Agenda and minutes

There were no apologies.

The minutes of the meetings held on 7 July 2010 and 6 October 2010 were agreed as a true and accurate record of those meetings.

To receive a presentation on the proposed medium term financial plan, and give feedback.

The Cabinet Member for Resources and the Head of Strategic Finance presented to PCL the proposed Medium Term Financial Strategy for the forthcoming 5 years. The proposals took into account recent government grant funding cuts and included proposals to cut spending in a number of areas. The Council's Capital Programme retained a number of projects including work to improve and extend some of the city's schools. 

PCL considered the proposals and noted the likelihood that the spending cuts would be have an impact on the Parish precepts.

Councillor Harrington and Councillor Clark to present the proposals for discussion.

Councillors Harrington and Clark presented a report on progress to establish a robust and effective mechanism for ensuring that the issues of the rural parts of the authority were properly heard. There were currently a number of different bodies engaged in rural affairs, for example PCL, parish councils and the Rural North Neighbourhood Council, all of which had common aims, discussed the same topics and generally had the same membership. There was a general feeling that the rural issues tended to be ignored in favour of the issues relating to the more urban areas and so there was a need for a more effective body to represent the rural areas.

The proposal put forward was to create a new body which would have representatives from each of the parish councils plus the PCC rural ward councillors. This would also help support the intentions of the government’s localism bill in giving more local accountability. Discussions amongst the members showed support for the proposals, but it was also recognised that there may be a need to retain PCL and for it to meet occasionally to ensure that the urban parish councils would still have an input.

The Committee endorsed the proposals and noted that the parish council clerks would be kept informed of progress.

Sally Jackson, secretary of the Northern Footpath Forum, gave a presentation on the work of the forum. Its members were invited from the Glinton, Northborough, Deeping Gate, Deeping St James, Newborough and Peakirk parish councils as well as from Werrington neighbourhood groups.

The aim of the forum was to encourage safe, non-vehicular access for all residents and visitors to a network of footpaths stretching north to south from Werrington to Deeping St James and east to west from the A15 to the A1073.

The forum worked with the Environment Agency, local farmers and landowners and had achieved a number of successes. They added a voice to the Local Transport Plan consultations and supported the introduction of “quiet lanes”, to give cars, horses and pedestrians equal priority on a designated road.

The group expressed its support for the work done so far by the forum and thanked Sally for her presentation.

The Chairman reported that he had found minutes and agendas of the Local Development Framework Working Group (which reported into the Scrutiny Committee and then the Environment Capital Scrutiny Committee) which agreed extra housing provision in rural areas. The Chairman expressed his concern that this appeared to be ad hoc decision making and that it was very difficult to find out information about the group.

The Executive Director, Operations replied that the Site Allocations document arose from requests from landowners asking to build in certain areas and offered to ask the Policy and Strategy Manager to attend a future meeting of Parish Council Liaison Committee to discuss the consultation process that has been followed for the Site Allocations document.

A Parish Councillor commented that the consultations page on the Council’s website was much harder to find than previously. Officers agreed to look into the issue. 

The Committee agreed to wait until after the outcome of the Council’s budget decisions to look at the work programme.

Northern Footpath Forum to lead discussion.