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Case rates had fallen in Plymouth, and for a while Plymouth sat at the England average; albeit at high rates. Plymouth had no longer been considered an enhanced response area as at the time of assessment Plymouth’s rates had not been very different from England.

Plymouth had seen a case rate increase over the week prior to this Cabinet meeting which had resulted in Plymouth being above the England average.

Plymouth cases had been just over 400 people per 100 000 per week which meant over 1000 people tested positive for COVID-19. The England average had been around 360.

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Rates had been high in children, and around 1.8% of all Plymouth’s 10-14 year olds tested positive for COVID-19 in the week prior to this Cabinet meeting.

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Though rates are much lower in other age groups, Plymouth had seen over 600 in 40-44 year olds many of which had been parents.

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Many of the City’s older people had been protected to some extent by the vaccination, there had been an increased rate of COVID-19 in older age groups, which was concerning due to age being a predictor of risk.

·          

Derriford hospital had 40 people in the hospital due to COVID-19. The huge pressure on the health system had a knock on effect to Plymouth citizens that would require healthcare. Though numbers in hospital had decreased since the latest peak in September, they were still high and nationally they had been increasing.

·          

Nationally more than 1000 people died every week where COVID-19 had been the cause of death on their death certificate.

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The Director of Public Health expressed concern that winter would be difficult due to people behaving differently. The cold weather could make people more vulnerable, and we would expect to see flu and other seasonal viruses. 

·          

Vaccination levels in Plymouth were slightly higher than the national average by age group for adults. However would like more people to be vaccinated. There had been plenty of opportunities to book appointments or just walk in to clinics, regularly at home park and also at a range of locations across the The roll out to children was underway, as was the booster vaccination for those who had received their second dose 6 months ago.

·          

The Director of Public Health advised residents that the vaccination programme had been successful but urged anyone eligible who hadn’t already, to get vaccinated for COVID-19 and also for the flu. It had also been reiterated that the advice was to;

• Wear face coverings in indoor crowded areas
• Ensure good ventilation when meeting anyone indoors
• Have regular testing with rapid lateral flow tests
• Isolate and take a PCR test if you had symptoms, or if you test positive on lateral flow
• Stay at home if you are unwell - even if it’s not COVID, we don’t want flu and other seasonal viruses passed on.

·          

After over 30 years of local government service and 15 years with Plymouth, Plymouth’s acting Head of Legal, Linda Torney had made the difficult decision to retire. Linda started her career at Humberside Council where she was part of a team dealing with Social Services, Education Employment and Leisure Services. Linda then moved to Devon County Council where she predominantly dealt with Highways matters, care proceedings and employment tribunals. She had also worked as part of the project team on the implementation of the Children Act 1989. From there Linda moved to Derby City Council and managed a team dealing with the full range of social services functions.

Linda has been with Plymouth City Council since 2006, and since 2018 took on the arduous task of being the acting head of legal and monitoring officer. Her advice over those years had been invaluable to not only officers but members alike across both parties, and her dedication to local government work is undisputed.

On behalf of the Cabinet and all members, Linda had been thanked and wished her all the best in her retirement.

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Plymouth Waterfront Partnership had launched its Business Plan for 2022 – 2027. PWP represented about 900 businesses located around the edge of the city’s Waterfront, from Mount Batten to Royal William Yard and Millbay, encompassing the Barbican, Bretonside, Sutton Harbour, Drakes Island and Plymouth Hoe.

The new business plan, set out a new ambitious vision for the Waterfront area: ‘Creating the Waterfront of Tomorrow, Today!’

There were four key, inter-related themes at the heart of the plan, which aligned with the wider city plans:

·         Transformational – supporting the physical aspects of the Waterfront, which included supporting the creation of the Plymouth Sound National Marine Park, working to connect neighbourhoods, and improving the resident and visitor experience.

·         Vibrant Tourist Destination – increasing visitor numbers and spend by working in partnership with Destination Plymouth and visitor

·         attractions, hosting events, supporting and growing cultural assets and the hospitality sector, and maximising marketing opportunities.

·         Environmental Excellence – as well as committing to the environmental sustainability of the Waterfront, ensuring it’s an attractive and welcoming place.

·         Business Voice – giving BID levy payers a collective voice, bringing the diverse local business community together and advocating for the area at a local, regional and national level.

·          

New Business Support Launched – The Leader announced that he had delivered on one of his manifesto commitments in launching a brand new business support service to help businesses and individuals impacted by COVID. There were four elements to the programme

The aim was to create 50 new jobs, 27 new social enterprises and support more than 140 individual businesses.

·          

Fish Quay – A new proposal had been developed to develop the entire  ...  view the full minutes text for item 183.

·          

Councillor Drean advised members of some examples of what the Plymouth Highways team had accomplished over a three month period; 525 carriageway potholes had been repaired; 326 footway holes repaired; 227 emergency jobs undertaken; 629 reactive gullies had been cleaned and cleared; 186 reactive lining jobs; 458 curbs; 547 concrete slabs; lots of planned resurfacing construction, patchworks; three bridge refurbishments; 4600 metres of white lining had been completed. 50 street lighting columns had been replaced during the week; cleaning and updating of subways; 

·          

Major utility works for Pennycomequick and Stonehouse Bridge had been completed two weeks ahead of schedule.

·          

The government had restored the Dartmoor line from Exeter to Oakhampton

·          

Planned work had continued on the Tavistock to Plymouth line and funding had been sought to develop the outlined business case subject to funding for the final project the estimated timescales for the project could be between 2024 – 2027.

·          

The City Change Fund

The City Change Fund was launched in 2015 with the aim of supporting local projects for local people using what is called the ‘neighbourhood portion’ of the Community Infrastructure Levy. In the first 6 years, the City Council had pledged £765,684 on 130 projects. Those projects had attracted 15,399 supporters. In total the City Change Fund has supported community projects valued at nearly £2.3 Million.

Projects supported had been the Children’s Theatre in Devonport Park, the ‘Memory Matters’ Dementia Café in New George Street, creating Plymouth’s first ‘library of things’ where you could borrow tools rather than buy them, and supporting the opening of the Jar a zero waste shop in Looe Street.

The City Change Fund had won numerous national and international awards. We were also increasingly supporting climate change initiatives through the Climate Emergency Bonus which had provided over £30,000 of additional funding to local projects.

·          

2021 Climate Challenge

Following on from the success of last year we are again holding a Climate Challenge Event. Last year this live challenge was won by the ‘1,000 Tyres Project’ which sought to collect and recycle discarded tyres from Plymouth Sound.  This year prize money of £50,000 was up for grabs with a live event taking place on the 8^th November in the Devonport Market Hall Immersive Dome. This had been planned to coincide with World Town Planning Day and is the same week that the UN Conference on Climate Change would be taking place in Glasgow. The event would be streamed online via YouTube.

Councillor Mrs Vivien Pengelly would be working with Councillor Maddi Bridgeman who led on climate change to see what projects would come forward from local communities and who would win the top prize of £20,000.

·          

2021 Abercrombie Awards

The Abercrombie Awards were held every 3 years to recognise and celebrate the best projects and initiatives that had helped shape the city. The awards range from the best small building project and best conversion, to the best building and  ...  view the full minutes text for item 184.

·          

Commitment 8 – We will appoint a ‘City Tree Champion’ to promote the planting of numerous trees throughout the city and maintain our existing specimen of trees. We will plant 2021 trees in our first year to improve air quality, increase biodiversity and improve or health and wellbeing.

Councillor Mrs Maddi Bridgeman had been appointed as tree champion. A tree planting programme had been agreed by Councillors Maddi Bridgeman, Councillor Patrick Nicholson and Councillor Nick Kelly in the financial year.

·          

Commitment 11 – We will continue to provide funding to create and enhance our play areas. We aim to provide more inclusive and family-friendly parks which include sensory areas.

The Leader had signed off £330,000 for investments into children’s play areas in Plymouth which would be delivered this financial year.

·          

Commitment 32 – We shall prioritise the further improvements required to our latest green area, Central Park. Following a thorough consultation with you we shall invest millions to make this park a must visit place for sport, recreation, socialising and wildlife that appeals to all ages.

Councillors Mrs Bridgeman, Dr Mahoney and Nicholson held a series of meetings to progress further improvements in central park particularly around the drainage scheme. Further consultations with the public would take place on those proposals. The mandate on improving the park of £2.4 mil had been signed off by Councillor Nicholson and discussions would take place as part of the capital programme.

·          

Commitment 19 – We will accelerate the plans to redevelop Colin Campbell Court and offer NHS, health and dental services within the city centre.

NHS England had signed off principle funding for the health and wellbeing hub and it was hoped that planning application would be submitted prior to the end of 2021.

·          

Commitment 53 – to lobby for the M5 to extend beyond Exeter to Plymouth

Councillor Drean had written to Plymouth’s local MP’s to seek their continued support for the A38 between Bodmin and Exeter to be included as a priority for investment in the Government’s forthcoming third Road Investment Strategy (RIS3).

·          

Commitment 52 – continue to raise the city's profile with Government to level up the investment within the city to provide a resilient and reliable road and rail network to serve Plymouth.

Councillor Drean had written to Plymouth’s local MP’s to advise them that following public consultation the Vision Document of Peninsula Transport Sub-National Transport Body (STB) had been adopted. Councillor Drean welcomed the work that Network Rail had completed and had on-going at Dawlish and called on the Government to commit to completing all phases of work including implementing a solution for protecting the railway from the vulnerable cliffs at Teignmouth.

·          

This report sets out the revenue finance monitoring position of the Council to the end of the financial year 2021/22, as at the end of August 2021.

·          

There was an improvement to report from the month 4 revenue position and this was the forecast revenue outturn after the application of Covid grants and council mitigating actions -

·          

The overall position for month 3 was an overspend of £1.514m

·          

For month 4 this improved to £1.446m

·          

For month 5 we were now reporting a position below £1m at £945,000

·          

This was a reduction of £501,000 over period 4. A huge achievement given everything that was going on. 

·          

The Customer & Corporate Directorate had recorded a favourable movement of £313,000 The Directorate was now reporting an over spend of £1.175m.

·          

Whilst they still had savings targets which were likely to be delivered later than planned – a legacy £949,000 and the Facilities Management savings target of £550,000 - the management team had achieved savings by (a) management of staff vacancies and (b) a saving in the treasury area.

·          

The Strategic Director continued to monitor the situation closely and was working hard to bring forward other savings initiatives to offset this remaining pressure in-year.

·          

The Place Directorate had also improved and we are now reporting an under spend of £0.139m; an improvement of £0.181m. from an over spend of £42,000 last month. This was due mainly to vacancy savings within Strategic Planning and Infrastructure.

·          

Public Health continued to report an under spend of £94,000 against its business as usual activity, mainly as a result of management actions to minimise expenditure. This was from activities outside of the specific Public Health grant. 

·          

We are again showing the position of the additional costs and income lost due to Covid, which was currently showing a drawdown against grants of £16.315m.

·          

As stated previously, we had again included full disclosure of our revenue savings targets and latest forecast of delivery in Appendix A.

·          

Against the total savings target of £13.485m, we were reporting achieved savings and savings on-track of two thirds of the target.

·          

Officers and Members would work closely to manage the finances towards a balanced position by the end of the year.

1.     

Notes the timescales for completion of the BSIP and the requirement to subsequently publish an Enhanced Partnership Plan and Scheme.

2.     

Endorses the ambitions of the BSIP and the aspiration to make Plymouth’s buses more frequent, more reliable, easier to understand and use, better co-ordinated and cheaper.

3.     

Endorses the thematic proposals of the BSIP as a comprehensive suite of measures which support the policies of the Plymouth Plan and the needs of Plymouth’s current and future bus users.

4.     

Endorses the emerging priorities of the BSIP

5.     

Delegates approval of the final BSIP to Cabinet Member for Transport

·         Improving health and wellbeing outcomes for the local population

·         reducing inequalities in health & wellbeing of the local population

·         improving people’s experience of care

·         improving the sustainability of the health and wellbeing system

1)    Building a Compassionate and Caring City

2)    Developing a Sustainable system of Primary Care

3)    Empowering Communities to help themselves and each other

4)    Ensuring the Best Start to Life through “A Bright Future”

5)    Relentless focussing on Homelessness Prevention

6)    Integrating Care to deliver “the right care, at the right time, in the right place” to promote home first, prevent unnecessary admissions, facilitate timely discharges, enable people to die in a place of their choice.

§  The new campaign focused on the benefits of a job in home care which includes promoting the flexibility to choose the sort of hours that were right for the applicant.

§  Home Care or Domiciliary Care Assistants were vital to support people to improve and maintain their independence, enabling them to continue living in their own homes for as long as possible.

§  Working in adult social care was an incredibly rewarding job and would really suit people who were kind, caring and compassionate who had good communication skills.

§  There’s a  ...  view the full minutes text for item 188.

·          

It would support a vibrant economy helping us showcase our world class marine engineering and research facilities supporting more jobs as well as being an enviable stage for events such as Sail GP

·          

Across the waterfront we would invest in our maritime facilities to allow more people to access the sea, enhancing people’s quality of life, rejuvenation our waterside and shining a light on all the things that make Plymouth unique.  Building back pride and making us a world leading marine City.

·          

The NMP would support our commitment of improving the environment for future generations.  It would promote nature positive lifestyle choices and a transition to net zero which actually enhances people’s life. 

·          

Our maritime history was second to none and the NMP would help us bring this to life helping an understanding of our past to influence a better future.

·         

Preventing gambling from being a source of crime or disorder, being associated with crime or disorder, or being used to support crime

·         

Ensuring that gambling was conducted in a fair and open way, and

·         

Protecting children and other vulnerable persons from being harmed or exploited by gambling.