Agenda item

The Panel will receive a presentation which gives an overview of the Growth and Regeneration Directorate.

Contact:  Joanne Bartholomew, Service Director, Development

Joanne Bartholomew Service Director Development, advised the Panel that the aim of this agenda item is to provide the panel with an overview of the role of the Growth and Regeneration Directorate. As part of the session a video will be shared with the panel, which highlights some of the wider developments in the Council and showcases some of the work being undertaken.  The session will also include why investment matters, and how cultural heart will be showcased.

In summary, the Panel was informed that one of the key considerations for the council, is ensuring that the district is strong and has a really deep seated, sustainable economy that allows all residents to have a great quality of life, leading to thriving communities, growing businesses, high prosperity, and low inequality.  That is the aspiration, but how is that going to be delivered.  In order to deliver a sustainable, economic growth across Kirklees, that puts people, partners, places at the heart of it, there are three key services across the directorate, Skills and Regeneration, Development, and Homes and Neighbourhoods.

Skills and Regeneration includes:

Major projects

Business and Economy

Employment and skills

Planning

Development includes:

Housing Growth

Corporate Landlord and Capital

Housing Services

Town Centres

Homes and Neighbourhood includes:

Operations

Asset Development

Housing Management and Partnership

Development, which includes housing growth, aims to ensure that there are enough houses, and the right type of houses, and the right sort of tenure of houses for all  local residents.  Work is being undertaken utilising the Council's land, working with other developers to bring forward housing states, making sure that at the heart of this is the Council's carbon agenda and inclusivity, encouraging both affordable and lifetimes homes to be built.

Development also includes Corporate Landlord and Capital Delivery Services,
that is everything that is in the current build environment that the Council owns.
The council is a large asset owning council, with over 130 buildings, and there is a significant amount of capital investment across the wider estate creating new affordable spaces as well as creating some dementia friendly spaces.  There is also investment in children centres and children’s care homes.

Housing Services is in essence, the front door to Homes and Neighbourhood, the third area of the Directorate.  Housing Services ensures that people who find themselves in the position of wanting to understand whether they can get social housing, are given an allocation and also where they are not entitled to social housing or where there wait for social housing may be considerable they are helped to access private options. It also deals with homelessness and refugee and migration resettlement.

On the agenda today for discussion is small centres, where the aim in the town centres is to create vibrant towns and villages across the district, creating a sense of economic prosperity, and managing and utilising the assets and those of partners.

The other two areas that are under Councillor Turner’s portfolio, are skills and regeneration, where major projects are undertaken, for example the A62 corridor, working with WYCA around bus station and rail network improvements.  There is business and economy and understanding how to maximise the Kirklees pound, particularly through social value, but also how to grow current businesses and encourage other businesses.

Employment and skills, looks at post 16 skills around employment and skills, encouraging people to do career change or encouraging people who have experienced  worklessness back into the working environment.
There is also  planning service, which deals with the statutory responsibility around planning requirements, to ensure that homes and the local plan is being delivered.

 
The final part of the directorate is Homes and Neighbourhoods, which looks after the Council's housing stock.  There are over 22,000 homes that people live in and the operation for managing, maintaining, ensuring that they are safe, warm, and compliant is done in that particular area.  Housing Management and Partnerships, works in conjunction with housing services to ensure that people are supported to live their best lives in their homes.

The aim in Growth and Regeneration, is to ensure that everybody gets the best quality of life and having increased productivity through better housing, skills, and jobs, meaning better wages and better quality of life for residents.  Business growth will result in improved productivity, and the more startups, the more improved business survival and expansion of some of the key high growth businesses which will create more and better jobs.

The investment in the town centre, which has started both in Huddersfield and in Dewsbury with the George Hotel in Huddersfield and with the Arcadian Dewsbury, are key parts of both of the blueprints and town deal.  This reduces risk and encourages significant external investment, as it creates confidence in what the Council is doing and will help to secure further funding.

Partnership investment has been over 2 billion confirmed since the blueprints were announced, and nearly £40 million worth of external funding has been brought into the Council's projects.

There are a key number of political priorities that the portfolio holders have set over the last year and going forward.  These range from individual projects such as the George Hotel and the Trans-Pennine upgrade, to wider initiatives such as tenant voice and tenant safety and include issues included on today’s agenda around housing growth and small centres.

The Panel was informed that over the next five years, the council will be looking at delivering significant new homes.  The first phase of Dewsbury Riverside will be around 2 1/2 thousand homes.  In Ashbrow and Soothill, the aim is to build 610 new homes, including 54 affordable homes and a significant amount of extra care provision.

In terms of tenant satisfaction across homes and neighbourhoods,  the aim is to ensure that tenants are kept safe and that their homes are compliant and that they feel valued, and their voices are heard in terms of decision making around their home.   This will hopefully lead to a reduction in complaints and cases of disrepair and lead to much more collaborative decision making.

Where appropriate, the intention will be to look to transfer corporate assets to the community and work in support with locality, to ensure that community groups are structured and able to take on assets.

With regard to transportation and infrastructure, work is being undertaken with active travel in North Kirklees, with some evidence towards a shift towards people walking and travelling and making transport infrastructure more sustainable.  Significant road  network improvements have been carried out in Huddersfield and those have just finished.

The initiative with White Rose Forest and the Calder catchment, will have over 670 hectares of new tree coverage and will have over 1000 hectares of green streets in West Yorkshire.

The Station to Stadium Enterprise Corridor, and the investment zone associated with it, is moving forward with increasing private sector jobs and investment and there has been significant interest in the Station to Stadium Enterprise Corridor and the works on the A62 corridor has strengthened that.

Working with the college, over 900 extra learner places has been delivered through the process manufacturing centre,  and a significant increase in apprenticeship and work placements offer.

RESOLVED:

That Joanne Bartholomew be thanked for providing an introduction to the Growth and Regeneration Directorate.