Agenda and minutes

The Board formally endorsed the appointment of Lee Barnes to the role of Chair following a recruitment process for the position which had commenced in August 2023.

RESOLVED – That Lee Barnes be endorsed to the appointment to the role of Chair for the Clay Cross Town Board.

Apologies for absence were received from Angela Stansfield, Becky Hunter and Adam Doyle.

Samantha Deakin attended the meeting as a substitute for Adam Doyle.

Members are requested to declare the existence and nature of any disclosable pecuniary interests and/or other interests, not already on their register of interests, in any item on the agenda and withdraw from the meeting at the appropriate time.

There were no interests declared at this meeting.

To approve as a correct record and the Chair to sign the Minutes of the Clay Cross Town Board held on 16 June 2023.

RESOLVED – That the Minutes of the Clay Cross Town Deal Board held on Friday, 16 June 2023 be noted.

It was agreed to change the order of the agenda items and the Town Regeneration Planning Application was to be discussed before the Clay Cross Town Deal Progress Dashboard.

Report of the Partnership Development Officer.

The Board was provided with the updated Clay Cross Town Board Terms of Reference following the annual review.

The Board was also asked to agree to the Clay Cross Town Board Code of Conduct as contained in Schedule 1 of the report.

Cllr C Cupit questioned the decision to remove the option of joining a meeting remotely as this had not been overly used and could be beneficial at certain times. At the conclusion of the discussion, Town Board considered that all Board Members should attend meetings in-person and they would no longer be able to join meetings remotely.

Cllr Cupit raised a question in relation to section 3.3 contained within the Terms of Reference and heard that the appointment process for the role of Vice Chair followed previous appointments but had not previously been contained within the Terms of Reference so has now been added.

RESOLVED – That Clay Cross Town Board:

·       Notes the contents of the report.

·       Approves the revised Terms of Reference for the Clay Cross Town Board.

·       Approves and agrees to the Clay Cross Town Board Code of Conduct.

There was no other business.

The Chair to move:-

That the public be excluded from the meeting during the discussion of the following items of business to avoid the disclosure to them of exempt information as defined in Paragraph 3, Part 1 of Schedule 12A to the Local Government Act 1972, (as amended by the Local Government (Access to Information) (Variation) Order 2006). 

Lee Rowley MP raised concerns with items being discussed in exempt session and argued in favour of debating in open session where possible.

The Director of Growth & Assets informed the Board that the reason for the exempt items had been to guard against debate leading to a discussion regarding budgets for specific elements of the scheme prior to the procurement process.

The Board noted the reasons for the exemption and took the decision to hold the remainder of the meeting in open session on the basis that the debate does not consider cost implications. Cost implications and affordability could be discussed at a later meeting when Officers would have more robust costs.

Report of the Assistant Director of Planning.

The Board received an update on the progress of the planning application which highlighted key issues that had been raised during the consultation process and how Officers were seeking to address these.

The Director of Growth & Assets introduced the report and explained to Members that its purpose was to inform Board, as the developer, of areas where the masterplan and planning application submitted conflicted with planning policy. He explained that this was normal practice for Planning colleagues to feedback to developers and to highlight areas of ‘planning risk’ and that the report served that purpose.

The Board were informed that the project team had flexed and made amendments following advice from planners on relatively minor changes, the matters covered in the report were considered to be a significant material change to the Board’s masterplan and therefore the Board would need to decide how to proceed.

The Assistant Director of Planning provided an overview of the report and key considerations contained within it.

The Board discussed the report at length, in particular they weighed the pros and cons of removing the access and parking area connecting to the A61 and over how much this would affect the scheme as a whole.

Cllr N Barker explained to the Board that due to time restraints, it would be beneficial to submit a planning application that had a greater chance of being granted approval and so supported removing the A61 access from the scheme.

Cllr J Barry agreed with Cllr N Barker, she raised potential safety concerns with the proposed A61 access and suggested that it should be considered in greater detail at a future date.

Lee Rowley MP indicated his support for the original scheme and believed that there had been no material reasons presented that would suggest a change to the scheme was necessary.

Andrew King believed that the removal of an additional floor from the former Sunday School re-development would be detrimental to the ambition and impact of the town centre’s regeneration.

Cllr A Dale and Andrew King raised concerns that removing the A61 access would lead to the area having insufficient access and this could lead to broader negative impacts on the scheme as a whole.

Cllr C Cupit echoed the comments of Cllr A Dale and Andrew King and suggested that the A61 access was a critical element of the regeneration scheme and that its removal would be unpopular with local residents and businesses.

The Chair identified the opportunity for Board to submit a future application with regard to the access and parking area if they decided to remove it from the application at this stage.

At the conclusion of the debate, the Board voted on and approved the recommendations as contained within the planning report.

RESOLVED – That:

·       The Board agreed to remove the access and parking area connecting to the A61 and to amend the extension of the former Sunday School building, in order to secure a positive recommendation on the planning application.

·       Town Board instructed  ...  view the full minutes text for item CXTB/21/23-24

The Board received a programme update on all of the Clay Cross Town Deal projects to date. They heard that the second quarter of this financial year had seen key milestones reached for the programme and that progress was moving at pace, particular with Town Centre Regeneration.

Board were updated on the key achievements of the quarter. These were that the Clay Cross Active pool excavation had commenced and £19m had been secured from Sport England. The planning application for Town Centre Regeneration had been submitted, the Low Carbon Challenge Fund had been launched, and the Low Carbon Local Area Energy Plan and Rail Feasibility study had been published.

The Board were informed that the Accountable Body had recently been audited by the Internal Audit team and had received substantial assurance for the programme management arrangements in place.

The Board requested an update on the Low Carbon Challenge Fund and heard that this had been operating at an Officer level with input from external organisations in order to scope out availability. The Board discussed the possibility of targeting existing houses as well as new builds within the scheme but heard that there were challenges with getting resources to private sector housing.

Lee Rowley MP suggested that funds from the Low Carbon Challenge Fund could be held back in order to be used to support other schemes in case of issues in the future. Board were reminded that they were contracted to deliver on an agreed amount of houses and significant deviation from this would result in the need to submit a project variation claim to DLUHC. The Director of Growth & Assets suggested that the housing element needed to be explored now in order to establish a pipeline. If there was little or no demand identified, this would inform future decision making.

The Board discussed the possibility of solar farms and heard that officers were unaware of plans to construct any on green field sites in Clay Cross. Officers were looking to utilise unused roof space for solar energy and were promoting this approach.

Andrew King enquired into the possibility of utilising funds from the low Carbon Challenge Fund to construct walking and cycling routes. They were informed that there was no available scope for this within the Town Deal Fund.

Cllr G Morley raised concerns regarding the access to the new Clay Cross Active (Sharley Park). Minor changes to the access were proposed and the access was approved in the planning application which included consultation with Highways. It was agreed that a discussion would take place outside of the meeting with Cllr G Morley in relation to the entrance at Sharley Park.

RESOLVED – That Board noted the Clay Cross Town Deal Programme Report.

There was no other business.

The next meeting of the Clay Cross Town Deal Board will be held on 1 December 2023 at 10.00 am in person (venue to be confirmed).

The next meeting of the Clay Cross Town Deal Board will be held on 1 December 2023.