Agenda and minutes

Councillor Colin Blackburn welcomed everybody to the AGM for Bath City Forum.

The recruitment of two new Co-opted members who are joining the forum were announced, Paul Roles was welcomed to this evenings meeting and Enya-Jayne Battersby will be taking up her position at the meeting on 13^th November 2018.

The forum is asked to agree the minutes of the meeting from the last meeting which took place on 17^th July 2018.

The Chair asked if there were any comments on the minutes from the meeting that took place on 17^th July 2018.

Nicolette Boater felt that the statement she made at this meetingwas not fully captured.

The Chair explained that the minutes were not a verbatim record of a Council Meeting but is a representative note of a partnership meeting. When information has already been circulated in advance of a meeting it does not always need to be reported in full within the notes.

Joy Saunders asked for the spelling for Roanne Wooten to be updated in the attendance record.

Councillor Appleyard agreed the minutes and Ben Palmer seconded these.

Cllr Blackburn to provide an update to the forum on the topics which have been covered and the achievements of the forum over the last year.

Councillor Colin Blackburn gave an update to the forum; this looked back at the year since he took over as Chair.

Since the last Bath City Forum AGM which took place on 20th September 2017 five further meetings have taken place.

Avon and Somerset Police and Avon Fire & Rescue have regularly attended where their operational requirements have allowed them to do so. We are keen to maintain close links with the emergency services as their operational reports provide us with details of the local trends that impact on the City. The Joint Community Safety Plan which was brought to the forum showed us how collaborative working had created an inclusive document which represented the area needs. 

The forum took on its role for making recommendations to the Council on projects that receive funding from the Neighbourhood CIL for Bath.

·  In the last year the CIL Panel has met on six occasions

·  The panel has allocated £323,141 for sixteen projects

·  Over 50 ideas have been submitted for consideration to date.

The forum has taken time to look at, and discuss topics where greater input from the City was needed.

·  Governance Options for the City of Bath

·  Consultations

·  New Electoral Arrangements - Local Government Boundary Commission Draft Proposals

·  Future Forum Development

We have taken time to listen to organisations on a number of issues that affect the City

·  The Stadium for Bath

·  The Student Community Partnership

·  Street Homelessness and Activity

·  Holiday Lets

Council Officers have attended the forum to present information, and receive feedback on a number of different topics:

·  Changing Together - Budget Challenge and Pressures’ – The forum hosted one of the Council budget consultation meetings where we heard about the difficult financial picture and the pressures that are being put on the council around Adult Social Care and Looked after Children. 

·  Fit for Life: Martin Pellow led a discussion around the health and wellbeing benefits of everyday activities that everybody can easily take part in locally.

·  Modern Community Libraries

·  Bath Breathes

I am happy to put myself forward for another term as Chair of this forum.

Ashley Ayre will take over the Chair whilst the forum elects the Bath City Forum Chair. All nominations must come from a member of the forum who is a Bath Councillor.

Nominations will be taken up to and including the day of the meeting, where there is more than one candidate the forum members will be asked to make a selection through a secret ballot.

Ashley Ayre asked if there were any further nominations for the post of Bath City Forum Chair in addition to Councillor Colin Blackburn.

No further nominations were made.

Councillor Rob Appleyard seconded the nomination for Councillor Colin Blackburn. All seventeen voting members voted in favour for Councillor Colin Blackburn being re-elected to the role of Bath City Forum Chair for the period of one year.

The Bath City Forum Chair will ask the members of Bath City Forum to elect a Vice Chair. All nominations must come from a co-opted member of the forum.

Nominations will be taken up to and including the day of the meeting, where there is more than one candidate the forum members will be asked to make a selection through a secret ballot.

The Chair asked if there were any further nominations for the post of Bath City Forum Vice-Chair in addition to Rosie Phillips and Nicolette Boater. No further nominations were made.

Councillor Bob Goodman seconded the nomination for Rosie Phillips and Councillor Andrew Furse seconded the nomination for Nicolette Boater.

All seventeen voting members voted were provided with a blank voting slip to select either Rosie or Nicolette.  Councillor Officer Dave Dixon counted the votes, there was one abstention received and the remaining votes gave a majority to Rosie Phillips.

The Chair announced that Rosie Phillips was re-elected to the role as vice-chair of Bath City Forum for one year.

Avon Fire and Rescue will provide the forum with an operational update. This will be followed by the opportunity for questions to be taken.

A service summary for Bath was provided by Matthew Crovetto, Station Manager for Bath and Hicks Gate Fire Stations. Matthew explained that the overall numbers of dwelling fires has reduced year on year.

A strong emphasis on river safety was included in the update, it was explained that a trial is planned with a Doctor from the University of Bath on a water entry system.

Questions

Councillor Lin Patterson asked if there are any plans to relocate the Bath Fire Station. 

Matthew explained that there are no plans at this time from the Fire Authority.

Councillor Andrew Furse explained that the Council had installed signage along the river and has a river safety group meet to discuss the common causes of people who have entered the water. With the report of another fatality this year what more can be done?

Matthew explained that the latest casualty was outside the normal demographic and river entry point. Work continues to target younger people through the river safety group but any further thoughts on what more can be done will be welcomed.

Christine Boyd asked if the Fire Service and the Council could provide an explanation on how the licencing for Bath Christmas Market is dealt with. A concern was raised that on one day at the 2016 event there were very busy times where high numbers of people became contained in the narrow spaces along Abbey Churchyard/Kingston Parade, this appeared, from Ms Boyd’s point of view, to be close to becoming dangerous.

Ms Boyd expressed a view that this event was being run on temporary licences which were not sufficient in covering the escape routes and fire safety of the wooden chalets.  Ms Boyd asked under what regulatory regime was the licensing and planning carried out, is this published or publicly available

Les Redwood responded to this enquiry due to his experience of working on the Bath Christmas Market with Visit Bath. Les explained that the Safety Advisory Group for Events (SAGE) work together with Visit Bath to ensure that the licences for fire safety, community safety and food hygiene are applied for and adhered to responsibly. It was pointed out that gaining the necessary licences is not an easy process and the whole  planning and preparation cycle takes several months but the market always gained the required licencing which meet national regulations. In 2016 there had been a very busy weekend where Bath Rugby had a home game when the market was open; this saw footfall increase in the certain parts of the market footprint. In the following year the footprint of the Christmas Market had been expanded to address such issues and that would be the case again for the forthcoming Christmas market.

Paul Roles asked how the numbers of visitors to the market were managed.

Les Redwood explained that Security covers the market site twenty-four hours a day and they have links into the CCTV where the need for additional safety measures need to be put in place. There  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

An operational summary for Bath and North Somerset was provided by Inspector Sarah Treweek. Sarah explained that the overall crime figures for Bath were better than B&NES and showed a reduction of 2% or 60 incidents year on year.

Sarah explained that the policing model for Bath is changing and the move to neighbourhood policing as outlined by the PCC sees cluster teams operating with specific points of contacts for each area.

Sarah described how work is being carried out to disrupt county lines offences with a high profile arrest made. There is awareness around the practice that is referred to as cuckooing and leaflet drops have been made to advise vulnerable people on how gangs become involved in the local area.

Questions

Councillor Andrew Furse explained that in Kingsmead ward there are four locations where drug dealing/cuckooing is known to take place, he asked why are there not more arrests being made. Where there are short term increases in the levels of police presence it helps, but the problem soon returns. There was a significant improvement about three and a half years ago when a clampdown cleared out many of the issues but problems have now returned and appear to be better organised. A different strategy is needed as vulnerable people with mental health issues are often targeted.

Sarah agreed that there does need to be a reaction to where the problems are occurring; this needs to be quick but is at times reliant on the legal process allowing the police to act. It was acknowledged that there is an awareness of the Kingsmead issues and the great PCSOs we have are just one of the tactics that are being used to deal with this.

Paul Roles explained that he had recently provided the Police with evidence of incidents that had taken place in the Monmouth Street area. Paul added that when drug users were reported to be shooting up in Kingsmead Square a two hour response time from the police was not good enough.

Sarah agreed that the response on this occasion was not good enough; Sarah invited Paul to contact provide her with more information.

Councillor Anthony Clarke asked what could be done to deal with the issues of drug addicts sleeping on flat roofs in Hedgemead Park.

Sarah did not have prior knowledge of the specifics described but asked Anthony to write to her with the details.

Penny Coatsworth asked if the recent announcement by the PCC that there would be additional resources made available would see any more officers in Bath.

Sarah presently had no further information she could provide since the announcement was made.

Councillor Jasper Becker commented on the drop in drug offences and felt it might not be down to the problems improving but the changes to reporting.

An update will be provided on the Neighbourhood CiL for Bath Panel who met on 3 September 2018.

Councillor Rob Appleyard provided an update from the CIL for Bath Panel.

Youth Service Provision for Bath: Youth Connect attended the last panel meeting to provide an update on their plans. This will see them to move to a new model that will see them operate as a staff mutual. Once operating under the new model an application will be submitted for funding from Neighbourhood ClL for Bath.

The panel advised that information about the specific plans for delivering the Bath service will need to be provided, and any application will need to show how development in Bath is impacting on the need for youth services.

Bath Neighbourhood CIL Funding Summary: The panel has now made recommendations of £280K to fourteen projects between December 2017 and September 2018.

Bathwick St Mary School - Road Safety Application:  This application asked for funding of £2,450 to provide additional school crossing signage on Warminster Road, Sydney Road and Beckford Road and installation of safety bollards on Beckford Road

The panel were in agreement in the allocation of funding to this project but have asked that B&NES Highways confirm that this scheme is considered to be above a medium priority before funds are awarded.

Bath City Farm – Application: This application was received from Bath City Farm with a request for the sum of £125,000 a contribution towards the building of a multi-purpose café at the health and wellbeing facility in the South of Bath. The overall costs that were set out for providing the new facilities estimated to be £550,000.

The panel felt that the work that is carried out at Bath City Farm is worthy of support.

The overall scheme will need to be successful in raising the funds that have been applied for before a final figure from CIL is agreed upon.

It was felt that a greater amount of detail will be required around final costings, as the estimated numbers laid out in the application appear rather high. Once the panel are satisfied with the final costings it is anticipated that up to 25% of the project costs could be made as a recommendation to be funded by Bath CIL.

Sydney Gardens Improvements – Application: This application was received from the Sydney Gardens Project with a request for the sum of £41,076 for the provision of a fully accessible changing places facility.

The facility is part of the overall project which is presently awaiting the outcome of their bid to the Heritage Lottery Funding which is due 13 December 2018.

The panel felt that supporting this facility will make a great difference to a lot of people that visit the park. Bath presently only has one similar facility which is situated in Southgate.

The panel recommended that funding be given to this project subject to a successful outcome from the Heritage Lottery Fund bid.

The panel also asked that Bath City Forum is recognised as the provider of funding for the facility and a plaque shows this on  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8.

Following on from the recent work with forum members, Andrew Page will hold a discussion on how the forum can work on developing its future focus and what the vision will be in the longer term.

Andrew Page provided the forum with a presentation which was based on discussions which have taken place about how Bath City Forum can develop.

Andrew went on to provide ideas on how the forum can work together to provide a meaningful strategic vision for Bath.

·  The terms of reference can be revisited again

·  The CIL panel is working well

·  Many of the forums early sub groups fell aside

·  A long term goal should be set but not the steps for achieving this

Councillor Turner felt that there needs to be one overall vision for Bath that also recognises the significance of our world heritage status.

Councillor Rayment explained that the forum is not a scrutiny panel for Bath and there have been issues with the make-up of the forum being split between elected councillors and co-opted members. If we want a fully elected group of representatives for Bath then this will mean we have to head towards a local parish council.

Andrew Page explained that the development work is based on Bath not being parished and how the Bath City Forum can move forward.

Joy Saunders explained that she sees the forum as a room full of people from the city with a common purpose of solving problems, through methods that involve working together and influencing, this will then lead to the emergence of the forum in a leadership role for the city.  

Nicolette Boater agreed with Joy and would like to see the forum taking on a collaborative conversation style and acting as an organising body.

Councillor Becker felt the forum should be looking at the big picture topics for Bath which are not being looked at elsewhere. The more useful way for the forum to develop would be to look at topics like world heritage, tourism, retail and the economy. The forum could be a method of delivering fresh thinking on longer term vision.

A member of the public felt that the forum was trying to do the job of the council. The forum should look at having collective leadership and accept talented people getting together with a purpose. The forum should look at what Bath needs not what the council wants.

Councillor Appleyard thanked Andrew for a thought provoking presentation, and felt that a debate is needed around what the policy for the forums remit should look like. The forums make up needs to come from an honest collection of people looking at delivering the best outcomes that we can. 

Jeremy Boss explained that the forum is ‘the only game in town’ for the city and it needs to be realistic about what we can achieve. There needs to be an understanding that all of the members that sit on the forum are equally representing different communities from around the city, we need to move away from the’ them and us’ mentality between Councillors and Co-optees.

Virginia Williamson had looked at the connecting communities’ website where for a definition of the overview for the forums  ...  view the full minutes text for item 9.

Attention was drawn to details of a Non- Executive Director Position which Visit Bath is looking to appoint.