i) Chairman of Council
ii) Leader of the Council
iii) Head of Paid Service
Minutes:
Chairman
The Chairman addressed the Chamber highlighting recent events attended, including the opening of the new Waterstones Store in Gainsborough. He commented on the high level of support for the opening, with people queueing around the block, and that subsequent numbers of people in the store showed it had been well-received.
The Chairman had also attended the unveiling of a new painting at Gainsborough Central Station, and he encouraged Members to walk up to the station to see. He commented that it was an excellent piece of art which had received credit across the town, and he extended his thanks to Town Councillor Rick Craig, who had been instrumental in the piece, and bringing the community together .
The third event the Chairman wished to highlight had been a presentation and celebration morning at Buddies Dementia Club in Nettleham, which he had attended with Vice Chairman Councillor Barrett, Councillor Brown, and Councillor Bunney in his County Council capacity. The Chairman expressed his delight at what had been an amazing event, with over 90 residents present, 20 to 30 volunteers, and people attending from all over the county. He had been honoured to present over 20 certificates to the volunteers of the club, which was also celebrating its ninth birthday.
The Chairman encouraged all present to highlight similar groups and organisations, with both he and the Vice Chairman seeking to encourage the community involvement and recognise the hard work of volunteers across the district, through attending events and presenting certificates of thanks and recognition.
Leader of the Council
The Leader of the Council addressed the meeting and made the following announcements:-
“Since the last full council, I have had the opportunity to attend a number of very useful and interesting events. Along with our Chief Executive I attended the Financial Wellbeing Conference at Lincoln Showground, which provided an update on the new Crisis and Resilience Fund and where I was able to listen to talks from a wide range of charities and other institutions, who are involved in promoting and assisting financial and other wellbeing in different parts of the community. Round table conversations made clear that transport problems are high on people's list of concerns, so I made this known to the mayor, as transport is her remit.
Loosely related to this it would be helpful for you to know that this Administration is currently in the process of reviewing the car parking strategy and plan to bring a report to the Prosperous Communities Committee later this month along with a report progressing our planned enhancements to leisure facilities.
I am also pleased to advise Members that the Council’s Expression of Interest in connection with the acquisition of RAF Scampton that Council recently approved has progressed to the final stage with Home Office looking to fast track the disposal. The deadline for the council’s submission is late May and reports will be brought forward to committee and council in due course.
Along with Sir Edward Leigh, I'm delighted to have appointed two outstanding people to be joint chairs of the Pride in Place Committee. Steve Gelder and Ben Rollett bring high-level experience from both the private and community sectors. They are currently working on forming their board in readiness to start the project.
I attended a meeting of the Central Lincolnshire Joint Strategic Planning Committee so that our voice could be heard in the development of the new Central Lincolnshire Local Plan. Discussion was extensive and Officers took note of people's thoughts. I will report back intermittently as this progresses.
I was fortunate to be able to attend an event at Gainsborough Golf Club where representatives of a wide range of community and private sector organisations came together to reflect on and celebrate ten years of the Employment and Skills Partnership and what had been achieved in that time through strong partnership working and which continues to deliver.
Officers and councillors recently attended the Local Council Network Conference (formerly District Councils Network), where we spent a number of hours over two days, listening to speakers from Parliament, the House of Lords, private and public sector organisations, who disseminated a considerable amount of useful information about local government issues, including problems, successes and future development.
I recently attended a Teams meeting run by the Trent Supercluster Collective, where information was given about nuclear fusion and I also went to a very useful meeting of the Greater Lincolnshire Leaders last week, where attendees concentrated on the nitty gritty of moving forward with the county's preparation for LGR following the recent decisions regarding LGR in the Devolution Priority Programme areas and received an update from the Police and Crime Commissioner and Chief Constable on their funding and future plans.
Finally, Chairman, the Local Government Association (LGA) Corporate Peer Challenge Team revisited the council recently following their initial visit back in January 2025 and subsequent report, to follow up on our progress. We received a number of compliments about the large amount of work this council has done since their last visit and we look forward to receiving their formal report in the next couple of weeks which will of course be shared with all councillors.
On behalf of the Council I would like to thank the Peer Team from the LGA and all those Members and officers that supported and participated in their recent visit to the council.”
Chief Executive and Head of Paid Service
The Chief Executive addressed the Chamber to acknowledge the excellent work undertaken by a range of services, particularly those involved in the successful rollout of the food waste collection service which took effect from 30 March. He highlighted that one in four councils had failed to meet that deadline, and he praised the amount of work, planning, and collaborative working across the council, that had taken place in order to achieve that successful rollout.