Agenda and draft minutes

Link to further information in the Council’s Constitution

There were no declarations of interest.

The minutes of the meeting held on 6 March 2024 were approved as a true record of the meeting and were signed by the Chair.

Councillor Grocock referred to an Environment Agency report ranking environmental equality within Nottinghamshire boroughs, which included some lower rankings for Rushcliffe, and the Chair confirmed that there was an outstanding invitation for the Environment Agency to attend a future meeting of this Group.

Report of the Director for Development and Economic Growth

The Rushcliffe Oaks Manager delivered a presentation which provided the Group with an update about Rushcliffe Oaks Crematorium.

The Rushcliffe Oaks Manager explained that the Crematorium had held 506 cremations in its first year, of which 32 were direct cremations without a service. She presented the Group with financial information which set out the monthly income generated compared to target income, by month, and noted that income had increased over the year and demonstrated business growth. She explained that the initial business case projections for income had been overly optimistic for a newly opened business and as such had subsequently been reviewed.

The Rushcliffe Oaks Manager said that total income for the year amounted to £485k which meant that a £61k surplus had been achieved. In comparing the number of services held over the year, she noted that 22 had taken place in April 2023 and 52 in April 2024, with projected income for 2024 being £710k, or £683k without memorialisation income which was projected to be £27k.

In relation to memorialisation, the Rushcliffe Oaks Manager said that sales had initially been slow but were increasing and it was hoped that opening up the bottom third of the site which would include a wildflower meadow would also increase sales. She noted that circa 4% of the population chose to have a memorialisation at the crematorium where a service took place.

The Rushcliffe Oaks Manager explained that the Team had sought feedback from local funeral directors which had been extremely positive, saying that the service provided was professional and welcoming. She said that the Team aimed to accommodate all types of service requests, whilst being mindful of safety concerns, and welcomed all faiths and all types of funerals and had generous service times which meant that services did not impact on each other. She added that they also had a comfort dog, possibly being the only crematorium which had one, which had proved popular, particularly in providing a distraction for children. She said that the Crematorium was also operationally carbon neutral.

In relation to competition and communications and marketing, the Rushcliffe Oaks Manager said that the Team had visited funeral directors in the area to better understand the market and where people were coming from and had looked at how best to share news. She said that the Team were including adverts in hospital bereavement brochures and sent quarterly newsletters to funeral directors. The Team had held two Open Days which had been very well attended and posted sensitive updates on social media. The Crematorium had also received exposure from having a comfort dog which had generated news and radio press items and who was a finalist in the BBC Make a Difference Awards.

Referring to future focus for the Crematorium, the Rushcliffe Oaks Manager said that the Team had needed to build resilience to allow for annual leave and unforeseen circumstances and had trained additional Council staff so that they could step in to provide support when needed. She said  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.

Report of the Director for Development and Economic Growth

The Team Manager Planning delivered a presentation to the Group about Infrastructure Delivery and provided answers to the five questions that had been asked.

The Team Manager Planning provided the Group with some background information, being that infrastructure providers often gathered money from multiple development pots which while this may delay work until all of those had been collected, could also enable more to be delivered and with greater efficiency than if funded piecemeal. He explained that it was not possible to cross fund between s106 pots of money and clarified that the role of the Council was to work with relevant partners to identify infrastructure needs arising from a development, secure funding to meet those needs, and to collect the money secured through the legal agreements and make it available to the infrastructure provider/s.

In relation to infrastructure triggers and their monitoring, the Team Manager Planning explained that triggers for s106 and Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) were different, with CIL triggers all being pre-defined in the instalments policy. He informed the Group of the various levels of CIL contributions required for small, medium and large developments and confirmed that as all payment due dates were time based, it was easy to monitor whether payment had been made on time. He added that development completion was monitored through regular updates from Council Tax.

In relation to s106 payments, the Team Manager Planning explained that triggers were bespoke negotiated for each development and were rarely time based, more often linked to events such as commencement of development or percentage occupation. He said that payments could be linked to the developer realising a return on their investment for larger developments, were often paid in instalments and depending on what was to be funded, related to when would be best to deliver that provision, for example it could be beneficial for a school to be built early. He added that s106 could also secure works rather than financial payments and that works could be to directly facilitate the development or to offset its impacts on services and infrastructure.

The Team Manager Planning informed the Group that s106 triggers were monitored through Council Tax information, annual monitoring undertaken by the Planning Policy Team and from estimates provided by developers at previous trigger stages. He explained that on and off site physical delivery had to be monitored directly, but that functionality of infrastructure could not be monitored by the Council and as such was not signed off.

The Team Manager Planning explained that enforcement of s106 was conducted through legal action for breach of contract and that CIL had inbuilt penalties and functions with the Council being able to apply stops functions, late payments and surcharges. He added that in relation to CIL, a developer needed to inform the Council of commencement onsite and forfeited the facility to make staggered payments if they did not do so.

Councillor Thomas referred to the visibility of s106 to town and parish councils and the level of understanding  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

Report of the Director for Finance and Corporate Services

The Chair noted that there was an open invitation for the Environment Agency and Severn Trent Water to attend a future meeting of this Scrutiny Group.

The Chair noted that Cabinet had resolved at its meeting in May for this Scrutiny Group to review progress against proposals set out in the Management of Open Spaces on New Developments report in spring 2025 and asked for this to be added to the Work Programme.

It was RESOLVED that the Group agreed the work programme as set out in the table below.

17 October 2024 (Joint Scrutiny Group)

·       Accessible Housing Briefing

·       Work Programme

23 January 2025

·       Work programme

3 April 2025

·       Management of Open Spaces on New Developments

·       Work programme

Action Table – 17 July 2024