Agenda and draft minutes

There were no apologies for absence.

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 de Whalley declared that he was a Member of Grimston Parish Council, who had submitted an application for funding.

Later in the meeting, Councillor Mrs Nockolds an interest as an Alive West Norfolk Director and took no part in the discussion during consideration of the item.

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.

There was no urgent business to report.

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.

Cllr Mrs V Spikings via Zoom reference 45 and 52.

There was none.

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The Local Plan Manager explained that on page 5 of the agenda, there was a reminder of what the Community Infrastructure Levy actually was and as the charging authority, the Council had an obligation to:

·       Prepare and publish the CIL Charging Schedule;

·       Determine CIL spend, ensuring it was used to fund the provision; improvement, replacement, operation; or maintenance of infrastructure to support development of the area; and

·       Report publicly on the amount of CIL revenue collected, spent and retained each year.

With regards to the Governance Framework, it was noted that:

·       Local Projects had consideration by the CIL Spending Panel and sign-off by a Service Manager

·       Community projects were again recommended by Officers, but with a scrutiny by the CIL Spending Panel before sign-off by Management Team.

·       Strategic Projects were scrutinised and agreed by Cabinet with recommendations from officers and comment from the CIL Spending Panel – Management Team reviewed those recommendations.

·       The processes were intended to maximise involvement of Members but allowed for officers to co-ordinate applications and achieve a Corporate focus (this would include reference to spending from other sources considered regularly by Management Team).

The Planning Policy Manager explained that this was the first time that the Council had requested people to make applications for monies from CIL and the first time that the Council had assessed against the criteria from the CIL Governance Framework.

The Task Group also noted the terms of reference of the Task Group.

The CIL Officer gave a brief summary of the criteria as outlined in the Governance document which all the applications were scored against.

Councillor Parish stated that the agenda was 149 pages long and he had thought that the applications would be dripped through to the Spending Panel rather than in one go.  He added that some Parish Councils had commented that their applications had been submitted for some time and they were hoping for a swift outcome.  He drew attention to the fact that some community projects had been determined as local projects.  He also thought that there would be more strategic projects to consider.

The Chair added that he was not aware that the applications would be drip fed through to the Spending Panel.  He intended to consider the applications on-bloc unless there had been any changes to the criteria, in which case, he wanted the Task Group to consider it.

The CIL Officer advised that if the local projects were approved today then the applicants would be informed of the decision and the next stage would be for them to enter into a contract with the Council, but they would be notified as soon as possible after the meeting.

The Planning Policy Manager explained that the criteria for the strategic projects had precluded some applications from coming forward.

The CIL Officer explained that as part of the CIL funding process, 57 applications for projects within the Borough had been received: 48 Local Projects, 8  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

To be agreed.

To be arranged.