To receive any statements by the Leader of the Council, Executive Members, and Deputy Executive Members.
In accordance with Procedure Rule 4.2.23 the total time allocated to this item shall not exceed 20 minutes, and no Member shall speak for more than 5 minutes.
Minutes:
Councillor Ian Shenton, Executive Member for Environment, Sport, and Leisure
I am pleased to confirm that Rook’s Nest Farm has been approved as the site of the Borough’s Covid memorial woodland. The idea from Councillor Clive Jones, and with cross party support, is to create a peaceful woodland area for quiet contemplation for those who lost loved ones to Covid. It will consist of substantial tree planting interspersed with wild flower areas, pathways and benches. Effectively an extension of California Country Park it will be able to take advantage of the park’s existing infrastructure and parking, toilets and café, thereby mitigating the cost to the Council in these financially challenging times. It also means that the site will no longer be considered for the 270 houses previously planned there. It is expected to be feasible to plan the site in the planting season that will start this Autumn.
Under 4.2.13.16 Response from an Officer, Councillor Pauline Jorgensen commented that Gregor Murray had suggested a Covid memorial wood. She sought written confirmation from Officers.
Councillor Stephen Conway, Deputy Leader of the Council and Housing
I am speaking in my capacity as Deputy Leader, standing in for the Leader. As the municipal year draws to a close and the election campaign starts, I think it is pretty clear, that it has started this evening, this is a good moment to thank all those who have helped to improve life for members of our community since May 2022. Included in my thanks are my Executive colleagues and the senior officers who have supported them so well, but I also wanted to express my gratitude to non Executive councillors of all parties for their contribution on Council committees, Board and Working Parties, and to all of our hardworking Council officers whose dedication to public service should be recognised and properly appreciated. Outside the Council I want to thank all our partner organisations, the Town and Parish Councils, the Voluntary and Charitable sector, local businesses, educators at all levels, health providers, the Police and Fire Service. I want with my affordable and social housing Executive Member hat on to register my particular appreciation of the work of Steve Bowers and the other tenant volunteers who make TLIP so effective and enjoyable. Thank you all for playing your part in helping to make the Borough an even better place to live and work.
Councillor Prue Bray, Executive Member for Children’s Services:
I am very pleased to be able to announce that the Council’s bid to be included in the Safety Valve programme has been accepted. As Safety Valve is a programme of support for those councils with the most challenging deficits on Special Educational Needs and Disabilities. The agreement that we have made with the Department of Education commits us to a very demanding SEND improvement programme over a number of years, which will require substantial investment from the Council, but in return we will receive a total of £20million over the lifetime of the agreement to help us reduce the deficit. The first payment of £8million is due before the end of the current financial year, and it will allow us to almost half the accumulated deficit, which has built up since 2017. Our Safety Valve plans include new SEND provision in the Borough, which is very badly needed. I am very pleased to announce that we have been successful in our bids for new special schools. We have been awarded not just one, but two schools. Other thirty three schools were awarded in total and only three authorities were granted two schools, the other two being much bigger than us. These schools will take several years to build and open, but in time will make a real difference for our children as well as for our spending, with fewer children having to travel long distances to expensive out of Borough schools. This is excellent news for Wokingham residents, and especially for those parents whose children have Special Educational Needs, and I would like to thank Officers for all their hard work on both Safety Valve and the school bids, and congratulate them on their success on getting such critically important projects over the line.
Finally, I would ask Council to note that despite all the pressure on school places this year, the percentage of children who are offered a place at one of their preferred secondary schools for September has actually increased to 95.63%, a higher percentage than in any of the three preceding years. I do not underestimate the frustration or upset that not getting a place at one of your preferred schools can cause, but I would like to place on record that the percentage of parents and children adversely effected this year, is in fact lower than it has been for some time.
Councillor Sarah Kerr, Executive Member for Climate Emergency and Resident Services
It has been quite a year and one of the key highlights for me has been the establishment and development of strategic partnerships. These partnerships allow for mutual benefit, not just for the Council and our partner organisations but our communities as well. I would like to thank my colleague Stephen Conway who has been the driving force behind this for our Administration, and the team of Officers who have worked so incredibly hard in progressing this. The work that is underway in terms of developing the community vision in complete partnership with businesses, community groups, forums and the voluntary sector, is a new and exciting way of working for us, and of the utmost importance.
The first of these partnerships that I want to mention is the Polehampton Trust. I am thrilled that the contract has been appointed to start work on the old Polehampton Boys School to convert this heritage asset into Twyford’s permanent library and community hub. After many years of campaigning by the local community it is fitting that we are able to provide the local community with this asset at the Polehampton Trust reaches its 300 year anniversary. I would like to thank my colleagues, the Polehampton Trust, and in particular the late David Turner for making this happen.
The second of those partnerships is in the form of a new Arts and Culture Forum. Following an event held in the Autumn of last year that brought businesses and cultural organisations together, we have facilitated the set up, and are a member of a new Arts and Culture Forum. There is a high opportunity to put Wokingham Borough on the map in terms of arts and culture, and the benefits are multiple including intrinsic social and economic value. We are at the start of an exciting and collaborative journey.
In terms of our environment, the third partnership I wanted to highlight was with Freely Fruity, who are now on site on land that sits alongside what will be Barkham Solar Farm. Freely Fruity are a community orchard charity who require new land to propagate saplings for future orchards. The fruit will help feed our communities, and the trees will help with both our biodiversity and climate commitments.
Then we have the partnership established with the other Berkshire local authorities that has meant that we can launch a Solar Together programme this Spring. The scheme which is run by a company called Ichoosr will allow our residents to group buy solar PV for their homes. We will work with the company to help promote the scheme and our residents will benefit from economies of scale and the fact that installers will be fully vetted, giving residents peace of mind. Whilst this is a group buy scheme each property will be individually assessed, and quotes tailored accordingly.
Finally, I wanted to highlight the fantastic internal partnerships that we have, and in particular between our Climate Emergency and Housing teams. I am absolutely thrilled tonight to announce that we have been successful in securing just shy of £300,000 from the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund which will allow us to make home improvements to our social housing stock. We will be match funding, and together this investment will benefit our tenants immensely with reduced energy costs and increased energy security. I would like to thank Officers who worked so hard to secure this.
Councillor Rachel Bishop-Firth, Executive Member for Equalities, Inclusion and Fighting Poverty
I am very pleased to announce that following the queries which Councillor Rachel Burgess raised last year about the spending of the Council’s Local Welfare Provision Fund, having considered how we can better ensure residents who desperately need this money for essential furnishings for their homes, can access funds. We have transferred the delivery of the scheme and the associated funding for this year to Wokingham United Charities. Residents who live on low incomes and who are either moving into a new property will have essential items such as an oven break. Often they do not have the money to pay for household basics and no way to transport large items. This means that they risk getting into debt to pay for essential household items, or have to go with absolute basics. A local charity has had to appeal for beds for children this month after reporting that children are sleeping on cardboard boxes here in Wokingham. The Local Welfare Provision Fund was meant to pay for this kind of one off help, but as we have discovered in previous years a lot of this funding has not been claimed despite being greatly needed by residents. This year therefore we are transferring the management to our partner Wokingham United Charities, who have close links with local people in need, and will be able to distribute this funding to those who need it. This shows again how working with our Hardship Alliance partners is crucial to getting assistance to those who need it most, and how effective cross party working and putting residents first can help us make better decisions. I would also like to say thank to you to the Officers from the Finance team and to the team working on tackling poverty for doing the work to get us there. Finally, I wanted to say that if you are a resident that needs help in these difficult times, please do get in touch through One Front Door or directly through one of our local charities. Wokingham United Charities are giving one off grants. Share are working hard to get furniture and other household basics to residents, and First Days, as I mentioned earlier, are providing children with beds. Many people are having to ask for a helping hand this year who have not needed help before, so please do come forward if you need assistance.
Councillor Imogen Shepherd-Dubey, Executive Member for Finance
It has been quite a year for this Council financially with unprecedented pressures coming from accommodation of the war in Europe, Brexit, and recovering from Covid. We were still able to find nearly £12million in revenue savings and adjusted our Capital Programme, to produce a balanced budget. Unlike the previous Administration we did not end up raiding the General Fund reserves without a plan for making repayments. However, it could have been worse. Slough Borough Council residents are facing a council tax increase of 9.99% due to their historical mismanagement of their finances.
We continue to distribute grants that we have provided for hardship for our residents, as Rachel alluded to, and those most in need. On top of this we have been able to find extra funding to help more people in Wokingham Borough than ever before. I would certainly say that this has been a successful financially responsible and compassionate approach to our Council finances, which has been achieved. One of our more recent benefits was the £400 Energy Support grants that residents in homes in Bands A-D successfully received late last year. There are also some residents who are eligible in the higher council tax bands. One recent example was the extension of this Energy Support Grant , which is where households that were previously not eligible for the Energy Support Grant, are now eligible to claim. This was usually because they were not directly connected to the gas or electricity grid, such as living in a boat or in a managed residential park home. All of our residents who were in this category and who were not able to claim before, please come forwards and claim what they are due.
As this is the last meeting of the year I wish to thank all of those who contributed to our scrutiny committees to help in the budget setting process, and I particularly want to thank Rachel Burgess, the leader of the Labour Party Group, for being the Chair of our Audit Committee, and doing so responsibility and with good grace. I can see that there has been a lot of good work done in that area, and I hope that it will continue.
Councillor Paul Fishwick, Executive Member for Active Travel, Transport and Highways
Extra money, it was welcome news that the Government has finally listened to the Local Government Association and the highway industry, and provided some funding for pothole repairs to the local highway network, in which Wokingham has been awarded £589,200. However, this is a drop in the ocean when the ALARM survey published on Tuesday this week now shows a backlog of 14 billion road repairs across England and Wales, up from 12.6 billion last year. The new money can be spent on preventative maintenance, and this is what is intended rather than simply filling potholes, which is short term. This is a Government that has, and continues to, underinvest in local highway maintenance. The extra funding received will all be investment in our local highway network during this year, on preventative maintenance, unlike the previous Conservative Administration that did not and squirreled it away. Talking of potholes, the average number of potholes reported between 2019-2020 and 2021-2022 was 2,179. During this financial year they have decreased, yes decreased, to a forecasted 1,500. So potholes are not getting worse since the Lib Dem took over. They are getting less, significantly less. We have also set up a system to charge insurance companies for damage to highways property. The previous Conservative Administration had nothing in place and the council tax payer picked up the bill for the repairs.