Agenda, decisions and minutes

To approve as a correct record the minutes of the District Executive meeting held on Thursday 01 September 2022.

The minutes of the previous meeting held on Thursday 1^st September 2022 were approved as a correct record and were signed by the Chairman.

It was noted that Councillor John Clark had joined the meeting remotely and Councillor Adam Dance would be attending later.

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. 

There were no declarations of interest made by Members.

There were no questions from members of the public present.

There were no announcements from the Chairman.

(Voting: 8 in favour, 0 against, 1 abstention)

The Portfolio Holder for Protecting Core Services introduced the report and advised that the Somerset County Council were holding a Nutrient Pollution Workshop on 01 November.  He felt it may be prudent to defer the report but invited members comments. 

The Lead Specialist for Built Environment advised that the report proposed one approach to delivering phosphate mitigation in South Somerset.  Planning applications that had been agreed recently had provided their own ring-fenced solution to mitigating phosphate discharge at the sites through a number of individual methods. However, not every developer had the capacity to control the phosphate reduction solutions required on-site, particularly smaller developers and they were reliant on acquiring a solution from a third party.  The En Trade solution was targeted at those developers.  He said that approximately 360 planning applications were awaiting a phosphate solution and the majority were small developments.  He noted that Members had agreed that SSDC would not acquire land itself to provide a solution, which Somerset West and Taunton Council had done in part by converting land into a wetland area.  Therefore SSDC were enabling a solution through a third party, En Trade, who were bringing together landowners to provide a land-management solution working with Natural England.  En Trade would market the solution to developers who could purchase a credit and SSDC would ensure the land-management solutions were working correctly and met Natural England’s view of suitable mitigation.  The project would require monitoring in the future and be resourced to ensure future delivery.  There would also be a register of the credits sold to each developer with a legal agreement before development could start.  The developers needed assurance that the phosphate credit they acquired would be accepted and legal advice taken had said it would be inappropriate for SSDC to set the credit price in a commercial market.  There could be issues if the phosphate credit cost was high so that a developer could claim a lack of viability at a site and could no longer afford to pay Section 106 contributions but this would not be accepted as detailed in recommendation b (ii). The proposed project was the first solution for developers which was not site-specific and would allow development to commence.  It was ideal for developments of one to nine dwellings as they did not attract Section 106 contributions. Other parties were coming forward with solutions but they were resource intensive to set up.  Wessex Water were proposing to improve their water treatment plants in affected areas to the highest possible level but this would not be completed before 2028.  A 1kg phosphate credit was expected to cost around £55,000 because of the in perpetuity monitoring required for a land management solution.  Agreeing the recommendations would allow the opportunity for the small to medium developer to gain planning permission. 

In response to questions from Members, the Lead Specialist for Built Environment, the Director for Service Delivery and the Monitoring Officer advised:

·         SSDC and Somerset West and Taunton Councils were the two areas  ...  view the full minutes text for item 65.

The Specialist for Strategic Planning said that a successful referendum on the Neighbourhood Plan was held on 08 September and the conclusion was a resounding yes vote in favour.  She congratulated the group of residents for producing an excellent Neighbourhood Plan and for the hard work they put into the project.  She asked that Members support the recommendation to ‘make’ the North Cadbury and Yarlington Neighbourhood Plan.

One of the Ward Members, Councillor Henry Hobhouse, thanked the Specialist for Strategic Planning and her team for their support to the community to help the plan to its adoption.

In response to questions from Scrutiny Committee, the Specialist for Strategic Planning advised:

·         The Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) contributions to the parish would increase from 15% to 25% on any planning applications approved after the referendum date of 08 September.

·         The next six monthly CIL contributions would be sent to Parish Councils by 28 October 2022.

At the conclusion of the debate, Members unanimously agreed to the making of the North Cadbury and Yarlington Neighbourhood Plan.

The Portfolio Holder for Area North, Licensing and Environmental Health advised that the existing Public Space Protection Orders were due to expire very shortly and it was important that they were extended for a further 3 years.  He proposed that they be agreed by Members and this was seconded by Cllr Mike Best.

In response to questions from Members, the Specialist for Environmental Health and the Director for Service Delivery advised:

·         The Equality Impact Assessment had not been updated since 2020.

·         There were outreach workers to help people with street drinking issues or begging and they were able to refer people to schemes to support them away from those lifestyle choices.

·         There were drug and alcohol centres in both Yeovil and Taunton and SDAS staff were on hand in the A&E department in Yeovil District Hospital on Friday and Saturday nights to help vulnerable patients.

·         The PSPO extension areas previously agreed were based upon evidence presented of street drinking and begging at the time of the extension report.

·         There were no statistics currently available to confirm the effectiveness of the previous PSPO extensions. 

During discussion, the following points were made:

·         The Equality Impact Assessment should be updated in light of the Covid pandemic and the current cost of living crisis as there could be different interventions.

·         Vulnerable adults may not read any PSPO warning letters sent to them.

·         Councillors were aware of the excellent assistance provided by the housing team in assisting homeless and other vulnerable people.

·         Welcome the proposals if they helped towards the public feeling safe in the town centre and the police should help to enforce the orders.

·         SSDC could have employed and trained enforcement officers to help with compliance of the PSPOs in the town centre.

·         People with drug and alcohol issues should be helped and supported to ensure they had better opportunities available to them and not be side-lined. 

·         Cuts in funding to the Somerset Drug and Alcohol Service had not helped.

The Vice Chairman of the Scrutiny Committee thanked the Specialist for Environmental Health for answering the questions raised during their meeting and asked if it was possible to collect statistics to prove the PSPO extension areas had been successful or if the problem had moved to another area outside the PSPO area.

At the conclusion of the debate, Members unanimously confirmed the time extensions to the Public Space Protection Orders (PSPOs) in Yeovil as recommended in the report.

The following additions and amendments to the Forward Plan were noted:

The following additions and amendments to the Forward Plan were noted:

• Millers Garage, Crewkerne – Scrutiny Committee call in – November 2022

·         Planning to support the release of phosphate credits within the Somerset Levels and Moors Ramsar catchment to unlock stalled housing developments – November 2022

In response to a question on the reports listed as dates to be confirmed on the Forward Plan, the Director for Service Delivery said she would check with officers and agree dates for their presentation.

The Vice Chairman of the Scrutiny Committee expressed the Committees concern at the lack of regular Section 106 and CIL monitoring reports at the Area Committees.  She also asked that the Opium Power Ltd presentation be scheduled for Full Council and it was agreed to add this to the Forward Plan.

The Director for Service advised that the Section 106 and CIL reporting was transferring to a new system and she hoped to present a report to the December Executive meeting.

Members noted that the next scheduled meeting of the District Executive would take place on Thursday 03 November 2022 in the Council Chamber, Council Offices, Brympton Way, Yeovil commencing at 9.30 a.m.

The Chairman asked Members to agree that the press and public be excluded from the following item and this was agreed without dissent.

The Chief Executive provided members with a brief verbal update on the progress of Local Government Reorganisation in Somerset and answered their questions on points of clarification.

The report was NOTED