At its meeting on 10 January 2024, the Executive Committee RECOMMENDED TO COUNCIL that the revised version of the Gloucestershire Statement of Common Ground be APPROVED with the dashes in the “agreements” section removed and the removal of Appendix 3 to the previously approved version; and that authority be delegated to the Executive Director: Place, in consultation with the Lead Member for Built Environment, to make those amendments along with any necessary minor amendments, corrections and additions to in respect of any spelling, grammatical, cross-referencing, typographical errors and/or factual updates prior to signing by the Leader or Chief Executive.

85.13        At its meeting on 10 January 2024, the Executive Committee recommended to Council that the revised version of the Gloucestershire Statement of Common Ground be approved with the dashes in the “agreements” section removed and the removal of Appendix 3 to the previously approved version; and that authority be delegated to the Executive Director: Place, in consultation with the Lead Member for Built Environment, to make those amendments along with any necessary minor amendments, corrections and additions to in respect of any spelling, grammatical, cross-referencing, typographical errors and/or factual updates prior to signing by the Leader or Chief Executive.

85.14        The report which was considered by the Executive Committee had been circulated with the Agenda for the current meeting at Pages No. 75-112.

85.15        As Chair of the Executive Committee, the Leader of the Council proposed the recommendation of the Executive Committee and it was seconded by the Lead Member for Built Environment.  The Leader of the Council explained that the Gloucestershire Statement of Common Ground had been prepared by the six local planning authorities in Gloucestershire, Gloucestershire County Council and the GFirst Local Enterprise Partnership.  The statement had been approved by Tewkesbury Borough Council in January 2023 with a number of caveats to the agreements contained within it and the Council now wished to fully sign up to all of the agreements and remove any caveats. 

85.16        A Member drew attention to Page No. 87 of the report and, with regard to Agreement 4 – The parties agree that responses to the climate and ecological emergencies must be commensurate with the scale and severity of the risk, and that coordinated action is the most effective means of responding – sought assurance that the Council was mindful of economic and financial implications and how the authority and its partners could incentivise greater uptake of alternative forms e.g. for Council Tax, Business Rates and non-strategic planning.  With regard to Page No. 91 of the report, Agreement 32 – The parties will support the form and location of appropriate waste management facilities to positively support a progressive approach to waste management and press on with the move towards a circular economy.  The parties will actively discourage waste management facilities that do not contribute to the development of the circular economy – the Member sought assurance this would not be to the detriment of Tewkesbury Borough residents.  In response, the Leader of the Council indicated he was very happy to give assurances on both points; it was recognised that the authority had financial parameters and he did not feel that signing up to this left the authority vulnerable in terms of the issues raised.  A Member noted that Page No. 91, Paragraph 7.1 of the report contained a bullet point which was incomplete: “The Senior Responsible Officer for the Gloucestershire Statement of Common Ground will be XXX.  They are charged with XXX.”  She understood this was a published document rather than a draft and she asked whether that information should be included.  The Chief Executive explained that, whilst the document predated his involvement with the authority, there was a strategic director group tasked with taking this forward and each authority would have a different person in that particular box; this was a process issue which would be taken up with that group accordingly.

85.17        With regard to Page No. 92, Paragraph 8.3 of the report, a Member noted that the Gloucestershire Statement of Common Ground was a live document which needed to be kept up-to-date on an annual basis.  She asked if all authorities had to agree the document at the same time and what annual basis meant in this context.  The Chief Executive advised that the initial intention was to move towards a joint strategic plan for Gloucestershire with all authorities signing up to a 50 year long plan but that had not worked well for the authorities within Leadership Gloucestershire who wanted an annual document stating the direction of travel as a precursor to doing the planning work.  They were being encouraged by the local planning authorities to look at an overarching plan to support infrastructure at a higher level to work for the Strategic and Local Plan (SLP); however, things such as energy generation could not be done at SLP level so it was necessary for local planning authorities to work with the County Council etc.  In terms of how to approach these issues, this could be done by supporting the work of Climate Leadership Gloucestershire, keeping informed on strategic planning work between the three districts when that was important and talking collaboratively about the long term future of the county.  The value of the document was in setting out the areas where the authorities aligned and therefore where collaborative working could take place. 

85.18        A Member sought clarification as to the rationale for the caveats when the document had been approved by Council in January 2023 and the Leader of the Council indicated that he could not really answer that question as in his view they were common sense or things which would be good to do for the benefit of residents.  Whilst it was not a strategic planning document, he felt getting it right was the first step to continuing the wider strategic work through the SLP.

85.19        During the debate which ensued, a Member indicated that he was pleased to see this report coming forward and agreed that the caveats should be removed, especially in terms of flood resilience and the strategic response.  In terms of Page No. 109 of the report which referenced the climate change agreements, he pointed out that Tewkesbury Borough Council had now declared an ecological emergency.  The Leader of the Council indicated that he agreed that the climate and ecological emergency was a risk to the community and that Tewkesbury Borough Council should not have opted out of the agreements in respect of climate change; however, making the change today would demonstrate how far the Council had come in a short space of time.  A Member indicated that, as a new Councillor, she could not understand why some of the caveats had been agreed, for instance, recognising the importance of active travel and introducing policies which would require developments to contribute to quality of the walking and cycling network for users of all abilities and disabilities.  She was happy that Officers had worked quickly with Members to bring this back to Council and that the recommendation was to fully opt in to all of the agreements. 

85.20        A Member recognised that it had taken a considerable amount of time to get the document to its current position and there would be great reluctance to change it other than to remove the caveats; however, he would like to see the following agreements strengthened: Page No. 87, Agreement 5 – “wherever possible deliver a positive contribution” to be extended by adding “and never a negative one”; Agreement 6 replaced with “the parties agree that alternative forms of energy will be a very important part of the county’s infrastructure mix.  They will investigate their use as a matter of urgency in line with environmental and landscape considerations”; Page No. 89, Agreement 18 and Agreement 22 and Page No. 90, Agreement 25 replace “should” with “must”; and Page No. 90, Agreement 34, replace “seek” with “aim”.  In his view, having declared a climate change and ecological emergency, saying “should” felt very weak..  Rather than adjusting the wording today, he wished to put on record that there should be an active push to amend the document as soon as practicable to strengthen and reflect what the Council had voted on previously.

85.21        A Member indicated that her issue with the document was that there had always been an urban focus and Tewkesbury Borough was very rural in nature with many outlying villages – she could not see how cycling could become mass transit without an urban-centric policy so she did not feel that statement could be achieved.  Another Member expressed the view that she did not think the document was saying that cycling would take precedence over everything else.  A Member indicated that she had found it incredibly frustrating when the document had been considered by Council previously and was happy this was one of the first things on the list for the new administration to bring back, particularly as Tewkesbury Borough Council had now declared an ecological emergency.

85.22        Upon being put to the vote, it was

RESOLVED           1.  That the revised version of the Gloucestershire Statement of Common Ground be APPROVED with the dashes in the “agreements” section removed and the removal of Appendix 3 to the previously approved version.

2. That authority be delegated to the Executive Director: Place, in consultation with the Lead Member for Built Environment, to make those amendments along with any necessary minor amendments, corrections and additions to in respect of any spelling, grammatical, cross-referencing, typographical errors and/or factual updates prior to signing by the Leader or Chief Executive.