Meeting documents

The Commission considered the work programme report featured along with the appended Cabinet Forward Plan and Commission Work Programme.

In respect of the featured Task and Finish Groups the following was noted:

Local Plan Task and Finish Group

The Meeting was updated in respect of the new local plan by the Cabinet Member for Planning, who indicated that a formal notice in respect of the Plan was due to be published in the next couple of weeks.

Councillor Johncock requested that the Local Plan Task and Finish Group be convened to consider the Plan one last time, before the Plan’s referral to Cabinet probably on 18 September 2017.

This meeting of the Task and Finish Group represented a final opportunity for Scrutiny Members to look at the Plan and alert the Cabinet to any concerns or queries, it was hoped with all the work from officers across the Service and the considerable previous input by Commission Members this would be a final crossing of ‘t’s and dotting of ‘i’s exercise.

It was planned that an informative paper on the recommendations from this meeting of the Local Plan Task and Finish Group included in the report to Cabinet 18 September 2017 was to be brought to the Commission Meeting just before Cabinet; currently scheduled for 13 September 2017.

Handy Cross Traffic Management Task and Finish Group

See notes under Update on Transport Issues Cressex and Westhorpe minute.

Budget Task and Finish Group

The Commission Chairman reminded the meeting on the successful operation of this important Task and Finish Group in previous years. Councillor Roger Wilson a new member to the Commission, but a much experienced ex- Cabinet member in a number of portfolios, had agreed to Chair this Group this year around.

Councillor Alex Collingwood; Group Chairman last year had kindly agreed to serve as Vice Chairman this time around. Councillors Rafiq Raja and Matt Knight agreed to serve as per last year. Further volunteers to come forward before the Group work begins.

The intention was to carry out the Budget Scrutiny in two phases as per the previous two years. An initial phase to start in late summer in respect of recommendations for inclusion in the budget and a second phase from December in respect of scrutiny of the emerging budget.

It was noted that formal responses of Cabinet to the phase two recommendations of last year’s Budget Task and Finish Group had not yet been received and were not yet scheduled before Cabinet.

In respect of proposed new review topics and specifically the work programme suggestion form submitted by Councillor H McCarthy in respect of the Return of the River Wye to the Town Centre, this matter was discussed at length.

Councillor McCarthy outlined that he was not an engineer so from that angle he was not sure whether the uncovering of the Wye could be done, yet it had featured in the master-plan for the town centre way back in 2002. There would be an inordinate amount of work involved, but there was planned digging up under the next scheduled and funded master-plan work, could the river uncovering work not be done at the same time? To do so now would be expensive but in 20 years’ time it would be at least 10 time more.

There were ways of finding external funding, the Environment Agency were supportive; funding was available from Landfill taxes. The River was both an environmental and economic key to the town, its uncovering would make High Wycombe much more a destination town, not just a town visited out of necessity. There was, as said, a practicability to doing the work all in one go.

The proposed Task and Finish Group could look at funding options as well as these practicalities.

Councillor Johncock (Cabinet Member for Planning) confirmed that the uncovering of the river was not in the current Town Centre Master-plan works being rolled out, the funding was not currently there. It would cost at least £2m, such was difficult to justify to taxpayers as the benefits could not be quantified easily in monetary terms. The Task and Finish Group if established could look into such issues, establishing the breadth of support.

Mr M Overall (Wycombe Society and ‘Revive the Wye’ Partnership member) was invited to speak. He outlined the outstanding work the Partnership had done in respect of the River up and down stream, but the one major aspect of the Partnership’s work still outstanding, was its culverting and absence from the Town Centre.

Previous ‘Return of the River’ events held in 2014 including a talk at the Guildhall by Charles Rangeley-Wilson author of the ‘Silt Road – The Story of a Lost River’ about the River Wye, had shown an appetite for the exploratory work the proposed Task and Finish Group could deliver.

Members raised a number of issues in respect of public consultation; the lost opportunity at the time of the construction of Eden and the benefits of the River Kennet navigation landscaping in Reading town centre.

It was unanimously agreed to set up a Task and Finish Group to investigate the return of the River Wye to the Town Centre; Councillor McCarthy accepted the Commission Chairman’s invitation to Chair the Group.

Volunteers to be established over the next few weeks with scoping of the work on the Group to be carried out by Members and relevant officers thereafter.

In respect of the Appended Improvement & Review Commission Work Programme (appendix C) Members were asked to note the Review of Corporate Plan Objectives scheduled to be considered by the Commission at its next Meeting on 13 September 2017. This important input from the Council’s Scrutiny body was needed before referral of the Objectives to Cabinet and thence Council. To enable this a rescheduling of the Commission’s September meeting may be required, Members will be kept abreast of any such rescheduling if needed.

Members were encouraged to complete the Work Programme Suggestion Form appended to the agenda (Appendix B) in respect of items they wished to suggest for consideration by the Commission in future.

No topics were identified on the attached Cabinet Forward Plan for review by the Commission at future meetings.

RESOLVED: That the update on the Work Programme and current task and finish groups be noted.