Agenda item

There will be a short presentation at the meeting. The presentation is attached.

David Trethewey - Divisional Director, Policy and Partnerships – gave a presentation on ‘Community Assets’ which covered the following:

·  What do we mean by Community Assets?

·  Changing Context

·  Community Right to Bid

·  Community Right to Challenge

·  Community Right to Build

·  Examples in Bath & North East Somerset

·  The Wiltshire Example

·  Current discussions

·  What assets do we have in B&NES

·  Further Assets

·  Taking things forward in B&NES

·  Key Issues

·  Potential roles for the Panel

Panel members raised the following points and asked the following questions:

There was some discussion over the definition of a community asset. Councillor Macrae stated that he would want the Cabinet to have a view on what they defined as an asset. The Divisional Director stated that it would be an issue of prioritisation and that a case would have to be demonstrated each time.

There was some discussion around the need for a sound process. Councillor Macrae stated that the authority should manage it well or a lot of people will be disappointed. Councillor Macrae stated that schools are often a community hub. He stated that there were a lot of issues to overcome.

Councillor Nigel Roberts stated that the Localism Bill should be seen as an opportunity. He stated that there was a key issue in that there may be some communities more able to organise their case than others. Tom McBain, Divisional Director, Property added that the Council has always had a passive role regarding its assets and that this legislation brought a great opportunity to help the authority get the best use out of its assets.

Councillor Gerrish stated that the legislation referred to Council assets and asked officers to look at the issue of other community assets. He stated that it was best to have two approaches, one for Council assets and the line we will take regarding community assets that are not controlled by the Council.

Councillor Roberts stated that there were limited resources to support this. He stated the need for a mapping exercise on communities as some may need more support in the process than others and there would be differences between communities that are parished and those who are not. He added that there should be a mechanism so that one person could not dominate the process. The Council must also consider whether it gives advice on becoming a charity, how to run meetings etc.

The Strategic Director reminded the panel that a key issue to discuss was how they would get involved. He explained that this topic affects many Council Services and many communities. He added that the Panel had a role in trying to shape future policy in their policy development role. He further explained that if this led to substantial policy change, it would be reported to full Council.

Councillor Rigby stated that in the policy development role, green targets and similar commitments should be remembered.

The Chair explained that as there was no available scrutiny support for a review until December 2012, a small group could come together to meet with officers and maybe visit some sites before the formal process began.

It was agreed that the group would be:

Councillors Manda Rigby, John Bull, Colin Barrett and Paul Myers (Councillors would not be involved in discussing matters that they are involved in negotiating on).

Councillor Macrae registered his discomfort that the working group may discuss sites while there was no policy in place. The Chair assured Councillor Macrae that it would be about policy development and any discussion of individual sites would be for case study purposes.