Agenda item

To receive questions from members for the Executive and committee chairs.

In response to Councillor Barker’s questions of clarification which related to the list of executive responsibilities and the members’ bulletin, the Leader said she had discussed the issue with the Chief Executive and Monitoring Officer and the Leader would be responsible for any unlisted functions. She said further information on Cabinet member profiles and listed responsibilities had been issued on social media and the members’ bulletin by the Communication team.   

Councillor Barker said she had not received the Members’ Bulletin.

In response to a question regarding the new evidence base documentation for the emerging Local Plan from Councillor Criscione, Councillor Evans said the Local Plan team would publish the relevant background documentation as soon as possible. He said a Local Plan Leadership Group meeting would take place next week.

In response to a question from Councillor Haynes regarding the commissioning of a landscape sensitivity study and heritage assessment, and whether this was newly commissioned, Councillor Evans confirmed it was and did include details on key views and heritage settings.

In response to Councillor Lemon’s question regarding the Youth Council, Councillor Sutton said schools were stretched and circumstances had changed since the pandemic, which in turn would result in a new approach. Meetings were ongoing with schools and she was working hard to support young people in the district.

Councillor Pavitt questioned whether officers asked water companies if the water supply was sustainable when processing major planning applications for new developments. He said the statistics demonstrated that they could not. He asked Councillor Evans to elaborate on what details were available to Planning Officers in this respect. In regards to question eight, Councillor Pavitt said the respond given did not answer his question at all and seemed to demonstrate that nothing had been done since the motion in question was passed in 2021.

In response, Councillor Evans said the Local Plan Leadership Group would be best placed to deal with the water supply details. In regards to planning applications, he said the Environment Agency had intervened in three applications in Cambridgeshire in relation to allocated sites. He said the Planning Committee Working Group could also look at this issue.

Councillor Gregory said the responses provided did not address his questions; he said the answers were deeply evasive and did not provide the level of detail written questions warranted.  

In response, Councillor Evans said he was not being evasive as the matter relied on the readiness of the evidence arising from ongoing water studies. That was the reason for a lack of specificity and as soon as the evidence was available a report would be considered by Local Plan Leadership Group.

In response to question ten regarding the date of the meeting with the Environment Agency and when members could expect a report, Councillor Evans said the meeting was being arranged by officers and made a commitment to bring a report to members following the said meeting.

In response to Councillor Criscione’s clarification question regarding further expert advice, Councillor Evans said the advice had been commissioned and a presentation had been given last week at which point the question was asked in respect of a “showstopper” that would impact on the preparation of the emerging Local Plan.