Accessibility settings

In order to remember your preferences as you navigate through the site, a cookie will be set.

Color preference

Text size

Agenda item

Gloucestershire Economic Growth Scrutiny Committee Update

 To receive an update from the Council’s representative on matters considered at the last meeting (2 July 2020).

Minutes:

14.1          The Council’s representative on the Gloucestershire Economic Growth Scrutiny Committee (GEGSC) presented the report, circulated with the Agenda at Pages No.39-43, which contained a summary of the Committee’s last meeting held on 2 July 2020. He indicated that three main areas had been covered at the meeting; update on the Gloucestershire Economic Growth Joint Committee (GEGJC) meeting held on 3 June 2020; GFirst Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) verbal update and COVID-19 Response – Planning for Gloucestershire’s Economic Recovery.

14.2          The verbal update on the GEGJC meeting was given by the Chair of that Committee and Page No. 39 set out the main points, with the key item covered being the COVID-19 response which was currently very fluid with lots of matters happening outside of the County. The Joint Committee would be taking a co-ordinating role in terms of the response to COVID-19 and would be working closely with the Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) and District and Borough partners; the aim was to have a united approach across the County. The next update was from the Deputy Chief Executive of the GFirst LEP which was in three parts: Growth Deal Projects; the County’s Inward Investment Project; and a New Funding Pot from the government. Picking up the main points under the Growth Deal Projects, which included the West Cheltenham Transport Scheme, West Cheltenham Walking and Cycling Schemes, Airport Schemes and the Gloucestershire Railway Station, it was explained that the LEP had been making sure that these projects continued; working on due diligence and getting funding agreements signed off. In terms of the County’s Inward Investment Project, which was aimed at attracting foreign owned companies into the County, obviously this had been heavily impacted by COVID-19 with national and international events having been cancelled resulting in the project coming to a halt for the time being. The team responsible for this project had been deployed onto COVID-19 recovery planning. The Council’s representative indicated that he had just noticed a typing error in his report in that the heading for part c., on Page No.40, repeated that for part b. and should read “New Funding Pot from Government”. Under this heading the Deputy Chief Executive of the LEP had explained that it was always sensible to have a live project pipeline in the event that government provided a new funding source. In this respect, the LEP had been given six days notice by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) for available projects that satisfied a strict criteria. The projects had to be shovel ready; able to be completed by December 2021; recovery and job creation theme focused; and have “green credentials”. Fifteen projects were submitted from across the County the most important of which that satisfied the criteria were: Kings Square, Gloucester; Tewkesbury Garden Town, Cheltenham to Gloucester Cycle Highway and Bishop’s Cleeve to Cheltenham Cycle Highway. The plan was to have full business cases ready for submission to the government by the end of July. Finally, the third main area covered was an update from the Director of Economy, Community and Infrastructure regarding the response planning for Gloucestershire’s economic recovery. He had advised the Scrutiny Committee that research had shown the people who were going to be most affected by COVID-19 were 17-24 year olds without any work experience. Even those with a degree would find it difficult to get work but this would be even worse for those that had not attained that level of qualification. He also spent some time talking about the fact that some companies may have gone out of business in the normal run of things but potentially the government’s furlough scheme had delayed that happening so, rather than get into localised business support where supported businesses may fail, it had been decided to take a sector based approach; looking at the weaknesses in the sectors and assessing what could be done to strengthen and support them in the future. Before the meeting ended the Councillor for Strategic Infrastructure had added that, prior to COVID-19, there had been good news from government with the approval of three significant projects; A417 missing link, M5 Junction 10 and M5 Junction 9. Unfortunately, the onset of COVID-19 had had a significant impact on all of the previously mentioned major infrastructure schemes and many others that had not been specified. Nevertheless, the County Council was doing all it could to progress the plans for the schemes.

14.3          The Chair sought questions from Members, and it was asked, in respect of the projects listed under “Growth Deals”, what was covered under the “Airport Schemes”. The Council’s representative was unable to give further details and therefore it was agreed that the Chief Executive would circulate the requested information following the meeting. Whilst addressing the Committee, the Chief Executive took the opportunity to make some comments in respect of J9 and J10 of the M5 and particularly the use of the word “approval” on Page No.43. In respect of J10, funding had been allocated but was subject to the signing of a grant agreement between the County Council, as the Highways Authority, and Homes England, so there was still some work to do but hopefully that would be completed by the end of September. As regards J9, the approval obtained currently was not an approval of the scheme but a strategic outline business case for the J9 work which essentially allowed moving on to the next phase in the scheme development; J9 was a long way from getting approval and there was still a lot of work to be done. The Chair asked the Chief Executive to give further information on the A417 which he understood was now subject to challenge. The Chief Executive indicated that he was not aware of those details, but he understood that the scheme was well advanced. He indicated that he would seek an update on this from County Highways and inform the Committee of the situation outside of the meeting. The simple use of the word “approval” did not mean that everything had been sorted it merely indicated that a stage in the process had been approved. He concluded by stating that he would do a note for the Committee on all three of the schemes to ensure Members were fully aware of what stages each of them were at. A Member also asked for information on the Air Balloon in relation to the A417 scheme and whether it was to be demolished. The Chief Executive stated that this related to the detailed scheme for the A417 and he would provide Members with a link to that scheme on the Highways England website within the briefing note. A Member queried the reference to Gloucestershire Railway Station under 2a, on Page No.40 of the report, and asked whether this related to Gloucester Railway Station or Gloucestershire Railway Stations. The Chief Executive indicated that he thought this referred to Gloucester Railway Station and a scheme to improve links to the station and its general appearance. The Chair thanked the Council’s representative for his report, and it was

RESOLVED           That the Gloucestershire Economic Growth Scrutiny Committee Update be NOTED.

Supporting documents: