Agenda and minutes

Corporate Update

S Turnbull, Service Director for Transport presented the corporate update and highlighted the following:

Cost of living Crisis

Members were informed that the council was undertaking a range of actions to help residents with the cost of living including the provision of support that would continue to develop over the coming months. It was emphasised that the community boards had a critical role to play in helping to identify areas of need and supporting the provision of help.  An emphasis was placed on the role of the Helping Hands team and the new Welcoming Spaces initiative designed to provide assistance both financially and in terms of specialist advice and support.

Highways

Reference was made to Buckinghamshire Council commencing with the new highways contracts in April 2023 which would have an impact on community board projects currently in the pipeline. It was also an opportunity to build in a delivery model with community boards in mind.

Ukraine

It was reported that arrivals from Ukraine were still ongoing with 700 hosts now offering accommodation to over 1,200 Ukrainian guests. The Council continued to work hard to ensure that families could access schooling, work, finance, practical items, English language lessons and emotional support through the Helping Hand for Ukraine. Reference was also made to a recent Home Office decision to house Asylum Seekers within a local hotel in Buckingham.Ongoing discussions around the practical arrangements surrounding this were taking place with the Corporate Management Team. Local churches also had a contribution to make in this regard in terms of donations of clothing and footwear. It was also reported that the Council was not in receipt of any financial support in providing the extra assistance to the refugees totalling 140 people.

Members emphasised that it was imperative that all issues in regards to health and social care, child protection accessibility to services etc were adequately supported.  Moreover, it was imperative that a coordinated response was provided by all agencies involved and the community be made aware of developments, which in turn would provide the opportunity to be more welcoming of the changes.

RESOLVED: That all efforts be coordinated regards initiatives and developments in light of the decision of the Home Office in the past 7 days.

 Board Priorities

 Economic Recovery

It was reported that a permanent location for the banking hub was being explored with the results of the survey indicating that a hub was required. Results of the survey established that a hub was indeed needed. It was also reported that careers fair would be development and delivered in collaboration with Buckingham University. A meeting with the University was scheduled to take place in order to establish the full project scope.

Road Safety

The first meeting had taken place and had proved to be positive with solutions and methods of implementation currently under consideration.

Youth

A youth Café was to be established in Buckinghamshire. Cllr Fealey stated that a survey was scheduled to be conducted following the results of which the work could progress through the creation of a project scoping document.

It was emphasised strongly by a Member that when re-evaluation of priorities took place they should be in the light of the cost of living crisis. It was crucial to have in place agile funds to be accessed in order to support the most vulnerable people in the community. She raised the question as to whether this could/would be put into place.

 It was confirmed by the Board Manager that discussions to develop a streamlined approach to support the cost of living crisis was indeed in progress, and that this would be implemented shortly. This would ensure that measures were in place to support those most in need.