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Agenda and minutes

Agenda and minutes

Venue: Conference Room A - Civic Offices. View directions

Contact: Joanne Wildsmith CCDS Tel: 9283 4057  Email: joanne.wildsmith@portsmouthcc.gov.uk

Items
No. Item

1.

Apologies for absence

Minutes:

Councillor Hunt had been unwell.

2.

Declarations of Members' Interests

Minutes:

There were no declarations of members' interests.

3.

Minutes of Previous Meeting - 16 December 2014 pdf icon PDF 177 KB

The minutes of the last formal EDCL panel held on 16 December 2014 are attached for approval.

 

RECOMMENDED that the minutes of the EDCL Scrutiny Panel meeting held on 16 December 2014 be approved as a correct record and signed by the Chair.

Minutes:

These were agreed as a correct record to be signed by the chair.

4.

Review - Revitalising local high streets and secondary shopping centre areas in the city pdf icon PDF 81 KB

a)            Witnesses to include:

 

i)             New Traders Association - at Fratton Road - Nick Courtney

 

ii)            Paul Gonella, Strong Island

 

iii)           Portsmouth Cycle Forum - Jon Spencer and/or Dr Rich Boakes

 

iv)           Amber Kerens-Bathmaker/James Roberts,  PCC Transport & Environment

 

v)            Councillor Luke Stubbs, Cabinet Member for Planning, Regeneration and Economic Development

 

 

b)            Written evidence to include:

 

vi)           Void properties - schedule attached prepared by Ed Woodhouse the Head of Revenues and Benefits, who points out that for comparison, around 4% of our retail property is currently empty. This compares to around 10% of industrial property and 18.5% of office property.

 

vii)         Planning de-regulation

(information provided by the City Development Manager)

In the last few years central government has introduced in a number of new 'permitted development' measures which have deregulated the planning system. These include allowing offices to convert to residential dwellings without needing planning permission and introducing a 'temporary use' option which allows most types of properties to convert to A1 (shop), A2 (financial services) and A3 (restaurant/cafes) Uses for a period of two years without requiring planning permission.

 

The LGA has been campaigning against these changes and believes that councils should be provided with powers to set out permitted development rights locally, subject to consultation and a local impact assessment. The LGA has also been pushing for payday lenders and betting shops to be taken out of the A2 (financial services) Use Class Order, and put into their own category, so as to give local councils greater controls over the proliferation of these types of businesses.

 

viii)        Feedback from telephone conference with Penny Mordaunt MP - this took place with the Chair Cllr Swan and Vice-chair Cllr Winnington on 23 January, the notes will follow.

 

ix)          Cosham Traders - Tony Broome's comments to be circulated (subject to his confirmation)

Minutes:

(a)          Witnesses

 

(1)          Nick Courtney, Fratton Road Traders (a new traders' association)

 

Nick Courtney as the chair of the new Fratton Traders' Association, which had started in 2014, explained how this had come about with the involvement of Fratton Big Local with only one person attending the first meeting, four attending the second where he was made the chair and by the third meeting in January there were 20 traders.  He had gone from shop to shop to invite others as it was hard to get traders to attend evening meetings and had ensured that five councillors had attended.  The big concern in the Fratton area for the traders was the anti-social behaviour with security worries by traders with burglaries to their shops and as such it was important to get the police involved in the meetings and they would be attending the fourth meeting of the association on 16 March.  The format for the meetings was as a forum with a question and answer session and this one would also be opened up to the public who used the shops.  Other issues that were being raised were parking, cracked pavements, the need to promote the image of Fratton Road and to start planning events there.  Nick felt that the selection of shops suffered from a lot of duplication which caused problems for other businesses with a lot of takeaways, hairdressers and barbers.

 

There was a need to raise the public perception of the area.  Social media was also being used to get comments and he felt there was a need to promote the interesting range of shops such as the model shop and an aquarium was now opening that people didn’t know about.  Traders felt that the road had been severely affected by the impact of a large Asda, with the loss of butchers and greengrocers and they now had their own optician and chemist within the Bridge Centre.  It was noted that Asda own a lot of units within the Bridge Centre and it is felt locally that they would not open these to trades that are in competition with them and therefore the business would have to be very different to get an opening such as the new Cuban Beach Café.  Another problem was that customers were using the parking at the back of Asda but then didn’t go through to the main road.

 

Nick Courtney was finding Fratton Big Local supportive; they were helping with the admin work and they were also receiving support from the city council which the TA was grateful for.  He hoped that in the future there could be a road closure on a Sunday for a food market in the area.  In response to questions Nick confirmed that he had approached the centre manager at the Bridge Centre who had also been invited to their TA meetings but they did not wish to get involved.  It was suggested that if there was an event for Fratton Road perhaps it could be  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

5.

Date of next meeting

Minutes:

An informal meeting would be held on 26 February for members of the panel only to consider their draft report.