Question from Councillor John Walker
What action is the Council/Lancashire County Council taking to alleviate car parking problems around The Hub, Primary School, Buckshaw Health Centre and the Original Community Centre in Buckshaw Village.
Question from Councillor Martin Boardman
The background to the question is as follows:
As part of the ongoing cuts to services by Lancashire County Council the "Supporting People" subsidy offered to local housing associations and care providers has been removed. The organisations in questions were notified in 2015 that these cuts would be coming, we believe exact timing of the removal of funding comes around September 2017. The residents of the Adactus run Sheltered Housing schemes in the villages of Eccleston and Mawdesley received a letter from Adactus in November 2016. In this letter Adactus stated "The council was facing huge financial challenge in having to make savings of £262m, by 2020/2021". The letter went on to state "Up to April 2017, the sheltered schemes and warden call properties have been subsidised by LCC Supporting People's Funding but this funding is no longer available to us from April 2017". That being said Adactus are proposing to change the 15 hours per week support provided by the scheme coordinator to 9 hours per week provide by a "Floating Scheme Coordinator". Not only will the roles hours be reduced but the responsibilities of that individual will now include managing maintenance, repairs and the safety of the buildings. I ask this council to consider out of that 9 hours how much of them will be with vulnerable residents providing support? I would say, none.
Adactus held a "drop in session",with all residents where the representative of Adactus stated quite clearly that this reduction was in direct response to a removal of a £67k annual grant from the LCC Supporting People fund, and if they had not removed this grant than there would be no need to change the staffing hours.
We believe this subsidy was also removed from the Chorley Council Run Cotswold House, however this council has taken the decision to fund the deficit to Cotswold house from the Council budget.
The questions therefore are:
· Could I please ask the council to confirm if Adactus housing has reviewed all of the warden call services across all schemes and has cut hours equally across all schemes?
· Could I also ask this council to write to LCC to ask that, in light of the recent 2% increase in Council Tax to be spent directly on social care would LCC be reinstating the subsidy to vulnerable elderly residents as was with the Supporting People Scheme?
· Lastly could I ask this council to consider providing the shortfall in subsidy to our housing partner Adactus, who have stated that they would reinstate these essential services if the funding was available?
Minutes:
Question One: Councillor John Walker submitted the following question under Procedure Rule 8:
“What action is the Council/Lancashire County Council taking to alleviate car parking problems around The Hub, Primary School, Buckshaw Health Centre and the Original Community Centre in Buckshaw Village”.
Councillor Alistair Bradley, Executive Leader, advised that the Council had brought together the stakeholders in the area to devise a solution. The Council had liaised with police colleagues, especially around pinch points like Tuesdays and early morning/late afternoon, regarding enhanced patrols and enforcement.
Some design work had been commissioned some design work with LCC that created car parking spaces and created a new one way system that would take vehicles around the back of The Hub on to Village Way. Stakeholders discussed the proposal in Autumn 2016 and there was a consensus to proceed, but they recognised that it would not be universally popular and would need to be subject to wider consultation with residents.
If the scheme were to proceed it would need Buckshaw Management Company’s agreement as they will need to gift the land to make the new stretch of road and agree to remove the grassed area from the community centre car park and maintain it as a tarmacked area.
The proposed scheme has been shared with LCC who have said that the scheme is practical and that, in principal, the new stretch of highway will be suitable for adoption by LCC as a highway maintainable at public expense. They have said that they are not in a position to make a financial contribution to its construction.
Stakeholder groups, including ward councillors, have been updated and asked whether their organisation will be able to contribute towards the £170,000 capital costs.
Discussions are now ongoing as to how to fund this and an update will be brought to a future meeting of the Executive Cabinet. It was noted that the Clayton-le-Woods and Whittle-le-Woods Councillors had not been invited to a recent meeting at Buckshaw Village.
Question Two: Councillor Martin Boardman submitted the following question under Procedure Rule 8:
· “Could I please ask the council to confirm if Adactus housing has reviewed all of the warden call services across all schemes and has cut hours equally across all schemes?
· Could I also ask this council to write to LCC to ask that, in light of the recent 2% increase in Council Tax to be spent directly on social care would LCC be reinstating the subsidy to vulnerable elderly residents as was with the Supporting People Scheme?
· Lastly could I ask this council to consider providing the shortfall in subsidy to our housing partner Adactus, who have stated that they would reinstate these essential services if the funding was available?”
Councillor Bev Murray, Executive Member (Early Intervention) advised that Adactus had reported that they had reviewed all of the services across all schemes in Chorley. The hours were looked at on the basis of the number of properties and what health and safety checks were completed at each scheme. For example, the block schemes (Arcon and Eldon) have a lot more checks to complete; but the bungalow schemes have much fewer checks. All schemes have seen a reduction in hours, none have been exempt from the reductions.
The Council has written to Adactus to ask them to continue with the current level of support from their own resources when the Supporting People money ends, especially in the light of the surpluses created by Adactus. Once a response was received, the Council would be in a position to decide on the next steps to take.
The situation was complex and changing quickly. An update report would be presented to the meeting of Executive Cabinet in June.
RESOLVED – that
1. The questions and responses be noted,
2. Councillor Bev Murray, Executive Member (Early Intervention), write a letter to the Government to request a review of Housing Associations finances and the use of their surpluses.