Issue - meetings

Report of the Director – Development and Economic Growth

The Service Manager – Economic Growth and Property delivered a presentation on the Review of the Growth Boards a process which presented findings from surveys and work completed and considerations and options for the future of the Growth Boards. The report and presentation focussed on the review itself and some proposed models for the Boards going forward.

The Group were provided with a brief background of the Boards from when they were established in 2015, reviewed in 2017 and 2019 and what the Boards had delivered during this period.

The Service Manager – Economic Growth and Property advised the group of more recent additional areas of work to provide broader context on economic growth related activity delivered by the Council.

The additional work includes:

·       Newton Community Partnership Board focusing on the Newton Strategic Urban Extension (SUE)

·       Sharphill Stakeholder meetings focusing on the Sharphill development at Edwalton

·       Fairham Growth Board

·       Ratcliffe on Soar Parish Forum

·       UK Shared Prosperity and Rural England Prosperity Funding

·       Rushcliffe Business Partnership

·       High Street and Town Centre Forums

·       Bingham Car Parking Stakeholder meetings

·       Big Business Carbon Club to support larger businesses to reduce their carbon emissions

It was noted the UK Shared Prosperity Funding has enabled additional business support activity and a comprehensive business support offer commissioned by the Council for businesses across the Borough.

With regards to the Growth Board surveys the Group were advised that Growth Board Members, Councillors and 2500 businesses were approached.

The result of responses were 14 responses from existing Growth Board members and Councillors and 69 responses from local businesses, resulting in the following feedback in descending order of priorities:

·       Business support (28)

·       Inward Investment (12)

·       Sustainability/green growth (11)

·       Employment and skills (11)

·       High Street/town centres (11)

·       Other (6)

·       Accessibility (4)

·       Tourism/place marketing (2)

Other feedback from the surveys included the following:

·       Good at bringing organisations together and getting updates on big projects/key priorities in an area

·       Need to review strategic objectives

·       Need to engage with businesses more

Overall, it was noted the Growth Boards had some value, but based on the identified priorities and considering other areas of work it may be time to reconsider what are the right objectives and membership.

The Service Manager – Economic Growth and Property provided an illustrative example of the preferred option with the Strategic Growth Board overseeing three other threads of Groups/Work:

1.     Development Boards at Fairham, Bingham, Newton, Sharphill and Gamston

2.     Task and Finish Groups/Work e.g. high street forums, landlord engagement, inward investment, area focused activity

3.     Meetings with the 6 largest Town/Parish Councils at Bingham, Cotgrave Radcliffe on Trent, Ruddington, Keyworth and East Leake and WB local area forum

The Group were advised that the current Growth Boards would no longer meet as outlined above as issues or opportunities arise could be dealt with via more focussed groups for example, the soon to be established Bingham Car Parking Group supported by the Borough Council.

Councillor Wheeler as a member of the West Bridgford Growth Board expressed concern with regards to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 10