Agenda and minutes

County Councillors J. Crook, L. Guppy and P. Watts.

None received.

  The minutes of the Committee dated 20^th July 2016 were confirmed and signed by the Chairman.

This will be updated on a regular basis as matter arise.

No members of the public present.

We received a verbal updates from Dan Davies, the Events Manager regarding various projects including the 2016 Caldicot Castle Fireworks event. During discussion we were told;

Concerns raised regarding ticket availability for local residents was due to a miscommunication via social media, a number of concessionary priced tickets (£4) had been made available to residents with a local postcode. This allocation sold out on 2 hours. Residents were now able to buy full price tickets.

The tickets will not be available on the gate with 35 external security guards in place to enforce this with a focus on behaviour control, alcohol abuse and customer service.

The cost of tickets had risen from £3 to £5 with a cap of 7000 tickets.

Car park capacity will be increase.

On being asked how the display compares with the Chepstow Round Table display we were told that since Chepstow do not charge and that their budget for fireworks was £2, 000 compared with our £7,000 budget they were two completely different models and difficult to compare.

A Member told the Committee of the extremely positive feedback he had received from residents in his ward regarding previous displays and wished the venture luck.

The Officer told the Committee of a 3 month study about to commence regarding the ‘Future of Caldicot Castle’. The Officer and his team will be asking for feedback from the public via social media, a pop up shop in Caldicot and 2 public meetings in December. The castle had sold over 30,000 tickets for various events this summer.

We were told the castle would be open for half term events and that S106 money will be spent on the playground area.

Future events were also discussed with details to be confirmed.

The Chair looked forward to an update at the next meeting in January. ACTION D.D.

We received a report from the Whole Place Officer to agree a framework for monitoring the outcomes achieved for Caldicot Town Centre resulting from the allocation of S.106 funds to the development of a town centre partnership.

It was recommended that the Severnside Area Committee agree to monitor the outcomes achieved for Caldicot Town Centre resulting from the allocation of S.106 funds to the development of a town centre partnership using the measures and processes proposed in this paper.

KEY ISSUES / REASONS:

At its meeting on 7th September 2016, Cabinet agreed to the allocation of £41,000 of S106 funding to Caldicot Town Team payable in quarterly instalments to enable the delivery of the activities and outcomes as identified in the Town Team action plan.

At the same meeting Cabinet also agreed to task the Severnside Area Committee with reviewing Caldicot Town Team’s performance against spend and outcomes as outlined in the Town Team action plan. The specific purpose of this task was to ensure that there is oversight of the outcomes that are achieved for the town centre resulting from the spend of the allocated sum.

It is now necessary to agree a framework against which to monitor these outcomes.

It is proposed that the Town Team will complete project monitoring pro formas for each specific project that is undertaken which they will share with the Area Committee.

In addition, in order to monitor the cumulative effect of the Town Team’s actions and projects, the Area Committee will also receive regular information on the following performance and outcome measures:

- Number of empty shops in town centre

- Town centre footfall

- Survey of retailers to measure confidence, planned investment/intended projects etc, impact of events on footfall and turnover

- Shopper survey

- Number of market stalls

- Number of days the pop up shop is vacant / occupied

- Numbers attending events

It is proposed that the Area Committee will receive monitoring reports – comprising individual project pro formas as relevant and performance indicator data - at six-monthly intervals in order to allow tome for significant movement against the key performance indicators.

For completeness, the Town Team action plan shows all activity that the Town Team are working on. It should be noted that not all of this activity is exclusively funded through the Town Centre Development Partnership S106 allocation, but instead draws in funding from a range of other sources including grants and private investment.

The Chair spoke for the Committee when he confirmed that the area Committee would be happy to scrutinise the Town Team spending providing regular updates were received.  In response we were told by Aaron Reeks that there will be a report & action plan updated quarterly.

A Member voiced concerns of who will provide scrutiny if the Area Committees dissolved and we were told by the Head of Community Led Delivery that any replacement committee will scrutinise.

We received an update from Aaron Reeks regarding the Town Team recent activities and future plans, these included;

·         Markets

We were given a list of 2017 specialist market dates and told of the plans for a first evening market for 1^st September 2017 which will sell ‘street food’

·         Caldicot Goes Pop

The shop has been a great success and is booked until 2017. The unit has hosted an upcycled furniture store, Caldicot Castle, a bakery, a homewares store, an electrical appliance store and a baby boutique since opening.

·         Town Centre Shop Movements

Store 21 is not closing, there is an Italian restaurant interested in a unit in the town centre but are concerned at the capital spending required to bring the unit to a suitable standard. There are no developments from Domino’s Pizza.

The Post Office will not go ahead in December and London and Cambridge have been contacted for a statement regarding an issue with the door. 

·         AGM

Monday 14^th November 6.30pm, venue TBC.

The Head of Democracy, Engagement Improvement introduced a report to the committee. “Community governance” refers to the processes for making all the decisions and plans that affect life in the community, whether made by public or private organizations or by citizens.

For community governance to be effective, it must be about more than process, it also must be about getting things done in the community. And what gets done must make a difference.

A key development has been the move from 4 areas as per the existing structure (Lower Wye, Severnside, Monmouth and Central Monmouthshire and Bryn Y Cwm) to five areas. This development is in keeping with a range of new policy directions such as the renewed relationship with Community and Town Councils, the division of the County for the Wellbeing Assessment and the developments around Place Based Approaches in Social Care.

Whilst this is not the most radical solution available it does provide a stable platform and recognises some of the key challenges that Monmouthshire has faced in the past. We now have some key actions:

·         Seeking formal member agreement to the new community governance models as described above

·         Beginning the formal implementation with the five new areas.

·         Agreeing the staffing support for the new model including, but not limited to, the role of the Whole Place Team.

The Chair thanked the officer for the update and fully supported option 2 as the most viable way forward. 

We received an update from the Head of Community Led Delivery advising that the works will commence in January 2017, date to be confirmed.

We look to receiving regular updates.  

The Head of Community Led Delivery confirmed that all monies from the previous round of the grant had now been paid out.

The new forms were available with County Councillor P. Hobson having asked for equalities information to be added.

The closing date will be 16^th December 2016 with completed forms to be sent to the Head of Community Led Delivery who will scrutinise the forms and ensure all relevant information has been submitted before liaising with the Chairs of the area committees.

We received a report from the Head of Operations advising that over several years various changes to the street lighting service have been introduced. In particular the remote control of lighting has been introduced along with the dimming and partial switch off of lights in various communities. More recently older lanterns are being replaced with LED lanterns to reduce energy consumption.

MCC street lighting team presently manages 10,695 street lights plus traffic lights and VAS signs. 7026 street lights are on the remote monitoring system.

Presently 1751 LED lanterns have been installed all of which are controlled on the monitoring system.

A capital budget has been allocated from the overall highway budget for many years to carry out upgrades to the street lighting furniture year on year. However in 2012 the Council took a SALIX loan (interest free) to purchase new lanterns using the reduction in the energy costs to repay the loan.

Last year a Welsh Government Invest to Save Loan (I2S) was received to install LED lanterns. Again the reduction in energy is funding the interest free loan. Officers are currently assessing the financial viability of a further I2S loan to purchase more LED lanterns (2500 lanterns contemplated).

The 2014/15 budget included a significant saving (£180k) by the introduction of partial switch off, dimming, reduction in maintenance costs and staff cost reduction. This initiative to introduce switch off and dimming commenced during 2014 and continues to be rolled out.

A Member thanked the Officer for the report and commented that it was a massive job to undertake.

We were told that the new lights will have light sensors so that when there is daylight the lights will automatically go off as a failsafe measure.

4^th January 2017 10am