership between the private sector and others in the public sector (the Southern Gateway was a prime example aimed at attracting significant new inward investment into the city, thereby generating economic growth and the creation of jobs); and (3) creating a well-managed, well-coordinated, and well-promoted city centre to attract visitors.

A central objective had been a drive to generate new ideas and to provide the key data required to take an informed view. The proposals in the Vision had, therefore, been shaped by field research, reviews of previous plans and strategies, facilitated workshops attended by representatives of community and business organisations, and a comprehensive range of studies including (a) research into comparable towns and cities and (b) qualitative and quantitative studies into usage of and satisfaction with the city and its facilities among residents, businesses, workers and visitors.

In short the Vision aimed to develop the city thus: ‘ Attractive, distinctive, and successful …Embracing its heritage and creating opportunity for all, Chichester’s City Centre will be inspiring and welcoming, and at the heart of one of the UK’s leading visitor destinations.’

Three major themes were established during the development process:

·       ‘Living’ - An Accessible and Attractive City Centre

     To achieve this, Chichester city centre will:

o   Be easily accessible but with less traffic, less pollution, further pedestrianisation and well-co-ordinated public transport

o   Give more priority for walking and cycling

o   Have attractive streets and open spaces

o   Be attractive and welcoming to students and young people, while enhancing life for older people

o   Encourage more city centre living with a range of accommodation for all demographics

o   Be a ‘smart’ city that is digitally connected ensuring access to digital services to all

·       ‘Working’ - A Vibrant and Growing Economy

Chichester will have homes for all ages and will be a prestige city where entrepreneurs, employers and employees wish to be. Chichester City Centre will achieve this by:

o   Being a city centre that pursues well-co-ordinated development opportunities making better use of public sector land

o   Attracting and retaining businesses from a wide range of high earning sectors

o   Being a centre of learning

o   Retaining graduates and developing a skilled workforce to meet the needs of the city’s economy

·       ‘Visiting’ - A Leading Visitor Destination

Chichester city centre will be a leading centre of artistic, cultural and heritage excellence at the heart of one of the UK’s leading visitor destinations, which will by day be bustling with shoppers enjoying the best retail experience in the South.

Once the Vision had been approved and adopted, a delivery plan and timetable would be produced and it was proposed to establish a Chichester Vision Delivery Steering Group (CVDSG). The action plan and the governance arrangements for the CVDSG would be brought to the Cabinet for approval in October 2017.

He referred members to the online colour version of the draft Vision document. The Council was being asked to approve the final text and not the design illustrations. Comments from West Sussex County Council (WSCC) were awaited. 

During the ensuing discussion (full details of which are available via the audio recording on CDC’s web-site) members made comments and asked questions about various matters and received where appropriate answers from Mr Dignum, Mrs Shepherd (Chief Executive) and Mrs J Hotchkiss (Head of Commercial Services) who was present as an observer. The subjects included:

(a)  The omission of (i) a proposal to construct a level crossing flyover or tunnel for vehicles and (ii) any reference in the engineering report to the tunnels found in 1994.

(b)  The need to address urgently the poor state of repair of the city’s pavements – this was recognised but it was a historic city and the funds required by WSCC as the responsible authority to carry out appropriate repairs were not available - Mr Dignum and Mr Plowman were pursuing the point.

(c)  The Vision document needed to be and would be sufficiently robust to cope with the additional housing planned for the city (a figure of ‘some 3.500’ was cited in the second para on page 8 of the first agenda supplement) and there was also the issue of how to address the additional traffic such development would generate.

(d)  The approach to prioritising the various competing aspirations and projects would inevitably be influenced by the limited resources. The main priority would be to exploit development opportunities. CDC would lead on the Southern Gateway project and WSCC on the Northern Gateway. Priorities would begin to be addressed when the CVDSG met later in the year. It was intended that the Vision would inspire CDC’s other projects and objectives such as its proposed litter strategy to benefit the city and the whole of Chichester District.

(e)  The need (i) to include in the Vision the concept of community values for the whole of the city in order to deliver the benefits of the Vision for everyone and to carry the support of the community for it and (ii) for the Vision’s component parts such as the masterplanning for the redevelopment of Southern Gateway to cohere satisfactorily with the aspirations contained in the Vision – the Vision was an over-arching umbrella strategy which did in fact address the concerns felt by all city’s residents eg with regard to accessibility, public transport, cycling, open spaces, appropriate housing and other development, dealing with litter and sufficient scope for facilitating city centre living. 

(f)    The consultation response rate was rather low at less than 2% of the city’s population, raising a question about whether the consultation engagement process was adequate compared with responses for neighbourhood development plans or those undertaken in other cities or perhaps the public was simply not sufficiently interested – CDC’s Communities team in fact considered the response rate to be high for a consultation of this nature, it was not dissimilar to that for the Chichester Local Plan: Key Policies 2014-2029, there were workshops with a whole range of people, CDC consulted far and wide and the results were validated by research. 

Mr Dignum and Mrs Hamilton each acknowledged the hard work by Mr Oates (Economic Development Manager) in preparing the Vision.

At the end of the debate the following decision was made by the Council.

Decision

The Council voted with respect to the recommendations made to it by the Cabinet and on a show of hands it was in favour of making the resolutions set out below, with no votes against and no abstentions.

RESOLVED

(1)  That the final text for the Chichester Vision document be approved.

(2)  That authority be delegated to the Economic Development Manager following consultation with the Leader of the Council to enable minor amendments to be made to the document after any further comments from project partners.