To receive a statement from the Leader of the Council in accordance with Council Procedure Rule 9.
Minutes:
The Leader was invited to present his statement and in doing so was pleased to report since the last Council Meeting Rotherham had seen the new Travelodge open which was the town’s first branded hotel and last week was the official opening of Arc Cinema!
It was lovely to be joined by some of Rotherham’s fabulous foster carers and their children (including Ricky who may steal the show in this week’s press coverage). At the end of the day this was what this work was all about; building a better borough for the next generation and creating a more family-friendly environment for Rotherham’s young people to grow up in. Some members were also present to attend a special film screening last week and everyone enjoyed that well-earned opportunity.
Last week, it was also great to see the Tour of Britain cycle race go through Rotherham via Wentworth, Wath, Swinton and Maltby, and the Rotherham Show returned at the weekend and the sun was shining (on Saturday at least).
For those who came down after the rain had passed on Sunday it turned out to be a lovely afternoon. The Leader thanked the team and all involved in making it possible.
Reference will be made later about the terrible violence that occurred in Manvers last month so this would not be dwelled upon at this point in the agenda, except to say that it was a matter of deep horror and regret that some of Rotherham’s residents (including a Swinton resident) perpetrated such inhumane acts, that their barbarity shamed them and their families. The Leader hoped the tough action that the Government had taken subsequently served as a wakeup call to anyone tempted to get involved in such actions again in the future.
At the weekend people from all parts of the borough and all backgrounds came together at Rotherham Show and had a great day out. This was who we were and that said more about Rotherham than the mindless actions of a very small minority.
The Leader also wanted to note a couple of awards received recently. The Council had been awarded the Armed Forces Covenant Employer Recognition Scheme 2024 Gold Award which recognised the Council’s support for the armed forces community and for its alignment with the values of the Armed Forces Covenant. He also paid tribute to Councillor Keenan for her steadfast resolution that this was an award Rotherham needed to achieve and the steps required for better support for veterans and their families. The Council owed her a debt of gratitude for that.
Also, Rotherham Food Network had won an award for tackling food challenges that were faced by communities. The network was a partnership made up of twenty-six organisations including the Council, VAR and Rotherfed.
The Leader wanted to close his speech by saying something about the Government’s proposed changes to the National Planning Policy Framework.
As Members may be aware the Government was out to consultation and Rotherham would be making a submission as part of that process.
The Government wanted to see many more new homes built in our Country, and more of those to be Council and social housing homes, which was right.
The Leader was really proud of the work done to deliver hundreds more new Council homes in Rotherham over the last few years and the work that Councillor Allen continued to lead on this agenda. Standing here there was more than a hundred households in temporary accommodation because they were homeless. This had been discussed previously how this had spilt out into hotels because there was simply not the capacity. It was hoped the intentions of the Deputy Prime Minister had set out would enable the delivery of many more new Council homes.
Unfortunately, the NPPF consultation also suggested an uplift of 125% in the number of homes that needed planning for and to ensure land was available for every year. That number appeared to be built on a crude national formula, which specifically disregarded how many homes the market could build in a given area.
Rotherham had seen about 650 new homes built each year and that number had remained fairly stable for about twenty years now. Recently more than one in ten of those were Council homes. That was despite the fact that there was planning provision and land available to build more than 900 homes each year.
In fact today there were 5,800 homes with planning permission in the Borough that have not been built, while Oflog data suggested that Rotherham was the best performing Planning Authority in the Country.
Since the year 2000 there have never been more than 1,092 new homes registered in a single year. So a new annual target of 1,233 new homes each and every year (which was what the NPPF proposals set out) was not only inappropriate, it would also be unachievable. It was perfectly possible that trying to review our Local Plan and find those extra sites would actually slow down house building in the Borough.
Land availability was not the reason that more homes were not being built in Rotherham, and simply making huge areas of land available only served to give developers free rein.
The Leader was, therefore, really clear with Members that that was what would be said in the consultation response and that if the Government really did want to see all those new homes built, it was hoped they would work with us to settle on a methodology that made that delivery possible, rather than tying us up in years of a Local Plan review which would not achieve what it was intended to do.
In responding to the Leader Councillor Currie opened the questions and responded with his own concerns about reading about housing builds, which he welcomed, but asked if consideration would be given to bringing forward other sites which may not have been used in the past because the past may become a pleasant and hopelessness future (Bassingthorpe Farm).
Councillor Bennett-Sylvester wished to put on record his own tribute to the former Mayor and Councillor Alan Jackson.
He had also been and visited the new Arc Cinema and sat in the best seats.
In terms of the consultation on the National Policy Planning Framework there have been many discussions and he welcomed the Leader’s comments about scope, numbers and the densities especially around the town centre developments and whether these could be increased and improved.
Councillor Z. Collingham responding to the Leader. He referred to the housing target that had been rolled out for Rotherham being unachievable and based on a crude formula and how this reminded him of the many criticisms made of the previous Government's policies. He asked how could the Council have any more confidence in his view in a Government that was going to roll out policies based on a crude formulae that was unachievable rather than appearing as though it had not been thought through and more about symbolism?
Councillor Bacon also referred to housing targets and asked if the Leader could reiterate the protections for Todwick’s Green Bell, including up past 2028. He also asked about the huge and unprecedented investments into Forge Island, including delays and slippage. The Borough was also seeing big slippage in other projects around the Borough as well, for example £5 million on the mainline station. He wondered at what point did the Leader believe there must be some concentration on areas south of the Borough in places like Todwick and Maltby.
Councillor A. Carter expressed his disappointed that it had taken nearly two months for the Labour administration here to decide that actually their national Government was wrong on the housing target. He thought it would be longer for Labour Group here to realise and it was very disappointing that it happened so quickly.
As a Council what was needed was to make sure that house building was incentivised and expanded throughout the Borough and not just to the few big housebuilders who seem to have merged and got even bigger. This would allow for small-scale housebuilders to build houses not priced out the market.
From looking at the consultation it proposed to increase planning application costs from £258 to £528 so asked the Leader if this was the right thing that Rotherham should be doing given that many more homes were needed.
The Leader thanked his colleagues for their comments.
In responding to Councillor Currie he pointed out that it was worth noting that the assumptions included all the previously allocated sites in the existing Local Plan, so this included the Bassingthorpe Farm site to achieve a bigger number of sites that were available each year. He was deliberately trying not to say houses built as the Council were not responsible for the houses that got built. The Council was merely responsible for making space available for the houses to be built. In order to reach a much bigger number, more than double the current target would require the use of those sites that have been used before. It would also include the safeguarded land sites within the local plan, which were set aside not for delivery in the current period, but for potential delivery in the future.
The Leader welcomed the news that Councillor Bennett-Sylvester had visited and made use of the seats in the cinema. He acknowledged the point about density, which was well made and the beginnings of those conversations.
Of course this was a consultation at the moment, but the beginnings of those consultations was the taking part. It was simply not enough to identify, but given the nature of Rotherham to make up the shortfall. Rotherham can do more.
The point was well made about the potential around the centre of town, but these must be the right types of dwellings that people required.
Councillor Z. Collingham questioned confidence and as Leader representations would be made to ensure that, in our view, the right kind of development took place and he reiterated to opposition Members that by opposing housing developments time and time again this Council was taking a more measured approach to funding more Council housing in the borough rather than making the homelessness crisis worse. This would give people a lot more confidence than simply saying on a site-by-site basis and politicising the Planning Board.
Councillor Bacon understandably asked about the sites at Todwick and it was pointed out that those sites were protected. In terms of the Local Plan this was going through the consultation process at the moment. Of course, if it was recommended that there was to be a Green Belt Review, then the Green Belt sites would be considered, the ownership of the sites of which were unknown.
In terms of the delivery of capital schemes the Leader was pleased with the investments that were coming through in Rotherham having waited a long time to see these investments come through. If the mainline station aspiration was delivered this was a game changer, but would have to be in a central location at the heart of the borough, because that was where the most people would live within a commutable distance of it. The Council were not in control of Network Rail and famously any schemes that involved Network Rail do take a long time to come to fruition.
In taking account of what Councillor Bacon’s questions were where he asked for more focus on the southern part of the borough, but then suggested no building took place on Green Belt land. It was for opposition Members to decide about the nature of development in certain communities and not in others. However, in order to deliver the Government's aspiration for more houses Rotherham was committed to playing its part in doing this and hopefully the rules would help to achieve this. The Council would simply not be allocating 1,200 spaces for 1,200 homes each year. It was more about seeing what could be delivered and work with perhaps a bigger number that was deliverable.
Over the last twenty years the Council had spent money of HRA resources seeing more social housing delivered. This had to be a plan that people could trust and it had to be a plan that would deliver the homes that people needed, not a plan that simply opened the floodgates to speculative development and did not in the end see those homes delivered to bigger developers. Rotherham did not want to fall hostage to big developers. The Council's small housebuilding initiative was actually about channelling real efforts into supporting local and regional small housebuilders to deliver on schemes in the area.
Part of the reason for this was to stimulate local jobs, local employment and local skills and being subject to a national housing market which was much bigger.
In terms of planning charges, they did not need to go up any more than they needed to. This Government had recognised the planning system nationally and how it needed to be properly resourced. This Government was committed which was welcomed and would provide for additional planning resources in Councils across the country and ensure appropriate staff, not just in Rotherham.