The first Council meeting back in chambers following a year of lockdown enabled councillors and members of the public to gather once again to discuss local community matters.
Last week's annual Council meeting was not open to the public and took place at Nelson & Colne College Sports Hall.
At Public Question Time, Craig McBeth asked the committee whether it was appropriate for the Council to waste taxpayers money on religious motions, such as the one passed at last week's Council meeting which condemned Israel for Human Rights abuses against Palestinians. He asked if the Council would also condemn the Palestinian-supporting mobs that have been carrying out antisemetic attacks on Jews in London and Manchester, and if they would consider a Standing Order to prevent further religious motions being presented to the Council.
Chairman, Nadeem Ahmed (Con), said the motion was: "not a religious motion, it was about Human Rights. Members do have the right to raise issues which have been raised with them by members of the public who are duly concerned by events happening elsewhere. In terms of whether we should be restricting members from such motions... I don't think that is the right way to do things or the way we want to do things in Pendle. We are democratic and want, hopefully, an honest debate on issues..."
Two planning applications were being discussed, with the first being the change of use of a former shop-turned-residence, back in to a shop; and the second regarding plans to change a former public toilet into a two-storey building.
After representation from the applicants, and an argument for refusal by the Planning Officer, Councillors decided that this shop did service a specific local community, the Newport Street property was previously a shop, and still looked like a shop, and that accepting this application would have no detrimental effect on the town centre. The application was approved.
The second application was to change the Public Toilet unit on Colne Road, Brierfield into a useable building with a second storey for looking after vulnerable people. The application had been refused at Brierfield Committee but referred to this P&R meeting to discuss.
Representatives of the application came and spoke about the postive benefit this scheme will bring to people in the area and whilst councillors agreed in principle, it seems the issues of concern were with the design of the building, the materials used, and the building method. Brierfield councillors were also concerned about potential damage to the cobbled stones in the area which are considered a key feature.
It was proposed by Cllr S Cockburn-Price (Con), that the motion be deferred for a month so the design issues could be ironed out between the Council and the architect. Cllr M. Iqbal (Lab) proposed an immediate approval, which was rejected. The motion was voted to be deferred until the next meeting.
The Stategic Plan 2020-23, agenda item No.5, was deferred until next month.
During the item regarding Key Perfomance Indicators for the Council, Craig McBeth spoke again, firstly questioning the accuracy of the figures that suggest 99.8% of complaints are handled within 15 days, given that he has outstanding complaints from over a year ago.
Mr McBeth also suggested that the KPIs should be updated with more useful indicators, such as; Reduce the number of empty properties in Pendle; reduce the number of homeless people; answer emails within a set timescale given that the Council wants to do things digitally now.
Cllr S. Cockburn-Price said perhaps it would be worth reviewing the KPIs in future to set more appropriate measure and reassess the targets on issues which the Council is very successful at dealing with.
A report updating the committee on the PEARL Joint Venture Partnership (JVP), allowed for transparency issues regarding the deal to be raised again.
He also asked if the new administration of the Council would now "release details and make public the contract between Pendle Borough Council and Barnfield..." "..including land valuation and sale price to PEARL."
Chairman Ahmed refused to answer the question.
Cllr David Whipp (Lib), spoke in strong defence of PEARL quoting the many projects it has overseen to improve the Borough. However, he didn't seem to grasp the issue with PEARL is regarding transparency, secrecy and public money being spent without proper scrutiny being available.
Item 8 was to discuss a strip of land on Townhouse Road, Nelson, which the owner of the neigbouring property had proposed to buy from the Council to add to their garden.
Many residents attended to oppose the sale of the land, given that it is a natural wild habitat that enhances the area and it would likely see the cutting down of mature Beech trees. Concerns were also raised over the potential use of the land by the proposed buyer, fearing it could turn into a parking lot and eyesore.
After deliberation, Cllr S. Cockburn-Price proposed the Council did not sell the land, and this motion was passed.
The Pendle Innovation Centre on Brook St was next to be discussed. The tenants of the property had asked to cancel their lease as they were not making any money. The Council had been recommended to re-lease the building on the open market after two local companies expressed an interest in moving in.
Cllr M. Iqbal proposed the Council consider selling the building also, but his motion was voted down.
Regarding the Flood Alleviation Plans for Earby on the New Cut Wall and Victoria Mills Wall, the reports show that the Environment Agency (EA) said that it's quick investigation shows that extra work, previously unaccounted for (underpinning the Mill wall), would push the project over a budget and so now the EA refuses to do the job.
However, a more comprehensive and detailed investigation carried out by experts has told PBC that underpinning is not required.
Mr McBeth asked whether the EA could accept the expert's comprehensive report in place of its own basic report so that the EA could arry out the work as originally planned.
Cllrs Goulthorp (Con) and D. Whipp spoke at length about the history of flooding in Earby and the state of the drains. Cllr Ahmed shared concerns over liability of the repairs to the Council should it undertake the work.
Cllr Whipp was fearful any delay to the motion would risk the £600k set aside from a European grant, and that this opportunity would not come along again. After much to-ing anf fro-ing Cllrs Whipp and Goulthorp agreed a motion to ask the owner of the mill to take on liability, but to not prevent the works if the owner refused.
Items 11-14 were largely passed without comment.
Item 15 regarding Tenders allowed Mr McBeth once again to ask a question regarding the transparency of Council JVP; "Will you be making public the details of the new contract with the new winner of the contract?" Dean Langton replied: "As we have previously".
Watch the Video of the meeting here:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRL0HEsy9LnfRMcsA8nUb8N_T_QGli_GR