Agenda item

The Chairman advised the meeting that three questions pursuant to Council Procedure Rule No.9 had been submitted to the meeting.  Unfortunately the first questioner, Councillor Trevor Young, had had to submit his apologies to the meeting. Therefore, at the request of the Chairman, the Monitoring Officer read aloud the question submitted from Councillor Young as follows: -

 

“Since the start of the Covid Pandemic in March, the local business sector including manufacturing, hospitality and retail have suffered immensely, and we face risks of serious job losses in our area.  

 

Could the Leader of the Council please inform the council if the administration has carried out an economic impact assessment across the district. If so, could the Leader please share the analysis and what are the main priorities for protecting and supporting businesses in each of the main towns.

 

Also, could the Leader share the administrations intended strategy of supporting the local business sector and provide some examples of recent activity.

Thank you”

 

The Leader of the Council, Councillor Owen Bierley, responded as follows: -

 

“Thank you for your question Councillor Young and whilst the question is relatively short, the answer I wish to provide would take far more time than this question procedure would permit.

 

In summary, yes, an Economic Impact assessment has been undertaken; weekly summaries are prepared by the Local Enterprise Partnership and West Lindsey is an active partner in that process.  This work is discussed and actioned through the Economy Recovery Group and fed into our Management Team Recovery Group.

 

What these assessments have told us is that the key challenges for WLDC are:

 

*        Micro businesses and the lack of resilience

*        Retail, Hospitality, Leisure, Visitor Economy and manufacturing are fragile

*        There were high levels of furlough comparable to the rest of the County in Summer 2020

*        There are high claimant counts, particularly in the 18-24 co-hort.

 

 West Lindsey’s response to date has included:

 

*        Business grants totalling £17,747,000 to over 16,000 businesses

*        Business Lincolnshire Growth Hub established as key point for all business support- new web pages and messages to articulate this.

*        Think Local Campaign, almost 100 businesses signed up and pages / posts getting high levels of interaction

*        Launched Kickstart Scheme to offer at least 30 paid work placements in partnership with local businesses

*        Re-Opening High Streets Safely – focussed campaign on 7 retail areas

*        FSB Partnership

 

We are the only district in the County to have brought in the Federation of Small Businesses partnership in recognition of the make-up of our economy being largely focused on micro businesses.

 

The short-term priorities, which are articulated through the economy recovery plan, are as follows: -

 

Business Support (Delivery Measure)

Strategic Objective :  to re-purpose existing business support schemes and design new business support schemes that meet the challenges of Covid-19.

 

Workforce (Delivery Measure)

Strategic Objective :  To take measures to meet the changing employment and training needs of the Greater Lincolnshire workforce in the context of Covid-19.

 

Sectors (Delivery Measure)

Strategic Objective :  To provide tailored support to Greater Lincolnshire’s most important economic sectors so that they can respond to Covid-19.

 

Economic Intelligence (Enabling Measure)

Strategic Objective :  To ensure that accurate and current business intelligence is available and informs decision making in the Business and Economy Recovery Plan.

 

Business Support (Enabling Measure)

Strategic Objective :  To use regeneration funding in a strategic way to tackle the current challenges of Covid-19 and to support the Business and Economy Recovery Plan.

 

Future planned Actions include : -

 

Redundancy Toolkit for employers and employees – priority being worked on by WLDC and the Redundancy Workgroup of the Lincolnshire Resilience Forum.

 

Local Restrictions Support Grant – draft WLDC guidance and process being developed should it be required.  Currently awaiting FAQ’s from the Government.

 

Retail Business Advisor – Recruited through the Re-Opening High Street Safely Fund, to commence late 2020.

 

Improved Footfall Counters – Following a three year pilot with the Local Data Company for the provision of 10 footfall counting devices from 2017-2020, the Council have agreed a further three year contract for the provision of five new camera devices to collect footfall data across the three market towns .  Data will be available from the end of October.

 

Medium to Long Term Investment Planning – Further developing our investment plans for the District, aligned to national and regional funding opportunities and priorities.

 

Brexit Planning – Working to secure support, advice and guidance for local businesses to adapt and make plans.

 

This is an area I can assure you the Council is working hard at both a county and district level.  We have very much been informed by our conversations with hundreds of businesses and our active response to local needs.

 

Officers have prepared a slide presentation on this subject which provides much more detail and which I am happy to share with all Members.”

 

Councillor Anne Welburn, Ward Member for the Cherry Willingham Ward, submitted the following question to the Leader of the Council.

 

“Leader, My question relates to the mandatory and discretionary Test and Trace Support Payments , I understand West Lindsey have been awarded a total of £23,131.35 to fund the scheme.  Could the Leader please confirm that West Lindsey District Council will ensure that all qualifying applicants receive support even when the Government funding has been exhausted

 

Thank you”

 

The Leader of the Council, Councillor Owen Bierley, responded as follows: -

 

“Thank you for your question Councillor Mrs Welburn.  I believe that it is vital that we support our residents to do the right thing with regard to Test and Trace.  It is also clear that the allocation of funding for these cases is relatively small.  I will work with Officers to ensure that there is sufficient resource in place both by continuing to lobby our colleagues in Central Government and exploring options for reallocating existing funding streams to meet this essential requirement”

 

Councillor Anne Welburn, Ward Member for the Cherry Willingham Ward, had also submitted the following question to the Leader of the Council.

 

“Could the Leader of the Council give Members the assurance that the Districts need for active travel and sustainable infrastructure development, particularly in our rural communities, are being strategically considered and planned for?

 

I quote as an example: The residents of North Greetwell feel like the forgotten village of Lincolnshire, they have been fighting for many years for a crossing on the A158 so that villagers can cross the road in safety, to use the shop and restaurant and more importantly the bus service to the city. At the moment the traffic is so heavy, 640 cars an hour have been recorded, it is impossible to cross the road and for resident to exit their drives on the north side which results in a detour via Nettleham to get to work, school etc if they are travelling west.

 

This is totally against all policies of trying to ensure use of public transport where possible and is actually increasing private transport by forcing such a long detour.

 

 You can image their dismay therefore to hear that Wragby some 10 miles further along the same road is to get two new crossings in addition to those already there as the Highways deem they will suffer in coming years from an increase in traffic most of this will have travelled through North Greetwell which also has local traffic as above.

 

Thank you”

 

The Leader of the Council, Councillor Owen Bierley, responded as follows: -

 

“Thank you for your question Councillor Mrs Welburn.  I can assure Members that enabling active travel and the provision of sustainable infrastructure development across the District is a key priority for this Council, and in my role on the Central Lincolnshire Joint Strategic Planning Committee I have championed these matters. We are currently refreshing the Central Lincolnshire Local Plan, and as per the approved Statement of Community Involvement, I would encourage all Members to engage in the next round of public consultation which is due to take place during January and February 2021.”

 

Having heard the response Councillor Welburn made a supplementary statement.

 

“It is my understanding that CIL payments were designed to alleviate problems caused by development by supporting infrastructure and I would ask for your support to ensure that North Greetwell, the village affected by development are allowed to use some of this money towards a crossing because they sorely need it.”

 

The Leader indicated he understood the position undertook to get a full response to Councillor Welburn outside of the meeting.