a)    Councillor Larcombe will ask the following question of Councillor Coe, Lead member for Environmental Services

Please explain why the Wraysbury Drain is still blocked at Hythe End having been reported over four years ago?

b)    Councillor Larcombe will ask the following question of Councillor Jones, Deputy Leader of the Council and Lead member for Finance

With the ever-increasing probability of flooding, how much RBWM money has been allocated over future years towards flood defence and land drainage infrastructure maintenance and improvements please?

c)    Councillor Story will ask the following question of Councillor Bermange, Lead member for Planning, Legal and Asset Management

Planning permission for a new health centre to replace two GP surgeries in Sunninghill and Sunningdale was granted 18 months ago and residents are concerned that work has not yet started. Would the cabinet member advise Council on the reasons for the delay, when the work is likely to start and the likely opening date of the new health centre.

d)    Councillor Sharpe will ask the following question of Councillor Reynolds, Lead member for Communities and Leisure

The Novello Theatre, one of the original cinemas in the country, is a highly valued gem in Sunninghill High Street. The community in Sunninghill wish to use this, now abandoned, facility for drama, dancing, singing and for cinema, to provide additional vitality to the area. What action is now being taken to return this facility to community use?

The Council will set aside a period of 30 minutes to deal with Councillor questions, which may be extended at the discretion of the Mayor in exceptional circumstances. The Councillor who provides the initial response will do so in writing. The written response will be published as a supplement to the agenda by 5pm one working day before the meeting. The questioner shall be allowed up to one minute to put a supplementary question at the meeting. The supplementary question must arise directly out of the reply provided and shall not have the effect of introducing any new subject matter. A Councillor responding to a supplementary question will have two minutes to respond.

a)    Councillor Larcombe asked the following question of Councillor Coe, Cabinet Member for Environmental Services

Please explain why the Wraysbury Drain is still blocked at Hythe End having been reported over four years ago?

Written response: The Wraysbury Drain has been blocked for many years, in particular at Hythe End where homes and an industrial yard have been built across its path.

Sadly, in 16 years the former Conservative administration made extremely limited progress in restoring the channel as a whole and no progress at all in reinstating the channel in the vicinity of Hythe End.

The Council did undertake clearance of part of the channel at the Dive Centre in March 2022 and engagement and enforcement work is currently underway along another section where riparian owners have recently taken action to further clear the channel.

How planning consent has been acquired for property to be built across the course of a drainage channel is a question we are exploring with officers, with a view to seeing if there are any lessons to be learnt. We will also look at options for reinstatement of this section of channel such as diversion or culverting.

Further updates on work to reinstate and maintain the Wraysbury Drain are given by the council at the bi-monthly Flood Liaison Group.

Councillor Larcombe stated that he was horrified by the answer but not surprised. He considered the Council needed to do something as allowing someone to build on top of a watercourse 2.4m wide, a couple of meters deep that perhaps did not exist. A Flood Liaison meeting was scheduled for 11 October and he requested that Councillor Coe arranged for a report detailing what went wrong and offered options to put it right could be shared.

Councillor Coe answered that he did not know whether this could be achieved in that timescale, would ask and reply to him directly. Councillor Coe stated that he had similarly been surprised to discover about the properties as he’d assumed they had been there unlawfully but that was not the case.

b)    Councillor Larcombe asked the following question of Councillor Jones, Deputy Leader of the Council and Lead member for Finance

With the ever-increasing probability of flooding, how much RBWM money has been allocated over future years towards flood defence and land drainage infrastructure maintenance and improvements please?

Written response: The following items are currently identified as ‘spend’ in the capital budget in relation to flood defence and land drainage infrastructure maintenance and improvements.

2023/4CD54   River Thames Scheme Infrastructure Project            £400k

            CI93    Highway Drainage Schemes                                      £300k

2024/5CD54   River Thames Scheme Infrastructure Project            £450k

Councillor Larcombe commented that Councillor Jones’ succinct reply appeared to be short of money. By way of a supplementary question he asked about the £10m that had been talked about repeatedly over the years and more specifically the £53m that should have gone into the partnership funding for the River Thames scheme Channel One which was removed from the scheme.

In response Councillor Jones agreed that there was a possible £10m that had been spoken about but were working with the budget that was put in place in February. She explained that at that point the money had not been allocated. There was no further funding detail in the medium-term financial plan so that would need to be a negotiation going forward. In relation to £53m she did not recall that as a figure that was talked about but remembered a historic report mentioning £40m. She concluded that she was trying to unearth that report to review this but that figure never made it onto the budget sheets.

c)    Councillor Story asked the following question of Councillor Bermange, Lead member for Planning, Legal and Asset Management

Planning permission for a new health centre to replace two GP surgeries in Sunninghill and Sunningdale was granted 18 months ago and residents are concerned that work has not yet started. Would the cabinet member advise Council on the reasons for the delay, when the work is likely to start and the likely opening date of the new health centre.

Written response: On 2nd March 2022, the Council’s Development Management Committee resolved to approve the application for the new health hub, subject to an appropriate legal agreement being in place to secure planning obligations, namely an undertaking to secure a carbon offset contribution. This agreement has only recently been completed allowing a decision notice on the application to be issued on 20th September 2023. This is a welcome step forward for the long-awaited new health facility, however, the Council does not currently have any information from NHS Frimley Integrated Care Board, as developer, about their intended programme for implementation. 

Councillor Story stated he had asked the question on behalf of the 16,000

residents who were patients at two very old GP surgeries: one in Sunninghill and the other in Sunningdale, neither of which meet NHS requirements. He reflected that it was good that the decision notice had been issued but it had taken a long time, 18 months. By way of a supplementary question, he asked if the relevant portfolio holder or the officers could find out when work on this new Health Centre was likely to start and when these two GP surgeries were likely to close.

Councillor Bermange advised that he had pre-empted this question and had spoken to Councillor Del Campo as the lead member with responsibility for health and also the Chair of the Health and Wellbeing Board. He explained that it was NHS Frimley ICB who were involved in the project which, he agreed, was long overdue. He confirmed that the Councillor Del Campo had asked for an update about the status of the project at the next meeting of the Health and Wellbeing Board on 10 October. He added that they had also asked for a report on other matters including the walk-in clinic at St Marks in Maidenhead which was another important issue for people. He concluded that they wanted to work with their partners in the NHS and the Health and Wellbeing Board was a good forum to do that.

d)    Councillor Sharpe asked the following question of Councillor Reynolds, Lead member for Communities and Leisure

The Novello Theatre, one of the original cinemas in the country, is a highly valued gem in Sunninghill High Street. The community in Sunninghill wish to use this, now abandoned, facility for drama, dancing, singing and for cinema, to provide additional vitality to the area. What action is now being taken to return this facility to community use?

Written response: The Novello Theatre was returned to the Council following the surrender of the lease in June 2023. The building was originally built as a cinema in 1908 and subsequently extended when converted into a small theatre. It is directly next door to the Cordes Hall in Sunninghill – a community venue which hosts a range of events, productions and shows, many of which are similar in nature to the events that used to be held at the Novello.

Following the lease surrender handover inspection and detailed building condition survey, the Cement Particle sheets making up the flank wall have been found to have failed due to their age. The building is beyond its economic life and the subsequent cost to extensive refurbishment or new build would be approximately £1 million which we believe is prohibitive.

The Council is in the process of considering the appropriate option(s) for the property particularly given the challenging funding environment facing the Council. Once the feasibility options for the site have been concluded the Council will report on the proposed strategy.

Councillor Sharpe stated that the response was very disappointing for the community in Sunninghill and he noted that the Novello Theatre was one of the only buildings in the south of the borough which the Council owned. He said that his residents would love to have access to, and use of, the Novello Theatre so it was very disappointing to hear the state that it had got into. He asked by way of a supplementary question that as the Council had provided funding for Arts projects in Windsor and Maidenhead would the Council commit to a full review with the community for the opening up of the building to provide additional facilities which the community badly needed in the south of the borough.

In response Cllr Reynold replied that there was a significant cost to refurbishing or rebuilding a facility and the approximate £1m cost was completely out of bounds at the moment due to the significant financial pressures that had been inherited from 16 years of the previous Conservative administration and the £200m debt pile He stated that they needed to take a serious look at the site and understand what it was capable of, to understand its best purpose and its best fit within the constraints of the resource that the Council had been given. He said that if a community group were to approach the Council to suggest taking over the site and buy it from the Council then this would be considered but no such dialogue had been had. He agreed that it was sad that the building had got into a state and that under their administration the property team would be briefed to ensure regular inspections were taking place which had not happened previously.