Agenda and minutes

Members are reminded of their responsibility to declare any pecuniary interest in respect of matters contained in this agenda.

If you have a pecuniary interest you must withdraw from the meeting. Normally you should leave the room before the business starts to be discussed. You do, however, have the same right to speak as a member of the public and may remain in the room to enable you to exercise that right and then leave immediately. In either case you must not seek to improperly influence a decision on the matter.

Councillor Lynch and Councillor Morwood both declared an interest in the consideration of the Call-in request for Community Action Plans in that they were Chairs of the Clayton Brook and Chorley East Ward respectively.

Both Councillor Lynch and Councillor Morwood took part in the debate and the subsequent vote.

To consider a request by Councillor Mark Perks for the following decision of the Executive Cabinet on 18 February 2016 to be called in:

Community Action Plans

A copy of the call in request form which includes the call in procedure is attached, along with a copy of the above report which was approved by the Executive Cabinet on 18 February 2016, and summary information from the survey as requested by the Chair of Overview and Scrutiny Committee.

 The Chair agreed to a request from Councillor Alistair Bradley, the Executive Leader of the Council to table a copy of an email that he had submitted to the Chair of the Committee prior to the commencement of the meeting.  The content of the email questioned the validity of the application for the Call-in request submitted by Councillor Perks in relation to Community Action Plans.

Both Councillor Bradley and Councillor Perks put forward arguments to the validity of the call-in.  However, the Chair reminded the Committee that the validity of the call-in request was not open for debate, and that it was in his gift to decide whether or not a call-in request was valid.  It was the role of the Committee to decide if the decision made by the Executive Cabinet on Community Action Plans should be referred back to the next Executive Cabinet meeting for further consideration.

The Chair summarised the background of the call-in request for a decision made by the Executive Cabinet at its meeting on 18 February 2016.  The application was made on the grounds that the Community Action Plans, overall, failed to be consistent in its approach or fairness.  It was also stated that the Community Action Plan for Astley Village had missed an opportunity to make a serious impact on the community and the lives of individuals in the area.  The proposed Action Plan/Proposals for resources was not good enough or had/would make a real impact on long standing issues.

The decision taken by the Executive Cabinet had been to

·         note the progress made in the development of Community Action Plans for each of the pilot areas (Chorley East Ward, Clayton Brook, Astley Village and Rural).

·         approve the budget allocation to the Community Action Plan projects identified and described in the report.

The Chair invited Councillor Perks to put forward his reasons for calling-in the decision.  Councillor Perk raised concern about the lack of consultation with councillors, residents and community groups, in respect of the Action Plan for Astley Village, which was contrary to how the other three Action Plans had been developed.

It was felt that opportunities to make effective changes to the lives of residents in Astley Village had been missed, and that the data used to identify community priorities would not have been reflective of the whole demographic of Astley Village, but instead would be the opinion of a minority of residents.

The Community Action Plan identified the five main differences between Astley Village and the rest of Chorley -

·         Housing

·         Unemployment

·         Deprivation

·         Health

·         Crime

Councillor Perks agreed that the priority for Astley Village was housing.  The report for Astley and Buckshaw Ward identified that the population density was more than double that of all Chorley at 11.9 persons per hectare (Chorley 5.3 persons per hectare).  The percentage of flats, maisonettes or apartments in Astley and Buckshaw was more than double that of Chorley at 23.0% (Chorley 9.2%).  It was also had a much lower percentage of semi-detached and terraced  ...  view the full minutes text for item 16.OS.35