Agenda and minutes

CM 6               

Apologies for absence were received from Cllrs T Bolton and N Heyworth.

To approve and adopt as a correct record the Minutes of the Meetings of the Council held on 9 June 2020 and 29 July 2020;

CM 7                                                         

It was moved by Cllr N Jory, seconded by Cllr R Cheadle and, upon the motion being submitted to the Meeting, was declared to be CARRIED  and “RESOLVED that the Council agree the minutes of the 9 June 2020 Meeting and the 29 July 2020 Special Meeting as a true and correct record.”                                                                                                          

Members are invited to declare any personal or disclosable pecuniary interests, including the nature and extent of such interests they may have in any items to be considered at this meeting.

          If Councillors have any questions relating to predetermination, bias or interests in items on this Summons, then please contact the Monitoring Officer in advance of the meeting.

CM 8                                                         

The Mayor invited Members to declare any interests in the items of business to be considered during the course of the meeting but there were none made.

CM 9                                                                    

The Mayor informed the meeting that he had no urgent items to be brought forward to this Meeting.

CM 10 

a.       Hub Committee – 30 June 2020, 28 July 2020 and 15 September 2020

It was moved by Cllr N Jory, seconded by Cllr R Cheadle and upon being submitted to the Meeting was declared to be CARRIED and “RESOLVED that the Minutes of the 30 June 2020, 28 July 2020 and 15 September 2020 Committee Meetings be received and noted, with the exception of Recommendations HC 07, HC 16 and HC 18.”

In respect of the Recommendations:

i.      HC 07 Changes to Pest Control Services

It was moved by Cllr N Jory, seconded by Cllr R Cheadle and upon being submitted to the Meeting was declared to be CARRIED and “RESOLVED that:

1.     the free pest control (rats and mice treatments) service for residents be removed and replaced with a free service for benefit recipients only; and

2.     the tender to deliver the service in West Devon Borough Council areas from Terminix be accepted and approved.”

ii.     HC 16 Amended Draft Budget 2020/21

Cllr N Jory informed that this recommendation was to be considered later in this meeting (Minute CM 10 below refers).

iii.   HC 18 Council Tax Premium for Long-term Empty Property

In reply to a question, the Section 151 Officer informed that, as at August 2020, the Council had 47 properties that were subject to the long-term Empty Property Premium, which was out of a total of 26,051 properties that were banded for Council Tax.

In addition, on 1 April 2021, of these 47 properties:

-        4 would have been ‘long-term’ empty for longer than 5 years, with a further 8 properties reaching five years during the 2021 Financial Year; and

-        4 would have been ‘long term’ empty for longer than 10 years, with 3 of the 4 properties highlighted above reaching ten years during the 2021 Financial Year.

It was then moved by Cllr N Jory, seconded by Cllr L Samuel and upon being submitted to the Meeting was declared to be CARRIED and “RESOLVED that:

1.     an increase in the Council Tax long-term Empty Property Premium be approved from the current 50% to the relevant maximums as set out in the Rating (Property in Common Occupation) and Council Tax (Empty Dwellings) Act 2018;

2.     with effect from 1 April 2021 onwards, the Council Tax long-term Empty Property Premium be increased to 100% for properties that have been empty for 2 years or more*;

3.     with effect from 1 April 2021 onwards, the Council Tax long-term Empty Property Premium be increased to 200% for properties that have been empty for 5 years or more*; and

4.     with effect from 1 April 2021 onwards, the Council Tax long-term Empty Property Premium be increased to 300% for properties that have been empty for 10 years or more*.

(* Any period not exceeding six weeks, where the property is not empty, shall be disregarded for the purposes of calculating the 2, 5 or 10 year empty period).”

b.      Development Management and Licensing Committee –  ...  view the full minutes text for item CM 10

CM 11             

The Council considered a report that presented a draft amended Budget for 2020/21 in light of the impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

In the ensuing debate, reference was made to:-

(a)    any proposed use of Council Reserves.  A Member wished to make the point that the Council could only spend its Reserves once and felt it important for this to be continually borne in mind by his fellow Members both today and in the future;

(b)    the work undertaken by the Section 151 Officer.  A number of Members wished to thank the Section 151 Officer and her finance team for their hard work in preparing this draft amended Budget.  In particular, these Members felt that the recent Member Budget Setting Workshop had been an excellent session.

At the conclusion of the debate and, in accordance with statutory legislation, the Mayor then called for a recorded vote on the recommendation.  The vote was subsequently recorded as follows:-

For the motion (27):      Cllrs Ball, Bridgewater, Cheadle, Coulson, Crozier, Daniel, Davies, Edmonds, Ewings, Hipsey, Jory, Kemp, Kimber, Leech, Moody, Mott, Moyse, Ratcliffe, Renders, Ridgers, Samuel, Sellis, Southcott, Spettigue, Vachon, Wood and Yelland

Against the motion (0):                                             

Abstentions (0):                                    

Absent (4):                   Cllrs Bolton, Heyworth, Musgrave and Pearce.

It was consequently “RESOLVED that:

1.     the following five options (totalling £501,000) be approved in order to produce an Amended Revenue Budget for 2020-21:

-      To use the third tranche of COVID-19 funding received from Central Government (£89,000);

-      To use the New Burdens Government Grant funding received for the administration of the Business Rates Grants (£130,000);

-      To utilise the 2019/20 Statement of Accounts underspend (£133,000);

-      To allocate the uncommitted New Homes Bonus from 2020/21 to further fund the Revenue Base Budget (£69,000); and

-      To reduce the Capital Budget for the remedial works to the Tavistock Viaduct from £100,000 to £20,000 (NB. this Capital Budget was being funded by New Homes Bonus which is revenue funding) (£80,000);

2.     it be noted that the future capacity of Reserves (as set out in Sections 5.8 and 5.9 of the presented agenda report) may have to be called upon to meet any future financial challenges and/or additional requirements;

3.     £70,000 be used from the Business Rates Retention Earmarked Reserve to fund the Town Centre Support initiative (as set out in Section 6 of the presented agenda report); and

4.     approval be given to Tranche 4 of the Discretionary Business Grants Policy (as attached at Appendix 2 of the presented agenda report), to confirm that, in accordance with the Central Government guidance, Town and Parish Councils are able to apply to the scheme if they meet the eligibility criteria (as set out at Section 11 of the presented agenda report).”

**Item deferred until the December Council meeting**

(Upon the conclusion of this agenda item, the meeting will be adjourned and will re-convene at 2.00pm)

CM 12

The Mayor informed that this agenda item had been deferred for consideration at the next Council meeting to be held on 8 December 2020.

(At this point, the meeting was adjourned until 2.00pm).

CM 13 

Consideration was given to a report that set out the challenging conditions for all leisure providers due to the COVID-19 Pandemic.  In particular, the report considered the alternative management options for the Council and provided a series of options for Members to consider over the long term future for the Leisure Centre provision.

The Leader introduced the report and made particular reference to:-

-          the most recent Central Government announcements having had no impact on this agenda report.  In addition, the Leader emphasised the importance of the Council continuing to lobby Central Government to ensure that leisure providers were in receipt of financial support;

-          the extensive tender process that had been undertaken before Fusion had been awarded the Leisure Contract;

-          the close linkages with the Council’s Health and Wellbeing agenda;

-          it being his wish to continue to support Fusion and to recommend that both Leisure Centres be re-opened; and

-          his intention to request that the Financial Stability Review Group assess the impact of the Leisure Contract on the Council’s financial position.

In discussion, the following points were raised:

(a)    Officers agreed to provide Members with high level mapping information regarding the location of where Fusion members lived within the Borough;

(b)    In the event of the Council opening both Leisure Centres, it was envisaged that they would be re-opened within the next two weeks;

(c)     Some Members were of the view that Fusion should review its current Centre opening hours and particularly requested that consideration be given to reinstating the 7.00am opening times.  Furthermore, the importance of re-instating the GP Referrals Scheme was also reiterated by a number of Members;

(d)    Officers recognised the views expressed by a number of Members whereby Fusion needed to drastically improve its Communications Strategy.  In response, officers advised that this point had already been relayed to Fusion representatives in the strongest possible terms;

(e)    In acknowledging the significance of the decision, some Members stated that there were no absolute guarantees that this would be the last request made by Fusion for additional funding from the Council.  As a result, a number of Members wished to warn Fusion that the Council did not have the financial resilience to continually support the organisation;

(f)      In light of the meeting wishing to raise issues in relation to the exempt appendices, it was moved by Cllr A F Leech, seconded by Cllr R Cheadle and upon being submitted to the Meeting was declared to be CARRIED and “RESOLVED that, in accordance with Section 100(A)(4) of the Local Government Act 1972, the public and press be excluded from the meeting during consideration of the following item of business as the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in paragraph 3 of Schedule 12A to the Act is involved.”

Once all Members were content that they had no further issues to raise on the exempt appendices, it was then moved by Cllr A F Leech, seconded by Cllr R Cheadle and upon being submitted  ...  view the full minutes text for item CM 13

CM 14             

As a result of an updated version of the draft Strategy now being worked on, it was moved by Cllr T Leech, seconded by Cllr M Davies and upon being submitted to the Meeting was declared to be CARRIED and “RESOLVED that consideration of this agenda item be deferred until the next Council meeting on 8 December 2020 to enable for further amendments to be made to the draft Strategy.”

CM 15             

A report was considered that proposed a route for changing the designation of the Monitoring Officer role and recommended that, once appointed, it be allocated to the role of the Head of Legal Services.

During the ensuing discussion, particular reference was made to:

(a)    the proposed salary protection.  A Member commented that the 18 month salary protection was generous;

(b)    the emphasis on good governance.  The proposals were felt to reflect the importance of good governance, which was welcomed;

(c)     the legal organisational structure.  In response to a request, officers agreed to circulate a copy of the current legal organisational structure chart to Members outside of this meeting.

It was then moved by Cllr N Jory, seconded by Cllr J Spettigue and upon being submitted to the Meeting was declared to be CARRIED and ”RESOLVED that:

1.       the Monitoring Officer responsibilities and duties be removed from the Business Manager (Specialists) role upon the appointment of a Head of Legal Services;

2.       the role of the Monitoring Officer be designated to a Level 3 Head of Legal Services (once appointed);

3.       the role of Head of Legal Services and Monitoring Officer be appointed to via an external recruitment process; and

4.       the Chief Executive be requested to carry out a review of the Legal Services team, including a review of the role(s) and remuneration of the Deputy Monitoring Officer(s) and the resources needed to provide an effective legal service.”

CM 16             

The Council considered a report that sought approval to confirm the appointment of the Deputy Chief Executive and Director of Customer Service and Delivery (Steve Mullineaux) as the Electoral Registration Officer and Returning Officer for the Council.

It was then moved by Cllr N Jory, seconded by Cllr P Ridgers and upon being submitted to the Meeting was declared to be CARRIED and ”RESOLVED that, with immediate effect:

1.       the Deputy Chief Executive and Director of Customer Service and Delivery (Steve Mullineaux) be confirmed as the Electoral Registration Officer and Returning Officer for West Devon Borough Council; and

2.       the Director of Place and Enterprise (Chris Brook) be appointed as the Deputy Returning Officer for West Devon Borough Council.”