Agenda and minutes

To receive apologies for absence from those Members who are unable to attend the meeting.

Apologies were received from Cllr Tyler Hawkins, Jonathan Milner and Chris Friend.

Members will be asked to say if there are any items on the Agenda in which they have any disclosable pecuniary interests or any other interests, which may prevent them from participating in any discussion of the items or participating in any vote upon the items.

No interests were declared.

Most agenda items take place in public. This only changes where there is a need to consider exempt information, as contained at Schedule 12A of the Local Government Act 1972. You will be informed at this point which items are to be recommended for exclusion and to be resolved by the Panel.

All agenda items were considered in public.

The Panel will receive any petitions and/or deputations from members of the public. A deputation is where up to five people can attend the meeting and make a presentation on some particular issue of concern. A member of the public can also submit a petition at the meeting relating to a matter on which the body has powers and responsibilities.

In accordance with Council Procedure Rule 10, Members of the Public must submit a deputation in writing, at least three clear working days in advance of the meeting and shall subsequently be notified if the deputation shall be heard. A maximum of four deputations shall be heard at any one meeting.

No deputations or petitions were received.

To receive any public questions.

In accordance with Council Procedure Rule 11, the period for the asking and answering of public questions shall not exceed 15 minutes.

Any questions must be submitted in writing at least three clear working days in advance of the meeting.

No public questions were asked.

A report to raise awareness of the statutory requirement to undertake a review of the Local Plan and to highlight the approach taken during the review.

Contact: Johanna Scrutton, Planning Policy Team Leader, Planning Policy Group; Mathias Franklin, Head of Planning and Development

Johanna Scrutton, Planning Policy Team Leader, provided the Panel with an update on the Kirklees Local Plan review process, advising the Panel that this is the first of two invitations to attend scrutiny, with today being the first to talk through the local plan review process.  The second visit will be to come back later in the year to go through the outcomes of the review and any next steps for a potential update of the local plan.

In summary, the Panel was informed that it is a statutory requirement to publish a review of whether the local plan remains fit for purpose, and that has to be carried out, within five years from the date of adoption. For Kirklees, the assessment has to have been undertaken and taken through the cabinet process and be in the public domain by February 2024.

At the end of July 2023, the decision to start the review was taken by the Strategic Director David Shepherd, and this decision was put into the public domain through advertising the significant decision notice,  through Kirklees together, local press releases and all social media platforms. 

The appended report, outlines that the Planning Advisory Service (PAS) template has been used to undertake the assessment of the local plan.  The reason for using this template is that the Local Government Association has worked with PAS to develop this process, and it is a standardised approach which is being promoted nationally.

It sets a standardised approach and allows benchmarking against other authorities. There is also the additional advantage that it feeds into a wider body of what  PAS are producing on local plan making, which aims to get consistency across the country in the way that local authorities approach their decision making and their processes.

The Panel was directed to the template that was attached to the appended report and advised that there are 14 main questions aimed at looking at assessing the plan against current national planning policy, and also against the Councils strategies and policies.

It looks at the spatial development strategy and whether Kirklees is delivering the numbers of housing and employment that it said it would across the plan period.
It also looks at the performance of the policies both individually and the interrelationships between them.

The Panel was informed that to inform that process, officers have looked at all the national guidance and used ongoing monitoring processes that feed into the annual monitoring report, and spoken to colleagues across different services who use the plan in the delivery of their work and their strategies.

As an additional level of trying to add robustness and transparency to the process, the Planning Officers Society has been commissioned to fulfil a role as a critical friend.  They provided advice at the beginning of the process about their experience working with other authorities, which involved looking at the pros and cons of a partial or full review. Those outcomes are listed in the appended report, and they will also  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

To receive an update and presentation on the Kirklees Wide Town Centres and Small Centres Programme.

Contact: Simon Taylor, Head of Town Centre Programmes

Simon Taylor, Head of Town Centres Programme, provided the Panel with an update on the Batley levelling up scheme, which forms part of the wider Batley local centres programme. 

In summary, the Panel was advised that Batley is the biggest investment in the smaller local centres, and, by way of a reminder, there has been a successful outcome to the LUF2 bid, and since then work has been undertaken with Deluc to agree the terms of that award.  An external project management team, Turner and Townsend, has been appointed, and they came on board in June 2023.  There are many projects across the council, and there was a need to bring in specialised people to assist with the project in Batley.

They were asked to undertake a review the cost of that scheme to ensure that it was within budget.  The reason for the review, was that between submission and the announcement, there was a long delay, and during that time there has been a fluctuation in interest rates.  It is therefore important to understand exactly what can be afforded from that award.  Whilst the award has not changed in its number, the costs that go into the scheme has.  That exercise has now been completed, and at this stage, the money that has been awarded and put to one side from the Council is sufficient to deliver each of the four elements, however, this will be kept under review while going through the design phases.

It is currently at reba stage two, and there is a cost assigned to that, and each stage costs will be reviewed, and recommendations will be made to the board about how to deliver elements of the scheme be it through value engineering or pausing or doing something slightly different.

A review of the programme has also been undertaken, and importantly, some of the time has been filled with surveys that needed to be done, for example, surveys around 39 Commercial Street in Batley, and all the condition surveys have been completed.

There are four elements to Batley:

Tesco Link - the link between Commercial Street and Tesco, which is effectively trying to bridge the gap between the large supermarket to allow people to move more freely between the supermarket and the main part of the town.

Commercial Street - is an upgrade of the main St in Batley.  It is very much as streetscape project, however, one of the key objectives, is to make it much more pedestrian friendly, particularly as the feedback received is that there is a lot of anti-social driving behaviour, people parking where they should not be parking and speeding through the town.

Market Place -  upgrading Market Place, which is the area outside of the town hall, which is approximately 30 to 40 years old,  and therefore needs an uplift with the aim to make more of a usable space for events and markets.

39 Commercial Street – the largest building on Commercial Street which is owned by  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.

The Panel will consider its Work Programme and Forward Plan of Key Decisions.

Contact: Jenny Bryce-Chan, Principal Governance Officer; Philip Todd, Democracy Officer

Cllr Crook advised that in terms of the work programme it was important not to overburden meetings if possible with too many agenda items. The aim will be to pre-triage, to maintain an oversight of some items and concentrate the Panel’s time on more critical items.

Panel members were asked to recommend which items they feel needed the most thorough scrutiny, to focus attention particularly as it is a busy work program, whilst recognising that some issues are time sensitive because they are on route to cabinet for a decision.

The Panel was informed that the Chair of Overview and Scrutiny has requested that this Panel maintain oversight of the recommendations from the ad hoc scrutiny panel, on building safety and combined action plan, to confirm that the recommendations made to cabinet have been acted upon.

The next meeting will be on the 10 October and will include the Economic Strategy and Skills post 16.

RESOLVED:

That the work programme and Forward Plan of Key Decisions be noted.