Agenda and minutes

The Democratic Services Officer informed members of an addition to the minutes of the Area South Committee held on 6^th September copies of which had been circulated to include the nomination and election of Councillor John Clark as Chairman and Councillor Rob Stickland as Vice Chairman for the duration of the meeting.

Members agreed with this amendment and the minutes were then agreed as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

Apologies for absence were received from Councillors Tony Lock, Kaysar Hussain and Cathy Bakewell.

In accordance with the Council's current Code of Conduct (as amended 26 February 2015), which includes all the provisions relating to Disclosable Pecuniary Interests (DPI), personal and prejudicial interests, Members are asked to declare any DPI and also any personal interests (and whether or not such personal interests are also "prejudicial") in relation to any matter on the Agenda for this meeting. 

Members are reminded that they need to declare the fact that they are also a member of a County, Town or Parish Council as a Personal Interest.  Where you are also a member of Somerset County Council and/or a Town or Parish Council within South Somerset you must declare a prejudicial interest in any business on the agenda where there is a financial benefit or gain or advantage to Somerset County Council and/or a Town or Parish Council which would be at the cost or to the financial disadvantage of South Somerset District Council. 

Planning Applications Referred to the District Council’s Regulation Committee

The following members of this Committee are also members of the Council's Regulation Committee:

Councillors Peter Gubbins, Graham Oakes, David Recardo and Gina Seaton.

Where planning applications are referred by this Committee to the Regulation Committee for determination, Members of the Regulation Committee can participate and vote on these items at the Area Committee and at Regulation Committee. In these cases the Council's decision-making process is not complete until the application is determined by the Regulation Committee.  Members of the Regulation Committee retain an open mind and will not finalise their position until the Regulation Committee.  They will also consider the matter at Regulation Committee as Members of that Committee and not as representatives of the Area Committee.

There were no Declarations of Interest.

There were no questions from members of the public.

There were no Chairman’s announcements.

This is an opportunity for Members who represent the Council on outside organisations to report items of interest to the Committee.

Councillor Rob Stickland as member representative for the Yeovil Youth Service Review Group informed members that YMCA had recently taken over the running of both Milford and Westfield Youth Clubs and the positive improvement to these services since the addition of an assigned Youth Worker due to outside funding.

Councillor Peter Seib as member representative of John Nowes Exhibition Foundation had attended the AGM and reported the success of the many awards given to the young people in the area.

Richard Needs, Somerset County Council’s Service Manager – Engineering Design with the aid of slides presented members with an overview of the Programme of Works. 

He introduced officers of the site team from both Somerset County Council and the main contractor Alun Griffiths and explained the overall communications strategy of the project.  He appreciated it was a complex scheme and that every effort has been made to minimise congestion in the coming months with a complex programme of works.

He explained a Traffic Management Liaison Group meeting would be arranged prior to construction to include representatives from SCC, bus companies, police (and other related emergency services) and the main aim the use of Temporary Traffic Signals will be minimised as far as is possible.

During discussion the Service Manager – Engineering Design noted the comments from members and responded to questions including:

·         Appreciate concerns regarding the location of the bus stop near the Asda store, however at this present time cannot see a suitable safe alternative. There may be an opportunity in liaison with the bus company should a new exit from the store be created in the future.

·         Part time signalisation can be very problematic with public perception and how they are used.   These signals also provide pedestrian facilities and the need to encourage and offer pedestrian and cycleway safety.

·         SCC has no power or responsibility regarding the possible re-opening of the Westland Bridge that may be thought of as a way to minimise any congestion in the coming months.

At the conclusion of the discussion it was agreed that a quarterly update presentation be made to the Area South Committee to ensure ongoing communication is given to local councillors.  The Democratic Services Officer would action this request and also seek an up to date set of plans to be circulated to councillors.

The Chairman thanked the SCC Service Manager for his presentation.

The Arts & Entertainment Manager presented the report and with the aid of slides gave an overview of the work of the Arts & Entertainment Service including:

·         Arts development and working with different arts companies to bring a range of arts activities to the district. Funding certain activities and providing advice and support.

·         Take Art Live – programme 22 shows to rural locations in South Somerset.

·         Somerset Art Week – takes place from 23^rd September till 8^th October.

·         The Octagon Theatre held 264 events a year and welcomed around 200,000 guests from across South Somerset and beyond.

·         Record attendance and £90K efficiency savings made.

·         Awarded ‘Trip Advisor Certificate of Excellence’ and Art & Entertainment Manager awarded the Western Gazette Pride Award – Contribution to the Arts.

·         Last year’s pantomime broke box office records.  9’000 tickets already snapped up for this years Cinderella. 

·         Yeovil Literary Festival to be held 20^th – 23^rd October 2017.

·         Foyer Club Volunteer – fundraising £90’000 for improvements to the Octagon. Also taken on volunteering for Westlands.

·         Westland new facility - The Ballroom with retractable seating bank and combined capacity of 870 seats. 

·         Success of the Western Gazette Business awards held at Westlands.

·         £250,000 ticket sales so far for events held at Westlands.

During discussion the Arts and Entertainment Manager noted members’ comments and compliments regarding the success of the Westland Leisure Complex and appreciated the observations made by members for improvements to the external areas of the complex and to encourage the promotion of SSDC. 

Members thanked the Arts & Entertainments Manager for his presentation and the excellent facilities and events on offer at the Octagon Theatre and Westland Leisure complex.

NOTED

The Environmental Health Manager gave a presentation on the work of the unit and with the aid of the agenda report informed the Committee of the three main areas of work within the service which consisted of:

·         Food and Safety Team including the National Food Hygiene Rating Scheme, Development of the Better Business for All (BBfA) project, supporting a multi-agency investigation into wild game poaching with local Police, RSPCA and Trading Standards and maintaining a multi-agency Safety Advisory Group (SAG) for events being held in South Somerset.

·         Environmental Protection Team including new contaminated Land Inspection Strategy adopted and investigation of abandoned vehicles having seen a marked increase in the number of abandoned vehicles across the district since the start of the year.

·         Housing Standards Team including active participation in multi-agency Yeovil One projects to include work on anti-social behaviour and rough sleeping and help fuel poverty and provide grants to help property improvements.

During a short discussion the Environmental Health Manager responded to members questions and explained the ‘Better Business for All’ Government initiative and noted concern regarding problems for residents living near the Bucklers Mead astro turf facility located in St Michaels Avenue. 

The Chairman thanked the Environmental Health Manager for his report and the excellent work of his team.

NOTED

The Communities Lead presented the report and updated members that the Heart of Wessex Rail Partnership report and the six monthly Area South Development Team update report would be brought to the November committee.

Councillor Peter Seib requested an update on the work undertaken by the Area Development Team to establish community involvement as part of bringing together the new community facility at Lufton.

(Voting: Without dissent)