Agenda and minutes

The meeting will commence with a short service of prayers.

The meeting was opened with Prayers led by Father Jackson of St Peter and St Paul’s Church, Fareham.

Apologies for absence were received from Councillors P Davies, G Fazackarley, N Gregory and G Kelly.

To confirm as a correct record the minutes of the Council Meetings held on 21 October 2021.

RESOLVED that the Mayor be authorised to sign as a correct record the minutes of the meetings of the Council held on 21 October 2021.  

The Mayor announced that she and the Mayoress were pleased to have met many different groups and organizations since the last meeting of the Council.

They were delighted to welcome new Citizens of Honour Award winners to the Parlour, firstly a group from Acts of Kindness, and then Declan Brooks for a special Citizen of Honour Award. It was lovely to welcome Declan’s family in the Parlour and they were obviously very proud of Declan who brought home a Bronze Medal from the Tokyo Games.

The Mayor stated that it was good to be able to take part in this year’s annual Poppy Appeal and Remembrance weekend. Portchester’s remembrance on the Saturday was extremely well attended and well organized. The Mayor and Mayoress then attended a very emotional and moving concert in the evening at Portsmouth Cathedral, which was held in conjunction with Portsmouth Grammar School. Fine weather brought out large numbers for Sunday’s Remembrance Parade and Service at Holy Trinity Church bringing reminders to us all of the gratitude we owe to those who gave the ultimate sacrifice.

The Mayor announced that the Christmas Lights Switch on in West Street once again brought large numbers into the town centre and it was so good to see families enjoying the festive atmosphere and supporting local businesses.

The Mayor and Mayoress were in attendance at Fareham Railway Station as a plaque was unveiled marking 180 years of our Victorian station here in the town. They were joined by pupils from Redlands Lane Primary school. 

The Mayor announced that during the past couple of weeks, she and the Mayoress have attended several carol services as well as switching on more Christmas lights. 

The Mayor stated that her charities have benefited from five enjoyable charity evenings at Antonio’s restaurant, and whilst the Tea Party in the Parlour had to be postponed, a smaller group than originally planned had an enjoyable afternoon on the re-arranged date, bringing a small profit too.

The Mayor announced that she has a save the date of Friday 18^th March for the Charity Ball to be held in the Wardroom at HMS Collingwood and stated that with the latest guidelines that must be adhered to, she sincerely hoped that the winter months restrictions would allow us to hold this traditional Mayoral event in some form. 

There were no Executive Leader announcements.

Councillor M Daniells joined the meeting during this item.

HEALTH & PUBLIC PROTECTION

Police and Crime Panel

The Executive Member was pleased to announce that the Police & Crime Commissioner has now distributed her Police and Crime Plan for 2021 - 2024. The 9 priorities are very much the areas that Fareham residents are concerned about and the Panel will be scrutinising the outcomes from these priorities.

The members of the Panel were invited by the Commissioner to join her on a visit to the Police Marine Unit. Panel members were briefed by the Police about their fleet and what the Unit was there to do.  They then travelled to the Hamble Point Marina where the boats were moored which consisted of a large catamaran and two ribs.  Members were taken onto the ribs and driven out into Southampton water where the Unit demonstrated the various manoeuvres they have to do as part of their duties.  This included high speed chases, boarding boats at 45 knots, high speed turns, recovering one of the Police Officers who had fallen overboard, amongst many others.  The Panel’s impression of the exercise was that they were a highly trained and efficient unit carrying out duties across the whole of the Solent area keeping our harbours and creeks safe

Sovereign Health Partnership

The Leader and the Executive Member met with members of the Sovereign Health Partnership and Sarah Tiller, Managing Director of the Clinical Commissioning Group on the 16^th November to discuss the very poor performance of the partnership regarding appointments, responses to e-consult and telephoning the practice following the numerous complaints that have been received.  At that meeting, all the various points were raised, and Sarah Tiller promised that an action plan would be forwarded to us to resolve the problem.  It was disappointing that last Friday we received a response which was really an update of what had happened at the Patient Engagement event held on the 7^th December.  The Executive Member stated that he was very unhappy that we still haven’t received a proper Action Plan with dates and outcomes, and therefore further contact will be made with them on this matter.

PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT

Council Statement following Storm Barra

Storm Barra hit the south coast during daylight hours of Tuesday 7^th December.  A deep Atlantic depression brought gale force winds gusting up to 60mph which coincided with high tide, elevating sea levels by additional 600mm.  Coastal asset damage has been recorded all along the Partnership’s frontage.  Ranging from beach draw-down, damaged revetments, broken groyne top markers and collapsed seawalls.  At Salterns Recreation Ground, a 25m section of ageing blockwork seawall collapsed splitting on to the foreshore.  The site has been securely fenced off by the FBC Streetscene Service and the collapse inspected by Coastal Partners.  It will remain fenced off until the new year, when repair options will be assessed and determined.  Wave overtopping was also witnessed along the Cador Drive, Portchester frontage.

Thankfully, future feasibility studies into the replacement of these aging, council owned, defences are shortly to be undertaken.  The Council in accordance with the approved River Hamble to Portchester Coastal Strategy has secured £457k of local levy funding from the Southern Flood and Coastal Committee, and Fareham Borough Council will be contributing £30k to undertake an appraisal study at Fareham Quay and Cador Drive to develop the preferred coastal management option for how to reduce the risk of flooding for this frontage. A proposal is currently being developed and will be brought before the Executive for consideration in February 2022.

Local Plan Update

The Executive Member announced that, further to his update at the October meeting where he announced the appointment of the Local Plan Inspector, Helen Hockenhull, he was able to provide members with a short update on engagement with her to date.

A letter was received from the Inspector in mid-November asking some technical questions in advance of her setting the ‘matters and issues’ for consideration at the hearings.  These were responded to in full on 3^rd December and are available on the Council’s website.

The Programme Officer has written to all respondents to the two consultations in 2020 and 2021, known as the Regulation 19 or Publication Plan consultations, asking whether they wish to attend the hearings which she has advised are due to take place in the spring.   It is not yet known whether the hearings will be face to face, virtual or blended but further announcements will be made in due course.

The Planning Strategy team is keeping the website up to date and there is a specific page devoted to news about the examination.  The Executive Member encouraged members to make themselves familiar with that page if they wish to know about the latest developments.

Ash Die Back

The Executive Member announced that members would recall that the Executive considered a report relating to a review of the Council’s tree services and at that meeting and advised that there was an important issue affecting the ash trees that were growing in the Borough which would be subject to a separate report.

Sadly, many ash trees within the Borough are suffering from the effects of Ash Dieback Disease. Ash Dieback Disease is expected to kill 80% of ash trees within the Borough (and the UK) over the next 5-10 years. The nature of the disease means that as it becomes established, the ash trees become brittle and can regularly fail in whole or in part. Failing ash trees therefore pose an increased risk of harm to people and property. It is necessary for the Council to have a clear regime in place to monitor the ash trees it owns and arrange for works to, or the felling of ash trees, which are significantly affected by the disease.  The Council is starting to take action in dealing with this problem in the Borough and has started to cut down those trees that are failing.

The Executive Member stated that there are presently around 1,800 ash trees in the borough and so the impact on our trees is significant. In this time of climate change, the cutting of trees is a sensitive matter and so he wanted to brief members in advance of the report going to the Executive so that they could inform the public if they are contacted to explain this situation.

HOUSING

The Executive Member provided an update on a recent snapshot of homelessness within the Borough of Fareham. The number of homeless people recorded was six. Two of the six were very recent arrivals to the Borough area and although having any number of homeless individuals within the area is not a good situation, there is some positive news from the Housing First initiative which is where agencies and FBC officers work with entrenched homeless people who don’t necessarily want to subscribe to the conditions in some of the schemes currently available.

Housing First offers a “wrap around” service and support to individuals to get them off the street and into accommodation. There have already been positive results with two homeless people being helped which is a very good step forward for the initiative. There is further funding available for this new initiative and there will be many lessons learnt as this is taken forward.

To receive any declarations of interest from members in accordance with Standing Orders and the Council’s Code of Conduct.

There were no declarations of interest made at this meeting.

To receive any petitions presented by a member of the Council.

Note: any petition so presented will be dealt with in accordance with the Council’s petition scheme.

There were no petitions presented at this meeting.

To receive any deputations of which notice has been given.

There were no deputations made at this meeting.

To receive, consider and answer questions on reports and recommendations of the Executive.  Minutes of the meetings of the Executive and a schedule of individual Executive member decisions are appended.

RESOLVED that the minutes of the meeting of the Executive held on Monday 01 November 2021 be received.

RESOLVED that the minutes of the meeting of the Executive held on Tuesday 07 December 2021 be received.

RESOLVED that the Schedule of Individual Executive Member and Officer Delegated Decisions be received.

To receive the minutes of the following Committees and to consider and answer questions on any reports and recommendations made.

RESOLVED that the minutes of the meeting of the Planning Committee held on Wednesday 13 October 2021 be received.

RESOLVED that the minutes of the meeting of the Planning Committee held on Tuesday 02 November 2021 be received.

RESOLVED that the minutes of the meeting of the Planning Committee held on Wednesday 24 November 2021 be received.

RESOLVED that the minutes of the meeting of the Audit and Governance Committee held on Monday 22 November 2021 be received.

RESOLVED that the minutes of the meeting of the Licensing and Regulatory Affairs Committee held on Tuesday 23 November 2021 be received.

To receive, consider and answer questions on reports and recommendations of the meetings of the Scrutiny Panels.

RESOLVED that the minutes of the Climate Change Scrutiny Panel held on Tuesday 12 October 2021 be received.

RESOLVED that the minutes of the meeting of the Leisure and Community Scrutiny Panel held on Monday 18 October 2021 be received.

RESOLVED that the minutes of the meeting of the Daedalus Scrutiny Panel held on Wednesday 20 October 2021 be received.

RESOLVED that the minutes of the meeting of the Daedalus Scrutiny Panel held on Tuesday 30 November 2021 be received.

It was noted that at the next meeting of the Housing Scrutiny Panel, an amendment would be made to the 3^rd paragraph of item 7 of the minutes of the Housing Scrutiny Panel meeting held on Thursday 28 October 2021 to clarify that the development at Gordon Road is not a new build scheme.

RESOLVED that the minutes of the meeting of the Housing Scrutiny Panel held on Thursday 28 October 2021 be received.

RESOLVED that the minutes of the meeting of the Streetscene Scrutiny Panel held on Thursday 18 November 2021 be received.

RESOLVED that the minutes of the meeting of the Planning and Development Committee held on Thursday 25 November 2021 be received.

To answer questions pursuant to Standing Order 2.12 for this meeting.

There were no questions submitted for this meeting.

Members will be informed, prior to the meeting, of any motion duly notified in accordance with Standing Order 2.6 but received after print and dispatch of the agenda.

There were no Motions submitted for this meeting.

A report by the Deputy Chief Executive Officer.

RESOLVED that the Council:

(a)  notes the results of the annual review of the Corporate Strategy; and

(b)  approves the updates to the Corporate Strategy.

A report by the Deputy Chief Executive Officer.

RESOLVED that the Council accepts Public Sector Audit Appointments (PSAA) invitation to ‘opt in’ to the sector led option for the appointment of the external auditors for five financial years commencing 01 April 2023.

A report by the Head of Democratic Services.

A revised page 165 of the agenda pack was tabled at the meeting to provide additional information received through questionnaires completed by members in respect of their community involvement and casework.

RESOLVED that the Council:

(a)  approves the draft Council Size Submission as set out in Appendix A to the report;

(b)  delegates authority to the Head of Democratic Services to make any necessary minor amendments to the draft Council Size Submission provided that these do not change the overall direction, shape or emphasis of the submission and do not raise any significant new issues; and

(c)  agrees that the final document is formally submitted to the Local Government Boundary Commission for England as Fareham Borough Council’s Council Size Submission.

A report by the Head of Democratic Services.

RESOLVED that the Council:

(a)  approves the proposed schedule of Council, Committee and Panel meetings for the municipal year 2022/23, as set out in Appendix A to the report; and

(b)  notes the dates for the Partnership for South Hampshire Joint Committee and Overview and Scrutiny Committee are provisional until approved by the Joint Committee at its meeting in February 2022.

Members are asked to note that an additional meeting of the Audit and Governance Committee has been added to the Schedule of Meetings for 2021/22 and will take place on 17 January 2022.

RESOLVED that the Council notes that an additional meeting of the Audit and Governance Committee has been added to the Schedule of Meetings for 2021/22 and will take place on 17 January 2022.

To make any changes in appointments to the seats on committees in accordance with the wishes of political groups.  Such appointments will take effect from 17 December 2021.

There were no changes made to the Appointments of Seats on Committees.