Agenda and minutes

An apology was received from Councillor Hutchison.

All Members are required to disclose at this point in the meeting or as soon as possible thereafter, any disclosable pecuniary interest or personal interest in any item(s) being considered at this meeting.

Declarations of interest were received as follows:

Councillors Burgess, Chegwyn, Huggins and Philpott declared that they were County Councillors and that in relation to agenda item12 as there was an impact on the County Council. They would remain in the room and take part in the discussion and voting.

Councillor Bradley advised that she had a personal interest in agenda item 12

Councillor Ballard advised she had a personal interest in agenda item 12, although her role within the homeless provision had changed.

The Council paid tribute to former Councillor Mike Parker, who had sadly passed away just before Christmas. Members paid tribute to his kind character and his recent hobby of allotments and writing children and had well served the residents of both Hardway and Bridgemary.

The Mayor advised that he would be writing to King Charles III to extend the best wishes of the Borough to him, following his recent illness.

RESOLVED: That the minutes of the meeting held on the 13 December 2023 be signed as a true and correct record.

(NOTE: Standing Order No. 3.4 requires that notice of a Deputation should be received by the Borough Solicitor NOT LATER THAN 12 O’CLOCK NOON ON MONDAY 5 FEBRUARY 2024 and likewise Standing Order No. 3.5 requires that notice of a Public Question should be received by the Borough Solicitor NOT LATER THAN 12 O’CLOCK NOON ON MONDAY 5 FEBRUARY 2024)

There were none.

(NOTE: Members are reminded that Standing Order No. 3.3 requires that Notice of Question pursuant to that Standing Order must be received by the Borough Solicitor NOT LATER THAN 12 O’CLOCK NOON ON TUESDAY 6 FEBRUARY 2024 )

There was one public question in the name of Carmen Lea to the Leader of the Council.

824 people are determined by GBC as having overwhelming public support for the criterion in a 6 week consultation. 

In the first 2 weeks of our petition for reinstating the live monitoring of CCTV, has well over 1000 supporting and is rapidly growing by the day.

Given this petition has twice the amount of support in such little time, will the GBC leader explain why this isn't enough to support its reinstatement.

Answer: Thank you for your question for which I am very grateful and welcome to the Chamber. The question allows the administration to explain their position in relation to CCTV live monitoring.

To date there are 1417 valid signatures with 371 rejected. This could be for a number of reasons, including duplicated signatures and incorrect address details.

I am grateful for your campaign and congratulate you on being passionate about the issue, as it is absolutely correct to want monitoring 24/7, part time monitoring would encourage those prepared to undertake crime to do so outside of the hours of live monitoring.

The joint partnership had stopped under the Conservative administration, along with the full coverage. The ending of the partnership had required Gosport to cover the costs, and the projected costs of full coverage would be approximately £200k.

The reason for the high figure was that the coverage required full time staff, these staff would require specific training. It had been suggested that monitoring could be covered by volunteers, however this would not be possible due to GDPR rules and the requirement to be trained.

The Council do not have the funds to re instate the live monitoring, however others do, in addition, the Police had repeatedly advised that if they were alerted to an incident, they could not guarantee that they would be able to attend. It would depend on the resources available at the time. If the Police did not respond, what would be point of monitoring the CCTV 24/7 and whilst its reintroduction was welcome. The Police and Crime Commissioner should pay for it from their own budget.

There has been misinformation spread that the cameras had been switched off, but this was untrue. The 44 cameras are recording 24/7, 7 days a week and 365 days a year and recordings were kept for 28 days. Crime was important to the Council and the Councillors and it was important raise awareness of the safer streets campaign.

CCTV covered 2/3^rd of the High Street, and was very effective in monitoring entrances and exits to the peninsular, however it was not effective in areas it was not present. What was significantly important was the lack of streetlights and the darkness that creates and the impact darker streets had on safety within the Borough.

I am happy to discuss this further with you and take it forward with you and also want to acknowledge the danger to men too, as  ...  view the full minutes text for item 61.

Part I Minutes – Housing Board 17 January 2024

The Part I Minutes of the Housing Board on the 17^th January 2024 were presented to the Council.

The Council were advised that the National Housing Framework process would be completed in the coming days.

RESOLVED:

i)        That Council Dwelling rents increase by CPI + 1% (7.7%) as set out in the Social Housing rentguidance.

ii)      The revised HRA Business Plan Financial Model extract (Appendix A) and associated 2023/24 revised budget and 2024/25 Budget (Appendix B) is agreed.

iii)     Service charges decrease on average by2.1%

iv)    The rent for all garages increases in line with inflation as agreed in the garage renewalstrategy.

Community and Environment Board – 10 January 2024

Policy and Organisation Board – 23 January 2024

The Part II Minutes of the Community and Environment Board on 10 January 2024

be presented and accepted by the Council.

The Part II Minutes of the Policy and Organisation Board on 23 January 2024 be presented and accepted by the Council.

A Member advised that as the former Chairman of the CCTV Partnership and seeing that there was a campaign to reinstate the CCTV Monitoring, it should be noted that whilst the reduction in CCTV live monitoring happened in July 2021, at a Board of the Council. The Council being constituted as a fourth option Council take decisions at Board meetings of Boards and Committees that are cross party, the decision in July 2021 was undertaken in this manner, on confidential papers to avoid highlighting the hours monitoring was not being undertaken. The decision to remove live monitoring entirely was not made by a Board, so under what authority was it taken and why was it not a Board decision.

The Council advised that the report published to Policy and Organisation Board had not been confidential as there was a right to know the information.

The decision had been taken to end the live monitoring as the CCTV monitoring tender had expired and it did not need to be taken back to Board. If it was to be reinstated it would come back to a Board, but it would need to be for 24/7 coverage, not half coverage and it would be requested that the Police and Crime Commissioner paid for it. A campaign had been undertaken to install a camera in Alver Valley and Grange Ward, by the Police and Gosport Borough Council, however this funding had been refused by the Police and Crime Commissioner.

A Member advised that there was lots of misinformation circulating about the subject, so requested to put it into context.

The decision to reduce monitoring in July 2021 was taken because Fareham Borough Council pulled out of the partnership. In October 2022 the Liberal Democrat run Council had cancelled the CCTV completely without taking it to a Board and no one was made aware this had happened. The situation in July 2021 was sensibly taken in a confidential meeting so as not to alert criminals to when the monitoring was not being undertaken, but also not to alarm the public. However, in 2022 the decision taken was not considered by a Board at all and now the public were more concerned as it had been realised there was no monitoring at all.

It had been claimed that to reinstate monitoring would cost £200k however the report to the Policy and Organisation Board stated that the previous costs were £82.5k. The public were not interested in the who, what and when, they just simply wanted to feel safe in their community. Would the Liberal Democrats be bringing back, acknowledging the concerns of the 1400 people that had signed the petition.

A Member raised a Point of Explanation to remind the Council that the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 63.

Report to follow.

Consideration was given to a report of the Borough Treasurer detailing The Council is required to set a "Balanced Budget" and to maintain adequate levels of Reserves.  The primary purpose of this report is to set the Council's overall Budget for the forthcoming year 2024/25 (both Revenue & Capital) and the associated level of Council Tax necessary to help fund the Budget.

The report also considers the overall financial position for 2024/25 and the forecasts for future years considering the outlook for both spending and funding, and the likely consequences for Council services moving forward. 

In line with Standing Order 4.11( C) 5 members of the Council requested that speeches be extended to up to 7 minutes.

The Leader of the Council introduced the budget and advised that it was a pleasure to do so. The budget was good for Gosport with a less than inflation rate increase in Council Tax, over £1million in service improvements with no cuts to services. The increase was minor in comparison to Hampshire County Council, who had doubled their share of Council Tax and still had to cut £125 million from their budget, including Street lighting.

The budget provided more support for voluntary events and cultural events, it was supporting the High Street and helping to improve play areas. The increase for the Gosport element of the Council Tax would only increase by 11 pence a week one of the lowest in the County. With inflation still at 6% the increase to Gosport was less than half of that at 2.99%.

Over £1m had been invested into published and the budget was the best since 1995 it was sound financial management following the inheriting of £1.7m deficit from the previous administration and that this had to be factored in to make the budget workable for future years. The predictions for the budget on inflation had been based on 2% and that the budget had been worked to ensure the Council had dealt with the prediction being incorrect and the risk of bankruptcy that was being seen at other Councils it was in a good position, presenting a value for money budget where the Council did not need to borrow money ensure essential services continued.

The budget was robust and compared to the decisions being taken by Hampshire County Council it was positive. Hampshire County Council’s increase on Council Tax was nearly double Gosport’s and Gosport’s was half the rate of inflation. Gosport had also made no service cuts, but Hampshire were making £125m of them, including bus subsidies, street lighting, dial a ride. All essential services. In addition repairs to pot holes and roads were not going ahead. School crossing patrols were being cut and allow this was impacting on the most vulnerable members of society. Cutting tips would increase rubbish and fly tipping, cutting library services had ked to independent libraries having better opening hours and more stock, and in addition the Council were being asked to remove skips, when the removal of some  ...  view the full minutes text for item 64.

The purpose of this report is to update Members on the Local Council Tax Support (LCTS) scheme for 2023/24 and to propose the scheme for 2024/25, for which no changes are intended.
The report provides an update on the 2023/24 LCTS scheme with regards to claimant caseload, expenditure.

Consideration was given to a report of the deputy Chief Exective, Head of Benefits, Procurement and Insurance updating Members on the Local Council Tax Support (LCTS) scheme for 2023/24 and to proposing the scheme for 2024/25, for which no changes are intended.

The report provides an update on the 2023/24 LCTS scheme with regards to claimant caseload, expenditure.

RESOLVED:

            That the Council approves the LCTS scheme for 2024/25, which

Maintains the current 2023/24 scheme for those of working-age, and

Notes the continuation of the unchanged statutory scheme for pension-age customers that will be updated to reflect the annual uprating of allowances, premiums and any statutory base legislation changes required, which are yet to be received from the Department for Levelling up, Housing & Communities (DLUCH).

A draft scheme for approval is included within Appendix 1 of the report.

This report details the “Waiver/Exemptions” authorised since the revision of the Councils Contract Procedure Rules which were approved by the Standards and Audit Board on 17/11/22 and ratified by full Council on 22/12/22 when an undertaking was made to report such Waivers/Exemptions to Board on a regular basis.

Consideration was given to a report of the Deputy Chief Executive, Head of Benefits, Procurement and Insurance detailing the “Waiver/Exemptions” authorised since the revision of the Councils Contract Procedure Rules which were approved by the Standards and Audit Board on 17/11/22 and ratified by full Council on 22/12/22 when an undertaking was made to report such Waivers/Exemptions to Board on a regular basis.

It was noted that the list provided covered the period 1^st January 2023 until 31^st December 2023.

RESOLVED: That the Council note the report.

This report seeks approval to amend the current Council Tax Premiums charged on unoccupied and unfurnished properties with effect from 1^st April 2024 and to introduce a new premium charge on second home properties – property that is furnished and periodically occupied with effect from 1^st April 2025.

Consideration was given to a report of the Borough Treasurer seeking approval to amend the current Council Tax Premiums charged on unoccupied and unfurnished properties with effect from 1^st April 2024 and to introduce a new premium charge on second home properties – property that is furnished and periodically occupied with effect from 1^st April 2025.

The Board was advised there was an addendum to correct some of the figures listed in the tables.

RESOLVED:

i)    that the Council implements a 100% premium for properties that have been empty and unfurnished for a period between 1 and 5 years. This will change the current policy of charging a 100% premium where a property is empty and unfurnished for period between 2 and 5 years.

ii)   that Council impliments a 100% premium for second homes which will be effective from 01 April 2025, the earliest opportunity for the Council to introduce this change.

iii)   delegated authority be provided to the Section 151 Officer to vary the premiums in line with government guidance.

This report seeks approval from Full Council for the extension of the Hardway Green Public Spaces Protection Order from the period 7^th March 2024 to 6^th March 2027.

Consideration was given to the report of the Head of Corporate Policy and Community and Safety seeking approval from Full Council for the extension of the Hardway Green Public Spaces Protection Order from the period 7^th March 2024 to 6^th March 2027.

It was noted that although Councillor Hutchison was unable to attend the meeting he was in full support of the proposal.

RESOLVED:

That the Council:

·         Considers the results of the consultation exercise carried out between 05/12/23-02/01/24 and the content of this report;

·         Approves the extension of the Hardway Green PSPO from 7^th March 2024 for the period of 3 years to control Anti-Social Behaviour (ASB) in the area shown edged black in the accompanying plans as set out in Appendix 1 enforceable from 1^st April – 31^st October each year; and

·         Delegates Authority to the Head of Corporate Policy and Community Safety to take the required steps to extend the Hardway Green PSPO from 7^th March 2024 for the period of 3 years.

In accordance with Standing Order No. 2.4 the Borough Solicitor and Monitoring Officer has written to Group Leaders and Members of the Council inviting them to submit Member nominations for the selection of Mayor-Elect and Deputy Mayor Elect for the next Municipal Year. Two nominations have been received by the Borough Solicitor and Monitoring Officer, Councillor Z Huggins and Councillor R Earle, and one nomination received for Deputy Mayor Elect, Councillor Casey.

Two nominations were received for Mayor Elect for the Municipal Year 2024/25, Councillor Earle and Councillor Huggins.

Both nominations were proposed and seconded and Councillor Earle was duly elected as Mayor Elect for the Municipal Year 2024/25.

Two nominations were received for Deputy Mayor Elect for the Municipal Year 2024/25, Councillor Kirsten Bradley, and Councillor Casey.

Both nominations were proposed and seconded and Councillor Kirsten Bradley was duly elected as Deputy Mayor Elect for the Municipal Year 2024/25.