Agenda and minutes

Councillor Alex Dale, Leader of the Council

Councillor Alex Dale, Leader of North East Derbyshire District Council, welcomed everyone to the District/Parish Meeting and asked them to introduce themselves. He thanked those present for attending.

Apologies for absence from the meeting were received from Jacqueline Clayton (Unstone Parish Clerk), Dawn Kershaw (Clay Cross Parish Clerk) and Councillors Anthony Hutchinson (NEDDC and Dronfield Town Council) and Diana Ruff (NEDDC and Wingerworth Parish Council).

To receive as a correct record the Notes of the meeting held on 9 October 2020.

The Group gave consideration to the Notes of the District and Parish Liaison Group held on 9 October 2020 and noted the content.

The Group received an update from Councillor Alex Dale, Leader of the North East Derbyshire District Council, who highlighted the Council’s activities over the last six months.

Councillor Dale informed the group that the District Council had secured a £1m Government grant for the Eckington Leisure Centre to improve its carbon ratings and transform it into one of the most environmentally sustainable leisure centres in the country. He also praised Councillor Kenyon, Portfolio Holder for Leisure, Transformation & Climate Change and all those in the Leisure Services for their work on this.

The Group also heard about the £24m Clay Cross Town Deal and the £1.6 million green homes grant for external wall insulation, which the District Council would top up by £8.5 million in order to renovate over 320 homes across the District.

Councillor Dale stated that the Council Tax precept had been set to 1.95%, which was significantly lower than the 2.6% permitted increase, which was a reflection of the difficult year had by many.

Councillor Dale updated the Group on the emergency situation that had resulted in the District Council bringing the entire recycling service in house. He praised the fantastic job undertaken by StreetScene, who had achieved this without any major disruptions.

The Group was informed about the District Council’s plans to bring the Killamarsh Leisure Centre into the District’s Portfolio of Leisure Centres, and that this would be moving forward in the next couple of months.

Councillor Dale notified the Group that the Local Plan Main Modifications consultation had drawn to a close and news from the Inspector was anticipated within the next few months. He gave thanks to those Parishes which had been involved with the consultation.

The District had been playing an active role in Covid recovery efforts and the Leader was particularly proud of the Sharley Park Leisure Centre which had successfully been used as a vaccination centre, utilising existing leisure centre staff.

The Strategic Partnership Coordinator gave an update on the Community Action Grants (CAGS). He thanked those in the Group who had helped to distribute and raise the profile of the Community Action Grants. The grants had been announced with a £10,000 budget and the desire to support 20 grants. This had now been achieved.

Members of the Group saw an overview of the supported projects, including local history projects, stocking food banks, developing local park ways, Christmas activities and equipment purchase projects such as developing local sports provisions.

Furthermore, he informed the Group that the District Council was still able to accept cheques from Parish Councils and that they would also be able to provide Parishes with name badges at a cost of around £3 per card from a bulk order of 30 cards.

Verbal update from Karen Hanson – Director of Environment and Enforcement

The Director of Environment and Enforcement provided an update on the responsibilities of the District Council during the Covid-19 pandemic. The group was informed that Covid rates had been reducing across the whole Country, and that the rate for North East Derbyshire was the lowest in the County at 35 cases per 100,000. The average number of cases for the County as a whole was 60 per 100,000, however, this figure had been skewed due to an outbreak in HMP Sudbury. The number of hospital admissions and the number of intensive care beds being used for Coronavirus had been steadily reducing, allowing the hospitals to begin focussing on restoring other services.

Infection rates in the over 60’s had been decreasing and the largest infection rates were now in the under 50’s age groups. She reported that the Director of Public Health was keen for these groups to continue to follow restrictions in order to prevent the new variants circulating.

In terms of vaccinations, half a million people across the County had received their first dose of the vaccine, 50,000 of these had been within the North East Derbyshire District.

The Group noted that Council services were still running, and had been using a hybrid form of home and office working when required. Office work was on a reduced basis and employees were expected to follow restrictions, and risk assessments remained in place.

Presentation from Edward Leddy-Owen, Home Improvement Co-ordinator

The Home Improvement Coordinator informed the Group that the District needed to reduce their carbon footprint by 500,000 tonnes between 2021 and 2022 in order to meet targets. This was the equivalent of taking 29,411 homes off the grid. In order to achieve this, the District Council had a climate change strategy, split into different key areas; sustainable buildings and workplaces, renewable energy, low carbon fleet, transport, planning, community and collaboration, biodiversity, and procurement.

As well as this, the Home Improvement Coordinator touched on the Parish Packs, a resource developed to allow Parishes to identify, implement and develop their own in-house strategies for reducing carbon emissions.

The Home Improvement Coordinator highlighted some of the District’s achievements including achieving £2 million green homes grant from Business Energy Industrial Strategy bids; 125 residents receiving one to one support and advice from the Home Improvement Team; investing £106,000 in the District’s most vulnerable residents in an effort to tackle fuel poverty; a £20,000 award for the low carbon skills fund; and £1.5 million for zero carbon technology at the Eckington Leisure centre. Following this, many Parish Councils requested the Home Improvement Coordinator’s support for achieving carbon targets as many Parishes lacked the necessary funding streams to make their own changes. The Home Improvement Coordinator signified that he was willing to attend Parish meetings, put Parishes in touch with other organisations, and walk them through the various schemes and potential available funding sources.

The Sutton-Cum-Duckmanton Parish Clerk thanked the District Council for their liaison with Parishes during the Coronavirus Pandemic. Councillor Dale signalled his intent to maintain and build upon the positive relationship with Parishes.

It was agreed that the Parish Packs would be recirculated following the meeting.

Presentation from Gill Callingham – Director of Growth and Economic Development

The Director of Growth and Economic Development gave an update on the Clay Cross Town Deal. The Group heard that £24.1 million had been allocated towards Clay Cross as part of the Government’s Town Fund. The District planned to use this money to invest in the town to create a new town centre, to redo the Sharley Park Leisure Centre transforming it into more of a health and wellbeing centre, and to support businesses to create and grow jobs. As well as this, the District planned to undertake a feasibility study into whether a new railway station could be delivered. The full plan was available to view on the Council’s website.

The Government had provided the District with £500,000 of Accelerator funding eight months earlier in order to help bring some of these projects forward. The District had used this money to demolish the Bridge Street Depot, invest in a public art project and planned to demolish the old junior school and purchase the old constabulary building.

The Group heard that the District planned to use the funding to create more industrial space, grow businesses, create new jobs, create new eco-homes, and create better cycle/walking routes. It was also stated that although the Government distributes the funds, the District was required to complete the business cases themselves. These would then be submitted to the Government in order to receive the allocated funding. The District was looking at procuring consultants to aid with these business cases.

The Director of Growth and Economic Development then informed the Group of two upcoming funds, the levelling up agenda and the community ownership fund, which the Councils might be able to make use of.

Presentation from Matt Finn, Service Manager (Commercial & Environment)

The Service Manager (Commercial and Environment) for the Joint Environmental Health Service, gave an update on environmental health and fly tipping.

The Group heard that 4,000 service requests were received and 600 business inspections took place per year within North East Derbyshire. This usually peaked in the summer months, with 2020 being particularly busy due to the Coronavirus Pandemic. It was stated that ‘noise’ and ‘nuisances’ were the largest single source of work.

There had also been a considerable growth in advice requests received during lockdown, with Covid-19 concerns being the greatest cause. A lot of work had taken place to get businesses ready for leaving lockdown, and the Council had offered a free Covid-19 certification scheme for local businesses and shops.

The Service had been offering more advice to the general public and cut down on bureaucracy and this had been done in a number of ways ranging from increased social media campaigns, to the scores on the doors scheme, and the smart phone noise nuisance recording app - allowing people to record nuisance noise and submit it straight to the Officer.

The service manager informed the group that fly tipping had been increasing in the District on a yearly basis but was still at low levels when compared with neighbouring authorities such as Sheffield and Rotherham. There was an issue with opportunistic fly tipping in rural areas, which required pro-active measures to solve. These measures included having businesses check their waste disposal services, generating publicity around fly tipping, promoting target hardening within easy to fly tip areas, and ensuring that only registered waste carriers were operating within the District. The Group heard that the penalty for fly tipping included an unlimited fine and up to five years in prison.

In regard to litter and dog fouling the Group heard that pro-active patrols had not been taking place during the course of the lockdown in order to minimise chances of the virus transmitting and would resume on the 1^st April 2021. The Group was informed that during this time, awareness raising patrols had been taken place and 17 fixed penalty notices had been delivered. A new public space protection order had been implemented earlier in the year and the fine for failing to pick up after your own dog had increased to £100. Over the next 12 months the other fixed penalty notices would also be reviewed.

Following on from this, the Group enquired about the possibility of monitoring fly tipping hot spots with CCTV, and questioned who decides on the set limit for fly tipping fines. The Service Manager informed that Group that the use of CCTV cameras have caught fly tippers in the past and that the £200 fine was the legal default limit that came into force around four years ago to account for the fact that there was no prior specific fixed penalty notice for fly tipping. In addition to this, significant volumes of fly tipping were likely to go to a prosecution case  ...  view the full minutes text for item DPLG/18/20-21

One per Parish – taken in order of receipt.

Parishes may submit a question in advance by e-mailing Nicola Calver (nicola.calver@ne-derbyshire.gov.uk)

There were no questions submitted.

The next meeting of the District/Parish Liaison Group is scheduled for 18 June 2021.

The next meeting of the District/Parish Liaison Group was scheduled for 18 June 2021. This had been subsequently rearranged for 25 June 2021.

Councillor Alex Dale, Leader to close meeting.

Councillor Alex Dale, Leader of the Council, closed the meeting at 17:40 hours.