(a)        To receive announcements from the Lord Mayor, Chief Executive, Service Director for Finance or Head of Legal Services;

(b)        To receive announcements from the Leader, Cabinet Members or Committee Chairs.

With great sadness, The Lord Mayor informed The Council of the passing of Alderman Tom Jones, Alderman David James and former Councillor Tony Kirk.

The Council held a minutes silence as a show of respect.

The Leader gave his announcements and highlighted –

a)    Plymouth was now legally a Freeport and had been awarded its statutory instrument for the final tax sites, making Plymouth the first Freeport up and running;

b)    There was a significant amount of interest from investors for Plymouths Freeport sites with deals to be announced in the future;

c)    The advertisement for the Chair and CEO of Freeport had been announced with hopes to recruit before Christmas 2022;

d)    In October 2022, the Smart Sound Connect Control Centre was opened to further enhance the ocean-focussed 5G network testbed in and around Plymouth Sound and the network had won the 2022 Mobile Industry Award for 5G Innovation of the Year;

e)    Two applications had been submitted to the Regulators Pioneer Fund and Innovate UK with partners across the South West Region which if successful would support marine innovation and create opportunities for businesses to innovate and grow;

f)     The Council has reached out to the British Business Bank to ensure that Plymouth Businesses had maximum awareness and success at securing investment from the £200 million South West Fund which would be launched in 2023;

g)    The Leader was impressed and proud to inform Council that some major, overseas owned companies in Plymouth were continuing to win multi-million pound contracts and creating thousands of high value jobs;

h)    Princess Anne had visited Plymouth to open the National Centre for Coastal Autonomy;

i)     Plymouth had hosted the MDL Green Tech Boat Show for the second year in a row, which celebrated the green alternatives in traditional boating tech with it being profiled in the Event of the Year category in the British Yachting Awards

j)     Destination Plymouth had been doing extensive work to promote the city at various trade shows and new hotels were being built to encourage more tourists and visitors to come to the city;

k)    Plymouth International Medical and Technology Park had launched the latest development to market – Barrack Court, a 40,000sq ft new development of high quality units and offices;

l)     Congratulated Councillor Dan Collins and Councillor Shannon Burden following the news they would be having a baby, and explained that they had both indicated that they would be stepping down as Councillors in May 2023 and thanked them for their contribution to date.

Councillor Jonathan Drean (Cabinet Member for Transport) provided an update and highlighted –

m)  The construction work on the first Transforming Cities Fund Mobility Hub had begun;

n)    Thanked all Members who had contributed to decisions around contents and location for the Connect Plymouth project;

o)    Heavy rainfall had caused a number of issues across Plymouth in recent weeks and a co-ordinated approach was being taken between Plymouth City Council, The Environment Agency and South West Water to look at capacity issues;

p)    Inspections with cameras into drains were being undertaken to try and determine the cause of issues in some areas with a report due in the following week.

Councillor James Stoneman (Cabinet Member for Climate Change) provided an update and highlighted –

q)    That Cabinet had approved development funding for the proposed Solar Farm at Chelson Meadow which would allow a final business case to be developed for the 13.6 Mega Watt solar farm to be built on the north edge of the city’s old landfill site;

r)    The Councillor’s Hub had launched and would replace the existing Councillor Toolkit and enable Councillors to have a single location to access key information, training opportunities, digital forms, the committee calendar & webcasts.

Councillor Rebecca Smith (Cabinet Member for Strategic Planning, Homes and Communities) provided an update and highlighted –

s)     Plymouth City Council had successfully secured White Ribbon status, recognising work done in the city to prevent violence against women and girls;

t)     In a joint bid Plymouth, South Hams and West Devon Councils’ had been awarded a further £200,000 of grant funding from the Department of Levelling Up Housing and Communities to develop digital planning capability and engagement tools and it was one of only 9 bids approved for the PropTech engagement fund;

u)    The council had submitted a bid to the second wave of government Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund with the aim of securing over £17.4 million of new investment into affordable homes in the city, in partnership with Plymouth Community Homes and LiveWest to deliver significant reductions in energy costs, improved thermal comfort and lower carbon emissions for 725 homes in some of Plymouth’s most deprived neighbourhoods;

Councillor Bill Wakeham (Cabinet Member for Environment and Street Scene) provided an update and highlighted –

v)    A subscription-based garden waste collection service would be launching soon with an “earl-bird” cost of £39 for the first eight weeks, increasing to £49 thereafter and if residents no longer wanted their black bins they could return them to Chelson Meadow or pay a covering charge of £10 for collection;

w)   There would be a subsidy for compost bins of £10 off of the recommended retail price;

x)    Non-Household Waste charges would be re-introduced to bring PCC costs in line with other local authorities;

y)    Teams were working continually to clear leaf fall to try to keep flooding hot spots clear;

z)    Final grass cuts had been completed in all residential areas and the final remaining meadows would be completed by the end of November;

aa)  There had been another successful year with the re-wilding project and teams were looking at feedback for any changes that needed to be made ahead of next season;

bb) As temperatures continued to rise, weed control was an increasing issue with a team working on removal;

cc)  A total of 1034 trees needed to be pollarded over the winter, with 5800 new trees due to be planted;

Councillor Pat Patel (Cabinet Member for Customer Services, Culture, Leisure & Sport) provided an update and highlighted –

dd)The Box received the John Bracey Building of the Year Award 2022.