(a)

one of the biggest challenges facing the Place department, as well as the Council as a whole, was how services would be managed and delivered against ever decreasing budgets;

(b)

the Plymouth Plan would be an integrated plan for Plymouth, replacing all of the Council’s existing strategy documents with one document;

(c)

as part of the Plymouth Plan consultation, the Council had successfully taken over the lease of a shop in the city centre used for hosting events and talks;

(d)

the Get Plymouth Building Programme contained eight initiatives and aims to accelerate housing delivery and help to provide local jobs;

(e)

RENTplus was a new model of affordable housing funding and delivery and provided tenants with the opportunity to buy into the equity of a house after living there for five years;

(f)

officers were still waiting for a full detailed response from inspectors with regards to the refusal of the Derriford Area Action Plan;

(g)

the Council was working with Plymouth Community Homes and British Gas to help to improve Plymouth’s housing stock through the EcoMeasures programme;

(h)

the Economic Development team was working hard to attract new investment into the city and increase job creation through programmes such as the 1000 Club campaign, the Plan for Jobs and the Urban Enterprise Programme;

(i)

the Council had commissioned Jones Lang LaSalle to undertake a strategic review of the City Council’s property assets in order to ascertain how efficiently the Council is using its land and buildings to make efficiency gain and promote economic growth and jobs;

(j)

the Local Economic Strategy was being refocused in order to achieve a coherent vision for the city as part of the Plymouth Plan process;

(k)

a lot of work was being put into further developing the Plymouth City Deal; Plymouth, Cornwall and Torbay were working together to produce a negotiation document. The document would focus on three specific areas including better business support to marine sector companies, how to create a better platform for investment and export potential in the marine sector and what physical attributes were required to build a marine production campus;

(l)

officers were working on Plymouth’s Ocean City branding;

(m)

officers and Councillors had been working hard to push the connectivity agenda for the South West; task groups continue to lobby central government;

(n)

the Marjon Link Road had recently received Local Pinch Point Funding;

(o)

four Major Transport Schemes, namely Derriford Roundabout, Cattedown Roundabout, Octagon to Derry’s Cross and Woolwell to the George, had been identified as the cities priority schemes for consideration of funding support through the funding of the Local Transport Board major schemes funding pot;

(p)

Laira Rail Bridge was to be made into a cycle route as part of the successful LTFS bid; it was considered that this would be a further attribute for the city;

(q)

a breakdown of job figures, detailed in a letter from the Assistant Director for Economic Development, would be emailed to the panel for their information;

(r)

an update on Digital Connectivity was not provided to the panel as this information had been provided to the panel previously; it was added that Plymouth was ranked 8^th out of 64 for connectivity in terms of speed and coverage;

(s)

officers and Councillors were continuing to speak to the Environment Agency and Network Rail regarding the issue of rail connectivity for the peninsular;

(t)

officers and Cabinet Members from Plymouth, Cornwall, Devon and Somerset had a meeting with Network Rail and the Environment Agency – it was agreed that regular meetings would be organised with the local MPs from the Westcountry in order to continue raising the importance of the rail connectivity issue;

(u)

the panel would be emailed with a response regarding the flexibility of RentPlus to allow couples/families to move to larger/smaller accommodation as and when circumstances change;

(v)

the feedback from inspectors regarding the Derriford Roundabout Scheme should not affect, as far as the planning service was concerned, the Plymouth Plan process;

(w)

the Plymouth City Deal negotiations should be finalised by the end of the calendar year;

(x)

traditionally major scheme funding was looked upon well if Council’s  provided 10% funding, as part of the major scheme bidding we have looked to put a minimum of 10% but where we can, we have tried to increase that.

(y)

the panel would be emailed with the finish date for the On Street Parking Review;

(z)

the panel would be emailed with information regarding the classification of RentPlus residents as social tenants or homeowners;

(aa)

the panel would be emailed with information regarding the expected number of passengers using the Tavistock to Plymouth rail link line;

(bb)

it was considered that the Council have a good relationship with Plymouth University with regards to the Marine Tank Southwest Marine Energy Park;

1

a breakdown of job figures, detailed in a letter from the Assistant Director for Economic Development, would be emailed to the panel for their information;

2

the panel would be emailed with a response regarding the flexibility of RentPlus to allow couples/families to move to larger/smaller accommodation as and when circumstances change;

3

the panel would be emailed with the finish date for the On Street Parking Review;

4

the panel would be emailed with information regarding the classification of RentPlus residents as social tenants or homeowners;

5

the panel would be emailed with information regarding the expected number of passengers using the Tavistock to Plymouth rail link line;