The Leader gave the following announcements:

a)    With regards to the Armada Way redevelopment The Leader formally confirmed that they were committed to establishing an independent review into the Armada Way decision and he had asked officers to prepare a draft terms of reference for such a review for Cabinet to consider and:

                                                  i.        The review would be truly independent, and would have an independent and senior chair;

                                                 ii.        It would look in detail at the decision making process that took place, both in terms of legality and governance;

                                                iii.        It would examine how well the Council engaged with stakeholders throughout the process and the extent to which feedback was incorporated into the plans;

                                                iv.        It would examine the impact of the project on the local environment;

                                                 v.        It would set out the financial implications of what had happened, including the costs directly to the Council;

                                                vi.        It would commence before the end of the year and it would be presented to Council on its completion;

b)    The Leader added that there would be lessons for everyone to learn, and he wanted to ensure they were learnt; the new Corporate Plan was very clear about the administrations values – and this review would demonstrate their commitment to delivering against them;

c)    Encouraged the public to view The Leader’s Forward Plan of Key Decisions to see what announcements and major scale investments were upcoming;

d)    Two business cases would be put forward:

                      i.        The first for a £6.5 million investment in a further phases of the Oceansgate development which would deliver 1,772 square metres of high quality, let space for manufacturing and synthetic testing and would create 49 jobs;

                     ii.        The second was for a £9.1 million investment in industrial units at Langage Business Park which would deliver 5,615 square metres of flexible, high quality, sustainable workspace, and split across four different units at Beaumont Way and would create 18 jobs;

e)    The administration was committed to bringing Plymouth forward as a net-zero port and to ensure the city benefitted from large green investment from projects such as the Celtic Array and The Leader had approved tender documents to find a specialist consultant to work on developing Plymouth’s first ports strategy which would be funded by the Shared Prosperity Fund and would look at all 4 ports;

f)     The Box – Summer of Colour and Light had launched;

                      i.        It had received 20,000 visitors within the first two weeks;

                     ii.        Retail had taken nearly £5,000 in opening week with a book on Reynolds being the best seller;

                    iii.        There had been a city-wide marketing campaign and it had featured on BBC Spotlight, BBC Sounds and BBC Radio Devon in opening week;

                    iv.        It was one of the Guardian’s ‘must-see’ exhibitions and one of Time Out’s 12 best exhibitions of the summer, as well as being one of The Arts Funds top 10 exhibitions in July 2023;

g)    The first international food market, ‘The Bazaar’ had been held at The Box in partnerships with Diversity Business Incubator and the event would be held on the last Saturday of each month;

h)    Armed Forces Day had been a success after a week of events and gave the people of Plymouth the chance to show their support for the armed forces, with over 50,000 people in attendance;

                      i.        The Leader congratulated Widey Court Primary School for retaining their title in the Junior Field Gun tournament;

                     ii.        The Leader thanked the key sponsors for making the event possible – Babcock, AECOM and the Royal British Legion;

i)     Brittany Ferries would be celebrating their 50^th Anniversary in 2023 and would be sponsoring the British Firework Championships to celebrate, an event that brought over 100,000 visitors to the city to watch the displays from the companies competing for the title.