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

(a)   Velocity which was the machine that would be attending potholes that we have on trial. This would be starting in February various locations throughout the city.

(b)  had finally managed to get meetings with National Highways to discuss issues and would be having discussions with them shortly.

(c)   The Capability and Ambition Fund was a revenue grant that enabled councils to promote walking and cycling within their area. Through behaviour change and initiatives and future scheme developments.

(d)  Plymouth was invited to bid for £190,000 of funding and successfully secured £208,000 pounds, being one of the council's whose funding exceeded the bid amongst strength from all the other proposals in the categories. We would use this for developing a pipeline of tomorrow's sustainable transport projects, including development work for the routes under Colesdown hill, which is a cycle path going all the way out to Sherford.

(e)  Safer School Streets Programme, which was the temporary closing outside of schools to encourage more walking and cycling from the area, and to continue our Bike Kids Plus Programme, engaging with school children to encourage the uptake of cycling as schools.

(f)    Following the difficult decisions on the budget that we had to make at our Cabinet meeting on the 10 November 2022 and in particular, the changes we reluctantly had to make to some of our non-commercial bus routes. I had been working tirelessly behind the scenes with many transport companies and operators since then, to see what could be done to support some of the routes that would be lost. The decisions that were made in November protected nine of the 14 routes. I am therefore delighted to announce that we will be able to reintroduce bus services to the Merryfield and Holly park areas of the city.

(g)   Our sustainable transport team had been working with their counterparts at Devon County Council and Plymouth City Bus who have been successful in securing a replacement bus service to Merryfield which would be provided by a rerouting of the current 59 service.

(h)  This is a routes Plymouth City Bus operates under contract to Devon County Council. The new service will commence on Monday the 30th of January. It will operate four journeys per day. In each direction reinstating links for Merryfield residents to both the Ridgeway and the City Centre, as well as expanding travel opportunities to take in Sparkwell, shaughprior and Bickleigh. The timetable also had a peak journey to and from the City Centre, which will hopefully help generate commuter patronage on this route.

(i)    For the first time in several years, this would mean the residents of Merryfield now have a Saturday service as well. And all this would be provided at no cost to the City Centre.

(j)    Discussions with Plymouth City Bus have also led to the reintroduction of a service from Holly Park and Ringmore way providing links to West Park and St Budeaux square and the City Centre.

(k)  Also starting on Monday the 30 January 2023, the new service would compromise a four journeys a day in each direction, Monday to Friday. While this service was more limited than what was there before. I hope residents will find the service helpful to access local services, doctors, dentists and banking. I should emphasise that Plymouth City Bus were providing these services strictly on a commercial basis. Therefore the service being provided is on a use it or lose it basis and as such will be reviewed after six months.

(l)    I personally would like to express my thanks to Devon County Council and Plymouth City Bus for working with me and the Sustainable Transport team to enable these services to be reinstated.

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

(m)Added considerably to our transport fleet and have got 22 new vehicles in total. These vehicles were absolutely necessary because we were wasting so many man hours and so many vehicles in the dock all the time. So we have made some really good progress here. This would  help us in the future this year.

(n)  we've got eight new electric vehicles, mainly vans, five new refuge trucks. We needed them because we were having quite a few problems with the old ones, they do take a lot of wear and tear.

(o)  we've got one vehicle mounted boom for tree works, one coldwash street cleaner for the city centre, one new truck and trailer and that includes the two weed rippers that had been essential in controlling our back lanes this year.

(p)  This year, we're way ahead on controlling the weed situation. Last year, we had a few problems with contractors. But this year, we're way ahead of the game. The winter tree programme was going well with about 600 trees planted so far this year with a lot more to do.

(q)  Thanked all the officers and staff who worked through Christmas and the New Year. They've done such an excellent job and I can't praise the staff enough for what they've done.

Councillor Dr John Mahony (Cabinet Member for Health and Adult Social Care) provided an update and highlighted –

(r)   Following the announcement in early December of the deployment £500m of national funding to support hospital discharge, PCC Adult Social Care Commissioning Team have worked in partnership at pace to deploy initiatives to support discharges and help with flow at Derriford Hospital. This includes:

(s)   Commencing 16/1/23 - An investment in additional hours of Independence at Home (Plymouth City Councils Reablement Service) that will increase weekly slots by up to 200% in the short term and enable more people to return home on discharge from hospital.

(t)   An enhanced support offer of short term 1:1 staffing with wrap around multi-disciplinary support from Livewell Southwest for individuals with complex dementia needs being discharged from hospital into a care home (this is live now and supporting 4 people at any one time for periods of up to 2 weeks). This service is working well and already helping to ensure individuals with more complex needs are able to leave hospital and move to a more appropriate setting as soon as possible once they are medically able to do so.

(u)  Further investment in international recruitment support for social care providers with a focus on supporting a sustainable growth in domiciliary care workforce in the coming weeks.

(v)   A step down day care service in partnership with Age UK to provide additional short term support for individuals stepping down from either the Short Term Care Centre, Care Hotel, Mount Gould Hospital. This can help people to return home quicker by offering a pathway and an extra support offer for families with Age UK actively taking part in the complex MDT’s to identify individuals suitable for this service. This is now live with capacity to support 8 individuals per day.

(w)Thanked all those involved in the care sector in hospitals or care homes or in domiciliary care services, who particularly over the bad weather in the winter thus far have provided an excellent service.

Councillor Charlotte Carlyle (Cabinet Member for Education, Skills, Children and Young People) provided an update and highlighted –

(x)  Had a very exciting call with Primary Engineering, which are a non-profit organisation and what they do is they go into schools, and they help encourage STEM. We’re going to be encouraging 10 schools, and giving them the ability to build their own type of trains and working on it. So it's going to be with primary schools to ignite that passion of STEM for children at a very young age.

(y)   I'd like to highlight and shine a light on our Plymouth Youth Service. They've done a lot of work over the last few months and one of the numbers, which is amazing is the amount of participants that they've engaged across all the groups that they have, and all the workers that they have. Since October was 792 Children. A high number of that was from our detached group, they had worked with 378 children and young people across. They go and visit schools and engage the children to make the streets safer, as well and to give them advice and support.

(z)   Thanked everyone who worked really, really hard on the Christmas packages this year, myself, and lots of volunteers turned up and wrapped boxes. we managed to give out festive fun packages to 244 families and managed to do over 50 family packages, as well as Christmas hampers, and food vouchers. It was all the hard work of our senior youth worker, Kerry Powell-Tuckett, who worked tirelessly behind the scenes and she drove that whole thing for us.

Councillor Rebecca Smith (Cabinet Member for Strategic Planning, Homes and

Communities) provided an update and highlighted –

(aa)      Regarding the Violence Against Women and Girls work that we've been doing in the City over the last 12 to 18 months.

(bb)      had an email to say that we've one of the recommendations under the under the driving culture change needed to challenge male violence against women and girls in the city was that we should share our learning and experience with others. We specifically recommended as a commission, that local MPs should be called on to host the debate in Westminster, about the work that we've been doing.

(cc)      Plymouth's work on violence against women and girls will be debated for an hour in Westminster Hall on Wednesday, the 25 January 2023, which was great, because that's another recommendation we can say we've delivered on

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

(dd)     The new programme for the box would commence from February. I don't know what it is yet as the announcement hasn't been made. But there would be new artists commencing February.

(ee)      The events team have been really busy negotiating and trying to finalise an Events Programme for 2023. And I've got a rough draft at the moment. We have a lot of events starting from May, again, we're going to have the Pirate’s Weekend and the Ocean City Running Festival with a marathon.