Name

Minute No.  and Item

Reason

Interest

Councillor Michael Leaves

36 – Plymouth Plan

Landlord

Personal

Councillor Riley

36 – Plymouth Plan

Landlord

Personal

(a)

the website proposals would take an applicant through the process step-by-step and provide contact details for the council’s Events’ Team;

(b)

28 days’ notice was the current minimum requirement for notification of an event;

(c)

comments made with regard to the CVS Events network such as –

·         widening the membership to include other forums or single-issue groups;

·         sharing the operating experiences of the Plympton Community Council model;

·         inviting a Councillor to attend their AGM

would be passed on;

(d)

consideration would be given to creation of a simple tick-box application form for small events.

(a)

the Plymouth Plan was a strategic planning framework document for the city which had a far wider approach than the Local Development Framework and brought together all of the Council’s plans and strategies in one place;

(b)

the Plan was being published in two parts –

·         Part one – set out an overarching strategy for future change and growth in the City;

·         Part two – would set out detailed policies for different areas of Plymouth and would be published for consultation in autumn 2015;

(c)

consultation on the document had now closed and the responses were being considered; the intention being to take Part one of the Plan to City Council in July or September 2015;

(d)

a locally based company was working on development of an interactive web application for the Plan which would make it easy for people to use the document and find relevant information.

(e)

promoting community cohesion was a top level performance measure which included resolving not just social inclusion but housing and anti-social behaviour etc.  The Council worked closely with the Police in this regard.  In addition, various action plans were in place around making Plymouth a welcoming City, addressing equality and diversity issues and eradicating racism;

(f)

officers did monitor comments on the Herald website and any offensive remarks were reported and usually removed fairly quickly if the person who posted the remark was unwilling to rephrase it;

(g)

an engagement framework for working with citizens and communities was being worked up and members had had the opportunity to attend a number of development workshops in this regard (minute 38 refers);

(h)

within the Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS), the Octopus project had done some work in mapping areas of the City to ascertain how many community groups were out there (if any) and what they represented.  If members felt that there were areas that weren’t adequately represented they should contact the Octopus project who would be happy to hear from them;

(i)

one of the issues faced by the City was that particular wards comprising larger, older-style houses which presented prime conversion opportunities for houses of multiple occupation were then saturated with these types of dwellings.  This then left the problem of how to rebalance those communities;

(j)

a plan for the private rented housing sector was to be launched next week.  Officers working in consultation with letting agencies across the City, landlord association, Plymouth University and the VCS had come up with a set of aims to bring about better homes, improved standards, attracting new investment, providing better protection for tenants and dealing with unscrupulous landlords;

(k)

another delivery plan in  ...  view the full minutes text for item 36.

(a)

with regard to the Safer Plymouth Partnership Board –

·         its agendas and minutes were now published to the internet and its meetings were open to the public;

·         its membership had increased as a result of the split of the Probation Service – one representative from the National Probation Service and one from the Community Rehabilitation Company.  In addition, the Office of Public Health and Police and Crime Commissioner were now core members;

·         it had recently agreed its commissioning intentions for 2015/16 which had been determined in line with the priorities identified in the most recent Safer Plymouth Partnership Strategic Assessment, Peninsula Strategic Assessment, Police and Crime Plan and current performance in Plymouth;

(b)

there were increasing concerns about the decline in neighbourhood watch members and, as a result, the Police and Crime Panel would shortly be undertaking a scrutiny review into the matter.  Members were asked to talk to their constituents and community groups and pass any comments back to Sarah, who was co-ordinating a consultation as part of the scrutiny review.  This information would then be considered by the Police and Crime Panel at its next meeting.

(c)

was trying to ensure that the seven Community Safety Partnerships and five Health and Wellbeing Boards within his force area were joined up as much as possible by either attending personally or by being represented;

(d)

welcomed the positive report from Safer Plymouth and particularly applauded the increased reporting of crime in general;

(e)

had retained his Crime Plan priorities for the year but would also be focussing on cyber-crime child sexual exploitation;

(f)

Chaired an alcohol focus group which was represented by all 43 Police Force Police and Crime Commissioners across the UK.  Currently the views of all members and their Chief Constables were being surveyed with a view to lobbying central government with concerns about the harm alcohol was causing;

(g)

was keen to work with the alcohol industry and supermarkets to discuss a policy around pricing.  Achieving a compromise between an industry that brings an inward investment of over £21m compared to the cost of dealing with the harm and effect of too much would be difficult to achieve and was a brick wall which needed to be scaled;

(h)

had  ...  view the full minutes text for item 37.

(a)

Officers had looked at other authorities to see what was being done elsewhere and to share knowledge and practice, particularly around devolved budgets but further investigation into what exactly this would mean to a community was required;

(b)

in addition to looking at area profiles, it was also being established what facilities communities did or did not have, how engaged partners were in the ward etc. in order to build a bigger, more comprehensive, picture of local community needs. This was being done by co-ordinating existing initiatives and projects among the many service areas who were already actively working with citizens and communities;

(c)

once the detail of what was required was understood, it would be possible to develop the necessary work-streams, processes and competencies to deliver the identified objectives and realise the benefits, as set out in the report;

(d)

Elected members would be supported in order to enable them to effectively assist their constituents in doing more for themselves which would then result in them being able to focus on other areas of local leadership such as city growth.