Agenda and draft minutes

RESOLVED:  The Minutes of the meeting held on 24 January 2022 were agreed as a correct record.

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Please indicate if there are any interests which should be declared.  A declaration of an interest should indicate the nature of the interest (if not already declared on the Register of Interests) and the agenda item to which it relates.  If a disclosable pecuniary interest is declared, the Members should withdraw from the room whilst the matter is discussed.

These declarations apply to all Members present, whether the Member is part of the meeting, attending to speak as a local Member on an item or simply observing the meeting.

Councillor Nockolds declared a non pecuniary interest in applications from Alive Leisure as a Council appointed  member of the Board and did not vote thereon.

It was noted that applications were made from all parts of the Borough many of which were within the areas of the Panel Members.

To consider any business which, by reason of special circumstances, the Chairman proposes to accept as urgent under Section 100b(4)(b) of the Local Government Act, 1972.

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Members wishing to speak pursuant to Standing Order 34 should inform the Chair of their intention to do so and on what items they wish to be heard before a decision on that item is taken.

Councillor Spikings attended in support of all applications within her area including Nordelph, Welney, Upwell and Downham West.  She explained that a number of smaller parishes struggle to raise precepts large enough to cover the cost of some projects.

Councillor Ryves spoke in support of the application from the Cherry Tree Project at Methwold.  He reported it catered for special educational needs and had the support of the national autistic society.  He stated that although it was a commercial operation that charged for entry they were considering setting up a charitable foundation.  He questioned where commercial applications were excluded.  It was explained that it was an officer recommendation regarding commercial entities.  The application referred to charged an entrance fee and did not provide any match funding.

Councillor Moriarty endorsed the comments from Councillor Spikings regarding smaller parishes.  He asked if applicants were encouraged to seek the support of their Borough Councillors.  He offered support for the applications in his ward.

Councillor Blunt responded that he encouraged Borough Councillors to get involved and show support or otherwise for applications in the early stages.

The CIL Officer reported that the web site advised applicants to seek support of Parish Councils and Borough Councillors.  It was agreed that this would be amended to advise people to contact them in the early stages so any support could be shown.

The Chair reported he had received an email from Councillor Ratcliff supporting the Swan Youth Project application.

The CIL Officer gave a presentation that showed that 73 applications had been received for this round of funding.  There was £1,088,367.52 (£435,437 – Local/Community Projects and £653,020.51 – Strategic projects) available to be allocated.  There had been a total of £1,494,298.62 requests, which meant that a large proportion of requests would not be able to be funded.

Each application had been scored using the agreed criteria and was presented with officer recommendations for the Panel’s consideration.  The panel was presented with some formulas  to use to decide on the grants awarded.  The Panel decided to carry out an initial trawl  of applications and consider each of them, but acknowledged that when it was know how much money was available or overspent, the provisional allocations would need to be re-visited.

The Panel agreed that for their initial consideration round they would allocate full funding for projects less than £10,000.  For projects above that it was agreed that if they were supported most  be allocated 60%, unless there was strong feeling to allocate more. 

A list of 7 applications which were considered to be of commercial business nature were presented with a recommendation of refusal.  The Panel agreed to those recommendations.

The Panel then considered other applications in order of their score total.  The attached document sets out the initial draft decisions subject to further consideration or information received as required when the financial totals were known. 

The Panel adjourned at 1.45pm

To be agreed.

Meeting to re convene at 11am on 8 March 2022.