a)    Question submitted by Councillor Jones to Councillor D. Wilson, Lead Member for Planning:

What assurances can be given in regards of the ability of our borough wide infrastructure (not 'on-site' infrastructure) to cope with development specified in the Borough Local Plan for the future?

b)   Question submitted by Councillor Jones to Councillor Carroll, Principal Member for Public Health and Communications:

Apart from expediency, can you explain the reasons behind the decision to amend an employee media policy rather than publish a policy that was Member specific and able to address the differing communication needs?

c)    Question submitted by Councillor Stretton to Councillor Carroll, Principal Member for Public Health and Communications:

Given that our website describes Consultation as key to “ensuring decisions are taken in an open, honest and accountable way“, can you explain why the wording of the Braywick Park Land Disposal Consultation was so ambiguous and so poorly advertised, not even appearing on the Consultation page of our website or circulated to the Users of Braywick Park?

(The Member responding has up to 5 minutes to address Council. The Member asking the question has up to 1 minute to submit a supplementary question. The Member responding then has a further 2 minutes to respond.)

a)    Question submitted by Councillor Jones to Councillor D. Wilson, Lead Member for Planning:

What assurances can be given in regards of the ability of our borough wide infrastructure (not 'on-site' infrastructure) to cope with development specified in the Borough Local Plan for the future?

Councillor D. Wilson responded that the Submission Version of the Borough Local Plan was supported by an Infrastructure Delivery Plan which set out what the requirements were for additional infrastructure capacity to deliver the development allocated through the local plan.  The IDP was on the website as part of the ongoing Regulation 19 stage of the BLP.

By way of a supplementary, Councillor Jones asked, given the council’s cash flow forecast was borrowing of £150m and the financial commitments were mounting, including new leisure centres and an increase in the pension deficit, what details were available to show the council could afford the investment in the highways network if Crossrail and runway 3 saw fruition?

Councillor D. Wilson responded that infrastructure would be secured either through the Community Infrastructure Levy or through section 106 agreements relating to each individual site.  The infrastructure requirements of individual schemes could only be assessed at the planning application stage. A number of applications would include a Masterplan; as part of the process each development would have to provide adequate infrastructure, as assessed by officers.

b)   Question submitted by Councillor Jones to Councillor Carroll, Principal Member for Public Health and Communications:

Apart from expediency, can you explain the reasons behind the decision to amend an employee media policy rather than publish a policy that was Member specific and able to address the differing communication needs?

Councillor Carroll responded that changes had been made to ensure the policy covered Members as previously there had been no policy including Members and it was an important issue given the wide use social media. Many local authorities had policies that covered both groups. The council had tried to be efficient and have one policy. The current officer policy was appropriate guidance but as discussed earlier, this would be looked at again to see if additional guidance was necessary.

Councillor Jones confirmed she did not have a supplementary question.

c)    Question submitted by Councillor Stretton to Councillor Carroll, Principal Member for Public Health and Communications:

Given that our website describes Consultation as key to “ensuring decisions are taken in an open, honest and accountable way“, can you explain why the wording of the Braywick Park Land Disposal Consultation was so ambiguous and so poorly advertised, not even appearing on the Consultation page of our website or circulated to the Users of Braywick Park?

Councillor Carroll responded that a technical point was that this was a statutory process rather than a consultation but it was the aim to widen promotion in future. RBWM had followed the statutory process to publish a Notice of Intended Disposal of open space land, in accordance with Section 123 of the Local Government Act, as part of the preparatory work for the plans to re-provide the Magnet Leisure Centre and to provide a long term permanent location for the Forest Bridge School at the Braywick Park site.

The Council followed the statutory process to inform residents that it was considering removing a piece of land from public open space, in order to allow for the shared use by the school and public as hard courts.  The statutory process obliged RBWM to advertise in the local newspaper for two consecutive weeks, which was done. The process also required that a copy of the site plan showing the parcel of land be available from the Town Hall.

There was no intention whatsoever to make this process difficult. The council had not been aware of a specific request to make the plan available electronically. He had already confirmed the council could have made the reason for the Notice more explicit, and included a more detailed explanation on the proposed use. In future the Notice would be more explicit and include the Notice on the Website as well as in the local paper. The council had learned from the feedback received, and would reflect this in any future Notices.

By way of a supplementary, Councillor Stretton asked why all consultations were not placed on the consultation page on the website as a matter of course and why the council only met the statutory minimum requirements.

Councillor Carroll responded that a number of consultations did appear on the website and the council used social media to promote them. He would meet with the communications team to ensure this happened for all consultations going forward as appropriate.