Agenda item

To receive a report from the Leader of the Council in accordance with Council Procedure Rule 2.4.

Councillor Ashbee, Leader of Council reported on a range of positive stories that demonstrate the work the Council was doing to deliver on the three corporate priorities - growth, environment and communities. The Leader further made the following points:

·  Council published the details of all the sites that were being considered following the Call for Sites on Thursday 1 December, as part of the work being done to update the Local Plan. These could be viewed on the Call for Sites webpage:

  Link to Call for Sites webpage

·  The Visitor Information Service had been selected as a finalist in the ‘Visitor Information Service of the Year’ category The Beautiful South Awards for Excellence 2022/23;

·  The Council was guaranteed either gold, silver or bronze and our final position will be announced on Tuesday 13 December at a ceremony in Brighton;

·  The process to find a new operator for the Ramsgate Open Air Market had commenced. Potential operators would be invited to submit their Expressions of Interest, to be evaluated by a panel at the end of the marketing period. Once a preferred operator had been selected, procurement and due diligence would follow, along with stakeholder engagement;

·  Regeneration in the district was progressing with government-funded programmes including the Margate Town Deal and the Levelling Up Fund for Ramsgate;

·  A number of new opportunities to join the Council’s Regeneration team and help drive some of the programmes forward had arisen. This included five new posts were advertised recently;

·  Defra released its Bathing Water Report for 2022 on Wednesday 30 November. The district’s thirteen designated bathing waters, eight had been classified as ‘Excellent’ and five classified as ‘Good’. Viking Bay had improved from Sufficient to Good, meaning that all of the district’s bays were now classified as either ‘Excellent’ or ‘Good’;

·  Keeping Thanet’s streets clean was a priority for the local communities. To support this, the Council was planning to introduce a PSPO on Athelstan and Ethelbert Roads, to reduce the amount of litter and other ASB in the area which we know has been a persistent issue. A public consultation was currently in progress to give residents the opportunity to comment and was open until Friday 9 December 2022;

·  Council launched Sustainable Warmth Grant in November 2022, to help homeowners and tenants to apply for home improvements free of charge if they had both a home with a low energy rating and a net household income below £30,000;

·  The Council was also undertaking a programme of deep cleans of its public toilets over the winter. During that time, some toilets would be closed for one or two days to allow the works to take place. Repairs were also being carried out at the Harbour Street toilets in Broadstairs;

·  The council had purchased 20 new recycling bins, and the first of these have been installed on Northdown Road;

·  The remaining bins would be installed in high streets and town centre locations across the district, by March 2023;

·  Feeling safe was important for residents. That’s why the Council worked together with some of the local schools on a recent campaign. The Council organised a poster design competition for local pupils in years 7-13 to submit designs to be featured on our eight knife amnesty bins. The eight winners each received a £50 multi-store gift card and their designs would be printed on the bins;

·  The Thanet Youth Council for local 14 to 18 year-olds was launched at the inaugural meeting on Wednesday 30 November. Councillor Kup produced a fantastic video to help with the promotion of this and was very pleased with how the first meeting went. Fifteen young people attended and discussed knife crime, public transport, violence against young people, bins and parks;

·  A new online engagement platform, Your Voice Thanet, had been launched, as a central hub that would pull together the Council’s our public engagement and consultation activities into one easy to navigate place;

·  It was hoped that the space would encourage feedback, discussion, engagement and involvement. It offered greater scope for the local community to shape and improve the work that done by Council;

·  Thanet had 19 miles of stunning coastline and the district relied on the support of many different individuals, groups and organisations to help maintain and manage such an extensive stretch of coast. A new coastal stakeholder group was being created to provide a forum for local organisations and partner agencies to share information on their initiatives and activities with a focus on the Thanet coast;

·  The Leader invited anyone interested to get in touch and said that the first meeting would be held in the New Year.

Councillor Whitehead as Deputy Leader of the Labour Group made the following points:

·  The Group welcomed the engagement of Members by officers in the budget making process for the 2023/24 Council budget and thanked the Leader of Council and officers for this engagement;

·  The additional funding for the housing services by the government was welcome support;

·  The bathing water test results that had been conducted on Thanet beaches and confirmed good quality of the water was welcome news;

·  The introduction of the PSPO in Athelstan and Ethelbert Roads was welcome;

·  The Group also welcomed the new homes grant and deep cleaning of the toilets around the district;

·  The Group was looking forward to the toilet management strategy.

The Leader responded to Councillor Whitehead’s comments with the following points:

·  Cabinet was looking forward  to the clarification by government on what is meant by the term flexibility in housing numbers;

·  Cabinet was also looking forward to the toilet management strategy.

Councillor Garner as Leader of the Green and Independents Groups made the following points:

·  The Group welcomed the introduction of the PSPO in Athelstan and Ethelbert Roads;

·  There was a need for to provide food banks and warm banks for those residents in need;

·  The Group welcomed the establishment of the Youth Council.

The Leader replied to Councillor Garner’s comments with the following points:

·  The Local Plan was a hot topic;

·  Cabinet hoped to get more control over housing development in the district.

Councillor Rev. Piper as Leader of the Thanet Independents made the following points:

·  The Group felt that flexible must mean fewer houses being developed in the district;

·  The Housing team had done well to secure funding for the service;

·  The Group was looking forward to the operation of the Ramsgate Market under a new operator;

·  The Group acknowledged the good work by the Leader of Council in keeping discussions going between the Council and Southern Water and was looking forward to the results of the discussions.

The Leader replied to Councillor Rev. Piper’s comments with the following point:

·  Currently there was national housing crisis and the Council needed to build more houses to add to its stock;

·  The advice regarding housing numbers that could be developed in the district would be circulated to Members, once it had been received from Government.