Meeting documents

To approve as a correct record the Minutes of the meeting held on 17 June 2015, copy attached as Appendix A.

That the minutes of the meeting held on 17 June, 2015, be approved as a correct record.

A presentation will be given on the activities of Bucks Advantage/Bucks County Council.

The Committee received two presentations on strategic infrastructure planning, one from Bucks County Council (Mr Stephen Walford, Director – Growth and Strategy was in attendance) and from the Buckinghamshire Thames Valley Local Enterprise Partnership (Mr Richard Harrington, Chief Executive was in attendance).

The County Council’s presentation explained that infrastructure was built over a number of layers from local site specific requirements progressively up through wider levels of consideration at Local/Town/Neighbourhood, Countywide/LEP, Regional/sub-Regional, and finally national requirements.

While it was acknowledged that Members had particular transport concerns, in particular with Aylesbury, it was explained that there were many other parts to infrastructure provision including:-

·                     Schools, education and skills.

·                     Waste transfer stations, recycling centres and disposal sites.

·                     Mineral sites and their availability.

·                     Drainage, flood amelioration and mitigation.

·                     Social care facilities / specialist housing / affordable housing.

·                     Green infrastructure, open space, parks, play areas, planting.

·                     Digital infrastructure and connectivity.

·                     Leisure facilities and libraries.

·                     Public realm and art.

·                     Doctors, dentists and healthcare

These were just some of the issues that needed to be considered and addressed in creating and shaping places we lived in.

The Committee was informed that there were two aspects to strategic infrastructure funding that needed to be considered alongside each other, namely, needs versus funding.

Infrastructure needs was established through a number of ways including technical, .e.g. known current capacity constraints within existing infrastructure assets and specific or area-based technical assessment of future implications.  There were also socio--political issues to be considered such as community betterment and the vision/aspirations for an area.  These needs were then quantified through plans such as a Strategic Economic Plan (SEP), Infrastructure Plan, Local Transport Plan, Neighbourhood Plans and Local Plans.

Having plans in place provided the catalyst, and was often a requirement of central Government, for funding for infrastructure to be attained.  Funding could come through a couple of routes – Structural/Planned (Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL), Local Growth Fund (LGF)/SEP, LTB and base budgets) or through opportunistic routes such as Section 106/legal agreements, Local Sustainable Transport Funding, the EU or lottery money.  It was inevitably the case that there would be financial shortfalls and difficult decisions would have to be taken.

Future infrastructure needs for Buckinghamshire had identified North-South connectivity as a priority for key settlements.  As well as this, there were pressures from neighbours on all sides (MK, Luton, Tring, London and possibly Bicester/Oxford.  A list was provided of major transport infrastructure needs for coming years, in north south order, but not priority, order, as follows:-

·                    A421 ‘Brains Route’ Expressway (at feasibility).

·                    New M40 junction at Bicester.

·                    East West rail (new Winslow Station)

·                    HS2.

·                    Aylesbury East Link Road.

·                    Princes Risborough Relief Road.

·                    Possible new M40 junction 3a.

·                    A404 upgrade at Westhorpe (at feasibility), and Bisham (in RBWM).

·                    Western Rail Access to Heathrow.

·                    A355 Link Road in Beaconsfield.

·                    Crossrail.

·                    Heathrow Third Runway?

Information was also provided on strategic transport links/roads that might be delivered in the future on the fringes of Aylesbury as part of growth and development.

The Bucks Thames Valley LEP  ...  view the full minutes text for item 2.

The Committee received a report that outlined the elements of the draft Economic Development Strategy and Action Plan for the Vale for the period 2015-2018.

At the scrutiny meeting in June 2015, Members had provided with an overview of the Aylesbury Vale Economy and the key issues impacting on it.  While many of the key factors that had impacted on the local economy in 2011 were still largely the same in 2014, there had been sufficient changes in some areas, e.g. infrastructure development, to make it prudent to refresh the Strategy and Action Plan going forward for the 2015-2018 period.

The Economic Development team had recently undertaken a survey to help provide some further input and feedback on the key issues the refreshed ED Strategy would need to address.  Data was still being gathered from this and Members were informed of these emerging issues and themes at the meeting.

The draft Economic Development Strategy (EDS) key themes had then been used to develop the Action Plan which set out the range of actions, key leads and key partners involved in delivering the key actions. The Action Plan would be used to guide and monitor this economic development work being undertaken in the District. The activity areas were more fully explained in the appendices to the Committee report, which also included information on how they would be monitored and reported to the scrutiny committee via the work programme.

The Action Plan had 6 strands, namely:-

·                    Delivering the strategy – which focussed on the steps that would be taken to make the EDS a reality.  Progress against the identified tasks would be regularly monitored and an Annual Report complied to highlight the progress made.

·                    Supporting new enterprise – which aimed to build on Aylesbury Vale’s strengths as a centre for enterprise and one of the best places in the UK to start a business.  This would also focus on creating an environment in which entrepreneurship was recognised and celebrated.

Enterprise education in schools and Further Education (FE) and Higher Education (HE) would also be supported locally, as exemplified by the University Campus Aylesbury Vale (formerly known as the Waterside Academy).  Potential new businesses would be supported, where appropriate, with access to funding and first stage premises, and provided with first class access to advice.  Business networking would be encouraged to develop a strong sense of identity for local businesses.

·                    Supporting existing businesses to grow – businesses would be supported and encouraged to grow and expand locally.  A mix of modern premises were available and meant that businesses could expand or re-locate within the Vale to employment land in areas including Silverstone, Haddenham, Westcott and Berryfields.

Aylesbury Vale would continue to strive to meet the challenge of providing job opportunities in both mainstream and high value emerging and knowledge based sectors, to ensure the Vale economy continued to have a relevant, dynamic, resilient economy offering a wide range of employment.

·                    Attracting inward investment to the Vale – the EDS and Action  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.

In April 2015 the Council had approved the establishment of the Aylesbury Vale Broadband Company and agreed for the Council to allocate up to £1.536m of the New Homes Bonus funding for the rollout of broadband in the Vale.  This included providing funding of up to £200,000 for a pilot project in the North Marston and Granborough area.

The Committee received a report updating Members on the Aylesbury Vale Broadband project and outline business plan.  Mr Andrew Mills, one of the directors of the AV Broadband Company also attended the meeting to provide a verbal update on progress and to answer questions from Members.

The Business Plan was attached as Appendix 1 in the confidential section of the Committee report.  Both the Business Plan and some information on the current position of the project contained commercially sensitive information as defined in Paragraph 3 of Part 1 of Schedule 12A of the Local Government Act, 1972.  Members referred to this information during their discussions.

Members were informed that information on the project progress that was able to be made publicly available could be accessed at www.avbroadband.co.uk.

The plans for the next areas for investment from the rest of the AVDC funds will be considered once the North Marston and Granborough network has been implemented and evaluated later in the year.  This will be done alongside the potential areas for future investment in relation to the next phase of the Connected Counties project.

Member requested further information and were informed as follows:-

(i)         that the work of the AV Broadband Company and the Connect Counties work would still not provide full high speed broadband coverage across the whole of the District.  As such, AVDC had been talking with BT on how matched funding might be used, from within the £1.536m agreed by Council, to reach even more villages across the Vale through the Superfast Extension Programme.  The LEP had identified a number of preference areas across the county where there was a high business/home working incidence and this included a number of areas in the Vale.  These villages included Ashendon, Aston Abbotts, Bishopstone, Calvert Green, Charndon, Drayton Parslow, Hardwick, Great Brickhill, Lillingstone Lovell, Newton Longville, Stewkley, Thornton, and Wingrave and Rowsham.  These areas had been identified as areas that had very poor or no broadband coverage, where a high level of demand had been expressed either through the previous Connected Counties scheme or the AVB project.

(ii)        that 48 Parishes had registered an interest in getting superfast broadband in their areas.

(iii)       that all of the homes in the pilot project area would be connected with fibre to the home, that would provide the best long term economic and social benefits.  It would also provide quicker upload speeds, something that was particularly important to local businesses.

(iv)       that, unfortunately, due to a number of issues a local cable laying team had had to be replaced with another team.

(v)       on a range  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

The Committee considered their work programme for the period up until March 2016.  It was agreed that agenda items for future meetings would be:-

(i)            26 October 2015 meeting

·                     Aylesbury Vale Estates Business Plan.

·                     Draft Economic Development Strategy.

(ii)           7 December 2015 meeting

·                     Strategic Engagement with key partners.

·                     Investment Opportunities to encourage new businesses.

·                     Inward Investment Strategy.

(iii)          20 January 2016 meeting

·                     Skills Development and Education.

·                     Aylesbury Vale Broadband update.

(iv)         15 March 2016

·                     To be confirmed.

RESOLVED –

That the work programme be agreed, as discussed at the meeting.