Agenda item

Received question(s) attached.

The Chairman advised the meeting that one question had been received from a Member of the Public.  The question submitter was not present at the meeting, therefore at the request of the Chairman and in accordance with the Scheme, the Monitoring Officer, read the question aloud to the Chamber, as follows: -

“Since becoming Leader of the Council in May 2023, I am aware that you have successfully driven through the Council’s opposition to having asylum seekers housed at RAF Scampton and you are now leading a £300m regeneration project on that site. What other initiatives are you most proud of?”

The Leader of the Council responded as follows: -

“Thank you, the Liberal Democrat Administration Group have had a two -year battle with the Government to Save RAF Scampton from being used as an asylum centre.

Our fight to save the heritage of the site and deliver a £300 million development on the site is still ongoing with this Labour government. It's clear that if we had had a Conservative Group being in control of this council, our fight would have been lost and the asylum seekers would have been housed on the site, as they would not have taken their own government to judicial review.

The Liberal Democrat administration group took control of the council in 2023. It's been Conservative led for 14 years and where the council was Officer led, lacked leadership and direction.  In contrast, we've shown strong leadership with a much more hands-on approach to running the council.

We're particularly proud of a number of initiatives but I'll attempt to list a few: -

Town Centres

Town centres are challenging for most councils. We have delivered a £20 million investment into our town centre. The investment in one year by our own administration is more than has been invested in the history of this council. We see this is phase one of the regeneration of the town centre.  Phase two, which I will talk about later, is now to attract more high street retailers to the town.

Jobs and growth development

We are extremely proud of our work on the Step Fusion Project, which will attract thousands of new jobs to the area. It will also create opportunities for education and skills development for our young people, and we aspire to bring a university facility to West Lindsey.

Improved access to health services across the district

It has been a key priority for our administration, and we have been extremely encouraged by the meetings held with Integrated Care Board colleagues on delivering a new GP service to Gainsborough and exploring opportunities for health improvements elsewhere in the district.

The Environment

The Environment is such an important issue and tackling problems such as fly tipping is always challenging for councils.  We have employed two additional enforcement officers across the district.

Culture

The absence of a cultural strategy was highlighted as a weakness of the Council in a previous peer review report. In the first year of our administration, we delivered a cultural strategy, and we have also invested in three new posts to support the delivery of the cultural strategy.

As part of the Levelling-Up project we delivered a new pocket park on the former Baltic Mill site and improvements to Whitton’s Gardens including refurbishment of the old toilets which sat empty and derelict for 10 years. It's now been transformed into a new cafe, and Ice Cream Parlour.

Support to Communities

Supporting our communities is essential, and we've been extremely proud to deliver 300 community grants to support groups across the district.  An example of the grant scheme was financial support to Hemswell Parish Council, with £100,000 to deliver community projects.

In the past eight months we have been working closely with Officers, and we have set 33 new priorities which have been fully costed and deliverable.

The key items include: -

For the town centre: -

Attracting high street retailers to the town centre which is a major challenge as we all know.  We aim to appoint an individual with a particular skill set in being able to persuade quality retailers to come to Gainsborough.

Car parking - We have listened closely to the views of retailers and businesses in the town centre, and we plan to extend the free car parking from one hour to two hours.

Investing more in our town centre properties, we obviously see the need for doing that and to attract new retailers we need to offer some more further incentives, so we intend to invest a further £450,000 in grant assistance to make vacant buildings turn-key ready.

Additional GP practices.

Access to timely GP appointments in some parts of the district is extremely difficult and we have led on the discussions with the Integrated Care Board. We have identified £25,000 to support the initial work of our partners to build a new GP practice in Gainsborough, and we look forward to that.

To support great opportunities, including the STEP program, Scampton, and Agri -Tech, we've ring -fenced £150,000 out of the UKSPF program.

We recognise the importance of developing arts and sports participation across the district, and we committed a further £25,000 to support these activities.

Putting West Lindsey on the map, we hope to hold an international event of some kind in the district. We have identified £10,000 to support the initial discussions on delivering a major event across the district.

We intend to also expand the successful community grant scheme, and committed a further £475 ,000 from the UKSPF fund.

We all know that the Gainsborough Swimming Pool is now over 50 years old, and the leisure centre is in need of refurbishment. A feasibility study will be presented to the next Corporate Policy and Resources Committee meeting on the refurbishment plans.

Seven years ago, one of the decisions from the previous Conservative Administration Group was to remove the Gainsborough indoor bowls facility at the Gainsborough Leisure Centre without any consultation. We plan to replace the facility with a county standard bowls facility.

During the past year, despite objections from the Conservatives and the Independents, we established the Savings Board, a review of CCTV service will be presented to the board in the next current cycle.

My list is not exhaustive, but I hope it demonstrates some of the excellent work we have led on across the district.

Thank you very much for the questions.

The question submitter would receive the response in writing, in accordance with the Scheme.